Re: Collecting rants

Posted on 2020-06-22, 08:27

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by NScaleTransitModels

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Is this shit legal? On our local auction site once the bidding is over the buyer and the seller are obliged by law to complete the transaction. You can actually go to court if the seller doesn't want to sell or the buyer refuses to buy. You can only cancel an auction if there are no bids on it. If …

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Re: Nec Versa 40EC - No Power

Posted on 2020-06-22, 07:47

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by NScaleTransitModels

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Sounds like if the board isn't dead, it isn't getting any power. The status indicator on mine always shows a battery icon (with 1 bar flashing) when plugged in, even when turned off. I'd first suspect the power adapter. If you have access to a multimeter and probes, you might be able to probe into …

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Re: Nec Versa 40EC - No Power

Posted on 2020-06-22, 02:04

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by NScaleTransitModels

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Looks very similar to my Versa M/75... there should be an LCD indicator screen that shows symbols for battery charge, power, disk activity etc right? Do you see any activity on that screen?

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Re: Collecting rants

Posted on 2020-06-22, 01:27

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by NScaleTransitModels

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

How very true . Sadly, my local goodwill type places rarely have good stuff anymore. Old PCs don't seem to sell very well and end up at recyclers . There are still a few local spots with vintage stuff, but most of that is late Pentium 4 vintage, which is not very popular . Yeah I've been to several …

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Re: Collecting rants

Posted on 2020-06-21, 22:43

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by NScaleTransitModels

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

That would fit in with the conjectured "seller psych profile" that I posted earlier . That seller probably is in no hurry to move product . I am curious, though, was the item initially listed 3x below comparable listings ? It would explain, though still not justify, his behaviour (he should have …

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Re: Collecting rants

Posted on 2020-06-21, 08:53

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by NScaleTransitModels

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

^^^ yes have had that happen ! Relisted as a Buy now for higher price instead of low starting Bid. For me, the guy accepted my offer, then cancelled the next day and relisted a week later for 3x the buy now price. 🤦‍♂️ Vintage-ness to me is more about the OS: what the hardware likely shipped with, …

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Re: 386 Systems and Memory Instability With 4mb SIMMs? (Errors)

Posted on 2020-06-21, 03:11

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by NScaleTransitModels

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

The 9 chip simms did you enable parity on the motherboard? Opti and Sarc (pcchips) are not the greatest chipsets. I had best success with SiS mostly, but not yet on VLSI or VIA. Cheers, There are no options, BIOS or jumpers, for parity or anything that could be related on either board. The PCChips …

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Re: 386 Systems and Memory Instability With 4mb SIMMs? (Errors)

Posted on 2020-06-20, 22:33

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by NScaleTransitModels

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

See https://www.datasheets360.com/pdf/-5753780607200078319 for a datasheet that includes a low-power version with an extended refresh period of 128ms per chip instead of 16 ms per chip (at 1024 cycles per chip). If all memory modules in your computer had low-power chips like the -S model in that …

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Re: Collecting rants

Posted on 2020-06-20, 21:38

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by NScaleTransitModels

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

A few quick pet peeves of mine (Ebay): 1. When you watch an item that is a bit on the expensive side, and after a while of not selling, the seller increases the price? 🤔😂 2. Items with one photo, no photo, or blurry photos and little to no description. The seller then does not respond to any …

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Re: 386 Systems and Memory Instability With 4mb SIMMs? (Errors)

Posted on 2020-06-20, 07:13

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by NScaleTransitModels

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Yeah then I guess your options are quite limited, perhaps can use SIMMs with faster timing. Btw when CMOS is reset, my 486 board (also a cheap brand J-Mark board with AMI BIOS) will load up the default values which are conservative. The DRAM read wait state is set to 2 and write wait state to 3. …

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Re: 386 Systems and Memory Instability With 4mb SIMMs? (Errors)

Posted on 2020-06-20, 07:08

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by NScaleTransitModels

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I was able to get the PCChips board to run at 33mhz using the jumper setting. No idea why it wouldn't work at 33 last time. However, as expected, it didn't fix the video glitch issue in Win95. I'm starting to think the cheapass SARC chipset just doesn't like Cirrus video cards 😂 I swapped in the ATI …

