Today I started testing some of the hardware that I received over the last few days, starting with this lot: Re: Bought these (retro) hardware today

While testing the M396F 386 motherboard, one of my old power supplies blew up, but luckily nothing else got damaged and the 386 seems to work like a charm.
So while I was at it, I tested some of the 30 pin SIMM modules that I have kicking around, mainly just to see which capacity they are. Turned out most of them are 256 KB or 1 MB. But I also found two 4 MB sticks that will stay in the M396F for now.

The ET4000 unfortunately doesn't output any video, I might have to have a look at the jumper and dip switch settings...

creepingnet wrote on 2021-01-21, 16:10:

Then had to go to bed. I took the second dose of the Moderna COVID vaccine. I feel like crap. Probably will have to wait until the weekend...

I read the second dose is what makes everyone feel like crap. I hope they can refine that a little better in the future.

RetroLizard wrote on 2021-01-21, 16:16:

Are DTK power supplies (AT form) any good?

When you say "AT" what exactly do you mean?

I believe AT PSUs come in two different form factors, full size AT and baby AT. Where baby AT is similar/same/interchangeable with ATX.

Probably Baby AT

pan069 wrote on 2021-01-21, 21:06:

RetroLizard wrote on 2021-01-21, 16:16:

Are DTK power supplies (AT form) any good?

When you say "AT" what exactly do you mean?

I believe AT PSUs come in two different form factors, full size AT and baby AT. Where baby AT is similar/same/interchangeable with ATX.

AT PSU are generally the same for AT Tower, AT Mini Tower, AT desktop form factor and AT baby AT desktop form factors.

DTK AT psus were generally well regarded back in the day.

Nexxen wrote on 2021-01-21, 12:46:

dionb wrote on 2021-01-21, 11:16:

Pentium VLB FWP

Looks like you are going to have a weekend full of wonders.

😀

Oh yes. In fact, already decided. What I don't have is a decent Win3.1(1) box, so aimed for that - particularly as a slow P100 would run that excellently (where it would be a bit slow for my taste in Win9x).

First attempt: the biggest cards I had - already big Adaptec AHA-2842A VLB SCSI absolutely dwarfed by Miro Crystal 24S (3MB S3 928 VLB). Unfortunately the system utterly refused to boot with the Miro card in there. Tried dropping clock speed, but that also didn't help. And apart from that I don't have any VLB cards with sensible >1MB (CL-GD5428 2MB doesn't count), so moved to PCI VGA.

Current setup:
Spring Circle SF586 (So5, Forex chipset)
P200@160MHz (2x 80MHz)
512kB L2 15ns asynch
64MB FP (2x 32MB 72p SIMMs)
AHA-2842A VLB SCSI
Generic UMC VLB multi-I/O
Generic (FCC ID: "J. Sir Computer Inc") ALS-007 SBPro2+SB16 compatible ISA card with 1:1 OPL3 clone and WSS support
Elsa Winner 2000/3D 4MB S3 Virge/VX PCI VGA
3Com 3C905TX 10/100 PCI NIC
4.3GB Fujitsu MAB3045SC SCA SCSI HDD
Plextor 40x SCSI CDRom

Despite the impressive FSB and CPU speed, it's a slug - an i430FX system at <133MHz would beat it. But it's a Pentium slug with VLB 😜

Todo:
- fit an external battery (for obvious reasons desoldered the NiCD bomb that was already starting to lea)
- need partition HDD and start software install

Will probably do 1GB FAT16 DOS 6.22 + WfW3.11, 2GB FAT16 data (games) and 1GB HPFS OS/2 (Warp 3 or 4 Connect)

Long time since I played with OS/2, one thing I never did back in the day was try out networking or DOS/Windows compatibility. Time to catch up 😉

Caluser2000 wrote on 2021-01-21, 23:09:

pan069 wrote on 2021-01-21, 21:06:

RetroLizard wrote on 2021-01-21, 16:16:

Are DTK power supplies (AT form) any good?

When you say "AT" what exactly do you mean?

I believe AT PSUs come in two different form factors, full size AT and baby AT. Where baby AT is similar/same/interchangeable with ATX.

AT PSU are generally the same for AT Tower, AT Mini Tower, AT desktop form factor and AT baby AT desktop form factors.

DTK AT psus were generally well regarded back in the day.

So the DTK psu would be worth getting, then? What about Startech?

RetroLizard wrote on 2021-01-21, 23:31:

Caluser2000 wrote on 2021-01-21, 23:09:

pan069 wrote on 2021-01-21, 21:06:

When you say "AT" what exactly do you mean?

I believe AT PSUs come in two different form factors, full size AT and baby AT. Where baby AT is similar/same/interchangeable with ATX.

AT PSU are generally the same for AT Tower, AT Mini Tower, AT desktop form factor and AT baby AT desktop form factors.

DTK AT psus were generally well regarded back in the day.

So the DTK psu would be worth getting, then? What about Startech?

Never heard of Startech. Generally though the older stuff seemed to be a bit more robust from my experience.

RetroLizard wrote on 2021-01-21, 23:31:

Caluser2000 wrote on 2021-01-21, 23:09:

pan069 wrote on 2021-01-21, 21:06:

When you say "AT" what exactly do you mean?

I believe AT PSUs come in two different form factors, full size AT and baby AT. Where baby AT is similar/same/interchangeable with ATX.

