Not much, just loading software on the FitPC. Thinking about making it a XP-based "Server" of sorts for my vintage machines. Tried running FNaF on it, it won't run, but I did run Postal on it and it runs AMAZING on that machine. Going for The Sims Next, and maybe Beachhead 2000.

Decided to go through the Super Socket 7 system and see if it works.....not really getting anything, not sure if it's because of the on-board video not having a connector and ignoring the PCI Video card, or if it's because the board has problems. Starting to wonder if it's worth posting them on e-bay as/is for parts. Did figure out the specs though. Both boards are PC-Chips

PcChips M919 V3.4/F
Socket 3, 3xPCI, 4xISA, 1XVLB, Fake cache, Cache slot (not fake), AMI 486 BIOS (flashable), I have 8MB of RAM and a 486 DX2/66 installed, knwon working

No POST still nor beeps despite going over the jumper settings with a fine tooth comb.

Broke out the HDE PC Analyzer card (PCI & ISA) gets nothing on the readout and LEDS are
ISA - +12v LED, -12v LDE, +5VLED, -5VLED,, Clock, Frame, and Reset all lit, no IRDY
PCI - +12V LED, -12V, +5V, Clock, Reset

PcChips M590
Super Socket 7, 3xPCI, 2x ISA, 2x DIMM, 2x 72 pin SIMM, on-board sound and video. I have the same unknown PCI Video card attached to this one as well as I don't have a connector for the on-board video header. It has an AMD K6-2 333MHz CPU in the socket, and 64MB of DIMM memory in both slots.

No Post, no beeps either. Not a lot of jumper settings either. AMIBIOS586D1

Broke out the PC Analyzer on this board as well...this is what I have....
ISA - +12, -12, +5, CLK, IRDY comes on a few seconds then goes off, Frame stays on steady, no Reset
PCI - +12, -12, +5, CLK, IRDY comes on and then off after a few seconds, Frame stays on, Reset turns on for a second, and then off - every boot after IRDY does not turn on

All in all, neither board works.....to my knowledge.....

So now I'm wondering if I should try and sell those boards as/is for parts or recycle them. All in all, I still have a good AT chassis I could stick something else into, but I don't really feel like chasing around problems with PcChips motherboards currently. Might do some looking around and figure that out. Either that or I'll just pull what I can save and scrap the boards themselves.

snufkin wrote on 2021-12-17, 14:28:

Well, I got the worst of the muck off and... well, it's bad, but not as bad as I expected: Toshiba_110CT_UnderTheMuck.jpg […]
Show full quote

Well, I got the worst of the muck off and... well, it's bad, but not as bad as I expected:
Toshiba_110CT_UnderTheMuck.jpg

Slightly disappointed. I was half hoping for a nice clear 'this is broken and fixing will take more time than I really want to spend' amount of damage, rather than a 'well, maybe' amount.

There are some broken traces, but all the pins on the 187HP look intact, if a bit thin. Elsewhere, near the second battery plug point, I can see a couple of traces that may be broken, but this area is the worst of it. I think the next step is to see if I can get the 187HP off without breaking any pins. I suspect that the gunk will have glued the pins to the pads and made the metal brittle, so removing it without doing damage could be fun. Then the keyboard connector, which I'd like to try and save if possible but can be replaced. Then those 62Z components (dual diodes I think, HZM6.2Z) and some of the resistor packs. Also want to try and remove the rest of the CPU heatsink to see if there's any more damage.

I think the odds of it working might have doubled. Up from nearly .0000001% to nearly .0000002%.

You can do it and it will turn out working.
It isn't that bad after all.

Copying the Windows 98SE installation CD on my Tualatin build since the OS got corrupted after rebooting twice without warning when I was testing a game with the 6800XT AGP since the Radeon 9700 Pro AIW was failing.

Had to repair the drive and it lost the entire Windows directory, except for the Program Files directory, which I hope still has the games on there and I'm going to either run Norton Ghost or xcopy32 to copy everything from the 60GB Maxtor Fireball to the 80GB Western Digital Caviar.

