In other news, I just upgraded a couple of my retro rigs from Debian 11 to 12. Went pretty smoothly except for the system with a GTX 650Ti.

Apparently, someone decided that this GPU is no longer supported through the main nvidia-driver package, so I had to switch to nvidia-tesla-470-driver. This wouldn't be much of a problem had it not informed me of that mid-upgrade, which caused things to break a bit. The fix was simply uninstalling all Nvidia driver packages, then doing fresh install of nvidia-tesla-470-driver and lastly running the full system upgrade again. Everything works perfectly now, but it irks me that such a little change caused a problem like that.

Joseph_Joestar wrote on 2023-06-14, 07:28:

Minutemanqvs wrote on 2023-06-14, 07:09:

I had the same experience as you, what worked quite well for me is to put the desoldering gun tip on the capacitor leg and move it in "circles" around the leg while it melts the solder and before sucking it. This way it breaks the bond between the leg and the PCB more effectively. A trick I saw in a necroware video...

Yeah, that's what I ended up doing as well. His videos are what inspired me get more into soldering in the first place. 😁

It's certainly a very useful skill when dealing with retro hardware.

I've seriously been considering learning to solder. I don't come to retro tech from an engineering background - I was just a user back in the day. So I've never even picked up a soldering iron.

Though now, I have a few mobos with Dallas clocks on them that I'm just not dealing with. I have a couple dead GPUs with obviously bulging caps. I recently accidentally broke a cap off my MX440 (at least not something better!) and don't have the ability to fix it. And there's a few open source hardware projects that have caught me eye...

I need to do my research - find out what equipment I need that hits the sweet spot of not cheap crap, but also not way more than a beginner needs.

ubiq wrote on 2023-06-18, 17:49:

I've seriously been considering learning to solder. I don't come to retro tech from an engineering background - I was just a user back in the day. So I've never even picked up a soldering iron.

Though now, I have a few mobos with Dallas clocks on them that I'm just not dealing with. I have a couple dead GPUs with obviously bulging caps. I recently accidentally broke a cap off my MX440 (at least not something better!) and don't have the ability to fix it. And there's a few open source hardware projects that have caught me eye...

I need to do my research - find out what equipment I need that hits the sweet spot of not cheap crap, but also not way more than a beginner needs.

it is a good skill and one i don't have practice in, i have done some with a cheap iron (I was interested in arduino things years ago, still am but don't actually make much now)

if i was to try and do some more i'd probably follow along a good tutorial and practice, a soldering station with magnifying glass might be good - i dont have that and remember being barely able to see what i was doing at times - electronics have been tiny since smd. i'm very impressed by the likes of necroware being able to work on very densely populated motherboards

ubiq wrote on 2023-06-18, 17:49:

I've seriously been considering learning to solder. I don't come to retro tech from an engineering background - I was just a use […]
Show full quote

Joseph_Joestar wrote on 2023-06-14, 07:28:

Minutemanqvs wrote on 2023-06-14, 07:09:

I had the same experience as you, what worked quite well for me is to put the desoldering gun tip on the capacitor leg and move it in "circles" around the leg while it melts the solder and before sucking it. This way it breaks the bond between the leg and the PCB more effectively. A trick I saw in a necroware video...

Yeah, that's what I ended up doing as well. His videos are what inspired me get more into soldering in the first place. 😁

It's certainly a very useful skill when dealing with retro hardware.

I've seriously been considering learning to solder. I don't come to retro tech from an engineering background - I was just a user back in the day. So I've never even picked up a soldering iron.

Though now, I have a few mobos with Dallas clocks on them that I'm just not dealing with. I have a couple dead GPUs with obviously bulging caps. I recently accidentally broke a cap off my MX440 (at least not something better!) and don't have the ability to fix it. And there's a few open source hardware projects that have caught me eye...

I need to do my research - find out what equipment I need that hits the sweet spot of not cheap crap, but also not way more than a beginner needs.

I recommend taking a look at the miniware TS100, for a cheap-ish option with good quality. The TS101 is the current version but doesn't have open source firmware ready yet, it could be better if you're set up with USB-C power sources.
The TS100 is my favourite and I've been using for 5+ years now, having had a Hakko FX888 before, which took a long time to heat up and the base made it unwieldy.
I like the TS100 iron in particular because It's very portable, quite simple, good open source firmware option and is compatible with Hakko T12/T15 tips with a 3d-printed adapter.
Since it can run from 12v to 24v, I keep a 19v laptop power supply handy with a ~5ft very-flexible extension cable and it can be ready to use in just a few seconds. I use the BC2 tip for most things with some bigger tips for capacitor desoldering and a Hakko T12-JS02 for the really tiny stuff.

A Hakko 599B tip cleaner is really handy for cleaning off solder safely while working and cleaning oxidation on the tip.
For solder, I recommend sticking with leaded solder, especially if you're working on older electronics which already use leaded solder, and you should have some ventilation when dealing with that.

