Obtained another V3 3000,and ye i found missing cap

Just use 500mhz or below, then it should be fine. If there are still issues, then perhaps an update to the latest Beta BIOS will sort the issues for you. There might be someone here, that remember more about this stuff. I just remember that the BIOS was for fixing +500mhz on certain revisions.

Ozzuneoj wrote:

So, my local old-school computer shop supplied me with some really nice old IBM keyboards today. They appear to be basically bra […]
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So, my local old-school computer shop supplied me with some really nice old IBM keyboards today. They appear to be basically brand new. They had a little bit of what I'd call "storage residue" on them, but they are free of the usual grime that a used keyboard has. No Dorito crumbs in between the keys or grungy looking key caps.

IBM_Keyboards 2016-04-28 001 (1920x2560).jpg

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IBM_Keyboards 2016-04-28 004 (2560x1920).jpg

The one with the box (the larger one) is an IBM 6323 from 1996, which is apparently a rubber dome style keyboard but is one of the better ones out there. I guess its the same as a Chicony 6323, which I've read is a very good keyboard. After a little bit of cleaning, it looks nearly perfect with only a little bit of discoloration along the bottom edge.

The other is an IBM\Lexmark Model M2 from 1993, which had a little bit of gunk on it but looks to have never actually been used. After cleaning it up, its pristine! The legs had actually never even been propped up (the plastic had no grooves in it and it was super tight). And it has that oh-so-glorious super loud springy click that I was hoping for. Its basically the perfect retro keyboard for me because its so compact.

I paid $20 each for them, which isn't an amazing amazing deal (when he told me about them, I thought maybe he had some original Model Ms for the same price) but is good none the less, since I can use them. My Keytronic AT\XT switchable keyboard can now be switched back to XT and used exclusively with my upgraded 5150.

Well. this has been totally disappointing.

The Model M2 ended up having a problem where the caps and scroll lock lights would stay on, which I read about and determined that it was caused by one or two failed capacitors. I actually happened to have some compatible replacements on hand, so I replaced them and then found that many keys didn't work. So I dismantled it again.

... Keep in mind that these keyboards are in my opinion a NIGHTMARE to take apart since they use tons of plastic clips with a lot of tension and all of the springs jiggle around and fall out of place incredibly easily once you've loosed some clips. And reassembly has to be done UPSIDE DOWN without the springs touching anything...

So I checked it out and found that there were several blackened traces on the clear plastic flexible "PCBs" (for lack of the right word, that's what I'll call them), which showed as totally dead circuits in some spots when tested with a multimeter. I assumed this was from the one cap being totally dead and allowing too much juice to go through the circuit at some point when it was plugged in. So, I figured "hey, I can fix traces... why not make this otherwise perfect old thing work?" so i actually took the time to reconnect traces through various means. The most successful method turned out to be using window defogger repair "paint" to connect parts of traces that still worked. This actually worked incredibly well. After spending hours (because I'm stupid and I get obsessed with fixing something until its either done or hopeless) doing this over and over and testing keys, I finally had them all working. The best news was that the controller was apparently fine since all the keys worked.

One reassembly attempt failed miserably because I thought I could do it while watching Doctor Who. Apparently a nightmarish keyboard design requires one's full attention.

So, today I put it all back together after leaving it alone for several days, and upon testing it I find that all of the keys work fine... except the arrow keys started crapping out on me while playing Hover. And for some reason the up arrow key started randomly spitting out zeros. I just don't see the point in diagnosing beyond this. It takes hours to dismantle, fiddle with and then get it back together properly.

Extremely depressing...

Its the perfect compact retro keyboard IMO, since its small, light weight and extremely clicky... and it was absolutely pristine! Very very sad...

I'll see if the shop will take it back or swap it out for something else if he has anything else like this left...

