Repo Man11 wrote on 2023-08-29, 23:35:

I was in the neighborhood of my local computer store and today's find was a five dollar, 512 megabyte AGP 7600 GS. So far it is working perfectly, and slightly outscored my slightly overclocked Ti 4600 in 3D 2001 in my Soyo Dragon system. This was after I cleaned it, replaced the thermal paste, and lubricated the fan's bearing.

Edit: I spoke too soon, after some benchmarking and game play, it died. The last one of these I ended up with did exactly the same, I guess it's typical for video cards from around this time. Easy come, easy go.

Had a very frustrating experience with a GTX7800 512Mb. A rare version of what could have been a GTX7800 Ultra.

I found one locally for cheap. Super lucky. Tested, cleaned, new paste, new pads. And stored it until i got a second one for SLI. (Already had a standard 7800GTX SLI at the moment)
A year or so after, i got a second one, (more expensive and with super expensive shipping from US). Tested, cleaned, new paste, new pads. Runs OK

My SLI lasted about one hour. Until the first card died.... Yes, the one i stored for a year.
I dreamt about this setup for more than a year, and it lasted one hour.

I replaced it since, but i this incident pissed me so much that i stopped any retro activities for a month or so.

If you still have that card, maybe consider sending it to a professional shop to try having it reballed.

Kahenraz wrote on 2023-08-30, 08:19:

If you still have that card, maybe consider sending it to a professional shop to try having it reballed.

I sold it to someone who wanted to reball it. Along with other cards, such as 7950GX2 and a Radeon HD5970 (both dead too)

To replace the dead card, i bought a lot of untested GTX7800 512 from a recycler. I now have 3 completely working cards (my SLI + one spare card). Another one that runs OK alone, but causes some SM3 issues when paired in SLI and two or three dead ones (artifacts, BSOD) (Thread and pictures : Re: My first retro build : 2005's finest (almost))

I still have my reflowed Winfast GF 8800GTX. Whoever had it before me and my friend really did a crap job at that. I used proper flux, proper thermal paste and it's been running absolutely beautiful since then in my A64 x2 939 build.

Dang, I gotta pull that one out for a spin soon.

https://theretroweb.com/motherboards/s/abc-co … 86-a3886-01-v3-

Seller's pics. Will be a nice winter project.

Bought a rather modern 486 board (including the CPU and 4x16MB FP memory) today, for 20€. Sellers picture:

Doesn't post, seller claims it's a broken BIOS - either way, it's going to be a nice Sunday afternoon project 😀

KungfuPancake wrote on 2023-08-30, 11:25:

Bought a rather modern 486 board (including the CPU and 4x16MB FP memory) today, for 20€. Sellers picture:

IMG_0384.jpeg

Doesn't post, seller claims it's a broken BIOS - either way, it's going to be a nice Sunday afternoon project 😀

Even if it's not working and it indeed is a BIOS chip, it is a great deal for 20 with a decent CPU. Of course, if seller wasn't honest or doesn't know better and fault is in chipset, things get a little more complicated as you need to source those UMC chips somewhere.

Do you know what brand of motherboard is that? Rather unusual design with cache chips on the lower right corner.

KungfuPancake wrote on 2023-08-30, 11:25:

Doesn't post, seller claims it's a broken BIOS - either way, it's going to be a nice Sunday afternoon project 😀

If it's as simple as a BIOS reflash that should take a lot less than an afternoon to fix.

Good deal for only 20 bucks!

CharlieFoxtrot wrote on 2023-08-30, 13:23:

Do you know what brand of motherboard is that? Rather unusual design with cache chips on the lower right corner.

It's a Pine Technology PT-432B. It hasn't arrived yet so I can't verify the sellers claim. Apparently the (formerly leaking?) Battery has been replaced with a hacked in coin cell, so it might be some trace damage if the acid hasn't been neutralized during the replacement. But that should be fixable.

If it is indeed the chipset and I can't easily source it, at least I got a DX4, some RAM and a nice wall hanger for the money 😁

I managed to grab this Nvidia 5200 for under £20 shipped. I liked how it was boxed and an MSi card. I have no idea what LF means? I only noticed it after i won the auction...
It doesn't say LE anywhere I tend to avoid those.
I hope I haven't got the 64bit version and not the 128. What do you guys think? I thought I got a good deal. I like shiny new boxed things with early 2000s/late 90s 3d art.

tobiasrieper wrote on 2023-08-30, 15:52:

I hope I haven't got the 64bit version and not the 128. What do you guys think?