Slowly testing hardware in the collection. There was this intermittent audio cutoff that went on for about a year when using the Sega Genesis, but I shrugged it off, because this happened on both TVs (CRT TVs are Sharp 13K-M100 and RCA E13320) at one point due to a(n admittedly) jank homemade Model 2 Genesis AV cable that has a switchable Stereo/Mono audio pinout.

Finally, today, it happened again (video slightly affected as well) on the Sharp TV when using the Model 2 Sega Genesis so I of course checked the cable. Fixed the loose ground there, but didn't fix the original issue. Then I noticed the Audio Out jack was leaning to the left on the Sharp TV, so I jiggled it. Yep, cold solder joint.

It's now fixed, and I preemptively resoldered the Video Out jack as well. But funny thing: I was partially resoldering some areas on the TV about two years ago, but I never touched that area until today...

You should RGB mod those TVs and get an RGB SCART cable for your Sega Genesis. They're pretty easy sets to mod and you'll get a better picture from your consoles by doing so.

https://sector.sunthar.com/guides/crt-rgb-mod … rca-e13320.html
https://crtdatabase.com/crts/sharp/sharp-13k-m100b

The easiest place to find SCART connectors from is AliExpress. Console5 used to carry them, but they've been out of stock for a while now. Otherwise, you can use panel mount BNC connectors and a SCART to BNC breakout cable for your RGB mods.

Set up MS-DOS 6.22 and Win 3.11 on a CF card via a IDE-to-CF adapter and optimized the memory usage — had to avoid loading a few things high so that MSCDEX can fit into the high memory area, and replace OAKCDROM with VIDE-CDD - 610K ought to be enough for most content I plan to run.

This now allows me to „dual-boot“ Win98SE and DOS 6.22 on the same machine with just swapping out the CF card. And some games (e.g. WCA) actually work better in pure DOS.

Thermalwrong wrote on 2023-06-19, 01:53:

I recommend taking a look at the miniware TS100, for a cheap-ish option with good quality. The TS101 is the current version but […]
Show full quote

ubiq wrote on 2023-06-18, 17:49:

I've seriously been considering learning to solder. I don't come to retro tech from an engineering background - I was just a use […]
Show full quote

Joseph_Joestar wrote on 2023-06-14, 07:28:

Yeah, that's what I ended up doing as well. His videos are what inspired me get more into soldering in the first place. 😁

It's certainly a very useful skill when dealing with retro hardware.

I've seriously been considering learning to solder. I don't come to retro tech from an engineering background - I was just a user back in the day. So I've never even picked up a soldering iron.

Though now, I have a few mobos with Dallas clocks on them that I'm just not dealing with. I have a couple dead GPUs with obviously bulging caps. I recently accidentally broke a cap off my MX440 (at least not something better!) and don't have the ability to fix it. And there's a few open source hardware projects that have caught me eye...

I need to do my research - find out what equipment I need that hits the sweet spot of not cheap crap, but also not way more than a beginner needs.

I recommend taking a look at the miniware TS100, for a cheap-ish option with good quality. The TS101 is the current version but doesn't have open source firmware ready yet, it could be better if you're set up with USB-C power sources.
The TS100 is my favourite and I've been using for 5+ years now, having had a Hakko FX888 before, which took a long time to heat up and the base made it unwieldy.
I like the TS100 iron in particular because It's very portable, quite simple, good open source firmware option and is compatible with Hakko T12/T15 tips with a 3d-printed adapter.
Since it can run from 12v to 24v, I keep a 19v laptop power supply handy with a ~5ft very-flexible extension cable and it can be ready to use in just a few seconds. I use the BC2 tip for most things with some bigger tips for capacitor desoldering and a Hakko T12-JS02 for the really tiny stuff.

A Hakko 599B tip cleaner is really handy for cleaning off solder safely while working and cleaning oxidation on the tip.
For solder, I recommend sticking with leaded solder, especially if you're working on older electronics which already use leaded solder, and you should have some ventilation when dealing with that.

Awesome, thanks! Bookmarking for later.

I spent some time today benchmarking two Windows 95 Retro Rockets (one biased toward a very fast GPU and the other biased toward a very fast CPU).

I posted the results in this thread: Newest CPU and GPU for Windows 95?

Regardless of the results, I had a ton of fun buying the parts and building up the overkill AGP system. The fastest AGP card I used as my daily driver back in the day was a Radeon 7500. The Radeon 9600 TX (basically an overclocked Radeon 9500 Pro) would have run circles around the Radeon 7500 while also providing compatibility with DirectX 8 and 9 APIs. I remember wishing I had a 9000-series card back then. I missed out on quite a bit of performance.

