Turbo -> wrote:

Time to take a bath...

The previous owner has cut the cables off, but luckily he left enough cable to be soldered the connections back again. Reset button is missing, so making another one will be a challenge. I've just cleaned it for now. A true restoration comes, when I find suitable components. What does this computer case look like to you? Like a 386 or 486?

Amazing job, congrats !!!

Nprod wrote:

Jed118 wrote:

Interesting case, upside down IE logo?: […]
Show full quote

Interesting case, upside down IE logo?:

If Windows XP were a PC case

Yes, JNC's ATX cases were famous for having the Internet Explorer icon (or a globe icon) engraved on the sides.

I have about three cases with that icon. Not the best but not the worst either. Pretty cheap but gets the job done and allows cable management (to a degree).

These were usually bundled with Deer/L&C PSUs, although after some research it seems yours came with a CWT ISO unit.

The power supply in there is from 2012, as the original one had some issues at that time. It's only a 220 watt unit, but it's been in use that way for 3 years before going into my closet. Thanks for IDing the case, I was curious. Yeah you're right, the case is decent - cable management is possible, and there are no rough edges to cut yourself on, however overall it feels a bit on the flimsy side. Which makes it light, and in this case, that's good for me 😉

henryVK wrote:

Messing around with this keyboard where one of the "wells" for the screws that hold the frame together broke off. I have no idea what kind of plastic this is; so far my attempts at glueing it back in place have been torn apart by the torque from putting the screw back in.

This is such a tiny part to glue, I'm wondering if it wouldn't be easier to just glue a bigger chunk of plastik into the corner opposite the screw-hole and drive a small wood screw through.

In other news I managed to set up the CF hard drive for my portable project, but after I installed Win95 I realized something was off with the display output. User "retardware" kindly alerted me to the fact that this might be dying caps on either the video card or PSU, so it's probably more adventures in Soldering-Land for me.

Have you tried JB weld? I've used that on engines, to keep custom carburettor plates on different intake manifolds so I can bolt larger carbs down to engines that don't normally take them. Surely if it can withstand the trials of heat and vibration, it can work to keep the keyboard well together.

I need to get some super-precise tweezers.

It's not exactly retro, but I got a stack of motherboards in the 115x range with bent pins because they were handled improperly. I do have an endoscope I can attach to a tablet I have, and a way to hold the scope and light, but my current tools for manipulating pins are not quite down to things that small.

I also need to build a Very New Machine Boot Disc (because Hiren's and UBCD tools aren't quite up to the latest tools, especially their almost complete lack of GPU support), and a Very Old Machine Boot Disc (because Hiren's and UBCD don't work properly on P1/P2/P3 systems).

Phil has a test floppy for 386/486 and it would probably work on XT/286 with the right video.

I looked online but didn't really find what I was looking for.

Kind of got myself into a position where I have too many machines, first world problems.

I will probably have a post about another mystery card, though this is pretty obviously a 2005-2010 or so PCIE card, and I know the brand, but the numbers on it simply don't resolve when I search for it. Need to clean the miserable dirt off it and get pictures. It may not work, it was smashed pretty good, part of the heatpipe cooler was bent down and interfered with the fan. On the other hand the percentage of "junk" I receive that doesn't work is shockingly low, I mean like 5% low.

Edit: I think it's a Radeon 6850, I've polished the PCIE connector a little, cleaned the dirt and cobwebs off, there's a lot of corrosion on the board and the connectors, I bent half of the cooler back up so it's not mashed into the RAM and it clears the fan, but it's corroded as well. Of course, it works fine. I'm starting to think that fragile electronics are a myth. The fan even turns quietly, though I think it's running a little slow:

I am *always* on the lookout for older stuff, I'll get some pics of the Packard Bell P1 and Compaq P1 soon. That Compaq case is a nightmare and the PB isn't far behind it.

Looks like a HIS Radeon 6850 with the plastic shroud removed. Pictures here seem to match it pretty much perfectly, aside for perhaps the PCB's shade of blue: https://www.hardware.fr/articles/821-7/his-hd-6850.html

Jed118 wrote:

Have you tried JB weld? I've used that on engines, to keep custom carburettor plates on different intake manifolds so I can bolt larger carbs down to engines that don't normally take them. Surely if it can withstand the trials of heat and vibration, it can work to keep the keyboard well together.

Alright thanks, that sounds like some pretty good epoxy. They don't seem to have it at my hardware store, but it seems to generally be available in Germany.

