Well. Did finally break out the Versa M/75 for the first time in a long while and took a stab at using something I just bought.

Found a C.I.B. NEC VersaVideo card (Basically a Nogatech NV256 with audio) DV capture card. Still figuring out how to get this darn thing working. Seems I was able to get FullTV to see the card (but not the input), but VersaVideo app in Windows 3.11 For Workgroups is whining "You need a Newer Version of Windows" to run this - odd since this card's box is marked (c) 1994 and the program was designed for Windows 3.1x.

Program runs under 95, but no video. Also found the installer was unable to copy UDH.DLL over so I had to snag that off another driver. Still not sure what would be triggering that error though. But once I do get this working, will be cool to record some YouTube footage using the Versa from Windows 3.1x or 95 if I Can get the 95 Drivers for this device. Guess some playtime is in order. Not in a rush though....looks like more quiet banality over Thanksgiving since I have been spending more family time and less computer time.

Attempted to use my KXL-DN745A on my Austin PN/312TFT laptop, however, I hit a snag: doesn't load with my PCMCIA drivers, even though another CD-ROM drive works with it.

My other laptops don't have a way to either disable the on-board sound, the CD-ROM drive, or both. Plus, my Versa M/75 still doesn't power on (has issues with the FDD, HDD, and other items, and it's basically like my mom's 1991 Dodge Spirit at 25K miles: thinking about working).

Today still testing this Pentium 4 3,6Ghz machine with latest linux sw possible to see how it works. The difference in speed enabling the HT feature is quite visible on web browsers page rendering but also the cpu temperature with the same cooler easily increase up to +10°C I'd say or at least the sensor clearly read higher temps.
To stay 'time correct' I'm trying also an old dial-up early HSDPA phone internet connection and after some testing with a bandwidth of 3.0Mbps in download and 0,4Mbps in upload. I suppose that remote video job interviews might work with some old style webcam with 176x144 video resolution. 😁 The only problem would be the stability of the dial-up old modem connection but it'd interesting to talk in a job interview with which config you're working on compared to some high end company style 4K expensive config. 😁

Recently replaced my Soyo 025P2 motherboard with the QDI V4S471/G, as that one can have 1024kB of L2 cache.
Also used 9x1024kb chips, 10 and 12ns, that i got from aliexpress. (probably timings are fake, but don't care that much)

As a result, i made some benchmarks, too:

QDI @ 3x50 seems to be a pretty kick-ass result for a strictly non-PCI 486. 😀 For 50MHz FSB, i had to increase the timings for RAM and L2 cache and couldn't tighten the video card's timings as much either. For other setups, everything was maxed out.

Just been testing a bunch of PCs & associated hardware ready for this weekend - I've invited friends over for a retro PC LAN Party, so just making sure all 9 computers are going to be ready for use, as well as checking all peripherals are in good working order, ie. keyboards, mice, controllers etc.

Aside from a couple of dead CMOS batteries & other minor niggles, all good so far. 😀

2x 1998-era PCs, 2x 2000-era PCs & 2x 2003-era PCs should all be good to go.

As a side attraction, not LAN connected but just for fun - my IBM XT 4.77MHz CGA build, a 386SX 16MHz PC & a 486 DX2-66 PC should all be good too, I just need to give the 486 a check over tomorrow as it can be a little cranky.

Some repair activity again. Several months ago I bought pile of scrap video cards, HDDs, main boards etc. In the box there was this Sapphire Radeon 9600 XT that output scrambled colorful screen. I have spent too many hours to find out where's the issue, including capacitor replacements, missing component checks and so on. Yesterday it had a lot of cold spray which actually "fixed" it occasionally, but I wasn't sure what was the sweet spot. Today I gave it a final check after which I would have resoldered the GPU. Fortunately I found two missing resistors near power supply op-amp (was I blind?). I'm amazed this site still exists and I found it so quickly: http://alasir.com/reviews/sapphire_radeon_960 … oltmodding.html Finding this small blind 200R resistor is next to impossible. I found 0805 size 200R + 3k3 and it shall be enough for testing purposes. Quick test and it gives proper output at least on POST screen. Yey!

