Finally had my ATX-64 powered on for the first time, with the chips installed. Actually only missing the ROM chip, however I can still run DeadTest. All tests run perfect, no errors so now I will have to find a programmer/burner for the eeprom chip. All looking good. I uploaded a video on YouTube about this and now I am having a cold brew cause of good work.

There is never a bad excuse for having a good beer.

appiah4 wrote on 2021-07-29, 11:44:

There is never a bad excuse for having a good beer.

Only legit excuses. Like working at a nuclear plant or something. 😉

In Homer's defense, we don't know that Duff is actually good.

Excellent news!!! Brostenen I'm glad to hear that your ATX 64 system is nearing completion.

Laptop repair-a-thon.

Fixed the P/75 (mostly), CMOS battery is all that's messed up. Had a vital screw anchor go loose, BS+SG fixed that problem with the sound card not being audiable due to a loose connection on the CPU board (due to flexing from no screw anchor in the middle).

40EC has a bad motherboard (again). Time to do the $20 boogie again if I feel like it. At least the screen is fixed-ish (may need to check placement of the CFLs....seems a little off).

V/50 has some kind of short from a hard drive that got loose.....if it's the power board, I might just nab the one from the 40EC since it's the same board.

canthearu wrote on 2021-07-28, 22:06:

A001 wrote on 2021-07-28, 17:53:

I showered some fully functional but dusty Slot 1 boards and discovered some sketchy traces on the SE440BX-2. What are these ones responsible for? Floppy?

Those tracks are fine, the solder mask is just missing at that point. Put some nail polish over the exposed copper traces if it bothers you.

Good news, thank you!

chrismeyer6 wrote on 2021-07-29, 13:37:

Excellent news!!! Brostenen I'm glad to hear that your ATX 64 system is nearing completion.

Thanks....
There are just a slight problem as far as I can see. The onboard lumafix does not get rid of the stripes fully. However I have noticed that turning it off, the stripes are more noticeable on my Dell 2001 FP's S-Video input and nearly gone when using my Retrotink 2x Mini. The image quality does not change on the Retrotink when turning off the lumafix, and I guess it does something with the input signal. The retrotink really do some magic stuff. When I did the SixtyClone, I had not dialed in the colours on the potentiometer. And the retrotink added colour even though the CRT television only had black/white image.

Anyways....
I have another VIC-II in the mail, heading my way as of now. It is one of the "new" VIC-II chips, so I can compare it to my "old" VIC-II that is in the board right now.

Attempts for getting my GUS Max 2.1 to work in my 486 is a pain in the rear end. The setup program locks at the IRQ, DMA, and RAM testing and Windows 95 locks up (changed my config.sys and autoexec.bat to have minimum things running and I'll change that back with the msdos.sys file).

Funnily enough, the CD-ROM drive is detected and working just fine.

Iam waiting on my replacement parts for my laser XT/3 8086 10Mhz machine.

Ordered two new SN74LS245N chips (i had the previous chips removed for diagnostic the machine) but i have a lot parts laying around.. And also move parts from heap to table, i have lost my eyes on finding the chips again.
Ordered 18 new Dram chips, to replace my old factory 512KB ones. Tried to install the full EMS option and the Parity chips.. Ending in a parity error some where. Iam currently testing the chips to find any culprit.. But still iam looking.
Maybe the base 512KB memory isnt that stable anymore and could end in a sort bitflip and causes the parity error. So iam going back to the basics.. Setting the board back to 512KB memory.. And upgrade it with newer chips. And hoping the parity error goes away.

And iam in a wait for the new DMA controller i ordered recently. (the old one got welded in the socket.) was hard to remove the IC (maybe it was already bad) *thought that DMA controller have a sort of memory inside*
When lifting it out.. Some pins where stuck, and wont wanted to got out. So 1 pin broke off. Now replace it with a new siemens part.

As far iam now.. 1 week ago cleaned the motherboard. Sprayed every where deoxit D5 to insure every contact made well.
Replaced the 40 PIN DMA ic socket

*consider to replace some electrolyc capacitors.
* Consider to desolder the other 74LS chips around the chips which are in contact with the DMA controller and solder in IC sockets. (then could swap out the 74LS logic)

I cut up a late 90s 5.25 drive bay blanking plate to make hold downs for the heatshields on the whip, 'coz the nuts all ripped out of the damn things. Basically "fender washer" duty. It was a conveniently perforated one that was a punch out type so it wasn't ever going back in a system. Installed them... ride is now 0.001% retro computer. (Based on about 10 grams of blanking plate and 1100kg of car)

I had some terrible time testing ATI Rage 128 PRO 32MB AGP (128-bit) that I got today. I tried install it to MSI MS-5169 (ALi M1541) running Win98SE. Everything looked fine without ATI drivers installed. There was 3 fail-scenarios on first startup after driver was installed. Tried it about a dozen times without success.
1. "No signal" when Windows desktop should appear.
2. Blank screen, only mouse moving with hourglass.
3. Reboot

On (dual PII) i440BX Win2k machine it worked fine, so I assume there is some compability issue with M1541 and/or MS-5169.

I also dumped this video BIOS and flashed (109-63000-00) ATI Rage 128 Pro 16MB for MAC with that file. HWiNFO showed 16MB with 128-bit bus, promising...
Fast 3DMark99 benchmark looked good also. This, originally MAC card, gave a bit higher game score nevertheless it has the same BIOS and half amount of memory.

Trying to get a TVGA9000A (512kb) to run on win 3.1 on a 286 with 256 colors but i only can get 16.
If i try SVGA it hangs or tells me i need a 386🤔

Cleaning up a damaged 386 board but can't get it all away with vinegar and IPA.
It's a bit better now than on this pic but some smaller spots are really hard to remove (or not even at all it seems).

Well, I was looking forward to play some old DOS games on a genuine CRT.

Instead, I received a banged up CRT... Damn !

I don't know how to fix that. 🙁

Is it broken? Screw thread is torn off?

The plastic support on the left side is somehow bending upwards and that "hole" is making the rest of the plastic front giving away... And I don't understand:
1. how was it possible to bang it in just to "right" place to do that during transport. Did they kick it or what ?
2. what in the hell I'm supposed to do to fix it. Pushing it in does not change anything, it comes right back to its state in the photo.

I'll try to make some more photos later in a specific thread.

The rear cover will need to be removed to see what it looks like and if the front frame is deformed. Maybe it's just blocked by some bent or broken piece of cover?
At least the screen stayed whole!

xcomcmdr wrote on 2021-07-31, 08:50:

how was it possible to bang it in just to "right" place to do that during transport. Did they kick it or what ?

You underestimate how creative postal workers can get when it comes to finding ways of destroying fragile packages. It's almost like they can smell CRTs and go extra rough when throwing them around.

Today in history, an in-line scanline generator was added to the kids' PC. Momentous.