Well, I sold my old apple IIgs system today. Kinda sad about that, but I really had lost interest in it.

Today, I tried to get a celeron mendocino working on a slotket in an old HP pavilion with an LX-based motherboard, to no luck: the screen doesn't even come on with a 300A. There also don't seem to be any BIOS updates available. Bummer.

Look the board up on Ultimate Hardware http://www.win3x.org/uh19/motherboard/search with slot counts, chipset etc and see if you can find a match with another manufacturer, the "HP" boards I've got hanging around here, one is an MSI and the other is an ECS. Then you might be able to replace the BIOS. Usually the mendocinos will do something if there's at least deschutes support though, unless you've found a klamath only board.

Nothing really retro lately, but definitely old, I replaced a cheap Chinese no-name CPU cooler with another even cheaper Chinese no-name CPU cooler to eliminate vibration noise. It did the trick, the new cooler is nice and silent and more than sufficient to cool an LGA1155 Xeon in my recent frankenstein build.

Also managed to repair another LGA1155 motherboard where I'd accidentally bent some pins in the CPU socket which stopped 2 DIMM slots from working. Using a magnifying glass and some steady handed patience, it didn't take long to spot & fix 2 bent pins I'd previously missed, which cured the problem immediately.

BitWrangler wrote on 2021-08-31, 19:18:

What did you do, put the old "monkey linux" ( https://archiveos.org/monkey/ ) on a 4MB 386 then ask them how to install KDE?

Never thought of that. muLinux with Italian accents may have had them stumped though. Why does it exist? Just seems to be a perpetual moan fest every time I have a look.

BitWrangler wrote on 2021-08-31, 20:49:

Look the board up on Ultimate Hardware http://www.win3x.org/uh19/motherboard/search with slot counts, chipset etc and see if you can find a match with another manufacturer, the "HP" boards I've got hanging around here, one is an MSI and the other is an ECS. Then you might be able to replace the BIOS. Usually the mendocinos will do something if there's at least deschutes support though, unless you've found a klamath only board.

it's an Asus board. I had debated trying an asus bios from a P2L97 or something, although the HP has integrated VGA that the Asus doesn't.

EDIT: Well, how about that. I flashed a BIOS from a similar but slightly newer HP model also made by Asus. Works great now, in as far as I've tested

Did some benchmarking. Again. I am not sure if 3DMark2001SE is the right tool to determine the graphics card is a bottleneck, or the CPU.

Well, I finally did it:

Now we'll see if I develop the patience for the really tiny fixes (like that dual floppy drive with all the corroded traces, or the GTX 780 with the popped caps). I certainly can't see well enough to do it without the microscope. I got one that doesn't depend on a proprietary app.

Also working on some low profile card brackets:

The one with the tiny leg off the side is mounted with a single screw in the middle instead of one on top and bottom... the original bracket (not LP) has a bent piece of metal like that on the "back" of the card. I'm going to try bending it with heat and also that little triangle on the right will be an alternative, a standoff for the bracket on the "front" side of the card, to see which one seems sturdier.

Just been doing some wiring on my Suzuki XF650 motorcycle. Man it is a joy to use solder with lead in it. Wifey uses it in her stain glass work and has tons of the stuff....😉

PD2JK wrote on 2021-09-02, 20:15:

Did some benchmarking. Again. I am not sure if 3DMark2001SE is the right tool to determine the graphics card is a bottleneck, or the CPU.

One easy way to find the bottlenecks is to use the lowest resolution for the benchmark and see how it scales when you increase it. Start with 640x480 and than go 800x600, 1024x768, 1280x1024. If the results are pretty much the same, CPU is the bottleneck. Like using P3 800Mhz with Radeon 9800XT. If results drop a lot, especially going from 640x480 to 800x600, then the video card is the bottleneck - like P3 1.4Ghz with Voodoo3 2000.

You can also post your configuration and we can generally tell what are the best combinations.

kixs wrote on 2021-09-03, 07:31:

PD2JK wrote on 2021-09-02, 20:15:

Did some benchmarking. Again. I am not sure if 3DMark2001SE is the right tool to determine the graphics card is a bottleneck, or the CPU.

One easy way to find the bottlenecks is to use the lowest resolution for the benchmark and see how it scales when you increase it. Start with 640x480 and than go 800x600, 1024x768, 1280x1024. If the results are pretty much the same, CPU is the bottleneck. Like using P3 800Mhz with Radeon 9800XT. If results drop a lot, especially going from 640x480 to 800x600, then the video card is the bottleneck - like P3 1.4Ghz with Voodoo3 2000.

You can also post your configuration and we can generally tell what are the best combinations.