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Re: 386 Systems and Memory Instability With 4mb SIMMs? (Errors)

Posted on 2020-06-20, 05:49

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by NScaleTransitModels

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Some lower quality boards during that era are very quirky with RAMs as mentioned by Horun. I suspect it's more to PCB design than chipsets (well, Opti is good chipset but SARC I don't know). The traces from north bridge to SIMMs needs to be in equal length so that the signals arrive at the RAM …

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Re: 386 Systems and Memory Instability With 4mb SIMMs? (Errors)

Posted on 2020-06-20, 02:46

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by NScaleTransitModels

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Those are pictures of your exact boards ? The PCChips board you cannot get 33Mhz to run has an issue, it should run at 33mhz. Also the chip near X2 does not look right on that board. Why is it silver ? Should be a black 8 pin clock DIP afaik. The Shuttle board is in a computer, you should remove it …

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Re: 386 Systems and Memory Instability With 4mb SIMMs? (Errors)

Posted on 2020-06-20, 02:26

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by NScaleTransitModels

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Agree ! Those look like good 70nS SIMMS, should be compatible with most lower speed 386 and early 486. Your 386 boards may be very specific when it comes to 4Mb simms, some older chipset 386 were very quirky with them and required specific manufactured models and would not support them unless 60nS, …

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Re: 386 Systems and Memory Instability With 4mb SIMMs? (Errors)

Posted on 2020-06-20, 01:44

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by NScaleTransitModels

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Correct, that is generic memory even it used TI memory chips at 70ns. But no label on any of these but even that, seems decent quality and not your problem, could be your generic boards are the issue? What kind of chipset are you using on these 2 386DX motherboards? Even that, your motherboards is …

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Re: 386 Systems and Memory Instability With 4mb SIMMs? (Errors)

Posted on 2020-06-20, 00:34

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by NScaleTransitModels

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

These is the very reason I carefully buy memory modules that is manufactured by OEM brands like IBM (72 pin simms), Micron, Samsung etc. The generic stuff can take a hike, Had issues with these all the time, even OEM brands (rarely). But one unusual stood out to me in my mind: Back in the day, …

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Re: 386 Systems and Memory Instability With 4mb SIMMs? (Errors)

Posted on 2020-06-20, 00:31

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by NScaleTransitModels

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

So after quite a bit of testing: 1. 9-chip with "hidden refresh" enabled and 1 W/S (read and write): On the first attempt, I managed to get to the desktop, but it glitched and froze as soon as the welcome screen came up: 20200619_134057.jpg The second attempt gave me a "windows protection error": …

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Re: When do you throw in the towel on an old piece of hw?

Posted on 2020-06-19, 20:35

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by NScaleTransitModels

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Only ever had two total losses on old motherboards. One was an FX-3000 I received yesterday, which was a shame since it had 486, 386, and 387 sockets. It would not post, and wouldn't even give any beep codes. The other was a no-name 386 board that could not initialize the keyboard controller. I …

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Re: 386 Systems and Memory Instability With 4mb SIMMs? (Errors)

Posted on 2020-06-19, 20:08

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by NScaleTransitModels

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Thanks for all the excellent responses. I am currently testing with 4x 9-chip modules in the HOT-307 system. If they work I'll try the 3-chip again. 1. I double checked the SIMM speeds. All four of them are marked 70ns. The 3-chip are all 60ns... should be good for consumer grade boards, right? 2. I …

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Re: 386 Systems and Memory Instability With 4mb SIMMs? (Errors)

Posted on 2020-06-19, 04:43

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by NScaleTransitModels

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Bad ram. I tried the 9-chip SIMMs in another system (the 486DLC clone) and they work fine. In fact they were originally from that system. As for the 3-chip 4mb's, they are brand new from Ebay: https://www.ebay.com/itm/4MB-30pin-FAST-PAGE-FP-FPM-SIMM-RAM-MEMORY-with-parity-4x9-30-pin/153940233188 so …

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