A pair of keylock switches harvested from a couple old dead 486 systems, mounted in a blank drive slot plate and connected to the jumper blocks on both IDE hard drives so I could change which drive is master, and thus change which drive boots. This was in my first custom build from 2002, and carried over into my next custom build in 2005.

Not really a hack in the sense that it worked perfectly fine...but more of a hack in that it LOOKED horrible. The holes drilled into the drive slot plate didn't line up and had plastic burrs around the edges, and I just used handwritten paper labels (my handwriting is so bad not even the NSA can read it) to denote which switch setting did what. Yeah it worked fine, but it looked so awful that it would want to make a professional case modder gouge their eyes out. :p

That looks quite okay and within spec in my book.

Some of my "in development" prototypes look quite bad and fragile (yet work as intended):
https://i.imgur.com/ah9chkx.jpg (switchable Disney Sound Source-Covox DAC)
https://i.imgur.com/mADokIn.jpg (16MB on my ARGUS prototype using a SIMM30 -> SIMM72 adapter)
I guess the (optional!) -5V generation and feedback onto the ISA bus on the ARGUS is quite questionable (can easily kill your PSU and/or card if configured incorrectly)

Non-PC stuff:
https://i.imgur.com/brPKlfj.jpg (switchable VIC-20 cartridge port [for dumping ROMs])
https://i.imgur.com/T6tOKUd.jpg (Atari XL 256k Rambo expansion)
https://i.imgur.com/nZxzgr6.jpg (32k Atari VCS cartridge [still in regular use since I'm too cheap/uninterested to buy/route a proper board])
https://i.imgur.com/BnIOVYo.jpg (ZX Spectrum Soundchip + Joystick expansion [also in regular use])

Stuff I don't have photos of:
Optical punched card reader with a card slot made from wood, hotglued to a PCB
ARGUS Protoype #2 which has a few botch resistors, loose wires, cut/bridges traces, added jumpers with hot glue

I cut a whole SATA power connector from an new atx power supply and soldered the standard 4 pin molex lead from the power supply that have failed.
I used heatshrink on each wire and bam, suck it new atx psu that have lots of sata and few standard 4 pin.

I recently hacked up a 6 to 8 pin pcie adapter to replace the end of a modular pcie cable that had fire damage to test if the 3 non burnt pcie plugins on the psu were funtional.

.legaCy wrote:

I cut a whole SATA power connector from an new atx power supply and soldered the standard 4 pin molex lead from the power supply that have failed.
I used heatshrink on each wire and bam, suck it new atx psu that have lots of sata and few standard 4 pin.

That is actually a better solution than buying cheap molex to SATA adapters. Less risk of starting a fire.

Hardware hacks? 🤣 I stuck a G4 CPU from a late PowerMac (Quicksilver) into a earlier motherboard from a Sawtooth model. Had to mod the CPU and the motherboard (solder a supplementary power line directly to the CPU, and cut off the top of the plastic shroud around an IDE connector from the motherboard that was physically not allowing the CPU to be plugged in). The CPU ran slower than its rated speed due to the lower FSB (100 instead of 133MHz), but much faster than any CPU that ever was officially supported by the Sawtooth.

Fixing traces with solder, cutting the top off a card backplate to fit in a short case, cutting a drive cage to make room for a video card, drilling holes to mount a hard drive, using pipe cleaners as cable management, the usual.

xjas wrote:

I forgot about this. Was taking apart my dearly-departed Socket 478 gaming rig and pulled this octopus out: […]
Show full quote

I forgot about this. Was taking apart my dearly-departed Socket 478 gaming rig and pulled this octopus out:

CameraZOOM-20181011134917608.jpg

That would be four MOLEX connectors, adapted to two 6-pin PCIe, to one 8-pin PCIe, to run this monster card off a crummy 2003 Enermax PSU that's never even heard of PCIe. There was also a MOLEX to SATA adapter in the mix to run the DVD-ROM. 😜

Surprisingly none of this killed the system (and the GPU still works fine.) It was possibly the well-known Intel ICH5 ESD failure, but I'm not going to put a whole ton of work into diagnosing it.

What's the worst hack you've put into a build?

I have this same card, I use it with an 8-pin to 2 Molex adaptor..

Let's do some math. the PCI-Express HD3850 uses a 6-pin connector, rated up to 75W. The PCI-Express also delivers 75W max, so it's a total of 150W.

The AGP port delivers 20W, so you need 130W from the power connector. That results in the requirement for an 8-pin connector (150W max). That means in the worst scenario you would need 65W from each Molex if you use a 2 Molex splitter. Is this possible? Kind of, the Molex plugs can carry up to 60W on the 12V rail.. However they are rated up to 40W, so the safe-use case will bring around 80W from the 8-pin, and when you add the AGP power that makes 100W.

That is probably enough for an HD3850 though, as it is a 75W TDP part. Granted, that is thermal dissipation and is related mostly to GPU power consumption.. Add 20-25W for memory power and you should be able to squeeze the HD3850 into the dual molex envelope if you are feeling adventurous. Case in point: X1950PRO AGPs, which are 66W TDP parts, are comfortable with 6-pin or dual molex power.

Found some HD5870 without cooler. So proceeded for a "solution" myself...

At least you didn't use putty.