That's quite a helpful reply. Thanks. 😀

Okay, so the system in this matter is an Athlon slot A running at 1 GHz, 512MB of PC133 / SDR-SDRAM memory, plugged in a Gigabyte GA-7IXE board.

Graphics card candidates are, from slow to faster:
Radeon DDR (R100)
Radeon 9200SE
Geforce3 Ti200
GeforceFX 5600
Geforce4 Ti4800SE (Ti4400 with AGP8x)
Geforce4 Ti4600
Radeon 9500 Pro

Ordered PCBs and parts to build five of @scorp 's PS2 to Serial Arduino Pro Mini adapter. Optical PS/2 mice for all systems are go!

PD2JK wrote on 2021-09-03, 12:13:

That's quite a helpful reply. Thanks. :) […]
Show full quote

kixs wrote on 2021-09-03, 07:31:

PD2JK wrote on 2021-09-02, 20:15:

Did some benchmarking. Again. I am not sure if 3DMark2001SE is the right tool to determine the graphics card is a bottleneck, or the CPU.

One easy way to find the bottlenecks is to use the lowest resolution for the benchmark and see how it scales when you increase it. Start with 640x480 and than go 800x600, 1024x768, 1280x1024. If the results are pretty much the same, CPU is the bottleneck. Like using P3 800Mhz with Radeon 9800XT. If results drop a lot, especially going from 640x480 to 800x600, then the video card is the bottleneck - like P3 1.4Ghz with Voodoo3 2000.

You can also post your configuration and we can generally tell what are the best combinations.

That's quite a helpful reply. Thanks. 😀

Okay, so the system in this matter is an Athlon slot A running at 1 GHz, 512MB of PC133 / SDR-SDRAM memory, plugged in a Gigabyte GA-7IXE board.

Graphics card candidates are, from slow to faster:
Radeon DDR (R100)
Radeon 9200SE
Geforce3 Ti200
GeforceFX 5600
Geforce4 Ti4800SE (Ti4400 with AGP8x)
Geforce4 Ti4600
Radeon 9500 Pro

Personally I'd call the Gf3 a good match, I'd want the 4s with something at 1.5ghz AMD or 2G Intel and faster. The R100 feels more like a ~700mhz card. If you're not gonna have anything between this and a top end P4 or an A64, stick the 4600 in it.

Well it's just a messy test print, but using heat to bend the "arm" for mounting worked even better than expected:

Now for a more refined print with a few more reinforcements.

I could probably print the entire thing flat and make a rig to bend the mounting tab over. That would probably be stronger, as you'd have multiple angles of grain instead of just one. Should print a marking line on the bend spot, too. Or make it a tiny bit thicker, or both.

Always look for alternative techniques.

I got off work, cooked dinner then surveyed my place of worship >> the storage area, wow has it gotten to be a mess 🤣. trying to figure out where to start re-organizing....

I decided to test Windows NT 4.0 on my new (to me) IBM 300GL with a Pentium MMX 200 MHz. This computer’s configuration is very similar to the PC I had in the late 90s (except I used an ATX-style motherboard/case for my Pentium MMX). Running NT 4.0 on this computer really brought back some memories, including running my Creative DXR3 MPEG accelerator with DVD movies.

I had a generic 14” CRT monitor back then, so I never ran the DXR3 at a resolution much higher than 800x600. I also never stressed the accelerator to see what it could do at higher resolutions until today. Now I use a 27” 1080p monitor even with my retro projects. I decided to crank up the accelerator’s resolution and aspect ratio to see how it worked.

The DXR3 card uses a VGA pass-through cable from the video card and overlays the MPEG playback over it. Creative’s DXR3 manual only states compatible pass-through resolutions up to 1280x1024, 24-bit color, but it doesn’t mention any widescreen resolutions.

I started testing the card at 1280x1024 using my PCI Matrox G200 as the primary video card. Unfortunately, the DXR3’s image quality looked a lot softer than the G200 would produce by itself at this resolution. Still, the DXR3 provided smooth playback of a widescreen DVD movie (letter boxed in full screen mode) with few artifacts.

I next planned to look at the image quality at 1024x768, but I noticed that NT 4’s display menu offered me a resolution of 1280x720 (widescreen). I gave it a try to see if it would pass through the DXR3, and it did. The image quality of the Windows desktop looked much sharper at that resolution compared to 1280x1024. The DXR3 even played back the DVD video in this mode, including the wide aspect ratio in full-screen mode. Unfortunately, the DXR3 produced a number of visual artifacts at this resolution during DVD playback.

I also tried 1080p. The DXR3 did pass 1920x1080 through the card, but it sadly would not sync the video playback in either windowed or full screen modes at that resolution.

