Woah only $3 for a SATA <-> IDE converter I think I payed about $15 for one at the computer fair a few years ago ah well.
I used it because I at the time upgraded to a new motherboard with only 1 IDE port and had 3 IDE drives I wanted to plug in so that was cheaper then buying SATA drives or an IDE card

My thoughts are a long the lines of will the video card run the games I want at a suitable frame rate if so then it is good enough for what I want.
If the 486DX2 I have here was something that I could really play around with instead of someone elses then I might decided to switch that realtek video card with something decent but its fine for what its used for.

sliderider wrote:

SavantStrike wrote:

Tetrium wrote:

I wouldn't risk burning such a card anyway. V4's aren't exactly all over the place

Yeah, they're actually rarer than the V5's.

If one goes 3dfx, then the card needs to go into an appropriate motherboard with universal AGP, or one needs to go with a PCI version. Killing old 3dfx cards is tantamount to sacrilege.

They may be rarer but the performance is horrible. GF2MX and Radeon VE kill it. I'd get one for completeness, but not for actual use as I have better cards from the same time period.

Really can't see the point of buying things you have no intention of using, especially if you think it's crap.

sliderider wrote:

Tetrium wrote:

I tend to view these as "How can they perform today?" and don't tend to compare with only cards their own age. That's kinda the same to me as having to build a period correct machine or something

How can they perform today compared to what? A modern day video card? Is that even a fair comparison to make? Can a GF2MX perform as well as a GTX460? Can a Rage Pro perform as well as HD5770? You can't compare a retro/vintage card to cards that came later because time and technology move forward. You can't play modern games or run modern benchmarks on old video cards, so how do you compare them? The only valid comparisons you can make are against cards of their own time with similar capabilities because there are no comparable cards being made today.

Lol no of course not!

I meant compared to the rest of the hardware the card will end up in, in a retro-rig 😉

Mau1wurf1977 wrote:

These arrived today: […]
Show full quote

These arrived today:

http://cgi.ebay.com.au/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewI … e=STRK:MEWNX:IT

3 bucks shipped. 🤣

Allows you to hook up an IDE drive into a SATA mainboard or a SATA drive into an IDE mainboard.

But it has a HDD size limit of 160. I tried a WD 250 and Seagate 320 (smallest I have) and when preparing the drive with the WD and Seagate utility it stuffs up.

SATA DVD Burner works fine though!

I think this is more useful in getting data off old IDE drives using a current system that doesn't have IDE anymore.

Holy crap! 😳
That's seriously cheap! They are basically giving them away now!

Holy crap!
That's seriously cheap! They are basically giving them away now!

There's a reason they're so cheap. I have three of 'em. One works great, one seems to be DOA, and the third one caught fire and took out a motherboard and power supply because the included power lead was apparently wired backwards. :Shocked:

WOW

I ordered another model. This one states >500GB so we will see how this one goes.

Old Thrashbarg wrote:

Holy crap!
That's seriously cheap! They are basically giving them away now!

There's a reason they're so cheap. I have three of 'em. One works great, one seems to be DOA, and the third one caught fire and took out a motherboard and power supply because the included power lead was apparently wired backwards. :Shocked:

I was afraid someone would mention something along the lines of "if it looks too good to be true, it usually is"...

Well so far I have had very good experiences with cheap eBay gadgets from asia. Some of the things I got:

IDE CF converters (I have 3 or 4 different types)
CF cards (2 and 4 GB)
Big to small molex power adapters (for floppy drives, because new PSUs don't have them anymore)
USB flex light
USB memory card reader for floppy drive bay
USB SATA HDD docking station
ATX power extension cord (8 pin)
VGA to S-Video converter
S-Video cable
Stereo RCA cable
USB soundcard for recording
And heaps more 🤣

Best purchase are these IDE 40 to 44 pin adapters so you can hookup a notebook drive into a desktop. 1 dollar shipped 🤣

I was afraid someone would mention something along the lines of "if it looks too good to be true, it usually is"...

Well, that's not quite what I meant. I'm sure the majority of them (and other similar sorts of cheap Chinese gadgets) work fine, it's just that part of the cost savings comes from a complete lack of quality control.

But, if you can get four of the cheap ones for the price of one 'reputable' one, a higher failure rate isn't really that big a deal... you just have to be careful to inspect 'em thoroughly before plugging 'em in, is all.

Old Thrashbarg wrote:

I was afraid someone would mention something along the lines of "if it looks too good to be true, it usually is"...