Soldered on a battery holder (2x AA) onto my Packard Bell Pack-Mate 28 Plus, which is a temporary solution until I purchase a battery holder for the CR1220 battery I have since using a 2x AA battery holder vs the CR1220 battery isn't a good solution since the AA batteries drain faster than a standard CR1220 battery or equivalent.

bjwil1991 wrote:

Soldered on a battery holder (2x AA) onto my Packard Bell Pack-Mate 28 Plus, which is a temporary solution until I purchase a battery holder for the CR1220 battery I have since using a 2x AA battery holder vs the CR1220 battery isn't a good solution since the AA batteries drain faster than a standard CR1220 battery or equivalent.

That's not unusual. I have tons of 286, 386 and 486 boards that I've treated the same way.

At least it works without issues. Heck, the system does POST faster (as soon as I hit the power button) than the old solution, which was hooking up an external battery to the board, which can take time. for the system to turn on. Wish I knew where my dad placed the old 286 and 386 motherboards so I can get them functioning once again (new caps, remove the NiCd battery, and so on). Wouldn't be surprised if I found an old Sound Blaster sound card and CD drive. But, my luck always runs dry.

The worst? I don't know.
But I used this cooling solution a couple of times. Worked flawlessly for years 😁

Software solution, and this is one of those best/worst ideas...

This one time I was working at this locally owned computer store at the mall back in the early days of this forum. And this lady kept bringing her computer in with viruses she got through web surfing.

Which is fine, virus removal was like $80-100. With a vague warranty I don't remember the details of.

So she came in, got it removed, left.

Then she came back, infected again, got it cleaned, bitched up a storm, left.

And again.

Then she came back the fourth time. At this point I said to the other service guy "let me take this".

And I got creative.

I researched how to retheme Mozilla Firefox. I installed it, imported all her bookmarks, cookies, and settings. Then I themed it to look exactly like Internet Explorer 6, removed/replaced all the real links to IE6 on the desktop and Start Menu, and locked it down.

When she came in, I told her I installed a better version of Internet Explorer that would stop her from getting infected.

Because I knew if I had just installed Firefox as normal and requested that she use it, she would keep using IE6.

And she went home with it like that. 🤣

Later I heard it had worked for her for a while in that way, and it was some time before we saw her again to finally buy a new computer.

Inspired by the success of this, much later I researched whether there were any Linux distros that looked exactly like Windows XP, but I never actually got much farther to deploy that!

I... vaguely remember... that she later called back to say that some of her favorite online gambling websites mysteriously stopped working with the new version of Internet Explorer I installed. I think I explained that it was probably for the best.

We had some real winners. 🤣

... I got my BOFH membership card right here. ..

Stiletto wrote:

Software solution, and this is one of those best/worst ideas... […]
Show full quote

Software solution, and this is one of those best/worst ideas...

This one time I was working at this locally owned computer store at the mall back in the early days of this forum. And this lady kept bringing her computer in with viruses she got through web surfing.

Which is fine, virus removal was like $80-100. With a vague warranty I don't remember the details of.

So she came in, got it removed, left.

Then she came back, infected again, got it cleaned, bitched up a storm, left.

And again.

Then she came back the fourth time. At this point I said to the other service guy "let me take this".

And I got creative.

I researched how to retheme Mozilla Firefox. I installed it, imported all her bookmarks, cookies, and settings. Then I themed it to look exactly like Internet Explorer 6, removed/replaced all the real links to IE6 on the desktop and Start Menu, and locked it down.

When she came in, I told her I installed a better version of Internet Explorer that would stop her from getting infected.

Because I knew if I had just installed Firefox as normal and requested that she use it, she would keep using IE6.

And she went home with it like that. 🤣

Later I heard it had worked for her for a while in that way, and it was some time before we saw her again to finally buy a new computer.

Inspired by the success of this, much later I researched whether there were any Linux distros that looked exactly like Windows XP, but I never actually got much farther to deploy that!

I... vaguely remember... that she later called back to say that some of her favorite online gambling websites mysteriously stopped working with the new version of Internet Explorer I installed. I think I explained that it was probably for the best.

We had some real winners. 🤣

... I got my BOFH membership card right here. ..

One aunt always infected her computer, and i always had to deal with that i think it was the same as you experienced, but i took a measure that some will consider a little bit more extreme, i installed lubuntu, i made it look as close to windows as possible, installed everything that she possibly will need, and told that i updated the windows so it may look a little bit different.

Tetrium wrote:

The worst? I don't know.
But I used this cooling solution a couple of times. Worked flawlessly for years 😁

DSC00709.jpg

Oh yeah. Been there, done that. For me it was on a CPU cooler with a weird form factor whose original fan failed. Ziptied a 80mm case fan on top after removing the failed fan, worked like that for years. Easy to replace too if it fails again.

xjas wrote:

That would be four MOLEX connectors, adapted to two 6-pin PCIe, to one 8-pin PCIe, to run this monster card off a crummy 2003 Enermax PSU that's never even heard of PCIe. There was also a MOLEX to SATA adapter in the mix to run the DVD-ROM. 😜

This card actually works fine with just a 6-pin connector plugged in.
You can also use a single 6-pin to 8-pin adapter if you want to feel "safe" while using two fewer Molex connectors (the card originally came with one).

I've also soldered SATA connectors to a PSU which originally had none. It's a great way of modernizing older PSUs, for example those with a strong +5 V rail.