Capacitors and their failure modes

Posted on 2024-03-03, 09:51

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by songoffall

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

This will be a short explanation on certain failure modes of capacitors, for people to understand the process better. Also to explain the "capacitor plague". Feel free to add to it - I don't claim to know it all or have the ability to put it into a single post. What is a capacitor? A capacitor is …

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Re: On PSUs for retro rigs

Posted on 2024-03-02, 19:01

by

by songoffall

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

This PSU's filter caps had brown flaky residue around them Do you have a picture by chance? I've seen this quite frequently: people mistake glue that's usually used on bigger parts (like the filter caps) for electrolyte leakage. That's not to say I haven't also seen caps leak electrolyte from the …

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Re: Quick question about reassembling a Samsung SyncMaster 753DFX CRT monitor

Posted on 2024-02-29, 19:13

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by songoffall

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

You're right, cap lifetime can vary a lot, but if the main filter cap is dead, and that's usually the last one to go, smaller caps can't be relied on. I've replaced it with a proper Rubycon. As for Trinitrons, the only ones I've seen were from the 90s, mostly other brands like IBM and Benq using …

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Re: Quick question about reassembling a Samsung SyncMaster 753DFX CRT monitor

Posted on 2024-02-29, 13:30

by

by songoffall

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I've also ran into this before with two of the CRT monitors in my collection. One is a rather old Sony Trinitron from 1995 with likely high number of power-on hours. The other is a newer (2001) 15" HP with A TON of power-on hours (lots of burn-in on the screen and the tube takes forever to display …

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Re: Quick question about reassembling a Samsung SyncMaster 753DFX CRT monitor

Posted on 2024-02-28, 20:29

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by songoffall

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Can you share a photo of the ghosting ? Sure, friend. https://i.imgur.com/SFrPIjl.jpg https://i.imgur.com/9xhfkly.jpg It also results in an overall darker image in certain games, like Quake 1 & 2, Morrowind, VTM: Redemption, especially during the day. Yes, I remember CRTs having always been dim …

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Re: Quick question about reassembling a Samsung SyncMaster 753DFX CRT monitor

Posted on 2024-02-24, 18:16

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by songoffall

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Sadly, while I did find and replace a blown out electrolytic cap, the problem with horizontal ghosting wasn't resolved. Will keep trying.

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Re: Quick question about reassembling a Samsung SyncMaster 753DFX CRT monitor

Posted on 2024-02-24, 18:15

by

by songoffall

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Thanks everyone. I had the manual, but it was of no help. Turns out it was simpler than expected, removed the small breakout PCB that goes on the tube, the connector was there, just not visible with the PCB mounted.

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Quick question about reassembling a Samsung SyncMaster 753DFX CRT monitor

Posted on 2024-02-24, 17:36

by

by songoffall

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Today I disassembled my Samsung SyncMaster 753DFX CRT because of washed out picture and horizontal ghosting. One of the power caps was definitely dead: https://i.imgur.com/InMcZUu.jpg When reassembling it, for the life of me, I can't remember where to connect this unique ground wire: https://i.imgur …

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Re: On PSUs for retro rigs

Posted on 2024-02-23, 15:17

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by songoffall

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

they might also just squirt their electrolyte from the bottom. Replacing them fixed the issue. That's how my APC Smart 1000 died. It pissed on the mosfets nearby. By the time I took it apart it dried and I didn't notice, replaced the cap, turned on and blew 4 of the 6 mosfets. Then after cleaning …

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On PSUs for retro rigs

Posted on 2024-02-23, 13:27

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by songoffall

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

So here's a word of advise for beginners - I'm pretty sure the veterans already know this. I made a few of quite silly mistakes - and the sad part is, it was not for lack of knowledge, but more because of assuming things. 1. After quite a bit of system instability, my system stopped working. I …

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Re: Retro Rig Photo Thread

Posted on 2024-02-05, 14:14

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by songoffall

in Marvin \ System Specs

in Marvin \ System Specs

Sometimes I think y'all got a hot tub filled with Voodoo2s that you occasionally take a dip in 😁