AT PSU are generally the same for AT Tower, AT Mini Tower, AT desktop form factor and AT baby AT desktop form factors.

DTK AT psus were generally well regarded back in the day.

So the DTK psu would be worth getting, then? What about Startech?

Startech is a current brand that makes mid-low-end devices to obsolete standards. Not great, but you can actually buy a new (middle-of-the-road) AT PSU. Tbh, I consider them overpriced, but if you want new with warranty. they're the way to go.

Are they at least reliable enough to get for the time being? (Not as reliable as Corsair or EVGA PSUs, that is)

I've had good luck with startech parts. I've had one of their AT psus is service for a 486 gaming build for a friend of mine and it's been three years and he's had zero issues with it. Him and his kids use that system alot too

I put an AMD Athlon64 X2 4200+ into my S939 MSI K8N Neo2 Platinum. The previous processor was AMD Athlon64 3200+ OCed to 2,4 GHz. The performance upgrade is amazing. The difference in a normal tasks like web browsing, compiling C++ code etc is huge. Last time I remember such big step was upgrade from Pentium 4 650 3.4 GHz to Core i3 2125 in 2011 😀

Also I got a problem, because on Windows XP the processor is being detected properly with two cores, but on Windows 2000 PRO SP4 it detects only single core. Dunno... 🙁

winuser_pl wrote on 2021-01-22, 09:59:

Also I got a problem, because on Windows XP the processor is being detected properly with two cores, but on Windows 2000 PRO SP4 it detects only single core. Dunno... 🙁

That's weird. I got a dual core Am3 system running Win2000 and its detecting both cores, so it's not like W2K cant use more than one.

I installed Windows 2000 on a single core Athlon64 3200+ then after couple weeks of normal use upgraded to dual core X2, maybe Windows setup has installed a single core HAL or something?

For Windows 2000 multi core or dual cpu, I would recommend referring to the folks here with a similar issue: https://msfn.org/board/topic/174127-info-on-w … r-cpu-machines/

Sounds like the Update Rollup 1 has broken support for dual cpus. Well done, Microsoft.

winuser_pl wrote on 2021-01-22, 11:01:

I installed Windows 2000 on a single core Athlon64 3200+ then after couple weeks of normal use upgraded to dual core X2, maybe Windows setup has installed a single core HAL or something?

Yep, that's why.

I couldn't remember off-hand how to fix it as I did something similar back in the day, so a quick google search brings this up which should hopefully do the trick -
https://www.itprotoday.com/windows-78/how-i-u … em-windows-2000

PTherapist wrote on 2021-01-22, 11:48:

Yep, that's why. […]
Show full quote

winuser_pl wrote on 2021-01-22, 11:01:

I installed Windows 2000 on a single core Athlon64 3200+ then after couple weeks of normal use upgraded to dual core X2, maybe Windows setup has installed a single core HAL or something?

Yep, that's why.

I couldn't remember off-hand how to fix it as I did something similar back in the day, so a quick google search brings this up which should hopefully do the trick -
https://www.itprotoday.com/windows-78/how-i-u … em-windows-2000

I've used that procedure quite a few times with 2000 and it works beautifully. XP will change the HAL if it detects more cpu cores where 2000 won't automatically you have to do it manually.

Today's retro activity, I removed the heatsink & fan from the SPP/northbridge chip on my nForce2 based MSI K7N2 Socket A motherboard, for a good clean & repasting. There was quite a bit of thick dust ingrained onto the heatsink and around the dark grey coloured translucent fan fins.

And then I started cleaning and to my amazement discovered that the fan fins were actually translucent white, the dark grey colour as previously mentioned was the layers of caked in dirt that came off like tar!

I'd been having some stability issues with this 2003 PC build, it would always BSOD after some time playing Battlefield 1942 for example. After cleaning & repasting the SPP, well what do you know - it doesn't seem to BSOD anymore and I've had Battlefield 1942 running for a couple of hours to test!

I'm beginning to suspect that this was also what was causing the motherboard not to like any of my AGP Radeon 9000 series cards, with constant random crashes & BSODs when trying to game or run 3DMark on all of them.

It's crazy how stuck on dust can be. I'm glad it was as simple as a good heatsink cleaning and repaste to get your stability back.

Later in the day after much resting from the 2nd round of vaccination.....the UltraLite Versa arrived - MEGA fail. Man, when they said the plastic was brittle, no kidding. The whole thing crumbled in shipping, and in my hands. No big loss - only $20, and it had water damage and a bad motherboard (no POST, battery attach causes the power section to tick-tick-tick, and a can oscillator rusted off), I don't even think the PSU works. Oh well. There's a second one I know of but I'm starting to think the video I want to make regarding the whole series might take a different approach. I did use the parts to fix the screen on the M/75, turns out it's original panel, cable, and/or LCD controller board were faulty, so I swapped in some parts from the ULtralite and currently broken 40EC to get it going 100% now - was pretty quick and easy.

I also messed with the Words+ on the M75 today - and put the AAC "singing" into Bandlab on Autotune.....let me tell you, this is going to be ripe for some "Werid Wednesday" music that much is for sure. NEC Versa and Words+ Singing about food, going to the bathroom, and going to McDonalds, 🤣. Lookout Kanye West - here comes Creepingnet feat NEC Versa M/75 Multivoice 1.128.