Miphee wrote on 2021-03-01, 10:13:

Got a box of Z80 clones made in GDR. Just a little memento of the Eastern Bloc.

For a moment I thought someone started refabbing these when you said clone :lol

pentiumspeed wrote on 2021-03-03, 03:14:

486sx 25 is like fast 386 33 still good deal. Sometimes I am OCD about what exactly wanted to get so I paid little more to get 386 parts to rebuild my compaq computers.

It's more like a 386DX40 actually. Slightly to significantly faster thn even that, actually, depending on workload. Things like DOOM run around 50% faster on the 486-25

Yesterdays delivery. A Roland Sound Canvas SC-55 (MK. I) with a Roland Sound Brush and some MIDI titles on disks. I removed the coin cell, corrosion has just about set in.

And a Thermaltake Volcano 6 Cu. I’ll use that for either a S370 chip or I’ll refit it into a passive S7 cooler.

I bought a 333MHz Celeron but was sent a 266MHz Pentium 2. If the seller gives me the option to keep or send back I was wondering what CPU was likely to be faster? I've got a 66FSB Slot 1 system.

Almoststew1990 wrote on 2021-03-03, 09:10:

I bought a 333MHz Celeron but was sent a 266MHz Pentium 2. If the seller gives me the option to keep or send back I was wondering what CPU was likely to be faster? I've got a 66FSB Slot 1 system.

The extra cache should make a world of difference at stock speeds but the 333 celeron will probably overclock better.

I remember the Mendocino core Celerons had really fast L2 cache and performed very close to the Pentiums at the same clock.

appiah4 wrote on 2021-03-03, 11:06:

Almoststew1990 wrote on 2021-03-03, 09:10:

I bought a 333MHz Celeron but was sent a 266MHz Pentium 2. If the seller gives me the option to keep or send back I was wondering what CPU was likely to be faster? I've got a 66FSB Slot 1 system.

The extra cache should make a world of difference at stock speeds but the 333 celeron will probably overclock better.

That's 512 KiB @133 MHz vs 128 KiB@333 MHz. I would cheer for the Celeron. Especially if the P2 is Klamath core ..

Got another batch of 775 CPUs and finally, something interesting!
I almost got an EE 955 too but the seller misread the SL9KG as an SL9K6. Well, one is better than none.

Picked up a brand new Gravis Pc GamePad still sealed for less than £20

Almoststew1990 wrote on 2021-03-03, 09:10:

I bought a 333MHz Celeron but was sent a 266MHz Pentium 2. If the seller gives me the option to keep or send back I was wondering what CPU was likely to be faster? I've got a 66FSB Slot 1 system.

Mendocino cache was smaller but faster. At the same clock, it was neck-and-neck with a Deschutes P2 or Katmai P3, with benchmarks preferring cache speed over size favoring the Mendocino and those preferring cache size over speed the Deschutes.

With 66MHz difference in core speed and 33MHz slower L2 (than a P2-333 would have), it's not even close: the Mendocino would make mincemeat of the old Klamath hothead. It would also consume less power, stay cooler and so require a less noisy fan (or just passive cooling). Plus you can overclock a lot of Celeron 333s to 500MHz. That P2 probably wouldn't make 300MHz - but on a 66MHz system (i440EX/LX?) that's not too relevant.

So in terms of performance the Klamath 266 is inferior across the board.

Edit:
Yep, take a look at these benchmarks

P2-266 scores 41fps where Celeron 333 Mendocino scores 55, just one less than the P2-333.

Note that the lower"Celeron 333" score is from a Covington Celeron with unlocked multiplier (which still - just - beats the P2-266). No Covington CPUs were released faster than 300MHz, so a 333MHz unit is 100% certain to be Mendocino.

Almost new Genius joystick model J-12 for 5 euro, the seller gave me PS/2 optical mouse as a gift 😀

Thanks for the help I was struggling with old Anandtech reviews to work it out. I'll request the Celeron and return the P2!

