Random yard sale find this morning, Compaq 486 w/ CT1770 SCSI inside. There appears to be some cleaning in order.

Formulator wrote:

Random yard sale find this morning, Compaq 486 w/ CT1770 SCSI inside. There appears to be some cleaning in order.

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That sir.... Is one beautifull beast.
I envy you slightly.

Formulator wrote:

Random yard sale find this morning, Compaq 486 w/ CT1770 SCSI inside. There appears to be some cleaning in order.

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Nice Compaq you got there now go make people envious of your soon to be awesome dos rig. 🤣

Formulator wrote:

Random yard sale find this morning, Compaq 486 w/ CT1770 SCSI inside. There appears to be some cleaning in order.

I remember seeing those in the Compaq brochures I received after my parents bought a Presario 520CDS new in late 1994. IIRC those had some weird 486 in them like 486DX4-75 and 486DX4-90, but maybe that particular one you got is earlier than that.

kithylin wrote:

Couple days ago I got my GF3 + "random motherboard" in the post from the listing on ebay. […]
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Couple days ago I got my GF3 + "random motherboard" in the post from the listing on ebay.

So for $45 I got...

A random Foxconn Socket-A motherboard. Nothing special to even write about. Generic board, no overclocking. It does take up to 400 FSB Barton cores, and 400 mhz ram though. But only 4x AGP. And no dual channel.. just generic dual-IDE + floppy. Doesn't even have sata onboard. I don't care about that. What I wanted from the listing was.. the other things!

It had a random unknown processor under the heatsink. So I was silently hoping for something good there. Turned out that my hoping was good, and yet again I seem to of won out on the "random unknown processor lotto" a second time! It turned out to be a 2.1 ghz AthlonXP 3000+ 400-FSB Barton chip. just 1 stepping down from the 3200+ 400-FSB-Barton I have in my other computer.

And according to this guide over here: https://web.archive.org/web/20091113154547/ht … des/barton.html The "IQYHA" stepping on this 3000+ should be a superior overclocker than the "AQYHA" stepping of my 3200+ (Which by the way already does 2.5 ghz stable in my nforce2 motherboard). So I haven't swapped them out yet but I might get to that today.. see if it can get my nforce2 system up to 2.6+ ghz.

Also the nice all-copper cooler in this listing was rather nice. Real mirror finish bottom and fan's not too loud. I wanted that too. And likely will swap it into the nforce2 system to see if it cools the chips there better.

The real jewel of this listing I wanted above everything else though was the GeForce3 card. A Ti-500! I finally got one after all this time searching!

Larger: http://www.outfoxed.net/GF3/DSC06290.jpg

A little dusty.. nothing a can`o`air can't blast out.. This photo was just right when it was removed from packaging.

And, the back side:

Larger: http://www.outfoxed.net/GF3/DSC06294.JPG

So all in all, I'm quite pleased with my little purchase for $45.

This is a good haul!

Which ebay listing was this from? Is that Foxcon really so uninteresting? And the copper cooler, is it a stock sA HSF?

Formulator wrote:

Random yard sale find this morning, Compaq 486 w/ CT1770 SCSI inside. There appears to be some cleaning in order.

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That's a good find for a random yard sale, well done! 😁

devius wrote:

Formulator wrote:

Random yard sale find this morning, Compaq 486 w/ CT1770 SCSI inside. There appears to be some cleaning in order.

I remember seeing those in the Compaq brochures I received after my parents bought a Presario 520CDS new in late 1994. IIRC those had some weird 486 in them like 486DX4-75 and 486DX4-90, but maybe that particular one you got is earlier than that.

Just looking at the jumper settings it appears to be a 486DX2-66. I will just need to decide on a video option.

As for this yard sale, it was the smallest one I had ever seen, and these folks were in their 80s. I almost just drove by. This Compaq and a Dell PIII were thankfully tucked around a corner, out of view. Snagged them both.

Tetrium wrote:

This is a good haul!

Which ebay listing was this from? Is that Foxcon really so uninteresting? And the copper cooler, is it a stock sA HSF?

Original listing was here: http://www.ebay.com/itm/131827742396

Don't know what I'll ever do with the foxconn board. Probably put it in a box and sit it in the attic indefinitely, possibly forever.

-FAR- from stock. Some sort of exotic aftermarket Socket-A cooler. All copper, mirror-finish bottom, etc.

kithylin wrote:

-FAR- from stock. Some sort of exotic aftermarket Socket-A cooler. All copper, mirror-finish bottom, etc.

It looks like the Thermalright SP-97

kithylin wrote:

Also the nice all-copper cooler in this listing was rather nice. Real mirror finish bottom and fan's not too loud. I wanted that too. And likely will swap it into the nforce2 system to see if it cools the chips there better.

Just keep in mind that the "mirror finish" actually cools worse as polished surfaces reflect heat. Sand it with some 600-grit sand-paper and put a film of compound on it.

Got a very unusual GUS Extreme today.
It isn't a re-labeled Synergy ViperMAX like all other known samples - the silkscreen has been printed not over a previously printed Synergy logo and inscriptions, but on a blank PCB! No "PCB REV 3.0" inscription in the lower left corner either.
So, apparently there was at least one late batch of GUS Extremes that were actually contracted by and produced for Gravis itself!

