Ydee wrote on 2022-12-11, 09:39:

It won't be that simple: the same hw was sold as Inspiron and Latitude (which I have, see pic). The P4-M (mine at 1.8GHz) heats […]
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Brawndo wrote on 2022-12-10, 22:24:

Thrift store find yesterday, a Dell Inspiron 8200 (model PP01X) laptop for $10....

It won't be that simple: the same hw was sold as Inspiron and Latitude (which I have, see pic). The P4-M (mine at 1.8GHz) heats terribly, so I recommend replacing the original aluminium foil between the CPU and the radiator and replacing it with a decent thermal paste. The CPU is cooled short heatpipe with a few thin ribs and those 2 small fans are annoyingly noisy.

There were 2 types of power supplies with a compatible connectors: PA-6 and PA-9. The first one handles 70W (for use with P3 models like C810) and if you use it with the P4-M, it won't run at full frequency, but only in safe mode. For the P4-M, you need a PA-9 type with 90W power.

Dell does not provide a driver for the GF4MX440 Go graphics card for W98(SE) - it does not provide any support at all for this OS, the laptop was designed for WXP. The generic driver for GF4MX440 can't be installed, maybe it will if the INF file is edited and the Dell string ID is added - I haven't tried.

The modular FDDs can be replaced with a second battery or CD/DVD drive, they are identical to the lower C6xx series.

Dock station for use with PA-9 is model PRX.

While it is true that this laptop was not built for win98 and dell offers no drivers for it, there are win9x drivers available for all hardware. I have the same exact laptop and successfully installed windows 98 on it using mostly generic win9x drivers. Chipset drivers directly from intel, graphics drivers can be found directly from nVidia, you don't need dell specific drivers - and if your laptop has an ATi card you can find win9x drivers for the mobility radeon 9000 and Radeon M3/M6 etc from IBM or Fujitsu Siemens as well as modded drivers on guru3d. Sound card drivers are available from dell, just not for the 8200 specifically, but for a different model, can't remember witch (possibly the 8100 or the C510 Latitude).

If I manage to find half a day of free time I'll archive the drivers I used to install Win98SE on my Inspiron 8200 and my Latitude C540.

Finally... I got my hands on a Toshiba Libretto 110ct. The wet dream of any IT technician in the late '90s.

Got it with some PCMCIA cards (all working), two batteries (one still has charge!), external battery charger and... a sadly damaged by shipping port replicator, which is not in the pictures here because the glue is still drying.
Yes I'm trying to recover it.

It's not in mint mint conditions (like the hooks of the upper cover are broken) but it doesn't have any other cracks.
Display is perfect, speakers too. Just the mouse\joystick a bit worned out.

It's the perfect dos\98 machine-to-go an I love it!

This PCI Riva TNT 16MB. The PCI version supposedly is pretty rare...

Also, this ATI Rage II AGP. I remember I had this card for a week in 1999 and it was pretty bad for gaming, like 5-10 fps in Unreal.

Even it's rivaness would be nice on MMX HX/VX/TX combos, whereas plain jane Rage II is somewhat dire, IIC, II+ etc all nicer. Really you just wanna play early 3D on that and make fun of Virge owners 🤣

rasz_pl wrote on 2022-12-10, 15:07:

PowerColor is TUL Corporation. They used to have another brand Vertex (~ATI 4870 era), but shut it down. Palit is the main manuf […]
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PowerColor is TUL Corporation. They used to have another brand Vertex (~ATI 4870 era), but shut it down.
Palit is the main manufacturer of no brand/off brand generic cheap cards. They had over the years/have plenty of their own "noname" brands like Daytona (i740, S3 Savage, S3 Trio3Ds). Afaik they were always also a contract manufacturer, meaning anyone could order a batch with any name they liked. For example a lot (all?) PNY cards are rebranded Palit/Gainward despite PNY being a separate company.
There is also PC Partner with Zotac and InnoVision/Inno3D, they started in 1997 with 3dfx cards (voodoo/voodoo rush http://hw-museum.cz/vga/9/innovision-3dx5000tv http://hw-museum.cz/vga/14/innovision-3dxrush). PC Partner contract manufactured for Sapphire (https://hexus.net/tech/features/mainboard/104 … nes-pc-partner/).
Then you have motherboard manufacturers branching into cards like MSI (huge), ASUSTeK (also huge), Gigabyte etc.
Abit made some graphic cards before going bankrupt.
ECS and Pcchips only briefly branded some low end cards, I dont think they ever manufactured.

