I have 4 socket 7 motherboards that have issues.
Been sorting stuff to order to repair all of them.

BitWrangler wrote on 2024-03-16, 12:17:

Since Cisco bought Linksys they seem to make sure that everything Linksys is crappy and can't possibly punch up to the enterprise segment, as prior Linksys hardware could. 3Com stuff I have had here seems very literally underpowered, it browns out it's own power when several ports are active. Everything CNet I've touched I liked, just works.

3COM stuff was enterprise grade and I installed racks and racks of their switches. Never a problem. Something wrong somewhere with your setup.

For networking I only use Ubiquity hardware it's affordable and just rock solid. I have a UDM- Pro and their WiFi 6 in-wall access point and they just work. I cant wait to overhaul my whole network with their switches and cameras.

kingcake wrote on 2024-03-16, 23:17:

BitWrangler wrote on 2024-03-16, 12:17:

Since Cisco bought Linksys they seem to make sure that everything Linksys is crappy and can't possibly punch up to the enterprise segment, as prior Linksys hardware could. 3Com stuff I have had here seems very literally underpowered, it browns out it's own power when several ports are active. Everything CNet I've touched I liked, just works.

3COM stuff was enterprise grade and I installed racks and racks of their switches. Never a problem. Something wrong somewhere with your setup.

Well TBH, never had any of their enterprise rackmount stuff, the ones I'm complaining about were plastic shelled SOHO/retail ewaste, that I wouldn't be surprised if they just slapped the badge on after getting them for a buck a piece off some anonymous Chinese outfit.

chrismeyer6 wrote on 2024-03-16, 23:34:

For networking I only use Ubiquity hardware it's affordable and just rock solid. I have a UDM- Pro and their WiFi 6 in-wall access point and they just work. I cant wait to overhaul my whole network with their switches and cameras.

Can't replicate that. It's mostly fine, but in the Unifi install I manage we lose a switch every month or so ( ~ 50 switches installed so not great, not terrible). Our AP turnover is similar per-install rate. The USW line up were all a disaster for *months* after they launched due to fatal firmware bugs. The Flex Mini were *years* before they worked properly. The cameras are now terrible; or more accurately, they discontinued the useful camera server software to increase upsell. The new interface has caused us problems since day one of the forced-install, and basically any Mediatek based AP's (and unrelatedly, the AP-AC-IW in our EAP config) just don't work properly. Their support flat out sucks.

At home I've gone wholesale on HPE/Aruba for switches, Mikrotik for routing and I'm just using Unifi for AP's. Seems an adequate compromise - since when they work, they're decent. I may end up flashing them to WRT down the line; the hardware is good, but at home scale the new UI is not in my CPU/RAM budget.

kingcake wrote on 2024-03-16, 23:17:

3COM stuff was enterprise grade and I installed racks and racks of their switches. Never a problem. Something wrong somewhere with your setup.

This is definitely a case of "not all are made equal". On the one hand, the 5500 stack and on the other, the OfficeConnect desktop stuff. The first I pulled only reluctantly because of security concerns, the latter I'd re-enact Office Space on in a heartbeat.

Put together an XT-IDE card.

Really good project for a beginner like me - a lot of repetitive soldering, just putting the reps in, trying to be consistent (and correct) with solder amounts, etc. Learned to not be too quick and make sure it actually flows properly. Probably should have done this one before doing that Tualatin mod yesterday. 😅

Anyway, haven't tested it at all yet, nor programmed the EEPROM - a tomorrow problem.

I don't see a socket. I hope that the EEPROM is just sitting there and not soldered along with the rest of the chips!

I see turned pin socket under it.

I've had one of those one step forward, two steps back experiences. I started re-testing my PCI ET4000 video card in Windows 3.0 MME on a couple of Pentium 4 systems. I think I found a hardware and driver combination that provides both high resolutions and high colors in Widows 3.0 with minimal graphical issues (default Windows icons still have a pallette issue in high color modes, but all else seems to display just fine).

Unfortunately, I think all of the ET4000 drivers I've tried have some sort of timing bug that manifests on the Pentium 4 (both on my 3.06 GHz system and my 3.4 GHz system). Windows crashes after opening a few windows or starting graphics benchmarks regardless of the resolution or color mode. I can get the drivers to run stability only if I disable the P4 caches, but that slows the systems down to a 486 100 Mhz level. It kind of defeats the purpose of the Retro Rocket. I feel a bit defeated again.

Made my first contribution to Archive.org!