Well, that's not quite what I meant. I'm sure the majority of them (and other similar sorts of cheap Chinese gadgets) work fine, it's just that part of the cost savings comes from a complete lack of quality control.

But, if you can get four of the cheap ones for the price of one 'reputable' one, a higher failure rate isn't really that big a deal... you just have to be careful to inspect 'em thoroughly before plugging 'em in, is all.

That's it basically. Actually, whenever I get new *ahem...not always *n*e*w* 😁* stuff, I always do my own quality control.

I bought a cheap ISA/PCI port 80h POST code reader once - just a small board with a digital display.

It worked once then let the magical smoke out the second time.

Oh well it was only $2

No pictures anymore, holy crap!

Um, I actually feel guilty for breaking my own "rules" about retro hardware, since the one I'm posting here is not a retro computer hardware, and it is not even a computer hardware. But I guess I'm gonna post something entirely different just for kicks.

So this is the Hercules DJ Control MP3 e2 that I bought about a month ago on ebay. Sorry about the messy desk.

Yes, it is not an RMX, but hell, I'm just an amateur, and a beginner, so it works for me. On the plus side, it is small. Take a look at its size compared to my MSI Wind netbook.

No pics but today I finally managed to find another ASUS A7V333 locally! 😁

Now lets hope this one doesn't go up in smoke like it's forefather...uhm..mother 😁

Old Thrashbarg wrote:

There's a reason they're so cheap. I have three of 'em. One works great, one seems to be DOA, and the third one caught fire and took out a motherboard and power supply because the included power lead was apparently wired backwards. :Shocked:

SATA <-> IDE: I had 1 DOA, then the replacement worked, but was not the same size and does not fit in the mini-itx case. Also it does not support the DVD Drive that I intended to use with it, just HDD's.

I've used one such adapter for a while. It worked with a SATA 250GB single platter drive, but after I replaced it with a 100GB laptop drive the system ran much faster.

Oh yea they won't give you full performance that's for sure. I mean if you are using a modern system you can just purchase a PCI sata controller card and be done with it.

I will test this adapter in my 486 shortly and see what happens.

Got 3 new systems to post about!

#1 was a compaq that looked like it was upgraded. Turns out nothing special was inside except for a 20 gig hard drive and a K6-2-533. Which BTW will post at 612mhz.

The 2nd looked like it was an old gold top pentium.

Wait... thats not a pentium! Its socket 370! lets take a closer look.

Turns out it was a 600mhz CYRIX processor. I havent dont anything with it yet. I don't have a "good" socket 370 testbed right now. Something I hope to fix soon.

Anyway the 3rd system I got is a Macintosh Quadra 660 AV. I put power to it and I get the "happy mac" chime. But I'm REALLY excited for this because it has s-video out and input! I'm hoping all the necessary software is on the hard drive. I want to find one of those mac monitors, the 17 inch ones with the built in speakers. This might replace my LCIII+ system as my "mac gamer".

it looks like it has 16mb of ram. I will defiantly max this out if I decide to use this machine.

ALSO I found and bought the following games:
Lemmings (mac version & unopened) I'm REALLY excited for this one
Riven
Daryl f. gates Police quest, open season (this looks like it is going to be HORRIBLE)
starwars rebel assault no disk 😠

While on that topic, is it "okay" to find a pirated version of the game if you have lost your origional?

Odd how your VIA Super 7 doesn't have AGP? What northbridge is it? It might be something special.
The Cyrix III is a nice find! Good chance it's in working condition. Macs, I know hardly anything about so can't really comment on that.

Odd how your VIA Super 7 doesn't have AGP? What northbridge is it? It might be something special.

I have seen 1 or 2 other OEM "super 7" motherboards that seemed to lack the AGP... my unqualified guess is that it was a way of encouraging people to buy a whole new computer instead of upgrading the one they had (one reason why I prefer to purchase retail usually). But this is only a guess.

I had an computer very similar to that compaq too, the cpu was only a k6-2 333 iirc. Is that the 5.25" hard drives?

luckybob wrote:

Anyway the 3rd system I got is a Macintosh Quadra 660 AV. I put power to it and I get the "happy mac" chime. But I'm REALLY excited for this because it has s-video out and input! I'm hoping all the necessary software is on the hard drive. I want to find one of those mac monitors, the 17 inch ones with the built in speakers. This might replace my LCIII+ system as my "mac gamer".

That's a nice score, those AV Macs are awesome. I have a Centris 660AV, that I picked up a few months ago. And, in a bit of a funny coincidence, it has pretty well taken the place of my Performa 460 (another name for the LCIII+) for 68K gaming.