And it'll get a major HDD upgrade from the platter drive to SSD since regular drives do tend to fail. Had the 60GB since about 2017 and it was NIB, never opened.

creepingnet wrote on 2021-12-18, 20:17:

PcChips M590 Super Socket 7, 3xPCI, 2x ISA, 2x DIMM, 2x 72 pin SIMM, on-board sound and video. I have the same unknown PCI Vide […]
Show full quote

PcChips M590
Super Socket 7, 3xPCI, 2x ISA, 2x DIMM, 2x 72 pin SIMM, on-board sound and video. I have the same unknown PCI Video card attached to this one as well as I don't have a connector for the on-board video header. It has an AMD K6-2 333MHz CPU in the socket, and 64MB of DIMM memory in both slots.

No Post, no beeps either. Not a lot of jumper settings either. AMIBIOS586D1

Broke out the PC Analyzer on this board as well...this is what I have....
ISA - +12, -12, +5, CLK, IRDY comes on a few seconds then goes off, Frame stays on steady, no Reset
PCI - +12, -12, +5, CLK, IRDY comes on and then off after a few seconds, Frame stays on, Reset turns on for a second, and then off - every boot after IRDY does not turn on

All in all, neither board works.....to my knowledge.....

So now I'm wondering if I should try and sell those boards as/is for parts or recycle them. All in all, I still have a good AT chassis I could stick something else into, but I don't really feel like chasing around problems with PcChips motherboards currently. Might do some looking around and figure that out. Either that or I'll just pull what I can save and scrap the boards themselves.

Although probably a useless step, but try sticking a Pentium classic or a MMX in there. I've had some SS7 hate K6s but work with anything else (Cyrix, P233MMX and such) despite all jumpers being set accordingly.

Well that's a good general principle anyway, troubleshoot motherboards with a lower end CPU. The boards might sell to ppl happy to have a crack at fixing them if you give up though.

creepingnet wrote on 2021-12-18, 20:17:

Decided to go through the Super Socket 7 system and see if it works.....not really getting anything, not sure if it's because of […]
Show full quote

Decided to go through the Super Socket 7 system and see if it works.....not really getting anything, not sure if it's because of the on-board video not having a connector and ignoring the PCI Video card, or if it's because the board has problems. Starting to wonder

[...]

PcChips M590
Super Socket 7, 3xPCI, 2x ISA, 2x DIMM, 2x 72 pin SIMM, on-board sound and video. I have the same unknown PCI Video card attached to this one as well as I don't have a connector for the on-board video header. It has an AMD K6-2 333MHz CPU in the socket, and 64MB of DIMM memory in both slots.

No Post, no beeps either. Not a lot of jumper settings either. AMIBIOS586D1

Ah, that old train-wreck of a board - SiS 5591 AGP chipset ruined by adding an onboard SiS 6326 instead of just giving you an AGP slot.

Two potential issues:
1) 5V/3.3V jumpers by the DIMMs. Silly because the DIMM slots are keyed for 3.3V only, but if these jumpers (J2A+B) are set incorrectly, bad things happen. Both need to be on 2-3
2) despite "PC100" labels all over the board, 5591 doesn't support 100MHz operation.

Assuming the VDIMM jumper isn't wrong, I'd suggest assuming BIOS EEPROM was dead/corrupt and flash a new one to see if that helps.

Well, I rerouted most of the cables in my retro closet after finding a female to male power cord that worked with the interconnect in my PowerMac G3. After that, i got 7.0.1 installed on my LC II, as 7.1 was just a little too heavy for that trashy little abomination.

BetaC wrote on 2021-12-20, 07:19:

Well, I rerouted most of the cables in my retro closet after finding a female to male power cord that worked with the interconnect in my PowerMac G3. After that, i got 7.0.1 installed on my LC II, as 7.1 was just a little too heavy for that trashy little abomination.

Trashy little abominations are the best kind of retro machines, got my eye on a trashy PC Direct 286 machine only . .its not a 286 but a 486SX in disguise with a thrown together parts list.

