kingcake wrote on 2023-10-29, 04:12:

Let me guess, the LEDs are being PWM driven? If so, you've made a giant antenna.

Yes they are.
The PWM is happening inside the LEDs because they are addressable (ws2812b).
I guess 24 PWM emitters below the ISA bus are not what you want...

I am thinking about shielding the backplane from the backside... or just ripping out the leds behind the board.

DerBaum wrote on 2023-10-29, 04:22:

Yes they are. The PWM is happening inside the LEDs because they are addressable (ws2812b). I guess 24 PWM emitters below the ISA […]
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kingcake wrote on 2023-10-29, 04:12:

Let me guess, the LEDs are being PWM driven? If so, you've made a giant antenna.

Yes they are.
The PWM is happening inside the LEDs because they are addressable (ws2812b).
I guess 24 PWM emitters below the ISA bus are not what you want...

I am thinking about shielding the backplane from the backside... or just ripping out the leds behind the board.

Yeah, you're pumping out a ton of normal mode radiation. Adding a layer of shielding should help (make sure to ground it or it won't work that well).

ubiq wrote on 2023-10-26, 23:26:

Haha, fantastic cable routing on that, love it! […]
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Shponglefan wrote on 2023-10-26, 16:20:

Continued to 'downgrade' my 1995 Pentium 133 by installing a motherboard with a 430FX (Triton) chipset. […]
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Continued to 'downgrade' my 1995 Pentium 133 by installing a motherboard with a 430FX (Triton) chipset.

Previously I had installed a Gigabyte GA-586ATV which uses the 430VX (Triton II) chipset. The replacement motherboard is the Gigabyte GA-586ATE/P.

Pentium 133 GA-586ATV motherboard.jpg

Pentium 133 GA-586ATE-P motherboard.jpg

Both motherboards feature turbo switch functionality which is nice. They do seem to throttle to different speeds though. The GA-586ATV throttles to the equivalent of a Pentium 100, whereas the GA-586ATE/P slows down to approximately a Pentium 75. With the turbo functionality and SETMUL to disable L1 cache I can slow the latter system to the equivalent of a 486 DX-33 or 386 DX-40.

The GA-586ATE/P does have really irritatingly place IDE connectors. Fortunately I was able to wrangle both the cables and the full length AWE32 card and make everything fit.

It also gives me a 4th ISA slot should I decide to install something else.

Pentium 133 GA-586ATE-P motherboard 2.jpg

Haha, fantastic cable routing on that, love it!

I added an IDE to SD card adapter to my "Mini ITX" Pentium 90:
IMG_6122.jpeg

Hello ubiq,

that looks incredibly good! Really a nice build!
What kind of MoBo do you use?
Do you have some more pictures?

Best regards!
JF

JF_Sebastian wrote on 2023-10-29, 10:49:

Hello ubiq, […]
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ubiq wrote on 2023-10-26, 23:26:

Haha, fantastic cable routing on that, love it! […]
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Shponglefan wrote on 2023-10-26, 16:20:

Continued to 'downgrade' my 1995 Pentium 133 by installing a motherboard with a 430FX (Triton) chipset. […]
Show full quote

Continued to 'downgrade' my 1995 Pentium 133 by installing a motherboard with a 430FX (Triton) chipset.

Previously I had installed a Gigabyte GA-586ATV which uses the 430VX (Triton II) chipset. The replacement motherboard is the Gigabyte GA-586ATE/P.

Pentium 133 GA-586ATV motherboard.jpg

Pentium 133 GA-586ATE-P motherboard.jpg

Both motherboards feature turbo switch functionality which is nice. They do seem to throttle to different speeds though. The GA-586ATV throttles to the equivalent of a Pentium 100, whereas the GA-586ATE/P slows down to approximately a Pentium 75. With the turbo functionality and SETMUL to disable L1 cache I can slow the latter system to the equivalent of a 486 DX-33 or 386 DX-40.

The GA-586ATE/P does have really irritatingly place IDE connectors. Fortunately I was able to wrangle both the cables and the full length AWE32 card and make everything fit.

It also gives me a 4th ISA slot should I decide to install something else.

Pentium 133 GA-586ATE-P motherboard 2.jpg

Haha, fantastic cable routing on that, love it!

I added an IDE to SD card adapter to my "Mini ITX" Pentium 90:
IMG_6122.jpeg

Hello ubiq,

that looks incredibly good! Really a nice build!
What kind of MoBo do you use?
Do you have some more pictures?

Best regards!
JF

Yeah, I post about it in a thread I have going in System Specs, thanks! 😉

Well, finished the Chaintech CT-9BJA0 board from the "Bought these (retro) hardware today".

