bjwil1991 wrote:

True. There aren't a whole lot of cards that support AGP 8x, but, are backwards compatible with AGP 4x systems, such as a Socket 370 motherboard with a VIA Apollo Pro 133A (Shuttle AV18 V3), or early Pentium 4 boards, such as the ASUS P4B-LA (Pavilion 7955). The Intel chipsets were always far behind on features, such as AGP (i430 Triton boards), or faster speed with AGP.

Also, unlike PCI expansion, AGP has its own bus speed, which can make games run faster and better than PCI video cards (with all of the PCI slots populated as the PCI slots share the same bus speed, and if you populate the PCI slots, it drops the video card's performance), and correct me if I'm wrong here.

I think it is a bit like with AGP Pro cards. Great socket, yet not enough support from the industry or too few bought it. Perhaps too expensive compared to performance?

JidaiGeki wrote:

lazibayer wrote:

verysaving wrote:

ECS K7S5A !!!!

http://redhill.net.au/b/b-02.htm

Damn 😵

Hmmmm my memory of K7S5A was quite pleasant. Back in its days it was in my main PC and running at FSB 266 with DDR RAM.

Same. At the time it was lauded as a good buy, with decent enough performance. I built a couple of systems for family and friends based on that board, they didn't complain. Have one in my collection, but every single cap has bulged, so it definitely wasn't a quality item!

ECS = Elitegroup = PC Chips - the board was also sold as PC Chips 830LR. So expectations of high build quality wouldn't be very realistic 😉

That said, we're talking 2001-2002 here, which was about the nadir of the capacitor plague. Almost every board from that era had crap caps, including ones from top-tier manufacturers.

The thing about the K7S5A was that it was for a while by a significant margin the best performing SoA board out there, while at the same time being the cheapest one available. That was a pretty unusual combination. The Redhill review is based on an early BIOS - the first few were downright awful, with big memory timing issues (that's the instability mentioned) and a floppy data corruption bug that mainly manifested itself in bricking BIOS updates if you did them from floppy.
However within a month or two a new BIOS update fixed both and you were left with rock-solid stability with excellent performance for a ridiculously cheap price. Even when it was no longer the fastest board out there (Via's KT333 and of course the nForce beat it), it remained by far the best budget option for a good while afterwards - basically until the end of the SoA era, particularly when paired with the Duron Applebred CPUs.

A totally legit ZX Spectrum!

I did some cleaning (the glue residue on the buttons still persists though) and nothing seems to be damaged, rusted or broken. Soviet KP1858BM1 Zilog Z80 clone. I don't have any cabling or a power supply for it so it will take a while before I can test it.

Deksor wrote:

Isn't this an EGA card ? They often have two RCA like this, but it's not composite.

From some quick research I did it is apparently CGA, noting also the lack of DIP switches commonly found on EGA cards. I think 1 of those RCA connectors is for use with a light pen or somesuch, the other is composite.

...and now my promised insane post - delayed by a power outage seconds after my last post on Vogons last night. Thankfully, I was working on a laptop.

Yesterday I picked up three separate piles of stuff. This is what I knew in advance:
1) Three tower cases (yellowed) and a monitor and keyboard. No idea about specs, but one of the cases was a Packard Bell Squarius II I'd been looking for for some time.
2) A "Windows 95 PC" in a desktop AT case, complete with peripherals. No idea as to internals.
3) A two boxes of cards. A bit above my usual budget, but probably worth it, with a NIB 3D accelerator, some Soundblaster 32 and more goodies.

So what did I find?

1) The instant I entered the seller's apartment I knew I'd seriously miscalculated. This was smoke hell; the cases weren't yellowed due to age and sunlight - which literally didn't enter the place due to tar on the windows - but due to being stored in an unventilated environment with insane amounts of cigarette smoke. Just to emphasize, I grew up with a heavily smoking father and my brother has picked up where he left off, so I'm used to a significant level of smoke. This was on a different level entirely.

Here's the loot outside:

No way was that stuff entering my house in that state. The low-end Dell CRT and keyboard went straight into the bin. The only case I wanted was the PB. The other two were crap and even filthier, so I rescued the cards out of both and the motherboard from one of them. The other was a Jetway 663AS, but despite the filth it was obvious all the caps were blown. Cleaning and recapping an unexceptional SoA board was more than I was prepared to do, so it went to the bin with the case it was in.

Then it was time to clean the remaning case and the components. Some pics to show how bad it was:

The backplate looked 'golden' until thoroughly scrubbed - see the contrast between the one line I cleaned and the rest.