I'm sorry to say but it does indeed look like a 64 bit card to my eye. (Judging solely by the RAM chips here.)

According to this:
https://videocardz.net/browse/msi/geforce-fx

I may be In luck. Time will tell. That's part of the fun buying this old hardware. You don't know what you're gonna get!

Indeed. Which is why I just bought 2 kilograms of AGP cards. No idea whatsoever what is in that lot, the guy was selling them by the kg 😄

We'll see once the package makes its way here...

amigopi wrote on 2023-08-30, 16:26:

Indeed. Which is why I just bought 2 kilograms of AGP cards. No idea whatsoever what is in that lot, the guy was selling them by the kg 😄

We'll see once the package makes its way here...

Hahaa, from Kemi?
I was tempted but this time I could resist 😀

Repo Man11 wrote on 2023-08-29, 23:35:

I was in the neighborhood of my local computer store and today's find was a five dollar, 512 megabyte AGP 7600 GS. So far it is working perfectly, and slightly outscored my slightly overclocked Ti 4600 in 3D 2001 in my Soyo Dragon system. This was after I cleaned it, replaced the thermal paste, and lubricated the fan's bearing.

Edit: I spoke too soon, after some benchmarking and game play, it died. The last one of these I ended up with did exactly the same, I guess it's typical for video cards from around this time. Easy come, easy go.

I thought for sure it was dead, but I gave it another try today; instead of using the 175.19 drivers, I used the 197.45. It has been working perfectly, but it was working fine for a while each time I tried it yesterday, but it would eventually overheat and begin producing strange artifacts and when I hit reset it still looked weird in the POST screen. But today (with the later drivers) I haven't been able to reproduce what happened yesterday despite running 3D mark 2000, 01, and Aquamark many times. I did clean the card with 70% isopropyl alcohol, and I gave it what I considered to be enough time for that to not be an issue as it was warm and dry in here yesterday, but maybe there was some moisture trapped somewhere? Maybe the later drivers reduced performance slightly to prevent overheating? The benchmark scores are all slightly lower with the 197.45 drivers. I noticed that the bridge chip heatsink would get scarily hot yesterday (too hot to hold your finger on it), but it still does.

I was mistaken about the other card, it was actually 7300 GT that came in a Socket 754 system I purchased. Everything else in that system was fine, but the card died shortly after I began benchmarking it. I also had an FX5500 that I bought specifically for the heat sink. I didn't care about it, but I recapped it anyway, and it worked fine. I put it away for a while, then the next time I tried it it died in short order.

Edit: I went back to the 93.71 driver and got the points back. Many cycles of benchmarks and a few hours of playing Half Life with no issues at all, so I guess it must have been residual moisture from the alcohol. So yay, a working 7600 GS for $5.00.

Nexxen wrote on 2023-08-30, 11:12:

https://theretroweb.com/motherboards/s/abc-co … 86-a3886-01-v3-

Seller's pics. Will be a nice winter project.

I dont say this too often, but it might be cheaper/easier to just pull all the parts off and make a new pcb...

that said, if you do start this project, i'd love to follow along with pics or youtubes

Sorry double post.

Got myself a Roland A-880 to share all my MIDI stuff between my rigs, comes complete with box and manual. Waiting for delivery.

tobiasrieper wrote on 2023-08-30, 15:52:

I managed to grab this Nvidia 5200 for under £20 shipped. I liked how it was boxed and an MSi card. I have no idea what LF means? I only noticed it after i won the auction...
It doesn't say LE anywhere I tend to avoid those.
I hope I haven't got the 64bit version and not the 128. What do you guys think? I thought I got a good deal. I like shiny new boxed things with early 2000s/late 90s 3d art.

It's 64-bit 128MB DDR. I got the info from the MSI website a few years ago. Unfortunately, the specs pages don't load in archive.org, or I'd provide a link.

debs3759 wrote on 2023-08-30, 21:37:

tobiasrieper wrote on 2023-08-30, 15:52:

I managed to grab this Nvidia 5200 for under £20 shipped. I liked how it was boxed and an MSi card. I have no idea what LF means? I only noticed it after i won the auction...
It doesn't say LE anywhere I tend to avoid those.
I hope I haven't got the 64bit version and not the 128. What do you guys think? I thought I got a good deal. I like shiny new boxed things with early 2000s/late 90s 3d art.

It's 64-bit 128MB DDR. I got the info from the MSI website a few years ago. Unfortunately, the specs pages don't load in archive.org, or I'd provide a link.

But the box still looks nice.
And i must admit i bought several items in the past just because the box looked great.