VOGONS


My first pc - restoring

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First post, by ramiro77

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Hi everyone! My name is Ramiro. I'm from Argentina.
A few days ago I found my first computer. A Pentium 100 from 1995. It was in pretty bad shape. No HDD, no cooler, no ide/floppy/front buttons cables, no cd rom, etc. I got very nostalgic and decided to restore it. So I started to buy some missing things and right now I have:

- Motherboard FIC PA-2001 socket 7 (original)
- ram 2x8mb simm 72p edo (original)
- video Trident 9680 1mb (original)
- sound card Yamaha OPL3-sa (original)
- CPU Pentium 200 mmx (not original)
- new old stock Genius CD rom (not original)
- AT psu (original)
- AT case (original)
- Floppy / IDE cables (not original)
- USB pci card (not original)

I started taking a look at it:

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Now cleaned:

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As you can see it was in really bad shape. Oxide and dirt everywhere. Chassis was deformed because of weight. I managed to give it the original shape with patience. Main problem is the paint job for the chassis. Any paint job makes that you can notice that it's not galvanized. I tried painting with some oxide converter which has rustic sparkly finish and it looked all right. Not original but it's nice. Then I tried painting with matte gray. It's the same color than original but it doesn't look good. So I think I will stick with that sparkly finish. What do you think?

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Reply 1 of 87, by Tetrium

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Nice job! 😁

Some of us have brought back to life computers which looked equally deceased at the least 😜

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Reply 2 of 87, by ramiro77

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Thank you Tetrium! Yes, I saw many posts here about restoring. Just awesome!
Now I'm testing my parts. Today I bought a 4.3gb Samsung IDE HDD and an original Intel socket 7/370 cooler. Meanwhile I wait for paint to dry. 😎

Reply 3 of 87, by JayCeeBee64

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Bienvenido! Welcome to VOGONS 😀

That's quite a restoration job you're undertaking. It reminds me of this:

Found a desktop style Baby AT case, future P1 build

Good job on getting the AT case chassis back in shape, looks great. I would go with the sparkly paint job - makes it stand out from the crowd.

An Addonics sound card! I remember seeing those here in Southern California back in the late 90's. Never owned one though.

Curious to see which direction you'll go with this P200MMX, many possibilities here. Keep the updates coming ^^.

Ooohh, the pain......

Reply 4 of 87, by ramiro77

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Haha thank you Jay! I saw that post. It was just awesome. It looked like crap. I was astonished with that job!
I will stick with the sparkly finish. I'm working on that, waiting for it to dry and sanding and waiting and sanding and so on.
Meanwhile I'm trying to install w95c without floppy 😢

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Bonus: Intel original cooler 😎 It's socket 7 or 370?
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Reply 5 of 87, by Tetrium

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ramiro77 wrote:
Haha thank you Jay! I saw that post. It was just awesome. It looked like crap. I was astonished with that job! I will stick with […]
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Haha thank you Jay! I saw that post. It was just awesome. It looked like crap. I was astonished with that job!
I will stick with the sparkly finish. I'm working on that, waiting for it to dry and sanding and waiting and sanding and so on.
Meanwhile I'm trying to install w95c without floppy 😢

2mcc1p4.jpg

Bonus: Intel original cooler 😎 It's socket 7 or 370?
2yxowsh.jpg

I'd say it's 370. Can't even remember what Intel's s7 stock coolers looked like, but the s370 ones I found always looked that way and I've seen hundreds of them.
The fans are often loud but I like the heat sinks very much for what they are actually. Especially since many of them are as beefy as can get while still not overhanging the maximum dimensions of the CPU socket (ideal for Socket 7 where theres always components in the way so one has difficulty installing a larger spare cooler).

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Reply 6 of 87, by JayCeeBee64

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The restoration job on that old Mitac desktop PC was incredible. I'm still astounded with the results myself.

Installing Windows 95C without a floppy is quite an adventure. Maybe Hiren's BootCD or Ultimate Boot CD could help? If those don't work then getting a floppy drive might be the only solution.

The Intel CPU cooler you got is for Socket 370; I have one that came with a Pentium III 800 back in January. I do have a Pentium 233MMX with an original Intel Socket 7 cooler (has a broken plastic clip):

SrYcVFUm.png aTsHWUxm.png cV27u5qm.png

Ooohh, the pain......