TUL also owned Club3D. Club3D was a bit higher than Vertex/VTX3D in terms of quality, and PowerColor is their "premium" lineage. Not sure if Club3D is around, but VTX3D shut down during the R9 2xx series (their last card was the R9 285) while Club3D lasted a bit longer.

I picked up a Dell Studio XPS 435T/9000 at my local thrift store that, thankfully, has no silly policy about not selling computers. They said $40.00, I offered $30.00, they said "Sold!" This thing is built like a tank! I actually put it on a scale because I had to know, and it weighs forty pounds; it's a computer that can double as workout equipment. Socket 1366, i7 920, twelve gigabytes of DDR3, a GTX 260 (an unusual OEM version that has 1.7 gigabytes of DDR3), an SB0880 X-Fi, a wireless N card, a DVD RW, and a Blu Ray RW. I decided to buy it because the X-Fi alone goes for about $30.00 on Ebay.

Everything works, though of course the hard drive is old and slow and the Windows 7 installation is badly in need of being formatted.

I now own a Powerbook that only cost me labor. As in, well, putting two non-working computers together to make one working PDQ.

This was one of the things from my pile of stuff from a while back. I was quickly sorting through this fellows garage stash and I grabbed this without really looking closely at it; what I thought was a video card was actually a PhysX card. An interesting curiosity that I don't know what to do with.

Repo Man11 wrote on 2022-12-13, 22:43:

I picked up a Dell Studio XPS 435T/9000 at my local thrift store that, thankfully, has no silly policy about not selling computers. They said $40.00, I offered $30.00, they said "Sold!" This thing is built like a tank! I actually put it on a scale because I had to know, and it weighs forty pounds; it's a computer that can double as workout equipment. Socket 1366, i7 920, twelve gigabytes of DDR3, a GTX 260 (an unusual OEM version that has 1.7 gigabytes of DDR3), an SB0880 X-Fi, a wireless N card, a DVD RW, and a Blu Ray RW. I decided to buy it because the X-Fi alone goes for about $30.00 on Ebay.

Everything works, though of course the hard drive is old and slow and the Windows 7 installation is badly in need of being formatted.

Wow, it has triple channel memory in six slots. That's pretty interesting to see. Based on the parts inside it seems like someone used it for a while and kept upgrading it. Nice find!

Cosmic wrote on 2022-12-14, 01:27:

Repo Man11 wrote on 2022-12-13, 22:43:

I picked up a Dell Studio XPS 435T/9000 at my local thrift store that, thankfully, has no silly policy about not selling computers. They said $40.00, I offered $30.00, they said "Sold!" This thing is built like a tank! I actually put it on a scale because I had to know, and it weighs forty pounds; it's a computer that can double as workout equipment. Socket 1366, i7 920, twelve gigabytes of DDR3, a GTX 260 (an unusual OEM version that has 1.7 gigabytes of DDR3), an SB0880 X-Fi, a wireless N card, a DVD RW, and a Blu Ray RW. I decided to buy it because the X-Fi alone goes for about $30.00 on Ebay.

Everything works, though of course the hard drive is old and slow and the Windows 7 installation is badly in need of being formatted.

Wow, it has triple channel memory in six slots. That's pretty interesting to see. Based on the parts inside it seems like someone used it for a while and kept upgrading it. Nice find!

Those are all actually the stock parts, it was a pretty high end system at the time. It even has a plastic cap over the motherboard's sound ports to avoid confusion. I tried to test play a Blu Ray, but it notified me that the monitor I have it attached to isn't HDCP compliant. That took me back to when I bought a Blu Ray drive for my system years ago only to be notified my 20" Viewsonic monitor wasn't HDCP compliant, so I had to buy a newer one. This worked out well for my cousin since I gave it to her (she still had a CRT monitor).

There was still personal information on it, and I discovered that the owner had passed away at the age of 87 last March. How it then ended up in a thrift store is a story I'd like to know, but never will.

Cosmic wrote on 2022-12-14, 01:27:

Repo Man11 wrote on 2022-12-13, 22:43:

I picked up a Dell Studio XPS 435T/9000 at my local thrift store that, thankfully, has no silly policy about not selling computers. They said $40.00, I offered $30.00, they said "Sold!" This thing is built like a tank! I actually put it on a scale because I had to know, and it weighs forty pounds; it's a computer that can double as workout equipment. Socket 1366, i7 920, twelve gigabytes of DDR3, a GTX 260 (an unusual OEM version that has 1.7 gigabytes of DDR3), an SB0880 X-Fi, a wireless N card, a DVD RW, and a Blu Ray RW. I decided to buy it because the X-Fi alone goes for about $30.00 on Ebay.

Everything works, though of course the hard drive is old and slow and the Windows 7 installation is badly in need of being formatted.