In the meantime, I'll have to be content with the IBM rubber dome keyboard I got at the same time, with its non-clicky-but-perfectly-functioning ways... At least until I can find another old high quality (hopefully higher quality than an M2) vintage keyboard.

rein_ein wrote:

Obtained another V3 3000,and ye i found missing cap […]
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Obtained another V3 3000,and ye i found missing cap

It probably works fine without it. Still, the cap isn't the only this that's missing on the card. All-in-all very fixable if you're handy with a soldering iron

I have always loved Slot A hardware (don't ask me why... I don't know), so I really wanted to get some again. I noticed an ad for an Asus K7V mainboard and immediately bought it (9 euros). It even came with a CPU! After contact with the seller he would add some more stuff... Another CPU and a Gold Finger Device! 😁 😁

The CPU's are 600MHz (the sawed open one) and 700MHz. I think I'll keep the 700MHz original 😀

Bought today from local fleamarket IBM ThinkPad A31. Administrators password was missing and I just added 256 Mb extra ram and started system recovery which is now installing XP. And all this just 10 euros 😀

I also got another Pentium 4 system from work, I told them to keep all beige boxes for me instead of recycling them. This one's a

Pentium 4 3.6GHz
Asus P5P800 mainboard (Intel 865PE chipset, S775)
Asus Radeon 9550 video (128MB)
2GB DDR RAM
Okay Optical drives
Decent PSU

Bought a Robotron ES1834 - XT class machine, made in DDR (Eastern Germany)...

More pics ...

http://imgur.com/a/sfCgw

ScoutPilot19 wrote:

Bought a Robotron ES1834 - XT class machine, made in DDR (Eastern Germany)... […]
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Bought a Robotron ES1834 - XT class machine, made in DDR (Eastern Germany)...

More pics ...

http://imgur.com/a/sfCgw

Wow, I think Robotron is just about the best '80s PC brand name I've ever heard. 😲

Cyrix200+ wrote:

I have always loved Slot A hardware (don't ask me why... I don't know), so I really wanted to get some again. I noticed an ad for an Asus K7V mainboard and immediately bought it (9 euros). It even came with a CPU! After contact with the seller he would add some more stuff... Another CPU and a Gold Finger Device! 😁 😁

*pics*

The CPU's are 600MHz (the sawed open one) and 700MHz. I think I'll keep the 700MHz original 😀

I know that feels,Slot Athlons is something exciting,currently own 550mhz and 700mhz and pair of boards,only missing Gold Finger Device. 🤣
Also congrats with decent price and have fun playing with it! 😀

Picked this up this evening off a local guy for the bargain price of £10. Released late 2007 i think so relatively old. Wanted to build a machine around 775 to play about with. Want to try a 771 Xeon chip with it. Tri SLI too hahaha. 3 GTX8800 Ultra's anyone!? 😵

EVGA Nforce 780i SLI with a Core2Duo E8400.

Cyrix200+ wrote:

I have always loved Slot A hardware (don't ask me why... I don't know), so I really wanted to get some again. I noticed an ad for an Asus K7V mainboard and immediately bought it (9 euros). It even came with a CPU! After contact with the seller he would add some more stuff... Another CPU and a Gold Finger Device! 😁 😁

<snip>

The CPU's are 600MHz (the sawed open one) and 700MHz. I think I'll keep the 700MHz original 😀

Where did you get the little socket edge-connector for overclocking Slot-A chips? Did you buy it online somewhere?

Gold finger devices are STUPID rare. its annoys me a great deal, having a wonderful 1ghz slot-a cpu and a top-notch board and not have one of these devices.

@brancho

That is a nice board, I have one i just retired from my sisters system. I put in a LV xeon and I'm going to use it as a DIY-router for when gigabit fiber comes to my area. (VERY SOON)

rein_ein wrote:

Cyrix200+ wrote:

I have always loved Slot A hardware (don't ask me why... I don't know), so I really wanted to get some again. I noticed an ad for an Asus K7V mainboard and immediately bought it (9 euros). It even came with a CPU! After contact with the seller he would add some more stuff... Another CPU and a Gold Finger Device! 😁 😁

*pics*

The CPU's are 600MHz (the sawed open one) and 700MHz. I think I'll keep the 700MHz original 😀

I know that feels,Slot Athlons is something exciting,currently own 550mhz and 700mhz and pair of boards,only missing Gold Finger Device. 🤣
Also congrats with decent price and have fun playing with it! 😀