Reply 7 of 87, by ramiro77

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Interesting. So It's socket 370. Well, it keeps really ice-cooled my overvolted mmx. My motherboard doesn't allow 2.9v (only 3.38 and 3.49v) but I remember that it worked around five years fine. I'm only concerned about one transistor that gets too hot (the one with heatsink above cpu). I will maybe switch back to the original Pentium 100 if I can found it. I have too many things lying around
Installing w95c without floppy isn't hard. I've found some "alternative" if you know what I mean.

About sparkly finish: I think I wasn't clear enough about this. The sparkly finish is oxide converter with a nice rustic textured finish, so I used it to make the oxide harmless. The internal chassis will be keeped as that because I can't imitate the original galvanized finish and the sparkly one looks great, but the exterior removable case will be as the original (beige). The case must look as it was in 1995, at least at simple look.

I will post some more photos at night showing you the beige finish (if it dries. It's raining here and my diy painting cabinet doesn't supports long periods of heating).

PD: Sorry if my english isn't perfect. I try hard to write correctly.

Reply 8 of 87, by Tetrium

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ramiro77 wrote:

Interesting. So It's socket 370. Well, it keeps really ice-cooled my overvolted mmx. My motherboard doesn't allow 2.9v (only 3.38 and 3.49v) but I remember that it worked around five years fine.

This is why I like these stock Intel heatsinks so much! 😁
They are basically the beefiest heatsinks to fit s7/s370/sA without overhanging any part of the CPU socket and there are tons of them out there and as nobody wanted them, I have a couple kiwiboxes full of em! 😁
I never liked the fans they came with though (too noisy and whining), but that's easily fixed with a screwdriver and another fan.

And don't worry about your English 😀
The folks here are nice and from all over the world and this forum isn't a spelling contest after all 😀

Whats missing in your collections?
My retro rigs (old topic)
Interesting Vogons threads (links to Vogonswiki)
Report spammers here!

Reply 9 of 87, by ramiro77

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Jajaja thanks for beeing nice! 😊 Yes, I do agree with you. It's an awesome cooler and it looks nice. At least it's not a "noganet" or any of those crappy chinese brands that flooded our market.
Does anyone know what does that transistor on top of cpu? I'm talking about this:

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It's getting ridiculously hot. I don't know how it worked for five years long. I really don't remember if it got that hot with the Pentium 100. If that's normal I could put a tiny fan on top of it. I've managed to install w95c and I had to shutdown everything because it scared me.

Meanwhile, still painting and waiting and so on jajaja 😎

Reply 10 of 87, by Tetrium

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ramiro77 wrote:
Jajaja thanks for beeing nice! :blush: Yes, I do agree with you. It's an awesome cooler and it looks nice. At least it's not a […]
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Jajaja thanks for beeing nice! 😊 Yes, I do agree with you. It's an awesome cooler and it looks nice. At least it's not a "noganet" or any of those crappy chinese brands that flooded our market.
Does anyone know what does that transistor on top of cpu? I'm talking about this:

332b0v4.jpg

It's getting ridiculously hot. I don't know how it worked for five years long. I really don't remember if it got that hot with the Pentium 100. If that's normal I could put a tiny fan on top of it. I've managed to install w95c and I had to shutdown everything because it scared me.

Meanwhile, still painting and waiting and so on jajaja 😎

You mean the little U-shaped cheap-looking heatsink?
That's the heatsink for the boards's voltage regulator I think and iirc, many of those AT s7 boards had linear voltage regulators which meant that the lower the supplied voltage to the CPU was, the hotter this voltage regulator got (feel free to correct me if I'm wrong or to add information).

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Reply 11 of 87, by TELVM

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Yep that voltage regulator would be happier with a real heatsink.

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Reply 12 of 87, by ramiro77

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It does make sense. The lower the voltage, the hotter it gets because it has to dissipate more voltage in form of heat. It supposedly work with 3.38v as the lower voltage, but this is a motherboard full of features that there aren't listed in the original manual/datasheet. So I can expect anything. What do you think about placing a 30mm fan on top of it? I want to avoid changing the original heatsink because... Well, It wouldn't be original jajaja.

Here is a little update on this project:

First layer of paint after doing a little sanding:

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Second layer with a little more glossy ivory:

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I'm permanently comparing with front plastic because I didn't find the original colour. I've made it with a mix of satin white and a very little bit of gloss ivory. I'm adjusting the recipe, but right now it's really really close. It's starting to look awesome! 😎

Sorry for crappy quality photos. My Moto G isn't brilliant at this. I promisse to get a better camera in a short time so you can see the project with better details. It's looking better at person than in the photos.