Wow, it has triple channel memory in six slots. That's pretty interesting to see. Based on the parts inside it seems like someone used it for a while and kept upgrading it. Nice find!

IIRC all 1366 systems had triple channel, not sure why Intel decided to move back to dual channel for Sandybridge.

TrashPanda wrote on 2022-12-14, 02:30:

Cosmic wrote on 2022-12-14, 01:27:

Repo Man11 wrote on 2022-12-13, 22:43:

I picked up a Dell Studio XPS 435T/9000 at my local thrift store that, thankfully, has no silly policy about not selling computers. They said $40.00, I offered $30.00, they said "Sold!" This thing is built like a tank! I actually put it on a scale because I had to know, and it weighs forty pounds; it's a computer that can double as workout equipment. Socket 1366, i7 920, twelve gigabytes of DDR3, a GTX 260 (an unusual OEM version that has 1.7 gigabytes of DDR3), an SB0880 X-Fi, a wireless N card, a DVD RW, and a Blu Ray RW. I decided to buy it because the X-Fi alone goes for about $30.00 on Ebay.

Everything works, though of course the hard drive is old and slow and the Windows 7 installation is badly in need of being formatted.

Wow, it has triple channel memory in six slots. That's pretty interesting to see. Based on the parts inside it seems like someone used it for a while and kept upgrading it. Nice find!

IIRC all 1366 systems had triple channel, not sure why Intel decided to move back to dual channel for Sandybridge.

For the HEDT platform, Intel actually went to quad channel with Sandy Bridge E (although there are some uncommon mini-ITX boards with dual channel). As for this writing, the mainstream desktop platform is still limited to dual channel for both Intel and AMD.

I never saw LGA1366 systems as a mainstream solution.

Gmlb256 wrote on 2022-12-14, 03:20:

TrashPanda wrote on 2022-12-14, 02:30:

Cosmic wrote on 2022-12-14, 01:27:

Wow, it has triple channel memory in six slots. That's pretty interesting to see. Based on the parts inside it seems like someone used it for a while and kept upgrading it. Nice find!

IIRC all 1366 systems had triple channel, not sure why Intel decided to move back to dual channel for Sandybridge.

For the HEDT platform, Intel actually went to quad channel with Sandy Bridge E (although there are some uncommon mini-ITX boards with dual channel). As for this writing, the mainstream desktop platform is still limited to dual channel for both Intel and AMD.

I never saw LGA1366 systems as a mainstream solution.

It technically wasn't HEDT either, it had a weird place in the line up sitting between Core2 and Sandy Bridge.

TrashPanda wrote on 2022-12-14, 03:40:

Gmlb256 wrote on 2022-12-14, 03:20:

TrashPanda wrote on 2022-12-14, 02:30:

IIRC all 1366 systems had triple channel, not sure why Intel decided to move back to dual channel for Sandybridge.

For the HEDT platform, Intel actually went to quad channel with Sandy Bridge E (although there are some uncommon mini-ITX boards with dual channel). As for this writing, the mainstream desktop platform is still limited to dual channel for both Intel and AMD.

I never saw LGA1366 systems as a mainstream solution.

It technically wasn't HEDT either, it had a weird place in the line up sitting between Core2 and Sandy Bridge.

Until LGA1156 was released, the mainstream equivalent for Nehalem and Westmere. It still had a weird place though, lacking a quad-core CPU with 32nm process.

TrashPanda wrote on 2022-12-14, 02:30:

Cosmic wrote on 2022-12-14, 01:27:

Repo Man11 wrote on 2022-12-13, 22:43:

I picked up a Dell Studio XPS 435T/9000 at my local thrift store that, thankfully, has no silly policy about not selling computers. They said $40.00, I offered $30.00, they said "Sold!" This thing is built like a tank! I actually put it on a scale because I had to know, and it weighs forty pounds; it's a computer that can double as workout equipment. Socket 1366, i7 920, twelve gigabytes of DDR3, a GTX 260 (an unusual OEM version that has 1.7 gigabytes of DDR3), an SB0880 X-Fi, a wireless N card, a DVD RW, and a Blu Ray RW. I decided to buy it because the X-Fi alone goes for about $30.00 on Ebay.

Everything works, though of course the hard drive is old and slow and the Windows 7 installation is badly in need of being formatted.

Wow, it has triple channel memory in six slots. That's pretty interesting to see. Based on the parts inside it seems like someone used it for a while and kept upgrading it. Nice find!

IIRC all 1366 systems had triple channel, not sure why Intel decided to move back to dual channel for Sandybridge.