Heatsink anyone?

Sounds bad, took ages and my hands still stink after multiple washes... but even after that I was left with enough goodies:

Packard Bell Squarius II (Symphony) uATX case
CD-ROM drive
3.5" Floppy
Abit SR7-8X (SiS 648)
GVC FR520 (SiS 530)
P4 3.06 Northwood
K6-2 450
512MB DDR-333
2x 256MB PC133
2x 32MB PC100
3Com 3C900B-TPO
RTL8009 10Mb ISA non-PnP
Yamaha YMF724 XG
Winmodem PCI (why bother...?)
Pinnacle Redstone 5.0 video capture
Club3D CGN-1888CTVD-1 (Gf4MX-440 128MB)
Powercolor A5PG (Rage 128 Pro)

2) Then the second pickup. This was the real deal, an ancient PC that had belonged to the sellers aged aunt (who mercifully wasn't a smoker) until she passed away. I was shocked to hear the (modest) proceeds weren't beer money but would be feeding his family for a week. Even in a country like the Netherlands there is real hardship in places...

Not only did it work as promised (well, except for the speakers), the insides were better than expected:

Tatung TM4422
'Time' AT desktop case
Asus PVI-4SP3 (SiS chipset, I/O onboard and VIP-IO)
Am486DX4-100
16MB FP
544MB IDE HDD (with Win95)
120MB IDE HDD
Dead Acer CDRom drive
NEC 3.5" FDD
ATi Mach64VT 1MB PCI
Chicony KB-5311 (supposedly mechanical, but feels like old rubber dome...)
Microsoft Serial Mouse 2.1A
Labtec LCS-2408 subwoofer
Juster 'Active 75' speakers. That weren't.
Mirosound PCM1 Pro (not detected/installed in Windows...)

3) Finally the two boxes. This was known good stuff, but turned out better than expected, particularly in the sound card department (ad showed a single SB16 and AWE32):

AOpen AX6B Plus (i440BX + SCSI)
MSI MS-6199VA (Via ApolloPro133) (bad caps galore...)
P3-700E
Celeron 667
Abit Slotket III
"370CPU" v1.0 slocket
4x 256MB PC133
2x 512MB PC133
4x 1GB DDR2-667
2x 2GB DDR2-800
FSP ATX-250PA (ATX12V, no -5V)
2x PATA DVD-RW
SATA DVD-RW
2x 3.5" floppy drive
2x 3.5" USB card reader
2.5" 60GB PATA HDD
2x 3.5" 40GB PATA HDD
3.5" 320GB PATA HDD
2x Sitecom CN-029 USB 2.0 PCI (Via chipset)
Sweex Via6212-2 USB 2.0 PCI
Internal USB 1.1 powered hub
2x RTL 10/100Mbps NIC (one with black PCB)
3Com 3C905B-TX
Asus V9180SE/T/P/64M/A
XFX/Pine PV-T31K-RAF7 (FX5600) - with ATi fan 😜
2x Sound Blaster 16 WavEffects CT4170
Soundblaster 32 CT3670
Soundblaster AWE64 CT4500
Matrox m3D (PowerVR PCX2) sealed new in box

Big question here is what to do with the Matrox. I don't normally collect this sort of thing, but it would be a shame to open this beauty.

Otherwise I have my hands full for the coming evenings. All this stuff needs testing, that PB case needs thorough cleaning, then I can start my ultimate PB build (with MS-6168 motherboard + P3-1400S - if I can get it to run, failing that a P3-1000EB which I have running now).

dionb wrote:

Matrox m3D (PowerVR PCX2) sealed new in box

Big question here is what to do with the Matrox. I don't normally collect this sort of thing, but it would be a shame to open this beauty..

I would say if you're not in need of money keep it - it will only go up in value (sealed). Even better, if you got a proper hardware to partner with it, open it up and enjoy it yourself 😎 On a big market place you're getting 300 USD for it (or more), but I would keep it to myself if not in need of immediate cash.

If you like Mechwarrior 2, PowerVR is definitely the way to experience it. However, I'm not sure what the price delta is between an M3D card CIB and the same card CIB, sealed.

rikukos wrote:

dionb wrote:

Matrox m3D (PowerVR PCX2) sealed new in box

Big question here is what to do with the Matrox. I don't normally collect this sort of thing, but it would be a shame to open this beauty..