Love American brand names, btw, especially when it comes to hardware things. Like, because of the German pronounciation it took me years too realise that "Locktite" has an actual literal meaning, rather than just being a name. Same with "Miracle Whip" 😀

Jed118 wrote:

The power supply in there is from 2012, as the original one had some issues at that time. It's only a 220 watt unit, but it's been in use that way for 3 years before going into my closet. Thanks for IDing the case, I was curious. Yeah you're right, the case is decent - cable management is possible, and there are no rough edges to cut yourself on, however overall it feels a bit on the flimsy side. Which makes it light, and in this case, that's good for me 😉

I remember it as I had one which I sadly threw away due to the screw holes for the panel widening in a short time and because I was missing one of the panels, not to mention it was pretty dirty.

Shame I didn't save the roof part that had the handle as the whole chassis is kind of universal for these type of cases - match and mix them!
I have black "Intel TAC" panels for mine and also an black variant of your type of panel (except it has a globe instead of the IE sign) in my closet. Just need to find 2 matching metal frames and a set of screws for them and they're ready to use. Also got a plexiglass sidepanel that accepts mounting a 80mm fan in the center - have used it in a Socket 754 build.

For the front panels - I also have one or 2 of these - one is in use (type RJA-52) as a sleeper upcoming beige 1155 i3 build. Might post it in the "post your system" thread.
The other is a silver/blue "FQ-70" panel, and it has two rainbow LEDs (2x cheap 12v ones in holders) powered by the 5v line if my memory serves me right.

I have acquired quite a lot of these parts over the years, and they're definitely interchangable if you have patience.

By the way, I also found your case' model number, and it's RJA-H7650.

Merovign wrote:

I need to get some super-precise tweezers.

It's not exactly retro, but I got a stack of motherboards in the 115x range with bent pins because they were handled improperly. I do have an endoscope I can attach to a tablet I have, and a way to hold the scope and light, but my current tools for manipulating pins are not quite down to things that small.

My tool of choice for fixing broken LGA sockets is a simple home made one, made from a 0.5mm mechanical pencil and a regular sewing pin with its head snipped off:

If you want the pin hooked like in the picture, you'll have to heat it up to an orange glow first. Those things are hardened, and will just break if you try to bend them without softening them. After bending it, you can reharden it by heating it up again, and then cooling it quickly, if you want. I didn't bother though, and that's probably why the pin looks like it looks, it's seen a lot of different uses through the years 😀

henryVK wrote:

Jed118 wrote:

... JB weld ...

Alright thanks, that sounds like some pretty good epoxy. They don't seem to have it at my hardware store, but it seems to generally be available in Germany.

While I can confirm that JB weld works fine in the automotive sector - I suggested it to a friend who sought for a safe method to close a hole in the fuel tank, and it did fine - personally I have not yet used it because there is little to nothing concrete information about its specifications.

For my part I use the German "Uhu plus" 2c glue in the variants "Sofortfest" and "Endfest 300" since decades.
The technical notes are very informative and also cover compatibilities and incompatibilities, correct application and common mistakes when working with 2-component epoxy glues.
No matter which glue you decide to use, these rules will be the same.

Merovign wrote:

I also need to build a Very New Machine Boot Disc (because Hiren's and UBCD tools aren't quite up to the latest tools, especially their almost complete lack of GPU support), and a Very Old Machine Boot Disc (because Hiren's and UBCD don't work properly on P1/P2/P3 systems).

Phil has a test floppy for 386/486 and it would probably work on XT/286 with the right video.

Phil's Ultimate Boot CD? 🤣

I have a Pentium III 600 in a very ugly yellowed beige case. The case is very heavy, awkward to work with, has no room for fans, the side panels are annoying to remove, cable management is pretty much impossible so the case was a real mess inside. Despite it being a big case, there was only room for two hard drives which were positioned right next where the CPU fan is placed so removing or adding drives with the fan installed is impossible.

On the other hand, I had an old Antec case which I used for an i5 2500k setup. A case older than the hardware inside. So I decided to swap stuff around - I bought a new Antec case for the i5-2500k so I'd have USB 3 support (the old Antec case had none) and now I'm moving the old Pentium III 600 over to the old Antec case. Lighter, cleaner, smaller, easier cable management, better cooling, ...

Updated the BIOS on my Asrock K7S41 from 1.70 to 2.60 and tried the AthlonXP 2400+ CPU to see if that would spring back to life. No life on the CPU, so it is dead.

henryVK wrote:

Jed118 wrote:

Have you tried JB weld? I've used that on engines, to keep custom carburettor plates on different intake manifolds so I can bolt larger carbs down to engines that don't normally take them. Surely if it can withstand the trials of heat and vibration, it can work to keep the keyboard well together.

