Re: Improving my wife's computer

Posted on 2017-11-14, 19:26

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by SW-SSG

in Milliways

in Milliways

Zup wrote: Someone suggested me to get a SSD. Well, here's me doing the same. The difference will be night and day, I assure you (as long as you use a good brand, anyway; Crucial, Samsung, Toshiba, etc).

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Re: The lottery of making a motherboard POST

Posted on 2017-11-14, 02:27

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by SW-SSG

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Pabloz wrote: could be capacitors even if they are not bulky they die after 20 years? They don't have to look dead to be dead.

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Re: Another XP build and... a penguin shaped Vista build.

Posted on 2017-11-13, 21:13

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by SW-SSG

in Marvin \ System Specs

in Marvin \ System Specs

Probably going to replace the GPU with something more powerful - I don't know what should I aim for though - a 8500GT, a Geforce 210 or a GTS250? Either of these cards (though, realistically, the 210 or newer) should be able to handle HD video decoding of some kind in hardware. Various sites like …

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Re: What hard drives are compatible with the Dell Inspiron 4000 notebook?

Posted on 2017-11-13, 20:47

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by SW-SSG

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Something I haven't seen for many years are those really tall 2.5" drives, around two or three times the height of the usual modern ones. Did those have a name? Really ancient <2GB ones often came in 12.5mm or 15mm height, which are probably what you're referring to. These also had the mounting …

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Re: Weird Celeron 1.8 GHz system

Posted on 2017-11-12, 03:44

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by SW-SSG

in Marvin \ System Specs

in Marvin \ System Specs

Neat, it's pretty uncommon to see a build using one of those ECS/PC Chips soldered-CPU boards. Even more, it's the only one for sure I've ever seen with an Intel chip. I also like that case; just enough room for all essentials and full-height expansion cards, without much wasted space. It suits the …

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Re: P3 600B on Asus P2B 1.04

Posted on 2017-11-10, 19:25

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by SW-SSG

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Specifically, the 600 B . When I plug it in, the computer starts but no video signal is shown and, like I said before, no further activity is done. With other models like PII 233 or PII 350 works perfectly fine. Right. Perhaps you could try to clean the "gold fingers" with isopropyl alcohol+Qtips …

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Re: Understanding OLD Motherboard Jumpers.

Posted on 2017-11-10, 19:03

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by SW-SSG

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

BLockOUT wrote: 8 ) UMC 486 The relatively uncommon UMC GREEN CPU (U5 series). If you've got one of these, you use that jumper setting.

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Re: P3 600B on Asus P2B 1.04

Posted on 2017-11-10, 01:45

by

by SW-SSG

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

... Is the OP's chip a Coppermine, though? "600B" points to the Katmai 600/133 processor. "600E" is what the Coppermine equivalent is referred to as. Either way, yes, please don't toss that board.

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Re: I recently found this hardware, AKA the Dumpster find thread.

Posted on 2017-11-09, 21:35

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by SW-SSG

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

aop wrote: I found this last year, still haven't figured out what to do with it: https://i.imgur.com/wAeNIQRh.jpg Full res: https://i.imgur.com/wAeNIQR.jpg That card just looks so cool. Even though I have no idea what it is, or could be...

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Re: Is this USB Stick on it's way out?

Posted on 2017-11-09, 18:29

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by SW-SSG

in Milliways

in Milliways

To date I've yet to come across a single USB flash drive that supports SMART, including the two different ADATA USB 3.0 sticks (UV128 32GB & S102 Pro 16GB) I've recently bought. Maybe the fancy new SSD-based expensive ones support SMART, but the OP's drive looks like a run-of-the-mill typical one.

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Re: Bought these (retro) hardware today

Posted on 2017-11-09, 18:18

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by SW-SSG

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

The CPU is a Celeron 400, a rather popular overclockers CPU (though what it's doing on a 66MHz motherboard, don't ask me.) http://image.bolterandchainsword.com/uploads/gallery/album_11505/med_gallery_60983_11505_443739.jpg Celeron 400's stock bus is 66MHz, so that seems pretty fitting I would think …

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Re: Is this USB Stick on it's way out?

Posted on 2017-11-08, 18:50

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by SW-SSG

in Milliways

in Milliways

Download hdtune_255.exe and run an Error Scan (do not checkmark "Quick scan") on your flash drive. If you get even one red block, replace the drive; it will mean the NAND flash is degrading. It might be in "saving you from yourself" mode if it's run out of blocks to remap. ^This is also my theory.

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Re: Bought these (retro) hardware today

Posted on 2017-11-07, 19:47

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by SW-SSG

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Got this AL440LX Atlanta motherboard for cheap. Unfortunately, it's a Micron OEM (not Intel retail). Weird enough, it came with a Pentium II 450 Deschutes CPU (of course it booted up to 300 MHz) along with 2x 32MB of some DIMM memory. https://i.imgur.com/ZMel7c0h.jpg And the CPU fan is installed …

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Re: AMD Athlon K7 Slot A retail box

Posted on 2017-11-05, 21:36

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by SW-SSG

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I found this after some Google Images searching, but is the only photo I could find. Filename amd-athlon-850mhz-512k-slot-a-cpu-10382879992.jpg File size 22.07 KiB Views 347 views

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Re: $50 ebay AT system purchase

Posted on 2017-11-04, 01:20

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by SW-SSG

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

oeuvre wrote: The only complaint is the Cooler Master fan is quite loud. Would like a quieter fan. The heatsink under it seems bigger than usual for socket 7. You could probably get away with running the fan at 5V and still have acceptable CPU temperatures.

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Re: No man's jumper

Posted on 2017-11-03, 18:07

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by SW-SSG

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Does the absence of closed jumpers on J7 and J13 mean that the Serial Port 1 and IDE2 are off? Should I do anything about J10 (USB2)? Also this one is red (just as voltage ones) - makes it sort of scary to mess with. You don't mean that there are actual, physical, plastic jumpers on the IDE1/ …

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Re: Intel SE440BX-2 754558-303 - EBAY

Posted on 2017-11-03, 04:05

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by SW-SSG

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

It seems like that (or a similar) Ebay listing somehow "restocks" and reappears with more boards from time to time. No idea where they get them from. I purchased one a few months ago for my Katmai PIII box with good results. (Yes, I opened the box......) One correction (?), though: the only AA …

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Re: PCI-Express 16x Graphics Adapter into PCI-E 8x Slot

Posted on 2017-10-31, 19:12

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by SW-SSG

in Milliways

in Milliways

Snipping off part of the card's edge connector has the risk of inadvertently destroying the other "pins" and/or PCB traces. It also means the card will no longer ever be an "x16 card" if one day you decide to reuse it elsewhere. It might be useful if there are tall capacitors/other components in …

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Re: Bought these (retro) hardware today

Posted on 2017-10-31, 01:15

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by SW-SSG

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

BitWrangler wrote: SeconDRAY HDD 🤣 🤣 Also I can just barely make out "WRITE BACK" on those cache chips. Definitely fake.

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Re: Bought these (retro) hardware today

Posted on 2017-10-29, 21:37

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by SW-SSG

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Ozzuneoj wrote: ... but this system has a Cyrix M2 266 ... ATX socket 7 systems and boards are getting increasingly rare, so I'd pick this up if you haven't already (and hopefully post internals photos later? 😀). ATX and Cyrix, especially, seems like an unusual pairing.

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