I would say if you're not in need of money keep it - it will only go up in value (sealed). Even better, if you got a proper hardware to partner with it, open it up and enjoy it yourself 😎 On a big market place you're getting 300 USD for it (or more), but I would keep it to myself if not in need of immediate cash.

Fortunately not in need of immediate cash, but I don't have space for storage or display of this sort of thing - plus some young children who would no doubt find it one day and decide to start painting on it or practicing their scissor skills 😁

Actually enjoying the card: sure - but then I don't need the sealed box. Plus I'm really more into DOS stuff than Windows, and not a huge 3D fan either way, which rather limits its usefulness to me.

I think plan C is better: see if someone on a more community oriented site is interesting in trading it for something I do want/need of similar value. Failing that I can always try that big market place with excessive prices, and then using the proceeds for the same.

gdjacobs wrote:

If you like Mechwarrior 2, PowerVR is definitely the way to experience it. However, I'm not sure what the price delta is between an M3D card CIB and the same card CIB, sealed.

Very good question. You just don't see these cards every day, with or without box. But wouldn't surprise me if the delta is pretty big. At least, the USD 300 mentioned above sounds realistic (although the last one I could find went for a bit over half that), but I'd be surprised if anyone would pay more that 1/10 that for the card alone, even if a few optimistic sellers keep trying. Anyway, I'm not so much in it for the money as I would like the box to go to someone who would appreciate it in its current state. Because that's just not my thing, but I know how happy people can get who do care about it.

dionb wrote:

I'm really more into DOS stuff than Windows, and not a huge 3D fan either way, which rather limits its usefulness to me.

Count me in the DOS club as well 😀 However, Mech 2 mentioned above, if anything, is THE game to experience with that card.

dionb wrote:

You just don't see these cards every day, with or without box. But wouldn't surprise me if the delta is pretty big. At least, the USD 300 mentioned above sounds realistic (although the last one I could find went for a bit over half that)

Yeah, If I remember correctly the last one was CIB but not sealed - that will make a BIG diff in value 😉

dionb wrote:

ECS = Elitegroup = PC Chips - the board was also sold as PC Chips 830LR. So expectations of high build quality wouldn't be very realistic 😉

ECS was not acquired by PcChips until 2005.

PcChips is the distributor for (marketing branch of) Hsing Tech.
Hsing Tech is the actual manufacturer.

I had an accidental email exchange with Hsing Tech's CEO in the late 90's.
I asked PcChips Tech Support if something could be done with some chipset (one of their clones) and (language barrier??) it was interpreted that I wanted such a chipset built. Next thing I know I get an email from their CEO saying "sure we can do that, but you have to order 20,000 motherboards".
.

dionb wrote:

2) Then the second pickup. This was the real deal, an ancient PC that had belonged to the sellers aged aunt (who mercifully wasn […]
Show full quote

2) Then the second pickup. This was the real deal, an ancient PC that had belonged to the sellers aged aunt (who mercifully wasn't a smoker) until she passed away. I was shocked to hear the (modest) proceeds weren't beer money but would be feeding his family for a week. Even in a country like the Netherlands there is real hardship in places...

Ambivalent feelings: on one hand, I can't help but feel compassion towards people who are in such hardships, on other hand, hey, at my in-laws they have the same speakers:

dionb wrote:

<snip> 1) The instant I entered the seller's apartment I knew I'd seriously miscalculated. This was smoke hell; the cases weren' […]
Show full quote

<snip>
1) The instant I entered the seller's apartment I knew I'd seriously miscalculated. This was smoke hell; the cases weren't yellowed due to age and sunlight - which literally didn't enter the place due to tar on the windows - but due to being stored in an unventilated environment with insane amounts of cigarette smoke. Just to emphasize, I grew up with a heavily smoking father and my brother has picked up where he left off, so I'm used to a significant level of smoke. This was on a different level entirely.

Here's the loot outside:

<snip>

Bweuch. That is very nasty. My Olivetti M24 was in a similar state. It took forever to clean but it was worth it.

Nice finds all together! I can see you collection is escalating rapidly 😉

I would not unbox that Matrox card, If you would like to use it maybe try and trade it for an unboxed card + more of course.

Technically this was yesterday, but I went thrifting and also checked out the Freegeek garage sale. I picked up a bunch of bits and baubles:

The fan is a big scary Delta with three blades, an inch and a half of thickness, and close to an amp of power draw. I bought it because it's loud and awesome, but now I'm scared to even try it.