There's also this interesting sound card test: http://alasir.com/reviews/soundbench/index.html

PTherapist wrote on 2021-11-24, 18:53:

I've invited friends over for a retro PC LAN Party, so just making sure all 9 computers are going to be ready for use, as well as checking all peripherals are in good working order, ie. keyboards, mice, controllers etc.

Sounds perfect! I have planned the same thing for couple of years now. I mean is: collected truck-load of retro gear in that intention. I hope the day will come.
I have organized few small group Commodore 64 game nights, but a real retro PC LAN party would be totally different.

I've been attempting to find where in my 486 mobo/case there is a ground. As it turns out, one of them is somewhat nonstandard.

luckybob wrote on 2019-05-01, 18:39:

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/404433 … 0501_002718.jpg […]
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https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/404433 … 0501_002718.jpg

Today I saved a Trenton TR-P6V pentium pro board from the bin. I had actually bought this board 10+ years ago and it never worked right, the bios would hang and could never finish posting. Well, I stumbled across the board last night when i was goofing around in the garage and gave it another go.

Still had errors, but this time I was armed with a eeprom programmer, and sure enough, the bios chip was wonky. Not enough the system wouldn't post, but enough where it couldn't finish. So I contacted the people that made the board: https://www.trentonsystems.com/ and they were quick to respond and happy to provide a manual and updated bios. So in addition to the board now working properly, I now have a manual!

There still is a borked memory slot (or a bad simm) but I can fix that easily enough.

I'll post both over onto vogons drivers for the people that google sends here. Also if anyone has a TR-DP6 version of this board (dual cpu), shoot me an message as I'd love to get it from you.

I am currently trying to get a system running which uses the Trenton TR-P6V board. Trenton no longer supports the board. Do you still have the manual? I would really like to get a copy of it. My first problem is I do not see anything on the board that looks like a CMOS battery, which has to be replaced. I hope after all this time you will be able to help. Thank you!

Managed to overclock an Am5x86 133 to 160 no problem on a M912 ver 1.7, with air cooling. Super stable.
Couldn't get it to post with 50mhz fsb, to 200mhz. One cpu would stop at C5 on post card, the other one wouldn't even post.
I don't have 50 or 45ns ram to test further.

I guess you need a good board to get there. Mine isn't good enough.

fool wrote on 2021-11-24, 19:19:

There's also this interesting sound card test: http://alasir.com/reviews/soundbench/index.html

I just read through this, I love sound cards so it was an interesting read.

The most hillarious part of it for me was that Creative bought Ensoniq, cloned their AudioPCI sound card and managed to make it worse 😁

I'm installing, and uninstalling OSs on my fast AthlonXP/Voodoo 3 system. I can't seem to decide on a combination I like. I tried standalone Win98 but it was too cookie cutter. I switched to DOS/Win2K multiboot and I'm not 100% happy with it because ESS Solo-1 in DOS (forced IRQ10) is kind of meh. The system is:

AthlonXP 1700+
1GB DDR RAM
Voodoo 3 3000 AGP
Terrateci 128i (ESS Solo-1)

Basically for running 1994-1999 DOS and Win9x games. I think I may just reduce RAM to 512K and go for Win98/Win2K dualboot.

Had to readjust my PVM-9L1's tube since it was slightly off center when I serviced it a year ago to fix the composite sync issues. Looks better and still sharp.

PTherapist wrote on 2021-11-24, 18:53:

Just been testing a bunch of PCs & associated hardware ready for this weekend - I've invited friends over for a retro PC LAN Par […]
Show full quote

Just been testing a bunch of PCs & associated hardware ready for this weekend - I've invited friends over for a retro PC LAN Party, so just making sure all 9 computers are going to be ready for use, as well as checking all peripherals are in good working order, ie. keyboards, mice, controllers etc.

Aside from a couple of dead CMOS batteries & other minor niggles, all good so far. 😀

2x 1998-era PCs, 2x 2000-era PCs & 2x 2003-era PCs should all be good to go.