Spent some time reverse engineering the DC-DC section for generating 2.2V of this SBC since I need to adjust down to 1.9V for 266MMX tillamook. This left me more confused as time goes on, as this section should had followed the example of the LTC1430CS datasheet, Like, VCC is 5V but the both VCC1/2 for gate drivers supplies aren't on 12V either and nor on 5V, voltage divider much more complicated than it should be for FB pin. Etc.
Also there is a big diode grounded on one side and the datasheet does not include this too.

Will go back to it and draw out full schematic, put off for now since I'm going abed for the night. Fortunately all the components are on one side of the board, the back side is completely blank, not even a solder pad.

I did test run a 233MMX on 2.2V at 133MHz due to soldered resistor for multiplier was set as 2x not even needs even the heatsink, BIOS recognizes the CPU as MMX correctly, this board came with was a K6-2 400.

Cheers,

LOTS of game capturing off my EPIA-800 ITX Windows 95 PC. 😜

Now that it's all working, I'm having a little fun while getting it all ready for my blog write-up!

Small Sample: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PvDQ7BksvhI

Finally had a big breakthrough while repairing an extensively battery damaged 486 VLB board a few days ago, so still gloating about that..

appiah4 wrote on 2023-06-20, 10:17:

Finally had a big breakthrough while repairing an extensively battery damaged 486 VLB board a few days ago, so still gloating about that..

Good for you , Great even , I did this a while back. (I just used solder to repair the trace and some laquer on top of it).

L.E. Finaly found my long lost Floppy Controller... for the 486s project....

& Testing a recaped Asus GeForce FX5200....

I resoldered a couple of caps on two video cards:

1. Diamond Savage 4 -- now OK, is picked up and dsiplays correctly, small stress test passed.
2. Matrox G200A -- gets picked up by OS but no video output. I replaced a small 100µF smd for ram with an electrolytic.
HWiNFO32 reports that its status is AGP 2X @ DISABLED
EDIT: HWinfo reports Video Memory: unknown ----> I need to find why. If a cap was 80µF when I tested it, could it be that all these need to be replaced with new ones? the ones close to ram chips, smd.
No ram, no video output and that's it.
BTW I had to chang m/b because the one I was testing with actually now behaves strangely + hangs on bus scan.

So, while I was testing these two cards I found out that the motherboard I was using would POST only with = or > 1.7Vcore cpus. Board1
I have two of those and the other one POSTs with whatever cpu, even crashes at ram count with a C3 that isn't officialy supported (probably needs a BIOS mod). Board2

As the C3 (Vcore 1.65, 1.68 measured on Mosfet) POSTS on Board1 and has the same crash, other V < 1.7 aren't recognized at all.

I switched BIOS chips and same.
Curious.

I measured the Vcore from Mosfet and it actually matches the requested V of the cpu (1.5/1.65 -- 1.54/1.67 .68). Coherent.
No idea really. As I replaced the LM80 chip some time back, that controls V + health monitor, probably it is below threshold or is faulty on those.

This one is something I never could have thought possible. Lower than expected ok, but correct Vcore and no POST is new 😀

Edit: it's QDI Advance 5/133E; slot 1 m/b

Had a go at overclocking an Ark Logic 1000VL. Finally got the VESA memory speed over 40.000.

Is it normal that it shows up as a 1000PV?

Stupid question could the first 512KB memory that is actually on a Pentium II processor cartridge failing cause a memory enumeration failure?
I got a new motherboard for the Compaq Deskpro that started hanging just before when it normally counts up its memory, and the new MB has the exact same issue. I find the likelihood of two diffferent MBs having the same issue extremely low. So now I'm investigating other possible causes. The PSU seems unlikely to be the issue, the backplane I suppose could POSSIBLY cause such an issue though I see it as unlikely considering all the memory related stuff is on the main motherboard. That leaves the RAM (which I think I tried swapping out, but I need to double check that again) and the processor.

It's l2 cache, so I'd wager yes.

First thing that comes to mind, for testing, would be a slight overlook. If the memory is faulty, I'd expect to see more instability with even a slight OC. Conversely, an underclock or additional voltage might shore things up.

luckybob wrote on 2023-06-23, 17:00:

It's l2 cache, so I'd wager yes.

First thing that comes to mind, for testing, would be a slight overlook. If the memory is faulty, I'd expect to see more instability with even a slight OC. Conversely, an underclock or additional voltage might shore things up.

Yep it was the processor. Swapped in another P2 I had lying around and it fired straight up.

Weird, I think this is the first processor failure (not counting a few Socket A athlons Ive smoked over the years due to inadequate thermals) I've ever experienced.

A P2 450 running at 266MHZ would perform identically to the real 266MHz part correct? EDIT Nope: The 450 is a 100mhz Deschutes part, so I need to order a Klamath P2

TheAbandonwareGuy wrote on 2023-06-23, 17:35:

A P2 450 running at 266MHZ would perform identically to the real 266MHz part correct? EDIT Nope: The 450 is a 100mhz Deschutes part, so I need to order a Klamath P2

close enough. as i recall, you can underclock just about any p2/p3 to a lower fsb.