I’m still surprised that a widescreen mode worked at all considering the vintage of the DXR3 card. I totally didn’t expect to see that. Here’s a picture of it running in 720p (windowed):

Recently I've worked on a 430HX Pentium MMX build with an FIC PT-2200. I've long wanted to build a ~1997 system around this board, but actually using any motherboard will test your patience with their little issues.
It's been a long time since I worked on a board this old. I'm amazed how every little thing is an obstacle. Just rounding up compatible port brackets for starters - no mouse yet. Thought I had serial but apparently the pinout is wrong. Found a guy with (probably) the right mouse bracket on eBay but either he or his post office took 2 days to mail it, so it won't be here until next week.

There's no great BIOS for this board, each of the later versions (official and 3rd party "hacked") have things about them that I don't like or are broken.
The last semi-official BIOS was so broken that it couldn't even boot DOS without locking up, even when only a floppy drive was attached. Without reaching DOS I couldn't reflash the BIOS - I had to extract the chip and dig out my programmer to reflash it. Great release FIC.
The 3rd party hacked BIOS locks up when loading CDROM drivers on a Win9x boot disk.
Both of them have a dumb splash screen that can't be disabled.
They also use Award BIOS, while all the older versions were AMI WinBIOS. Was switching BIOS vendors a good idea that late in the board's support life? The preceding WinBIOS version, while lacking in some respects, at least works stably.

Settled on a slightly older, non-broken WinBIOS version that lacks support for LS120 and decently sized hard drives. Hard drive issue resolved with a Promise card. LS120 I'll have to live without - at least it works in Windows.

I made a mistake when I recapped the board a few days ago. I installed a cap that's too tall next to the bottom ISA slot, which is the only suitable slot for a long sound card. That cap is blocking it.
For now I'm using a shorter card in a different slot.
It doesn't want to work, Win95 says it's not there. Fun!

Tonight I accidentally launched the WIN command (Windows 95) while Turbo was turned off. Couldn't switch it on because this board won't allow switching when in Protected Mode.
Not wanting to force a reset and screw up Windows, I let it sit ~45 minutes before giving up. Turned out it was locked up so waiting was a waste of time. I guess it locked because maybe it can't go into protected mode while deturboed, or whatever.

Spent hours trying to figure out whether the sound problem of an Asus A7V133-C was either hardware or software. The MB has VIA VT82C686B southbridge and VT1611A audio codec chip. Tried every Win9x driver on Asus' official A7V133-C support page but none of them worked. Changed settings here and there in BIOS and Win98SE; no use.

Not to mention Win98SE kept telling me the driver is not designed for the specific hardware. But I downloaded the driver from the official website so they should work, right? RIGHT???

And it turned out the hardware had no problem at all; those "drivers" on Asus' website were all bullcrap! 😠 Downloaded VIA Vinyl Audio driver 6.50a from VIA and it worked perfectly.

I took apart, cleaned thoroughly, and then reassembled an off-brand wireless keyboard before I realized the wireless dongle was missing. So that was fun. Part of me wants to try to swap out the control board for a vintage/retro project, I guess I'll make that #933 on the project list.

I have lined up a huge box of parts to test and planned on doing it today, but I kind of never got up and went today.

I did pick up what I thought was going to be a VisionTek GF3 and turned out to be a VisionTek Radeon 9600 yesterday, so that's something! Still haven't tested it yet, it's in the test box, which is overflowing.

Some of them (Edit: random wireless keyboards) have a USB compliant HID interface that you can internally solder up a USB cable for. It's a bit of a PITA to dig out the data sheets and brain it all out though.

BitWrangler wrote on 2021-09-06, 02:54:

Some of them (Edit: random wireless keyboards) have a USB compliant HID interface that you can internally solder up a USB cable for. It's a bit of a PITA to dig out the data sheets and brain it all out though.

Yeah the other option I had in mind was puzzling out the ribbon connector on the membrane and creating a bridge or something for an older keyboard PCB - someone used a arduino-like chip to make a wireless keyboard wired, but it was a ton of work. Mind you, they put their plans on the internet, so they did most of the homework.

https://chadaustin.me/2021/02/wired-sculpt/

Proooobably more than I want to do as it's an 80-key and I prefer full keyboards for most purposes.

Also, I was digging into another slimline with a ton of errors (everything was unplugged or bent by an angry gorilla), when I found that one of the PCIE 1x slots was shrouded by the PSU. So, I looked and there was something next to it:

I mean, obviously, the mobo wasn't designed for this case, but it's every so slightly entertaining to see the designer's "what the heck it'll fit" moment.

Edit: Yes, I'm bored. I get bored when I'm tired because if I could do things I wouldn't be bored. 😀