Logistics wrote:

kithylin wrote:

Also the nice all-copper cooler in this listing was rather nice. Real mirror finish bottom and fan's not too loud. I wanted that too. And likely will swap it into the nforce2 system to see if it cools the chips there better.

Just keep in mind that the "mirror finish" actually cools worse as polished surfaces reflect heat. Sand it with some 600-grit sand-paper and put a film of compound on it.

Never heard this before. years ago we used to "lap" heatsinks to get them as smooth as possible to increase contact with the cpu. i dont remember ever being told to not make it shiny.,

Ozzuneoj wrote:

Logistics wrote:

kithylin wrote:

Also the nice all-copper cooler in this listing was rather nice. Real mirror finish bottom and fan's not too loud. I wanted that too. And likely will swap it into the nforce2 system to see if it cools the chips there better.

Just keep in mind that the "mirror finish" actually cools worse as polished surfaces reflect heat. Sand it with some 600-grit sand-paper and put a film of compound on it.

Never heard this before. years ago we used to "lap" heatsinks to get them as smooth as possible to increase contact with the cpu. i dont remember ever being told to not make it shiny.,

You are correct. Do not alter the smooth finish. The "shiny reflects heat" only applies to heat exchange by radiation, whereas you are dealing with heat exchange by conduction. You want a smooth finish to have maximal conduction transfer metal-to-metal.

Logistics wrote:

kithylin wrote:

Also the nice all-copper cooler in this listing was rather nice. Real mirror finish bottom and fan's not too loud. I wanted that too. And likely will swap it into the nforce2 system to see if it cools the chips there better.

Just keep in mind that the "mirror finish" actually cools worse as polished surfaces reflect heat. Sand it with some 600-grit sand-paper and put a film of compound on it.

Sorry. I'm not starting arguments, but I know for truth (just like others have said) this is completely false. Even my expensive brand new 2016 water block for LGA-1155 is mirror finished, 90% of proper name-brand water blocks today are all mirror finished.

We actually -WANT- this for cooling devices. Smoother surface = better thermal contact. This has been known and proven for heatsinks and waterblocks for quite some years in the computing world.

And indeed it worked.. I have it in my AthlonXP system last night and compared to the smooth.. but not quite mirror finish of the old copper one I had, this mirror-finished-bottom one was -5c to -7c cooler. And a lot quieter.

I mentioned a while ago about being in touch with a certain technician whom worked for a certain internet / video provider. I also said the source had "dried up". ( Re: What retro activity did you get up to today? )Turns out I was wrong. He called me the other day, and said he needed help clearing out the warehouse. Basically I let him borrow my truck to haul some pallets of dvr boxes, and then he decided to fill my truck up with "trash" and pay me to take it to the dump.

what a nice guy!

I did make a small detour to the recyclers. SOMEONE had to pull all the hard drives from the trash dvr boxes. I think I did well;

All told:

21x 320gb seagate sata pipeline hd2
21x ide > sata converters
7x 500gb 2.5" sata
6x 1000gb 2.5" sata

So, if anyone here is in the market for hard drives for retro computers let me know. all these drives work nicely on retro machines. even as old as 286's. The 2.5" drives come with LBA markings for 8gb and 500gb sizes. the ide converters are master only, but work on everything i've ever tried them on. Now the bios still has size limits, but the drives still work.

All the drives are bulk enterprise drives designed for dvr use. I use 12 1tb drives in a raid for my main file server. Soon to be upgraded to 16 drives @ raid 6.

Just stole an Ad Lib 1990 for $28 BIN at eBay! I've been lucky today!

I bought a box of brand new Verbatim 3.5" HD floppy disks for 1€ at the flea market 😀

Found at a yardsale for a quarter. Not really a calculator guy but I couldn't pass it up, that vacuum flourescent display always gets me.

kithylin wrote:

We actually -WANT- this for cooling devices. Smoother surface = better thermal contact. This has been known and proven for heatsinks and waterblocks for quite some years in the computing world.

Not to be pedantic, but you actually want a perfect mechanical match between the die or IHS and the heat sink, but you also want to maximize contact area. Some chips have actually posed greater cooling problems after a die shrink for this reason. For ease of manufacturing and installation, good thermal contact means flat, but a matched ridge pattern might result in better performance due to a larger contact area if it were made practical.

gdjacobs wrote:

kithylin wrote:

We actually -WANT- this for cooling devices. Smoother surface = better thermal contact. This has been known and proven for heatsinks and waterblocks for quite some years in the computing world.

Not to be pedantic, but you actually want a perfect mechanical match between the die or IHS and the heat sink, but you also want to maximize contact area. Some chips have actually posed greater cooling problems after a die shrink for this reason. For ease of manufacturing and installation, good thermal contact means flat, but a matched ridge pattern might result in better performance due to a larger contact area if it were made practical.

Well yes, but on an amateur scale good luck with that. 😀

Flat is not easy but doable; non-flat perfectly matched patterns - I don't think so.

(sellers pictures)

Got this lovely Tomato 4DPS 2.1 motherboard from ebay, will go really well with the AMD DX/4 100 and Cyrix 5x86 100 CPU's I got recently. Can't wait for it to arrive.