Not sure if Ill buy it but it does come with a really nice looking 15" CRT, might get it just because it looks like it could use a good home.

Oh my .. has a 52MB Quantum Pro in it .. well that seals the deal I need that noisy little brick in my life, has a embedded 486 CPU but also has a second socket labeled as 486 .. Im guessing this means that it can be upgraded with a better 486 and itll turn off the embedded one.

Just checked the price for 5.25 1.2MB drives .. and jesus WTF happened to the prices ...300 -400 AUD, do people actually buy these drives for that much?

TrashPanda wrote on 2021-12-20, 07:30:

Trashy little abominations are the best kind of retro machines, got my eye on a trashy PC Direct 286 machine only . .its not a 2 […]
Show full quote

BetaC wrote on 2021-12-20, 07:19:

Well, I rerouted most of the cables in my retro closet after finding a female to male power cord that worked with the interconnect in my PowerMac G3. After that, i got 7.0.1 installed on my LC II, as 7.1 was just a little too heavy for that trashy little abomination.

Trashy little abominations are the best kind of retro machines, got my eye on a trashy PC Direct 286 machine only . .its not a 286 but a 486SX in disguise with a thrown together parts list.

Not sure if Ill buy it but it does come with a really nice looking 15" CRT, might get it just because it looks like it could use a good home.

Oh my .. has a 52MB Quantum Pro in it .. well that seals the deal I need that noisy little brick in my life, has a embedded 486 CPU but also has a second socket labeled as 486 .. Im guessing this means that it can be upgraded with a better 486 and itll turn off the embedded one.

Just checked the price for 5.25 1.2MB drives .. and jesus WTF happened to the prices ...300 -400 AUD, do people actually buy these drives for that much?

Yeah, it can be quite fun to will life back in to something that was never designed to live well.

BetaC wrote on 2021-12-20, 08:51:

TrashPanda wrote on 2021-12-20, 07:30:

Trashy little abominations are the best kind of retro machines, got my eye on a trashy PC Direct 286 machine only . .its not a 2 […]
Show full quote

BetaC wrote on 2021-12-20, 07:19:

Well, I rerouted most of the cables in my retro closet after finding a female to male power cord that worked with the interconnect in my PowerMac G3. After that, i got 7.0.1 installed on my LC II, as 7.1 was just a little too heavy for that trashy little abomination.

Trashy little abominations are the best kind of retro machines, got my eye on a trashy PC Direct 286 machine only . .its not a 286 but a 486SX in disguise with a thrown together parts list.

Not sure if Ill buy it but it does come with a really nice looking 15" CRT, might get it just because it looks like it could use a good home.

Oh my .. has a 52MB Quantum Pro in it .. well that seals the deal I need that noisy little brick in my life, has a embedded 486 CPU but also has a second socket labeled as 486 .. Im guessing this means that it can be upgraded with a better 486 and itll turn off the embedded one.

Just checked the price for 5.25 1.2MB drives .. and jesus WTF happened to the prices ...300 -400 AUD, do people actually buy these drives for that much?

Yeah, it can be quite fun to will life back in to something that was never designed to live well.

And if willing doesnt work *grabs hammer

sometime you just gotta beat on it till it works.

dionb wrote on 2021-12-19, 14:51:

Ah, that old train-wreck of a board - SiS 5591 AGP chipset ruined by adding an onboard SiS 6326 instead of just giving you an AG […]
Show full quote

creepingnet wrote on 2021-12-18, 20:17:

Decided to go through the Super Socket 7 system and see if it works.....not really getting anything, not sure if it's because of […]
Show full quote

Decided to go through the Super Socket 7 system and see if it works.....not really getting anything, not sure if it's because of the on-board video not having a connector and ignoring the PCI Video card, or if it's because the board has problems. Starting to wonder

[...]

PcChips M590
Super Socket 7, 3xPCI, 2x ISA, 2x DIMM, 2x 72 pin SIMM, on-board sound and video. I have the same unknown PCI Video card attached to this one as well as I don't have a connector for the on-board video header. It has an AMD K6-2 333MHz CPU in the socket, and 64MB of DIMM memory in both slots.