As a side attraction, not LAN connected but just for fun - my IBM XT 4.77MHz CGA build, a 386SX 16MHz PC & a 486 DX2-66 PC should all be good too, I just need to give the 486 a check over tomorrow as it can be a little cranky.

I've literally got an 8 Retro PC LAN setup configured and ready for this to happen, but don't know anybody nearby who would want to do it 🤣. Honestly kinda jealous.

Well, I managed to find what was causing the ground on my case, and corrected the issue with a dual layer tape patch. Now the problem is figuring out if it's the serial mouse that is crashing windows 95, or if it's the serial mouse that's doing it. Either way, I am now fully in this 486 build. I have put sweat, and now blood in to it. As for why I am using Windows 95, it's purely to allow myself to put it up on CPU-Z verification. After that, nothing but DOS and win3.1.

Unsuccessfully tested a PIII 800 on MB Procomp BVC3A, connected everything necessary for starting, but even pressing PWR-ON several times, it does nothing.
The CPU fan does not spin, and in the post card everything is turned off.
I have not yet understood what the problem could be but the mosfets are not shorted, I will try to look around the power lines if there is any interruption.

BetaC wrote on 2021-11-26, 00:48:

Well, I managed to find what was causing the ground on my case, and corrected the issue with a dual layer tape patch. Now the problem is figuring out if it's the serial mouse that is crashing windows 95, or if it's the serial mouse that's doing it. Either way, I am now fully in this 486 build. I have put sweat, and now blood in to it. As for why I am using Windows 95, it's purely to allow myself to put it up on CPU-Z verification. After that, nothing but DOS and win3.1.

There were some driver and hardware cursor issues with some SVGA graphics cards and various versions of their drivers back in the day, move the mouse pointer and it would freeze and lock the machine up, or other times would move, go all scrambled and corrupted and either crash or throw general exception faults shortly after. Later drivers were usually the cure.

BitWrangler wrote on 2021-11-26, 23:07:

BetaC wrote on 2021-11-26, 00:48:

Well, I managed to find what was causing the ground on my case, and corrected the issue with a dual layer tape patch. Now the problem is figuring out if it's the serial mouse that is crashing windows 95, or if it's the serial mouse that's doing it. Either way, I am now fully in this 486 build. I have put sweat, and now blood in to it. As for why I am using Windows 95, it's purely to allow myself to put it up on CPU-Z verification. After that, nothing but DOS and win3.1.

There were some driver and hardware cursor issues with some SVGA graphics cards and various versions of their drivers back in the day, move the mouse pointer and it would freeze and lock the machine up, or other times would move, go all scrambled and corrupted and either crash or throw general exception faults shortly after. Later drivers were usually the cure.

It might actually just be the wheels inside my mouse, since windows does detect a generic serial mouse, as does CTMouse.

Edit: I am at a complete loss. The mouse just doesn't want to work despite "working" according to DOS and windows. And, funnily enough, Rebel Assault, a game that has a nice menu system that supports mouse movement, is reporting my DX2-66 as running at 14 MHz. I guess I need to figure out how to get the turbo figured out.

For a moment, i consider 2013 as retro.

Set up my old workstation PC for sale.
Selling it in local Estonian forum, but who want's to see more pictures and specs, you can find them out here: https://foorum.hinnavaatlus.ee/viewtopic.php? … 2042&highlight=

Kinda sad to sell it - it's just beautiful machine. But by now, too old and slow for stuff i need to do...

GigAHerZ wrote on 2021-11-27, 10:42:

Kinda sad to sell it - it's just beautiful machine. But by now, too old and slow for stuff i need to do...

Have you considered turning it into a highly overpowered WinXP retro rig?

From what I can see, that motherboard should still have XP drivers. And you can always dual boot with Win7 for some of the earlier games from the 2010s.

I did some repair work today on a few motherboards. I still have a small pile of things to repair which require replacement parts but I managed to get through some of them today.

I try to photograph and share the most interesting of the mundane but sometimes there are surprises to be had along the way.

I would love to stream these kinds of repairs sometime. I think it would be interesting.