But you gotta remember that 1366 was the HEDT Edition of 1st gen Core. The mainstream socket, LGA 1156 for Lynnfield, was equipped with dual channel memory. If anything, Sandy Bridge was a good step forward in terms of memory configuration. Sure, peasants still had to make do with dual channel, but the HEDT-focused 2011 platforms received a healthy dose of quad channel RAM.

It was rather unfortunate, then, that the single core memory access performance of LGA2011 was somewhat behind that of the mainstream 1155 socket, which hurt a few applications, namely older games. But fire up a well threaded program that could benefit from the monstrous memory bandwidth resultant of all cores hammering away at the quad channel bus concurrently, and well, it was the absolute nuts man!

Edit: Well, I was really late to this party! Sorry about the second reply on this thread about 1366 and its apparent HEDTness!

Standard Def Steve wrote on 2022-12-14, 03:56:

But you gotta remember that 1366 was the HEDT Edition of 1st gen Core. The mainstream socket, LGA 1156 for Lynnfield, was equipp […]
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TrashPanda wrote on 2022-12-14, 02:30:

Cosmic wrote on 2022-12-14, 01:27:

Wow, it has triple channel memory in six slots. That's pretty interesting to see. Based on the parts inside it seems like someone used it for a while and kept upgrading it. Nice find!

IIRC all 1366 systems had triple channel, not sure why Intel decided to move back to dual channel for Sandybridge.

But you gotta remember that 1366 was the HEDT Edition of 1st gen Core. The mainstream socket, LGA 1156 for Lynnfield, was equipped with dual channel memory. If anything, Sandy Bridge was a good step forward in terms of memory configuration. Sure, peasants still had to make do with dual channel, but the HEDT-focused 2011 platforms received a healthy dose of quad channel RAM.

It was rather unfortunate, then, that the single core memory access performance of LGA2011 was somewhat behind that of the mainstream 1155 socket, which hurt a few applications, namely older games. But fire up a well threaded program that could benefit from the monstrous memory bandwidth resultant of all cores hammering away at the quad channel bus concurrently, and well, it was the absolute nuts man!

Edit: Well, I was really late to this party! Sorry about the second reply on this thread about 1366 and its apparent HEDTness!

I would have loved if they had just kept triple channel for the consumer space and quad for HEDT, I always thought that top end desktop PCs were gimped by the lack of memory channels. Its only with the introduction of DDR5 that this lack of channels in the consumer space has been essentially removed, I do wonder if DDR6 will make this even better with two full 64bit channels per stick rather than the current two 32bit channels. (Essentially full quad channel across 4 DDR slots)

Saw this NOS Laplink cable for cheap and grabbed it, should give me another way to get files to and from old DOS based machines and laptops. Again if I can avoid having to tool around with coax networking or networking in general for DOS machines then I will.

TrashPanda wrote on 2022-12-14, 05:44:

Saw this NOS Laplink cable for cheap and grabbed it, should give me another way to get files to and from old DOS based machines and laptops. Again if I can avoid having to tool around with coax networking or networking in general for DOS machines then I will.

Laplink.jpg

Any null modem cable and a terminal program with transfer protocols will work.

Veeb0rg wrote on 2022-12-14, 08:14:

TrashPanda wrote on 2022-12-14, 05:44:

Saw this NOS Laplink cable for cheap and grabbed it, should give me another way to get files to and from old DOS based machines and laptops. Again if I can avoid having to tool around with coax networking or networking in general for DOS machines then I will.

Laplink.jpg

Any null modem cable and a terminal program with transfer protocols will work.

I dont have a null modem cable or the inclination to make one, this was a fiver and will last far longer than anything I could rig up.

TrashPanda wrote on 2022-12-14, 12:49:

Veeb0rg wrote on 2022-12-14, 08:14:

TrashPanda wrote on 2022-12-14, 05:44:

Saw this NOS Laplink cable for cheap and grabbed it, should give me another way to get files to and from old DOS based machines and laptops. Again if I can avoid having to tool around with coax networking or networking in general for DOS machines then I will.

Laplink.jpg

Any null modem cable and a terminal program with transfer protocols will work.

I dont have a null modem cable or the inclination to make one, this was a fiver and will last far longer than anything I could rig up.

That's pretty interesting, I've never used a LapLink / null-printer cable. I'm the other way around and use a null-modem cable all the time, especially with my PCEngines router. Might have to grab one of these and test it out, especially if it's faster as Wikipedia says it is.

I tried dumping a Thinkpad 760E's 2GB HDD over serial once, to avoid breaking it out of it's proprietary plastic shell. I calculated it would take a minimum of 22 days at 9800 baud and it failed a few minutes later anyway, lol.