The cable beside it looks like a 30-pin iDevice dock to 3.5mm connector. Might be handy if I run across a cheap iPhone dock since nothing uses that connector anymore.

Both the mice are from Value Village, which was surprising because usually they don't have anything that old. The serial mouse is made by Mitsumi and mostly unremarkable, but I wanted a backup if I couldn't figure out the PS/2 header on my Pentium box. The Microsoft mouse is actually an optical one, and though it's probably early-2000s it looks similar to the one I had in the 90s while offering some modern conveniences. It is, however, filthy.

I had a combo laser pointer like the one on the lower left before, but I broke it. I've been looking for a replacement ever since. Unfortunately the batteries are junk and I don't have any spares so I'll need to get some.

The model kit was cheap and looks really neat. I'm not good with those and I'm not sure if I'll ever build it.

Finally, we have Black and White, which you probably can't read because of the glare. This is the deluxe edition, but they also had the base game and expansion separately. I was kind of surprised to see two copies, because I wanted this game for a video a while back and couldn't find it anywhere, and I mean anywhere.

And I also got, well, this:

They weren't actually selling what I was looking for (an AT case for my Pentium build), but I asked if they had one and they had this whole computer. It was in pretty rough shape, and I wasn't expecting much, but it seemed to be intact physically and all I really needed was the case. And if the optical drive worked, that would be a nice bonus provided it was IDE (which I wasn't sure of at first).

To my surprise, the machine booted. I did remove all the nonessential bits including the badly bent modem first. There was no hard drive, but DOS from a floppy or floppy emulator worked fine. And it's quite a fascinating machine, clearly an early 1990s 486 machine that was upgraded at least once. The motherboard has an OPTi chipset and no VLB or PCI, the processor is a DX4 Overdrive, clearly not original, and the CD-ROM dates from 1995.

I feel kind of bad tearing it apart, but there are two pretty serious issues with the machine. The first is the unreliable power switch. It needs to be nudged just the right way to fully turn on, and makes ominous sparking sounds if it's not. Yikes! The second is the leaking clock battery, which only seems to have caused cosmetic damage but definitely needs to be changed before it gets worse.

Perhaps this machine will live again, but for now I'm just going to use some of its parts in my Pentium rig. If the CD-ROM works, I'll be using that since it's far more period-appropriate than my other one (a DVD-RW from 2009), I might use the soundcard, and the case of course is what I bought it for.

Cyrix200+ wrote:

[...]

Bweuch. That is very nasty. My Olivetti M24 was in a similar state. It took forever to clean but it was worth it.

Nice finds all together! I can see you collection is escalating rapidly 😉

Much too rapidly. Basically it's just a by-product of choosing to try and get the stuff I want cheaper than paying eBay prices by buying up big lots. Now I'm trying to dump lots of it, but somehow nobody seems interested in piles of 1MB S3 and 16MB OEM Rage and TNT2 cards... 😵

I would not unbox that Matrox card, If you would like to use it maybe try and trade it for an unboxed card + more of course.

I think I've just agreed a very nice trade for something not in box 😉

@dionb - nice haul, but that heatsink!!! - I'm not sure if that's accumulated dust or chewing tobacco 😀

Just bought this 286-12 system. Working condition is unknown, the seller found it outside in the rain. It will be my first 16-bit system. Only cost £20 shipped from a popular auction site. Sellers photos.

I look forward to testing (and fixing if needed) it, and testing my CPUID code on it.

Oops, look like I need to resize pics next time

PCBONEZ wrote:

PcChips is the distributor for (marketing branch of) Hsing Tech.
Hsing Tech is the actual manufacturer.
.

Yup. PC Chips was known under many names (like Amptron and Matsonic), but ECS wasn't yet one of them. Reminds me of that line from "The Exorcist".

Karras: So far, I'd say there seem to be three. She's convinced...
Merrin: There is only one.

There was actually a table for translating between the model names from PC Chips and their various equivalents but I didn't bother keeping around the Wayback link.

Few days after buying boxed SCB-7 now I bought Boxed SCB-55 😎

(seler photo)

gdjacobs wrote:

PCBONEZ wrote:

PcChips is the distributor for (marketing branch of) Hsing Tech.
Hsing Tech is the actual manufacturer.
.

Yup. PC Chips was known under many names (like Amptron and Matsonic), but ECS wasn't yet one of them.

Regardless of the exact corporate relationship, there were a lot of identical boards sold under both names in this timeframe including the K7S5A/830LR and the K7SEM/810LMR there's another thread about at the moment.