80386SX wrote on 2023-06-13, 23:20:

OSkar000 wrote on 2023-06-08, 20:55:

Tried to get some more life signs from my HP Vectra XU 5/90 today.. not much to report unfortunately. […]
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Tried to get some more life signs from my HP Vectra XU 5/90 today.. not much to report unfortunately.

received_790597562572372.jpeg
Signs of life!

I would say its orange and yellow. Not mentioned in the manuals that I have found so far.

The cpu gets warm
Chips on the motherboard gets warm
Keyboard blinks at start
Soft power on/off works most of the time.

IMG20230608223838.jpg

I have tested with one and two known good Pentium 133 and two sticks of FPM memory, also tested and working.

Any ideas 😀

Maybe check the internal of the power supply (capacitors, etc).
Keep the move, HP Vectra XU 5/90 it's a very nice machine.

I forgot to answer this post a while ago.

The PSU looks fine and gives correct voltages under load. But it is probably a good idea to spend some more time and check that everything is ok.

I did put a post-card in it and it doesnt show anything. The cpu and other chips gets warm but no other good signs of life.

Todays activity was to do some initial testing of running a multi monitor setup under Windows NT 3.51 and it seems promising so far 😀

Tinkering with a 386DX-4o system. I'd like to get a multi-sound card setup with an Goldlib (Adlib Gold clone), Roland LAPC-I and something else for SB Pro support (TBD).

In testing, the LAPC-I works on its own, as does the Goldlib. But if launch a game with Adlib sound and then try to use the LAPC-I, I get an error and have to reboot.

I'll have to do more testing and experimenting with hardware settings to try to resolve this.

Then to figure out how to add a third card into the mix for SB Pro support...

PcBytes wrote on 2023-07-08, 20:40:

A sneak peek of my upcoming project :D […]
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A sneak peek of my upcoming project 😁

Hmm yes.. go on...

I spent the weekend trying to get a Pentium Overdrive 83MHz and an AM5x86 133MHz working in a PCI400-4 motherboard. 33MHz FSB would not work no matter the jumpers or settings, the multiplier was always x3, and the board wasn't not stable at 40Mhz FSB no matter what timings I set in the BIOS. In fact, it seemed the motherboard ignored the jumpers entirely except for the FSB. If I can't get either of these CPUs working, there is no point continuing; I have thrown in the towel. I'd like to say it was fun, but not really.

More sound card testing on the 386DX-40.

I tried a regular Adlib and LAPC-I combo and got the same issue as before (LAPC-I not working following Adlib use). This puzzled me since I'd used this combo before without issue.

After a bunch more troubleshooting it turns out the problem is the game I was using for Adlib testing: Star Control. For whatever reason, using Star Control with Adlib support causes subsequent games to not be able to initialize the LAPC-I.

This appears to be game specific, since testing a half dozen other games with the Adlib doesn't produce the same issue. Also did the same tests with an Adlib Gold and got the same results.

Star Control's Adlib driver must be doing something funky, but at least everything else works.

can anyone sell-me a test LGA 2066 cpu? and mail it? I can't find a decent price here in my country.

ediflorianUS wrote on 2023-07-10, 07:02:

can anyone sell-me a test LGA 2066 cpu? and mail it? I can't find a decent price here in my country.

What about a Xeon W-2102? I see one at the bay for 25 US dollars - free shipping.

On topic. The I/O on this K7V-T was nasty.

Before:

After:

Gotta love the rework station.

I've been slowly, over the week up until moving, tuning and tweaking the NanTan Notebook FMAK9200. The most recent part has been tuning the trackball to work smoothly. That's the one thing the DFi branded NanTan had over the generic color one - the trackball on that thing was flawless. Luckily the trick I used on my now gone NEC Versa 40EC worked on it by moving the rubber rollers around. There may come a time that I might do a full on rebuild of the 9200 including fixing that trackball, the charging pads for the batteries, and maybe rebuild the batteries with some 9volt 2000 mAH LIon Batteries - using a pint-sized BMC in each battery pack so I can convert it to the more modern (and reliable) battery tech. If It works, might copy the same into my NEC Versas. I'm still trying to get the XJ10BT working on it again in Windows for Workgroups. Wish I could find a packet driver for DOS for that card so I could use it on the wired network with mTCP on occasion.

During the overhaul on the 9200 I'll probably also add some filtering to the audio circuit and see if there's somewhere I can insert the internal speaker into the mix - this includes maybe reducing the volume of that start up chime. That ESS488 is RIPPING loud through headphones. It's so loud my earbuds sound like the internal speaker with the startup chime on the 9200 - kind of a pain when gaming at night.

I've been patching all the AGI games that I have with the 2.9x Interpreter for SoundBlaster/Adlib support, so I have more than one system that runs these with full sound. Seems to work great. Again, RIPPING loud though on the 9200.

I also found a new trick (to me) to drag-n-drop files to my old computer hard drives using VirtualBox.

Basically, I setup a Windows 2000 Pro SP4 Virtual Machine in VirtualBox, and used the USB function to attach my DDO'd ATA-133 drives I use on my vintage laptops to it via USB, and then I can share a folder full of my games (including isos) to the virtual machine and drag em' over to the drive. Works great, put a messload of stuff on the NanTan that way. Might be doing the same with the Tandy soon.

