Re: CL-GD-5429 doesn't like LCD monitors?

Posted on 2014-11-13, 13:22

by

by alexanrs

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

You might also want to check which memory slots are populated. I recall quite a number of onboard chips could only use memory from the first memory bank/slot. Also, I've actually seen a broken Socket5 MoBo with onboard Trio64 that appeared to have slots to install VRAM separately, so you might want …

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Re: 3dfx Voodoo 1 cards

Posted on 2014-11-12, 09:35

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by alexanrs

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

AFAIK Voodoo1 came at a time they made sense. Being dedicated to 3d meant lower cost (and just about everyone and their mother had a 2d chip already), and having an specific API meant less overhead in a time where PCs were relatively weak and the API overhead had quite an impact. Also, Glide had the …

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Re: Compaq Deskpro: is it worth it?

Posted on 2014-11-11, 09:13

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by alexanrs

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I've done some searching around the forums and apparently these VXPro stuff is laughter material. Back to considering the Compaq xD (If only everyone selling retro PCs knew anything about the stuff they sell... the seller apparently can't tell whether his machine is a Deskpro 2000 or 4000)

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Re: Compaq Deskpro: is it worth it?

Posted on 2014-11-10, 21:30

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by alexanrs

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I'm looking into another (non OEM) machine. Once the second seller replies with the full specs I'll make a decision. [EDIT] The plot thickens... would a M537 + MMX be a better option? Does anyone here have experience with this board or the VXPro chipset?

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Re: Compaq Deskpro: is it worth it?

Posted on 2014-11-10, 02:07

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by alexanrs

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

In some cases ISA / PCI slots are shared so that means you actually have very few. Most OEM desktops typically have 2 or 3 expansion slots only. Also: Compaq Deskpro's have proprietary MOBOs, FDDs and PSUs. So when something breaks you need to find / buy an exact replacement. 512KB/1MB should be …

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Re: Compaq Deskpro: is it worth it?

Posted on 2014-11-10, 00:11

by

by alexanrs

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

OEMs are fine but with all your modifications I recommend sticking with a self built generic model. I like OEMs because they are extremely well documented / dependable. But most dislike them because they are not flexible with regards to modification / overclocking. All the "modifications" I plan on …

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Compaq Deskpro: is it worth it?

Posted on 2014-11-09, 22:48

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by alexanrs

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Hello everyone! I'm in the process of "recreating" an enhanced version of my first machine (Pentium MMX 233 + 32MB RAM). I was looking for the parts until I found a Compaq Deskpro with a 200MHZ MMX, 32 MB ram and according to the seller, 3 PCI and 3 ISA slots. According to the info I was able to …

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Re: Modern mouse on 486

Posted on 2014-11-08, 20:40

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by alexanrs

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I've seen this device suggested here in the forums before. Not cheap, and someone suggested it doesn't have the best tracking in the world, but it is the only thing I can think of. Alas if you are really desperate and good at programming you could get something like a PIC24 and make an active …

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Re: PLEASE HELP ME FIND THIS CASE!!! :D

Posted on 2014-11-07, 20:35

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by alexanrs

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

You might want to read this thread: Cyrix MII-433GP Build The guy mounted an AT board with an ATX PSU + ATX case and made a little converter to turn the momentary switch into a latched one.

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Re: Destruction Derby 2 (DOS)

Posted on 2014-11-06, 23:46

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by alexanrs

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

PedroPalhoto wrote: From what I recall by seeing Phil's videos, won't that get the speeds down to 386-ish (on a Pentium III)? Probably... Lowering the multiplier is probably more granular. Anyway, glad it worked out okay

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Re: OS of choice survey (DOS).

Posted on 2014-11-06, 23:42

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by alexanrs

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

MS-DOS 7.10 whenever possible. Better memory management out of the box, fat32 (useful for transferring stuff through USB flash drives), and a bunch of utilities that don't break LFNs.

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Re: Destruction Derby 2 (DOS)

Posted on 2014-11-06, 23:32

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by alexanrs

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

You could try disabling the l2 or l1 cache or use some slowdown utility

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Re: Old Mobo with some problems

Posted on 2014-11-06, 22:03

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by alexanrs

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I decided to inspect the board today with a multimeter. Didn't find any broken traces so far, but there were a few bent legs on an IC that looked like they were shorting..... and I ended up breaking one =( Not that I had high hopes, the board shows plenty signs of abuse. BTW the IC with a missing …

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Re: Destruction Derby 2 (DOS)

Posted on 2014-11-06, 16:31

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by alexanrs

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

You could try limiting your available memory... If you are using HIMEM.SYS you could try the /NOABOVE16 parameter and see if it restricts you to 16MB. Also, you can try to start the installer in Windows 3.11 from a custom PIF file that configures the app to start with more than 2MB (the default) XMS …

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Re: found an old packard bell!

Posted on 2014-11-06, 13:32

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by alexanrs

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Can't you just solder another IDE connector?

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Re: momentary switch

Posted on 2014-11-06, 10:40

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by alexanrs

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Robin4 wrote: How are called those switches that stays in one position? And when pressed again, that are in normal state like a turbo button switch.. That's a latched switch.

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Re: How is Windows 2000 on a K6-2 333MHz, 256MB ram?

Posted on 2014-11-05, 22:15

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by alexanrs

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

As long as you have enough RAM you should be OK. The slowest PC I've ran Win2k was a Pentium 3 + 128MB RAM though... You'll probably NOT want to install any sort of security software, and disable a few services. Should be slower than 98 but not by THAT much. God, you might even be able to run XP …

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Re: Old Mobo with some problems

Posted on 2014-11-05, 21:25

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by alexanrs

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

When troubleshooting, ALWAYS start with one stick of memory. Start with a board as clean as possible: no mouse, no serial brackets, no ide or floppy cables etc. Only powerswitch button, psu, cpu, one ramstick and videocard. And I did... ofc using pairs, since I was using SIMMs. Try an old pci usb …

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Re: Old Mobo with some problems

Posted on 2014-11-05, 17:27

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by alexanrs

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

If you have a multimeter your best bet is trying to follow the traces out of the keyboard connector. In the continuity test mode check if each signal pin is indeed connecting to the destination pin. Although the traces are covered with a protective material, in most cases there will be some exposed …

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Re: Old Mobo with some problems

Posted on 2014-11-05, 10:47

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by alexanrs

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

There doesn't appear to be any issues with the connector's soldering. Is there any way to troubleshoot this? Oh, and I forgot to mention. While booting the board issues two short beeps, pause, one short beep after the memory test (which succeeds). It is an AMI BIOS but I couldn't find what this …

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