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Re: Retro Rig Photo Thread

Posted on 2024-01-24, 08:56

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by songoffall

in Marvin \ System Specs

in Marvin \ System Specs

I think I prefer DECs from that era to most other brands, although I've never owned one, I've seen how they perform. A lot more thought seems to have gone into the selection of components than, say, a DELL of that era, and IBMs sometimes have interesting proprietary parts, but DECs are more pleasant …

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Re: Installing GOG games on Windows98SE with KernelEx

Posted on 2024-01-22, 14:01

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by songoffall

in Milliways

in Milliways

Gothic - SUCCESS The GOG release of Gothic ships with a version of ddraw.dll which may be too new for some retro systems. It makes the game very sluggish. Deleting that file from the Gothic\system folder should resolve the issue. It was fine on my system, but then, my system is overkill for Gothic. …

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Re: Installing GOG games on Windows98SE with KernelEx

Posted on 2024-01-22, 10:43

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by songoffall

in Milliways

in Milliways

Mortal Kombat 4 - FAILURE Might be fixable. The problem is with libvorbis.dll, maybe it will launch with a replacement. The game also contains nglide wrapper, which too might need to be removed. Ultima IX Ascension - FAILURE nglide causes gray screen after the intro cinematic. Might work after …

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Re: Retro Rig Photo Thread

Posted on 2024-01-20, 05:22

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by songoffall

in Marvin \ System Specs

in Marvin \ System Specs

weedeewee wrote on 2024-01-19, 10:07: btw, the floppy drive isn't connected Also just noticed : https://imgur.com/gallery/lblowVb 😉 The floppy drive isn't working, and as I don't have one of those bezelless ones, I'm keeping it in. There's a different floppy drive under the CD-ROM, which is …

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Re: Retro Rig Photo Thread

Posted on 2024-01-19, 09:31

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by songoffall

in Marvin \ System Specs

in Marvin \ System Specs

My Pentium II build: Compaq Deskpro 2000 (Intel 440LX) Intel Pentium II 300MHz Deschutes 3x128Mb PC100 CL2 ECC SDRAM, 384Mb Matrox Millenium II 4Mb Diamond Monster Audio MX300 (Aureal Vortex 2) ESS AudioDrive ES1689F Seagate Barracuda 40Gb 7200RPM IDE

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Re: Remembering games from our childhood/youth

Posted on 2024-01-18, 19:20

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by songoffall

in Milliways

in Milliways

and I understand why you would call your childhood stupid. But sure there were fun times too :)) Oh, I just say that because of all the "shareware/freeware" compilation CD's my late father got me over the years from software stores were so full of incredibly dumb things on them. I've lost count of …

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Re: Remembering games from our childhood/youth

Posted on 2024-01-18, 19:16

by

by songoffall

in Milliways

in Milliways

and I understand why you would call your childhood stupid. But sure there were fun times too :)) Oh, I just say that because of all the "shareware/freeware" compilation CD's my late father got me over the years from software stores were so full of incredibly dumb things on them. I've lost count of …

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Re: Remembering games from our childhood/youth

Posted on 2024-01-18, 07:08

by

by songoffall

in Milliways

in Milliways

My "childhood" was excessively stupid. Apart from the games everybody already knows about by now (Doom, Wolf3D, Descent, etc) here's some of the crap I grew up with: I've played the "TC" games, that I'm sure leileilol knows exactly which ones. I'll give you all a hint: Welcome. I've played the …

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Re: Retro Rig Photo Thread

Posted on 2024-01-18, 06:37

by

by songoffall

in Marvin \ System Specs

in Marvin \ System Specs

Here's one of mine, my "Warhorse" build. https://i.imgur.com/liqiweg.jpg AMD Athlon XP 2000+, Asus A7NBX-VM/400, 512Mb Samsung 333MHz CL2.5 DDR SDRAM, Sparkle GeForce4 MX440, Creative SoundBlaster Audigy 2, Seagate Barracuda 7200RPM 40Gb Noctuas are indeed the cherry on top of the old stuff... But, …

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