Alright thanks, that sounds like some pretty good epoxy. They don't seem to have it at my hardware store, but it seems to generally be available in Germany.

Love American brand names, btw, especially when it comes to hardware things. Like, because of the German pronounciation it took me years too realise that "Locktite" has an actual literal meaning, rather than just being a name. Same with "Miracle Whip" 😀

Haha your names are pretty good too. When I was in Berlin 4 years ago, I had beer out of a white bottle labelled "Bier". Efficient.

Also, in the grocery store, I saw a package and it read "extra dick" on it. It amused the 12 year old inside me for a short time 😉

retardware

personally I have not yet used it because there is little to nothing concrete information about its specifications.

J-B Weld epoxy. J-B Weld is a two-part epoxy adhesive (or filler) that can withstand high-temperature environments. J-B Weld can be used to bond surfaces made from metal, porcelain, ceramic, glass, marble, PVC, ABS, concrete, fiberglass, wood, fabric, or paper.

What more do you need? Sometimes, you just gotta try it and see what happens. 😉

I find it pretty good at bonding plastics, you can even put more on and shape it with a file or a dremel. This stuff is quite strong; I used it on a plastic fender flare to reshape it after my dad broke it hitting a support pillar - it did a great job bonding the ABS plastic (or whatever VW used on their Jettas in the 80s). I just recently used some (a bit sloppily granted) on my ZIP100 external disk drive, as the plastic window on top of the unit came out for the second time and I used crazy glue on it previously. Now it's not going anywhere.

Once had a customer who kept jabbing their eMachines plastic power switch off its little holes cut into the sheet metal backing to the front plastic bezel, breaking the alignment and leading to the complaint that "it won't turn on". Person came back multiple times for that issue. Final time, we put some JB Weld on that switch's little plastic feet, no more moving off the bezel period. 🤣

Jed118 wrote:

What more do you need? Sometimes, you just gotta try it and see what happens. 😉

A few days ago I was looking for a good thermal conductive adhesive, after I found out that my old tube of General Electric special silicone had gotten hard.
So I was interested in hard facts, and investigated about the products commonly used nowadays. (Decided to use Sekisui 5760)

Played around with my "pentium machine". (200MHz MMX @ 3x75MHz)
Replaced the absolutely awful Creative AudioPCI 128 with ES1868F card (machine also got a lot more stable) and also tried out XMSDSK to allocate all ram over 64MB as ramdisk, because only 64MB of ram is cached by L2 cache. ( Re: HW for Pentium 166 Mhz )

Success.

Got around to testing my Panasonic CR-562-B and CI-101P 8b ISA interface card at last.

No go under Win98SE with the built-in drivers, but after 26 years this 1993-vintage stuff still works perfectly with DOS drivers. It even reads CDR 😀

Also dumped the BIOS of a Morse P1 486 board for a fellow Vogon.

Now time to enjoy my Fire & Cane dram 😀

some spammer wrote:

can reading books be considered as retro activity?

I say so. Reading books are better than looking at the blue light on your computer, phone, tablet, or Kindle.

bjwil1991 wrote:

I say so. Reading books are better than looking at the blue light on your computer, phone, tablet, or Kindle.

What about e-ink/e-paper readers? 😜

I had my Asrock K7S41 on the testbench today. It was stored really bad for the last some 4+/- years or so. As I thought that it was dead, and had been in a hurry to clear a room or something like that. Anyway.... Had it running with Win98se installation and did a 3D-Mark99 test on the thing. What I took note in, was that the USB is extremely unstable in Win98se. When it is fully enabled in the BIOS (2.0 support and legacy support as well), then Win98se will crash when installing the USB drivers. Disabling the USB support completely and removing any trace of USB drivers, then Windows will become rock solid. Back in 2003 to 2006, I was working for a company that are long dead and gone by now, as it went backrupt 6 months after I left it, because I was told that he had no money to pay me.... Anyway... Back then, I did some 6 to 8 low budget office computers, based on this board. And I never saw any issues in WinXP. XP was what the company exclusively sold computers with. Yet of course there were production errors, yet nothing more than on something like Asus boards or stuff like that. Totally normal rate of failure in that light. Yet the caps that Asrock used back then, was these really crappy chinese ones. If you get a board from back then, made by Asrock, then please recap with Japanese ones.

If anyone here, has an Asrock K7S41 board, and have any issues like this in Win98se. Then disable the USB all together, and see if a USB card will work. And enable spread spectrum and compatibility option in the BIOS as well. If they are disabled, then the board becomes extremely picky in regards to the memory quality. So enable those and use good decent memory, like Kingston and other like that.