Almoststew1990 wrote on 2021-03-03, 14:22:

Thanks for the help I was struggling with old Anandtech reviews to work it out. I'll request the Celeron and return the P2!

You could request the Celeron 300A 😉. That was the “go to” CPU for overclocking back in the day. Stable and rather cool @450.

Happy day!

A more-or-less local PC shop was clearing out their stock room and found piles of 20-year old stuff, particularly cooling equipment. So, NOS Zalman CNPS coolers galore, and a Golden Orb as I already had one and think they look good on dual CPU boards 😉

dionb wrote on 2021-03-03, 17:01:

Happy day!

16147904297280.jpg

A more-or-less local PC shop was clearing out their stock room and found piles of 20-year old stuff, particularly cooling equipment. So, NOS Zalman CNPS coolers galore, and a Golden Orb as I already had one and think they look good on dual CPU boards 😉

Drool, awesome catch!

dulu wrote on 2021-03-03, 01:56:

20210303_023339.jpg
$30. The most horrible disassembly ever, but not because of the strange design. In order to unscrew the fan cover I had to use a dremel eventually. The screws acted as if they were welded on, and you could see that they were factory-made. I understood why the cover of the second part of the "sandwich" was (unfortunately) broken by the previous owner. One of the fans does not work (when the voltage is turned on, it vibrates slightly. This white plasticine is left over from thermalpads. I ran it in dell optiplex 7040 with an additional external power supply without a fan to check if it works - I log into windows (w10), drivers are installed but In the device manager I see 2 GX2 GPUs with a yellow triangle. Well, I'm glad that I can see the desktop at all, because I did not expect that the card will even start in such an unusual config. Card is cleaned up and waiting for new thermalpads and a fan. The cheapest option - $4 (and the only one) are these two corrupted gpu`s:

Got 3 7950x2's and none of them work properly.
I get a standard VGA pics, but either drivers refuse to install or if they do any 3D'ish crashes instantly.
I reckon the cooling was so bad that these cards just cooked themself pretty fast.
I haven't tried a card shuffle tho to figure out if i might have some main/daughter board combo that could work.

I had no problem disassembling mine tho.
There is one screw hidden under the front sticker, but that's about it when it comes to sneaky stuff.

dionb wrote on 2021-03-03, 17:01:

Happy day!

16147904297280.jpg

A more-or-less local PC shop was clearing out their stock room and found piles of 20-year old stuff, particularly cooling equipment. So, NOS Zalman CNPS coolers galore, and a Golden Orb as I already had one and think they look good on dual CPU boards 😉

Always loved those orb coolers... shame about their thermal performance - least they look nice 😀

appiah4 wrote on 2021-03-03, 07:01:

pentiumspeed wrote on 2021-03-03, 03:14:

486sx 25 is like fast 386 33 still good deal. Sometimes I am OCD about what exactly wanted to get so I paid little more to get 386 parts to rebuild my compaq computers.

It's more like a 386DX40 actually. Slightly to significantly faster thn even that, actually, depending on workload. Things like DOOM run around 50% faster on the 486-25

I found that Philcomputer video about this and had forgotten I had watched it years ago. 😀

And I bought this last month, just forgot to share. It's an I/O aluminum box for Lian Li cases. But it includes the cables for use on any computer. Just need to paint it beige. And in the background I found a slide viewer for a buck. I'm going to put a LCD screen in it, and use it as a tiny PI monitor.

foey wrote on 2021-03-03, 19:07:

[...]
Always loved those orb coolers... shame about their thermal performance - least they look nice 😀

They also made a hell of a lot of noise, particularly in relation to their thermals. But if they're not being used much that's less of an issue, and a spare fan controller can do miracles keeping them as quiet as possible while not frying the CPUs.

Took a steep chance on this -

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Vintage-Generic-ASUS … 4.c100227.m3827

If the video card works, and the floppies do, I can make this work.