Oh my. I'll add what I've been doing the last week or two. This started as a goal to get *one* P233mmx setup. As I was looking for a motherboard, I received:
- A Complete K6-2/500 AT setup
- A Shuttle XPC (Celeron)
- MSI 694T motherboard
- A load of soundcards and PCI VGA-cards + something else.
So ... the K6-2 had a Soltek SL-54U5 motherboard that needed new caps. Then it was good to go. Younger son took this - I upgraded the Rage128 to a FX5500. Will still need to sort out the storage to something smart.
The Shuttle XPC needed RAM, got a new CPU (P4 2.8GHz) and a discrete GPU (GF7600GS). Sata drive, XP install and off you go. Older son took this.
Traded some of the stuff I received for a P3 866 just to test out that MSI board. Works, sans sound. Will need to replace the integrated chip. Changed TEAPO caps to Panasonic caps.
Got a Soltek SL-56D5, did a lot of rework on it (all new caps, reflowed this and that) - and still it's a hit and miss with the boot. I decided to "scrap" this.
Today I finally installed the MSI in a new case, waiting for a Tualatin-S CPU I bought. The 7600GS in that started giving garbled output. Reflowed both PCIE/AGP bridge and GPU - seems to work.
I will fix that integrated audio, but I guess I'd need to be looking for an SB live or similar.

PcBytes wrote on 2023-07-08, 20:40:

A sneak peek of my upcoming project :D […]
Show full quote

A sneak peek of my upcoming project 😁

Interesting, you're braver than I am. May the force be with you!

I have been playing around with Playstation3 modding the last two days. I have installed HFW 4,90 and HEN.
So funny to see games from original discs run directly from HDD.

Heh, the phat one I have here is a 4.84 CFW (IIRC), probably the last release before "REBUG" went under.

A bit of a helping hand for such a old unit - it's a PAL backwards compatible unit, CECHC03. WebMAN is a blessing when it comes to thermals for it.

Equipped 2 more ATI cards with better cooling.
Most interesting era of ATI cards, at least for me. X800Pro VIVO is unlocked to full 16 pipes 😉.

oh2ftu wrote on 2023-07-10, 17:09:

Oh my. I'll add what I've been doing the last week or two. This started as a goal to get *one* P233mmx setup. As I was looking f […]
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Oh my. I'll add what I've been doing the last week or two. This started as a goal to get *one* P233mmx setup. As I was looking for a motherboard, I received:
- A Complete K6-2/500 AT setup
- A Shuttle XPC (Celeron)
- MSI 694T motherboard
- A load of soundcards and PCI VGA-cards + something else.
So ... the K6-2 had a Soltek SL-54U5 motherboard that needed new caps. Then it was good to go. Younger son took this - I upgraded the Rage128 to a FX5500. Will still need to sort out the storage to something smart.
The Shuttle XPC needed RAM, got a new CPU (P4 2.8GHz) and a discrete GPU (GF7600GS). Sata drive, XP install and off you go. Older son took this.
Traded some of the stuff I received for a P3 866 just to test out that MSI board. Works, sans sound. Will need to replace the integrated chip. Changed TEAPO caps to Panasonic caps.
Got a Soltek SL-56D5, did a lot of rework on it (all new caps, reflowed this and that) - and still it's a hit and miss with the boot. I decided to "scrap" this.
Today I finally installed the MSI in a new case, waiting for a Tualatin-S CPU I bought. The 7600GS in that started giving garbled output. Reflowed both PCIE/AGP bridge and GPU - seems to work.
I will fix that integrated audio, but I guess I'd need to be looking for an SB live or similar.

you all keep reflow-ing chips.... that's a bad way to go... if a Hot iron fit's try the hot iron first. it won't dmg the chip.(like the reflow could).

ayandon wrote on 2023-07-08, 06:46:

Today, I made this Varta battery replacement at home, no custom PCB.

Looks good, real simple yet effective. I found a PCB on a youtube video and had a few made up. Found it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x8K9fbHOtUM

ediflorianUS wrote on 2023-07-11, 07:43:

you all keep reflow-ing chips.... that's a bad way to go... if a Hot iron fit's try the hot iron first. it won't dmg the chip.(like the reflow could).

I always pre-heat any board I work on and protect everything not needing a reflow etc.
But today I upgraded my P3/866 Cumine -> 1.4GHz tualatin-S. Didn't overclock well - could also be that the AGP4x with nvidia on a VIA motherboard isn't that swell 😀
Waiting for the postman to brind a SS7-motherboard (Soyo SY-5EMA?) so that'll be able to finish that P233mmx build.

PcBytes wrote on 2023-07-10, 21:38:

Heh, the phat one I have here is a 4.84 CFW (IIRC), probably the last release before "REBUG" went under.

A bit of a helping hand for such a old unit - it's a PAL backwards compatible unit, CECHC03. WebMAN is a blessing when it comes to thermals for it.

Totally agreed regarding webMAN, my phat sounds like a jet engine and overheats without it. It's been cleaned out and had new thermal paste applied etc, but makes no difference so probably needs delidding which I'm not comfortable attempting. But webMAN keeps it running well as-is, albeit noisily.

Veeb0rg wrote on 2023-07-11, 09:00:

Looks good, real simple yet effective. I found a PCB on a youtube video and had a few made up. Found it: https://www.youtube.com […]
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ayandon wrote on 2023-07-08, 06:46:

Today, I made this Varta battery replacement at home, no custom PCB.

Looks good, real simple yet effective. I found a PCB on a youtube video and had a few made up. Found it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x8K9fbHOtUM

NICE!

Actually, for JLC PBC/PCBWay, Courier Charge is so high.....

Had a screw head break above an expansion slot. This was fun to try to remove...