No Post, no beeps either. Not a lot of jumper settings either. AMIBIOS586D1

Ah, that old train-wreck of a board - SiS 5591 AGP chipset ruined by adding an onboard SiS 6326 instead of just giving you an AGP slot.

Two potential issues:
1) 5V/3.3V jumpers by the DIMMs. Silly because the DIMM slots are keyed for 3.3V only, but if these jumpers (J2A+B) are set incorrectly, bad things happen. Both need to be on 2-3
2) despite "PC100" labels all over the board, 5591 doesn't support 100MHz operation.

Assuming the VDIMM jumper isn't wrong, I'd suggest assuming BIOS EEPROM was dead/corrupt and flash a new one to see if that helps.

🤣, yeah, I'm really winning the PC Chips "lottery" at this point, I've got 3 - a M912 in my second 486, the Moondog Tower, that runs great and has a real Cache believe it or not. Then there's the dead M919 that never worked, that has a DX2 in it....tempted to buy a third DX4-100 AMD CPU since that seems to be what that board came with and I've read about voltage adapters acting up on those. Then there's this hot piece of crap - M590 - which I remember I bought one on E-bay years ago and sold it to someone because I just was not a fan of it TBH.

After some testing, I'm starting to think the board may be ok, but the problem is that I don't have the VGA Graphics connector for it. I only have an external PCI card to see with. The lights on the Diagnostic card seem to be doing what they are supposed to - Reset blinks on, then clears, and IRDY blinks on and clears on the first boot-up.

The M919 seems to have a stuck Reset line, so maybe if I can get it unstuck it will work. Other option is to burn a new Flash ROM for it, but I need to figure out what options I have to do that with at this point since I don't have an EEPROM burner (at least, not yet).

I'm going to see which board I can get to boot first and then probably sell the one that does not work to whoever can replace them. Also, I'm tempted to recap the M919. What I find odd about that one is it was sold at RE-PC to me as a working board but it never worked.

Cleaned more cases.
Some covers are white and after cleaning it was ok.
Others like have a yellowish patina I can't remove. Just some spots here and there that show the original bright color (grey). Like yellowed plastic in need of retrobrite.

Waiting for potent degreaser to arrive and see what happens.

For all you masochists out there. If real life wasn't painful enough, now you can simulate pain. Did someone in this forum make this? Hilarious.

https://samj.itch.io/installing-windows-95-from-floppies

Did a small solder job. Finally assembled the C64 Ps2 Keyboard adaptor for my ATX-64 build.
I have the chip, but I am still missing to buy the Arduino Pro Micro.

liqmat wrote on 2021-12-20, 19:15:

For all you masochists out there. If real life wasn't painful enough, now you can simulate pain. Did someone in this forum make this? Hilarious.

https://samj.itch.io/installing-windows-95-from-floppies

How does it simulate the pit of stomach dread that it's either gonna break or render instantly obsolete $1000 or so of hardware and/or take you two weeks to fix if it goes wrong???

The simulation takes up more hard drive space than windows 95 itself....

Heh, didn't notice that, the floppy version was the smallest footprint too, so that's gotta be about 6 installs worth 🤣

creepingnet wrote on 2021-12-20, 18:23:

[...]

Then there's this hot piece of crap - M590 - which I remember I bought one on E-bay years ago and sold it to someone because I just was not a fan of it TBH.

After some testing, I'm starting to think the board may be ok, but the problem is that I don't have the VGA Graphics connector for it. I only have an external PCI card to see with. The lights on the Diagnostic card seem to be doing what they are supposed to - Reset blinks on, then clears, and IRDY blinks on and clears on the first boot-up.

In that case take a look at page 17 of this manual. Quite different board, but same connector and likely same pinout:
https://www.win3x.org/uh19/public/motherboard … 83761722983.pdf

The M590 manual does give the pinout of the ATX connector, but not of the proprietary VGA connector 🙁

I've used the same cable on 3 or 4 PC Chips boards, so I think they're gonna be the same.