Reply 13 of 87, by gdjacobs

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Tetrium wrote:

You mean the little U-shaped cheap-looking heatsink?
That's the heatsink for the boards's voltage regulator I think and iirc, many of those AT s7 boards had linear voltage regulators which meant that the lower the supplied voltage to the CPU was, the hotter this voltage regulator got (feel free to correct me if I'm wrong or to add information).

Yes, those linear voltage regulators will dissipate power as a function of the voltage drop across the reg and current draw of the CPU. Assuming no increase in leakage or switching losses when the CPU was moved to a new process, the power loss out the regulator should not be getting out of hand due to reduced current requirements, but it's not ideal.

Linear bench supplies typically switch electro-mechanically between different rails to cut the losses introduced by regulation while still delivering the sort of low noise output linear regs can offer. CPU manufacturers instead went straight to buck regulators.

All hail the Great Capacitor Brand Finder

Reply 14 of 87, by ramiro77

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That is absolutely correct. I'm suspicious about how much voltaje is delivering to my mmx. My motherboard manual says that the minimum voltaje is 3.38v. But also says that it doesn't support multipliers above 2.5x and more than 64mb ram, which are not true. Also it says that is socket 5, but mine is socket 7 jajaja. So I don't trust in any jumper setting.

Reply 15 of 87, by Tetrium

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ramiro77 wrote:

That is absolutely correct. I'm suspicious about how much voltaje is delivering to my mmx. My motherboard manual says that the minimum voltaje is 3.38v. But also says that it doesn't support multipliers above 2.5x and more than 64mb ram, which are not true. Also it says that is socket 5, but mine is socket 7 jajaja. So I don't trust in any jumper setting.

Could you post the link to your manual so I can take a look?

Whats missing in your collections?
My retro rigs (old topic)
Interesting Vogons threads (links to Vogonswiki)
Report spammers here!

Reply 16 of 87, by alexanrs

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The motherboard doesn't have to do anything but expose the two multiplier pins of the processor. It can't artificially limit it to 2.5. If it supports 2.5 then it MUST expose the two pins defined by the Socket 7 specs (Socket 5 only defined one pin to choose between 1.5 and 2.0).

Reply 17 of 87, by ramiro77

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alexanrs wrote:

The motherboard doesn't have to do anything but expose the two multiplier pins of the processor. It can't artificially limit it to 2.5. If it supports 2.5 then it MUST expose the two pins defined by the Socket 7 specs (Socket 5 only defined one pin to choose between 1.5 and 2.0).

Not exactly. My motherboard shows 2.5x as max multiplier. But if I keep multiplier jumpers open (without jumper cap) it does 3x multiplier (200mhz). That isn't listed in the manual or in the motherboard. The same applies to using more ram than 64mb and using many cpus that are not listed, and many of that cpus works at 2.9v like my mmx. So that's why I'm suspicious about minimum voltage regulation in this motherboard. I swear that it's a PA-2001, unless the marking on the motherboard is wrong. Of course this is only a guess based on discrepancies between the manual and this board.

Tetrium wrote:

Could you post the link to your manual so I can take a look?

Here you are! 😎
Note: I was wrong when I said that manual listed as a socket 5 motherboard. I don't know where I read that. 😕

ftp://ftp.fic.com.tw/motherboard/manual/socket7/pa-2001/

PD: right now my cpu is without jumpers at multiplier setting, and in VRE mode. It works but I think it's the wrong setting... It should be on STD/VR setting for lower voltage. Am I correct?

Reply 18 of 87, by ramiro77

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Hi guys! Merry christmas to all of you!
Here is a little update on this project. I was struggling with case color. Yesterday was like this:

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As you can see, there is still a little difference. So I didn't give up and tried again. Let's see how it went:

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OH YESSSSSS!!!!! If there is any difference, it's imperceptible at my eyes. I'm so excited about this.
By other hand, I cleaned all my boards. Mobo, video and sound cards, PSU and a nice USB v1.1 PCI card that I've found today.

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Looks like new 😎

Next step: wait two or three days for the paint to harden, buy screwed posts to attach the motherboard to the chassis and some motherboard connectors to make the front panel connections. Still no guess on voltage regulation in this motherboard for my mmx cpu. I must confess that I been reading a lot but no luck on this yet.

Reply 19 of 87, by dondiego

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Your motherboard doesn't support the pentium mmx aka p55c, you need either a different processor or a different motherboard. The multiplier is configured right now at 1.5 i guess for the pentium 100 and according to the manual the board supports multipliers up to 3.

ftp://ftp.fic.com.tw/motherboard/cpu_table/other/1.pdf

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