That's a funky approach of a Award BIOS if you're asking me. Caps I replaced are 4x Teapo 1200uF 16v, new caps are 1500uF 16v Rubycon MCZ pulls from a defunct Xbox 360 "Xenon" mainboard.

Very nice. I've replaced tons of Teapo caps before.

I have just discovered something I have never seen before - my MSI 865PEM2-ILS (MS-6743) motherboard supports USB storage natively in DOS. I've never seen a computer do this before and there's certainly no option in the BIOS that says anything like "USB Storage Support" that would enable this.
I wonder if the SATA mode it's running in has some effect here, it should be running in Legacy mode so the SATA SSD and SATA DVD-RW are seen as IDE devices.

It's detecting a 16GB USB 2.0 flash drive as a hard drive that's readable in DOS, not Windows though yet 😀 It's only operating at USB 1.1 speed (12mbps) and does lose long filename support... but it's so convenient! It's like the PCMCIA storage on laptops, I can just plug this USB stick in, boot into DOS and copy the driver folder across instead of pulling the hard drive.

I met with perhenden and ltning from this forum today, it was nice, and won't be the last meet-up either ~

Now I have pile of motherboards etc. to fix and some materials to properly set up a test computer setup too ~

Thermalwrong wrote on 2023-10-30, 19:18:

I have just discovered something I have never seen before - my MSI 865PEM2-ILS (MS-6743) motherboard supports USB storage natively in DOS. I've never seen a computer do this before and there's certainly no option in the BIOS that says anything like "USB Storage Support" that would enable this.
I wonder if the SATA mode it's running in has some effect here, it should be running in Legacy mode so the SATA SSD and SATA DVD-RW are seen as IDE devices.

It's detecting a 16GB USB 2.0 flash drive as a hard drive that's readable in DOS, not Windows though yet 😀 It's only operating at USB 1.1 speed (12mbps) and does lose long filename support... but it's so convenient! It's like the PCMCIA storage on laptops, I can just plug this USB stick in, boot into DOS and copy the driver folder across instead of pulling the hard drive.

Yah there's some post ~2010 boards that seem to handle USB drives more like hard disk drives. Also in general some do more if you turn on "USB legacy support" though it doesn't necessarily mention drives, but you need it for mouse and keyboard in DOS. It might be involved with support for USB BIOS recovery options since in that case they often want it made like a DOS boot drive, so there's some low level support for that that might be helping it.

Thermalwrong wrote on 2023-10-30, 19:18:

I have just discovered something I have never seen before - my MSI 865PEM2-ILS (MS-6743) motherboard supports USB storage natively in DOS. I've never seen a computer do this before and there's certainly no option in the BIOS that says anything like "USB Storage Support" that would enable this.
I wonder if the SATA mode it's running in has some effect here, it should be running in Legacy mode so the SATA SSD and SATA DVD-RW are seen as IDE devices.

It's detecting a 16GB USB 2.0 flash drive as a hard drive that's readable in DOS, not Windows though yet 😀 It's only operating at USB 1.1 speed (12mbps) and does lose long filename support... but it's so convenient! It's like the PCMCIA storage on laptops, I can just plug this USB stick in, boot into DOS and copy the driver folder across instead of pulling the hard drive.

I noticed the same thing a week or two ago with my Biostar K8M800.

In the BIOS (Award), there seems to be a setting for it, but it's very poorly labelled. It's something like "USB Emulation", there's a setting for emulating everything, a setting for emulating only input devices, and no emulation. I haven't tried but I suspect that's the setting that controls this feature.

Is your board Award BIOS too?

I received and installed an SB Audigy 2 ZS. (My second attempt at buying one, the first gamble on an 'untested' card got me a DOA card. Such is life.)

I never had an Audigy 2 back in the day, went straight from the first-gen Audigy to a first-gen X-Fi, but... these cards under pre-Vista OSes (before Microsoft broke everything) really are quite something.

(Random aside - every single one of my 'main' Windows desktops except for one has always had a Creative Labs sound solution. For 28 years. Even my most modern 'main' system, my somewhat-aging i7-7700, I picked the motherboard because it had a Creative SoundCore 3D instead of some Realtek thing.)

Thermalwrong wrote on 2023-10-30, 19:18:

I have just discovered something I have never seen before - my MSI 865PEM2-ILS (MS-6743) motherboard supports USB storage natively in DOS. I've never seen a computer do this before and there's certainly no option in the BIOS that says anything like "USB Storage Support" that would enable this.
I wonder if the SATA mode it's running in has some effect here, it should be running in Legacy mode so the SATA SSD and SATA DVD-RW are seen as IDE devices.