Slot A Athlons hold a special place for me too. The first PC I built 100% custom from the ground up was based on a Tyan KX133 Slot A board and an Athlon 750. The board+CPU cost me almost $500 back in 2000. Pretty crazy! I wish I still had that combo. I still have the motherboard box and the original Tyan driver CD but that's all I have. The rest of it was sold to a friend a few years later along with my Geforce 2 GTS and Vortex 2 SQ2500. I'd LOVE to find that computer again. 😊

I did recently come into possession of a brand new in box Asus K7V with all its accessories that included a little rectangular mystery item sealed in an antistatic bag (from a poorly described listing on ebay!). The mystery item turned out, as I had hoped and expected, to be an Athlon CPU... a really nice, brand new 850Mhz one! If I didn't already have too many redundant systems from this era, I'd put that system together for sure...

luckybob wrote:

Gold finger devices are STUPID rare. its annoys me a great deal, having a wonderful 1ghz slot-a cpu and a top-notch board and not have one of these devices.

@brancho

That is a nice board, I have one i just retired from my sisters system. I put in a LV xeon and I'm going to use it as a DIY-router for when gigabit fiber comes to my area. (VERY SOON)

I know they are. I'm secretly hoping Cyrix200+ found some online and someone has em for sale.... I dream.

Got a Toshiba T4600 486SLC 33 MHz laptop yesterday, but I'm too lazy to dig it out and photograph it. Sadly, it doesn't work - I reckon it needs recapping. Even more annoyingly, many of the floppy disks it came with were bad - I was able to back up 4 of the 5 DOS 6.22 disks, but almost all of the 31 (!) Microsoft Office Professional 4.3 floppies, all of the Windows 3.11 and all of the Microsoft Works 3.0 disks were bad. Fortunately on that front, it does look like someone has already preserved them. However, the battery does still charge (off the original charger no less) - I believe it is impossible to fully kill a NiMH battery, based on my experiences!

> I believe it is impossible to fully kill a NiMH battery

On the other side they are fully able to kill the whole laptop by leaking. CMOS battery drama x100.

Lukeno94 wrote:

However, the battery does still charge (off the original charger no less) - I believe it is impossible to fully kill a NiMH battery, based on my experiences!

The NiMH in my MMX Toshiba still works and holds charge for about an hour, impressively. Makes for some excellent extended Worms playing sessions when I'm hiding from the kids in the toilet. I am hoping the CMOS battery is coin cell rather than NiCD...

brassicGamer wrote:

Lukeno94 wrote:

However, the battery does still charge (off the original charger no less) - I believe it is impossible to fully kill a NiMH battery, based on my experiences!

The NiMH in my MMX Toshiba still works and holds charge for about an hour, impressively. Makes for some excellent extended Worms playing sessions when I'm hiding from the kids in the toilet. I am hoping the CMOS battery is coin cell rather than NiCD...

The other thing I've observed is that NiMH batteries hold totally inconsistent charges when they're knackered. Sometimes they last a couple of minutes, sometimes they last for quite a while. Then again... I do have a lithium-ion battery in my Thinkpad 600 (from a slightly newer 600E) that still holds 2.5 hours charge!

My Toshiba Satellite 410CDT can hold just over an hour of charge, but I cannot remember the battery chemistry, probably NiMh given it is fairly small and light (to me) and I've only really timed it when using Word 97 when I wanted to work on my book away from any power outlets. The internal batteries seem to be completely dead though and I will probably take them out soon before they decide to leak and ruin the machine.

The Zenith impresses me more simply because the 26 year old NiCd battery still runs the laptop for around an hour AT FULL LOAD. Tempted to be brave and see if my 1987 model will hold any charge. I liked NiCd, shame you can't legally obtain them anymore outside of the medical sector. The SlimsPORT's battery party trick never gets old though, surprises people a bit when you just rip it away from the power cord and walk off with the PC Speaker still making obnoxious noises and the screen trying to keep up with whatever demo I made it run. Back in 2004 (So it was already clocking on for 15 years) it was in good enough shape that it could outlive the battery on my bosses P4 laptop and I think I've told that story here before... Haha, man did he used to get mad being outdone at every turn by a puny 286.