The brittle plastic on my Epson Equity III+ continues to be an issue.

My initial acetone repair didn't hold as both the front struts between the disk drives broke (again!), along with the front grill. In addition, the plastic would chip in the process with small pieces flaking off.

Instead of just acetone, I decided to try epoxy as well.

I initially set the pieces again using acetone. Then I applied a 2-part epoxy (JB Weld) to fill in the missing chips and add some more structural support. I also filled in the backsides of the struts. I'm hoping this provides some additional reinforcement to these pieces, as they seem quite brittle.

It took a few rounds to build up an epoxy layer around the joints. Once that was done, I sanded everything and finally applied some light airbrushing to blend the surface colors.

The end result doesn't look too bad. Close inspection reveals there was definitely some work done. I did want to leave some extra epoxy around the joints, so it's not properly squared off.

I'm hoping this is the last I have to repair this case. Really wish this thing wasn't so fragile, but I guess it's the consequences of really old plastic.

Bit more work on the Epson this evening. I wanted to figure out a way to mount my CF card for external access. All expansion slots are full, so that wasn't an option.

Fortunately, the Epson had this lower slot on the back which was unused. I was able to repurpose it for rigging up a CF card bracket.

It's a bit janky; I hand cut and shaped a couple metal bits to hold it in place. But it is extremely secure and works quite well.

I suppose I could eventually try to fabricate a nicer looking bracket, but for now this works.

Sorting some new cpus.

SteveC wrote on 2022-12-28, 19:20:

kohellus@gmail.com wrote on 2022-12-24, 11:28:

My new retro network build network. It serves something else too but 4 vlans, one for retro and other for various iot's and the rest for my home network. Nothing fansy but working. Pfsense and 4 gigabit ethernet ports. Works with everything for my retro nas serving drivers and os's, games 😀

What's the model of this HP PC?

Hi, its a HP T620 PLUS 4Core 4GB 16 SSD. It has a 4x pci-e in it so i stucked a HP Quad Port Gigabit Ethernet in there. Works perfectly with pfsense and fast enough for retro stuf.

Tested and refurbished Nvidia's Fermi - Zotac AMP! edition:

I have been messing around with usb2isa-r trying to wrap my head around getting the isa controller to talk to my windows 10 (or separate xp) machine in order to read and write to the 5.25 inch floppy…

I have a Greaseweazle v4, which works but you have to read to image, edit the image, then write the image back. I want to read and write directly.

Exercise in futility? Probably.

pentiumspeed wrote on 2020-02-17, 01:55:

Tested again just to boot up in POST screen only on video cards that I had no luck using Micronics M55HI HX chipset based mother […]
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Tested again just to boot up in POST screen only on video cards that I had no luck using Micronics M55HI HX chipset based motherboard. I got AN430TX Intel motherboard in the mail few days ago so re-did the PCI video cards that I have no luck booting up did work, all of them including TNT2 M64 and FX 5200 (128bit kind). 😀

AN430TX does allow me to jumper multi from 1.5X to 3.5X on both two mmx, 200 and 233, also regular pentium 200 which can do 100, and both pentium and also two mmx processors can do 133 as well.

And tested AN430TX to see if I can disable L2 cache (512K) and that L2 disable does works.

Will a utility that can disable L1 cache with these mentioned CPUs and this AN430TX motherboard? This is for DOS and some heavy games that 233mmx can handle?

Palette snooping turned on results in no post with S3 864 video card, had to switch back to another PCI video card and get in and disable palette snooping.

Cheers,

Hi, I just bought this Motherboard. Just checked on the manual it stated that the CPU supported are 166 and 200 mmx. Do you by any chance know if I can use a Pentium 266MHZ MMX (SL2Z4) on this board? Thanks.

stef80 wrote on 2023-01-15, 14:06:

Tested and refurbished Nvidia's Fermi - Zotac AMP! edition: 20230115_130027.jpg 20230115_141134.jpg 20230115_114224.jpg 20230115 […]
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Tested and refurbished Nvidia's Fermi - Zotac AMP! edition:
20230115_130027.jpg
20230115_141134.jpg
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2.JPG

Nice card. I got one of these in a x58 PC too 😁 It runs really cool on the core but VRM heatsink it gets VERY hot with stock fan speed 1200-1800. It needs manual fan control 2000rpm+ to cool VRM even a little. I haven't used it much since it really needs some heatsinks on the backside of VRM too in my opinion.

I ran Unigine for a while just to get feeling for the temps. Core is OK, seems programmed to keep it under 70°C. But memory/VRM heatsink is burning hot although it says 47°C for the PCB 😁 (well, It might be subjective). But yes, I'm surprised how silent it is.

PCB temperature sensor doesn't report VRM temp. No idea where that sensor is located. VRM gets 80-100c in couple min of stress with stock heatsink / airflow. This is a reason why I haven't used the card much without modding it (yet).

Nexxen wrote on 2023-01-15, 03:45:

Sorting some new cpus.

think of the computing power you have there!

gerry wrote on 2023-01-16, 20:42:

Nexxen wrote on 2023-01-15, 03:45:

Sorting some new cpus.

think of the computing power you have there!

Yes, and the price tag too!
40+ P4 from 1.5 to 3.2 ghz! Thousands. Got them around 0.50€ with the chore of pin straightening.

All in working condition. 😀 Got lucky as hell!

I got my first AMD Socket A computer for free. It has a Biostar M7VIZ with a Athlon XP 1700+ and 1 GB of DDR ram.

It had a TNT2 M64 which I promptly replaced with a Sparkle Geforce 6600 GT AGP card, it has a red pcb just like the motherboard. Swapped old oem psu with new one for precaution, installed XP and now I have an average 2004/5 build.

On-board sound is a bit crap, what is best sound card for this PC a Sound Blaster Live! or a Audigy 2 ZS? I don't need dos compatibility.

Started my next project: to restore this Tandy 1000 TL.

Exterior-wise it's in reasonably good shape. Other than a broken volume knob everything else in intact.

Inside, the metal frame has a bunch of corrosion. So I think the first step will be a full teardown and rust removal.

Shponglefan wrote on 2023-01-16, 23:34:

Inside, the metal frame has a bunch of corrosion. So I think the first step will be a full teardown and rust removal.

Nice machine!

What do you plan on doing to treat that rust?

Ozzuneoj wrote on 2023-01-16, 23:36:

Nice machine!

Thanks! 😀

What do you plan on doing to treat that rust?

I'm going to try Evapo-Rust.

Haven't used it before so I'll see how well it works. But I've heard good things.

Did some rust removal on the Tandy TL using Evapo-Rust.

First time using this product and it worked even better than I expected. Since I was only using 3L of the product, I couldn't fully immerse everything at once. It took about a day altogether, rotating the pieces every few hours.

Shponglefan wrote on 2023-01-18, 15:26:

Did some rust removal on the Tandy TL using Evapo-Rust.

First time using this product and it worked even better than I expected. Since I was only using 3L of the product, I couldn't fully immerse everything at once. It took about a day altogether, rotating the pieces every few hours.

Nice job!

Are you going to treat the metal with anything now, or just leave it as is?

Ozzuneoj wrote on 2023-01-18, 19:05:

Nice job!

Are you going to treat the metal with anything now, or just leave it as is?

I'm going to leave it as is for now. I'll see how it holds up.

Re-housed my main Retro Rig (Via C3) into the Lian-Li today. Would like to maybe do some custom length wiring on the PSU.