It's detecting a 16GB USB 2.0 flash drive as a hard drive that's readable in DOS, not Windows though yet 😀 It's only operating at USB 1.1 speed (12mbps) and does lose long filename support... but it's so convenient! It's like the PCMCIA storage on laptops, I can just plug this USB stick in, boot into DOS and copy the driver folder across instead of pulling the hard drive.

Many VIA EPIA boards do this as well. They will even boot DOS off a USB floppy drive!

Anyone know the size of fan mounting screws like these? Often found on Socket 370/Socket A/AM2/AM3 HSF units. Long and thin with small yet kind of coarse threads.

VivienM wrote on 2023-10-30, 23:57:

I received and installed an SB Audigy 2 ZS. (My second attempt at buying one, the first gamble on an 'untested' card got me a DOA card. Such is life.)

I never had an Audigy 2 back in the day, went straight from the first-gen Audigy to a first-gen X-Fi, but... these cards under pre-Vista OSes (before Microsoft broke everything) really are quite something.

(Random aside - every single one of my 'main' Windows desktops except for one has always had a Creative Labs sound solution. For 28 years. Even my most modern 'main' system, my somewhat-aging i7-7700, I picked the motherboard because it had a Creative SoundCore 3D instead of some Realtek thing.)

Do you mean the EAX / environmental effects? The Audigy 2 ZS is what I put into this P4 build after I found the onboard sound was broken / not giving audio. I got burned by the OEM SB Live that from what I recall had no actual EAX functionality and didn't like my Via motherboard so I soured on it all at the time. I got an X-Fi later and that was pretty good in BF 2142 though 😀
I've only got as far as installing it on XP but the software is something I haven't missed, it took me so long to figure out how to change the soundbank.

VivienM wrote on 2023-10-30, 23:46:

I noticed the same thing a week or two ago with my Biostar K8M800. […]
Show full quote

Thermalwrong wrote on 2023-10-30, 19:18:

I have just discovered something I have never seen before - my MSI 865PEM2-ILS (MS-6743) motherboard supports USB storage natively in DOS. I've never seen a computer do this before and there's certainly no option in the BIOS that says anything like "USB Storage Support" that would enable this.
I wonder if the SATA mode it's running in has some effect here, it should be running in Legacy mode so the SATA SSD and SATA DVD-RW are seen as IDE devices.

It's detecting a 16GB USB 2.0 flash drive as a hard drive that's readable in DOS, not Windows though yet 😀 It's only operating at USB 1.1 speed (12mbps) and does lose long filename support... but it's so convenient! It's like the PCMCIA storage on laptops, I can just plug this USB stick in, boot into DOS and copy the driver folder across instead of pulling the hard drive.

I noticed the same thing a week or two ago with my Biostar K8M800.

In the BIOS (Award), there seems to be a setting for it, but it's very poorly labelled. It's something like "USB Emulation", there's a setting for emulating everything, a setting for emulating only input devices, and no emulation. I haven't tried but I suspect that's the setting that controls this feature.

Is your board Award BIOS too?

It is Award and from 2004, an Intel 865 chipset motherboard. It was an OEM board but I put the regular MSI BIOS on. It's still pretty locked down so I think if there is an option for this USB storage emulation it's hidden. For a 2004 BIOS it's pretty great, 1st gen SATA so it can pretend to be regular PATA primary/secondary and it's got Smart Fan capability and the fans aren't too loud.

Finally got to use my Alpha PAL 8942 in a build even though I threw away the shroud for it and some of the mounting hardware broke long ago - designed and 3d printed up a fresh one in PETG that allows for installing a 92mm fan instead of the original 80mm.

Thermalwrong wrote on 2023-10-31, 02:44:

I got burned by the OEM SB Live that from what I recall had no actual EAX functionality and didn't like my Via motherboard so I soured on it all at the time. I got an X-Fi later and that was pretty good in BF 2142 though 😀

Yep, the Dell OEM Lives (and maybe for other OEMs?) had a cost reduced chip. EMU10K1X instead of EMU10K1. They didn't do hardware acceleration for EAX. Probably not for DirectSound, either. I also had trouble with Creative PCI cards and VIA chipsets back in the day.

Thermalwrong wrote on 2023-10-31, 02:44:

VivienM wrote on 2023-10-30, 23:57:

I received and installed an SB Audigy 2 ZS. (My second attempt at buying one, the first gamble on an 'untested' card got me a DOA card. Such is life.)

I never had an Audigy 2 back in the day, went straight from the first-gen Audigy to a first-gen X-Fi, but... these cards under pre-Vista OSes (before Microsoft broke everything) really are quite something.