If anyone from the UK remembers Tiny Computers, I just uploaded a system restore CD and floppy disc I found in my attic recently. Not even sure why I had them, but we did have a Tiny PC we bought new from one of their retail outlets in 1997, so it would have been to do with that despite being from 18 months later.

https://archive.org/details/tiny-computers-op … 95-restore-pack

I got out the HP laptop again to do some early 3D gaming, and now it locks up randomly under Windows XP. Windows 98 appears stable, but graphics driver bugs make 3D unusable (on top of the expected S3 Savage problems). Also, the CPU suddenly started to idle at 80°C. This thing is going in the parts pile, even though there aren't many usable parts due to heat. Even parts that should have extremely little power dissipation run at over 60°C. It should just go to e-waste.

I also learned that the Acer Aspire 1300 has an almost identical motherboard (Quanta ET2A or ET2S, while the HP has a Quanta ET2B), so that's another model to avoid. The service manual for the Acer shows that the other board has the same outline and major connector locations, and I found an ET2S schematic that shows the same major chips (and a second fan header that's completely useless because it's controlled by the emergency shutdown signal from the CPU temperature monitor - Quanta "engineering" at its finest).

At least the AC adapter will work with the Toshiba that recently had its AC adapter recalled (over 12 years after it was manufactured).

I have repasted several laptops. The thermal paste in these can degrade significantly with age. It might be as simple as that to fix.

BitWrangler wrote on 2024-03-17, 15:04:

I see turned pin socket under it.

That's right - I'm a beginner, but not that new. 😉 Didn't know the name of that type of socket though, other than calling them "the fancy kind."

Since it was a full parts kit, the EEPROM actually came with a version of XT-IDE already on it. Not the one I wanted or needed though, so I swapped it out. And we're in business!

Edit: here, I'll be brave and actually show my work.. 🥴

Not all of it good, but all of it good learning.

Well done. These through-hole component kits with their big packages and large pins are great for beginners.

Ordered some parts, some to build 2 more Z80-MBC2 CP/M machines. A couple Z80 10 MHz CMOS processors, 128K static RAM chips, ATMEGA32A-PU 8-bit microcontrollers, MCP23017 IO expanders, etc. Also picked up a couple replacement keyboard/mouse dual 6-pin DIN connectors to have on hand for repairing old motherboards (part # KMDGX-6SG/P-S4N). Oh, and a couple more Pi Pico's for other projects.

One Z80-MBC2 system will be a fully self contained system (computer and terminal) similar to the one I already made (see link below), but more compact and streamlined. Since it will have an internal VT100 style terminal, it work with most any PS2/USB keyboard and VGA output.

https://theclassicgeek.blogspot.com/2022/12/z … l-assembly.html

The other will be made even smaller, no terminal, made to look like a classic modem, as seen in the thread linked below. It will be setup to be used the same way systems like the SWTPC 6800 were, via a terminal. In this case a terminal emulator like SyncTERM or Putty.

Re: Non-x86 Systems: They are pulling me back in, do you guys also hear the call?

Now, I wait for the parts to arrive. 😀

Created a file with all the components I have to buy.
Not as long as I expected, not short either.

I made this! http://inthe.study/stuff/alastor.m4v

It started life as a Casio RT-2100 retro radio that is supposed to look like a 1934 tube wireless. It had a cassette, AM/FM radio - with a mechanically linked tuning dial. But, none of that is useful to me in 2024. Or 2020 when I started this project 🤣.

So, the cassette deck was removed and replaced with a 3D printed Pi Slide, the dial mechanism with a Servo and the three knobs with 50k linear pots.

The Pi has a stack of three hats - a Waveshare PoE Hat (C), a 3W Mono Amp Shim (connected to the stock 3W 8Ω speaker) and a DIY interface board that uses an MCP3004 to read the three pots and hooks up Pin 7 to the servo. The PoE+ hat is pretty clutch. If you run the servo while it's on the 15W PSU or PoE, the Pi reboots - but on my PoE+ Aruba it's perfect.

Next up I need to properly write the software - I had an early partly-working version working last year before I fried my first MCP with a miswire, and got too frustrated to keep going for a bit; before life got in the way. Unfortunately, the NodeJS Vorbis library I was using won't compile properly on ARM64, so I either need to find a way to pipe this other async library I found, or fix the first library. Bleh.

I think this counts as "Retro", right? I did another Retro thing today, but I already posted that in "What retro stuff did I buy today", so. Go read that thread to know more about that.

For people who don't want to watch the video, here's a cliffnotes/tl;dr taken for another purpose:

Pretty radio! Now with a quad core 64 bit server inside, and also PoE+!

Attempted to install Windows NT 4.0 on a Pentium 4.

It went... poorly.

Shponglefan wrote on 2024-03-18, 01:52:

Attempted to install Windows NT 4.0 on a Pentium 4.

It went... poorly.

Failure is not contemplated.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fx3fK5kve-M&t=804s

Start over.