(Random aside - every single one of my 'main' Windows desktops except for one has always had a Creative Labs sound solution. For 28 years. Even my most modern 'main' system, my somewhat-aging i7-7700, I picked the motherboard because it had a Creative SoundCore 3D instead of some Realtek thing.)

Do you mean the EAX / environmental effects? The Audigy 2 ZS is what I put into this P4 build after I found the onboard sound was broken / not giving audio. I got burned by the OEM SB Live that from what I recall had no actual EAX functionality and didn't like my Via motherboard so I soured on it all at the time. I got an X-Fi later and that was pretty good in BF 2142 though 😀
I've only got as far as installing it on XP but the software is something I haven't missed, it took me so long to figure out how to change the soundbank.

At least you can use the soundbank/wavetable synthesis in XP! I think it's in Windows 7 that MS basically removed the ability to use anything other than their software wavetable synthesizer. Just another step in their war to destroy good sound cards in the name of Intel "HD" Audio... and here we are, 15 years into that war, and you can't even buy a decent 5.1 speaker set anymore.

But yes, the EAX/environmental effects. Things like the male -> female effect too. My recollection is that the effects were already less in the original X-Fi under XP...

My Dell OEM SB Live back in 2000 had most of the effects too. It was cool back then, and 23 years later, they still seem cool... especially since I doubt that I had heard them since, oh, 2007 or so.

Thermalwrong wrote on 2023-10-31, 02:44:

It is Award and from 2004. It's a OEM board that I put the regular MSI BIOS on but it's still pretty locked down so I think if there is an option for this USB storage emulation it's hidden. For a 2004 BIOS it's pretty great, 1st gen SATA so it can pretend to be regular PATA primary/secondary and it's got Smart Fan capability and the fans aren't too loud.
IMG_2175 (Medium).JPG
Finally got to use my Alpha PAL 8942 in a build even though I threw away the shroud for it and some of the mounting hardware broke long ago - designed up and 3d printed up a fresh one in PETG that allows for installing a 92mm fan instead of the original 80mm.

Okay, on my Award BIOS that claims to be from 2003, go to Integrated Peripherals -> VIA OnChip PCI Device -> USB Emulation. There are three options "ON", "KB/MS" and "OFF". The help text says that 'ON' includes storage but 'KB/MS' does not.

How do you get your BIOS to pretend SATA is regular PATA primary/secondary? I feel like this board is missing that and this may be the reason for my huge troubles with 98SE...

I bought an HP ProDesk 600 G1 with an i5-4590T. Im going to try and get Windows XP installed onto it and see if SDI can find some XP drivers for it...
First step on the road to a 4th gen Core ix XP machine.

ElectroSoldier wrote on 2023-10-31, 03:21:

I bought an HP ProDesk 600 G1 with an i5-4590T. Im going to try and get Windows XP installed onto it and see if SDI can find some XP drivers for it...
First step on the road to a 4th gen Core ix XP machine.

Do you use SDI or SDI Origin? Recently learned of Origin after using the original SDI for a while. Might give Origin a try.

ElectroSoldier wrote on 2023-10-31, 03:21:

I bought an HP ProDesk 600 G1 with an i5-4590T. Im going to try and get Windows XP installed onto it and see if SDI can find some XP drivers for it...
First step on the road to a 4th gen Core ix XP machine.

I guess you wanna plan to find a higher clock i3 or something for it for XP, since that 4590T is low speed for power reduction. I came across one of those CPUs when I was out and about, and grabbed it thinking "4590 is more biggerer than 4570" then I got it home and had a good look and was all "Well shit." So yeah, didn't replace the full spec 4570 and sits on the shelf. Might look for a haswell ITX board for it though.

Good and bad news for the two ThinkPads I received last month.

Good news: Successfully cleared the supervisor password of the X60 using the method described here. The two contact holes (SDA and SCL) were extremely tiny; I had to use two safety pins to short them as my other metal probes were too thick. Strangely enough, the error code was not the "2200: Machine Type Invalid and Serial Number are invalid" described in many websites and tutorial videos, but "0191: System Security—Invalid Remote Change requested." After the error message the system jumped into BIOS; I cleared the Supervisor Password immediately and restart the machine. Voilà!

Bad news: The X31 is now completely dead; that "strange flickering screen" was probably not caused by the LVDS cable suggested by PcBytes, but due to power modules (capacitors and/or MOSFET) as the battery would not charge (no LED indicator or "warmed up" transformer and battery). Contact cleaner had no effect either. It was in poor shape anyway: the bezel and upper case had multiple cracks and was barely holding together (with helps from tape); I'd remove all usable components before sending it to e-waste.