VOGONS


Reply 20 of 39, by Mister Xiado

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I throw in the towel when:
The parts to repair the item cannot be sourced, identified, or cost more than a whole replacement.

I put the towel in storage when:
I feel too horrible to do anything but drink water and sleep.
Repairs will take hours, and I don't absolutely need the item.
The repairs require re-capping or replacement of ICs.
The repairs require the fabrication of a modification or bypass board that doesn't exist, and has to be made.

I burn the towel and think about giving the manufacturer similar treatment when:
The item develops more problems during repair, or immediately after.
Disassembly has been stymied intentionally by the manufacture to prevent end user repair.
The item cannot be repaired without specific multi-thousand dollar pieces of equipment.
The item has an engineering defect that cannot be remedied with a simple fix like a passive component added between two points, or replacing an existing component.
The item has a hardwired kill switch or similar function to disable or limit usability, set by the manufacturer.

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Icons, wallpapers, and typical Oldternet nonsense.

Reply 21 of 39, by SodaSuccubus

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As someone who badly needs to learn to solder, I throw in the towel anytime something breaks and needs a repair

Well, I don't throw it out but I goes in a long pile of "to fix/to pay someone to fix" 😜

Reply 22 of 39, by will1384

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will1384 wrote on 2020-06-16, 23:14:

I have an old Sound Blaster Live CT4760 with gold connectors, the sound card looks good, I can't see any problems on the board, and I got it pretty cheap and was said to be working, but it just will not work for me, wont work with the DOS drivers, and wont work with any Windows drivers I have tried, I tried 5 different drivers yesterday, I will try it in another computer today, I have some Sound Blaster Live CT4670 and a few other Sound Blaster Live cards with the "EMU10K1-ECF" chip and they seem to work fine with the correct driver, but this Sound Blaster Live CT4760 with gold connectors has a "EMU1OK1-NEF" chip, so I am thinking about getting or making a chip programmer and seeing if the card has a damaged EEPROM and / or reprogramming the EEPROM to something a driver will work with, there seems to be a good "how to" over at:

http://ixbtlabs.com/articles/livetolive51/index.html

If an EEPROM reprogram does not work the Sound Blaster Live CT4760 goes into a parts bin.

I tried this Sound Blaster Live CT4760 sound card on a different computer running WinXP and it works just fine, a WDM driver installed on it's own, driver shows up has "VEN 1102" for "Creative Labs" and "SUBSYS 80401102" for "CT4760 SBLive!", why on the other computer would a Sound Blaster Live CT4670 work when a Sound Blaster Live CT4760 will not work, 🤣, sometime it helps to keep trying, although I am a bit put out by the fact I cant get the Sound Blaster Live CT4760 to work in DOS, the sound card does work, I guess I will leave it in my WinXP game PC.

The computer that the Sound Blaster Live CT4760 sound card failed to work with has a VIA 8235M chipset, so now I wonder if the Sound Blaster Live CT4760 has trouble with the VIA 8235M chipset.

Reply 23 of 39, by yawetaG

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will1384 wrote on 2020-06-18, 01:40:

The computer that the Sound Blaster Live CT4760 sound card failed to work with has a VIA 8235M chipset, so now I wonder if the Sound Blaster Live CT4760 has trouble with the VIA 8235M chipsets.

Known problem with SB Lives and VIA chipsets. They just don't like each other.

Reply 24 of 39, by mastergamma12

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Don't feel bad, years ago, I tried to pair my PA-2013 with a Creative TNT2 and had nothing but BSODs.

NNH9pIh.png

The Tuala-Bus (My 9x/Dos Rig) (Pentium III-S 1.4ghz, AWE64G+Audigy 2 ZS, Voodoo5 5500, Chieftec Dragon Rambus)

The Final Lan Party (My Windows Xp/7 rig) (Core i7 980x, GTX 480,DFI Lanparty UT X58-T3eH8,)
Re: Post your 'current' PC

Reply 25 of 39, by chinny22

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I throw in the towel when I'm no longer enjoying myself, it is just a Hobby after all!
It either gets put away to mess around with when I get in the mood again or sold off if I have lost all interest as have alternative parts.

As you have the 2nd motherboard and seem to be still enjoying the challenge I'd say keep going.
It could be Nostalgia, programs crashing or even bsod was alot more acceptable back then.

Reply 26 of 39, by appiah4

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zPacKRat wrote on 2020-06-16, 22:39:

3+ weeks in and I've swapped out my PA-2013 v2.0 for an Abit BE6-II v2 and it's like 20 years ago all over.

I stopped reading right there. That board is an unstable pile of utter shit.

Retronautics: A digital gallery of my retro computers, hardware and projects.

Reply 27 of 39, by zPacKRat

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appiah4 wrote on 2020-06-19, 12:46:
zPacKRat wrote on 2020-06-16, 22:39:

3+ weeks in and I've swapped out my PA-2013 v2.0 for an Abit BE6-II v2 and it's like 20 years ago all over.

I stopped reading right there. That board is an unstable pile of utter shit.

Funny thing is when I bought it new, it was an exchange for a board with the ALi chipset on it that at the time was worse with a TNT. And it was stable for some time, but I just have no recollection of what secret sauce I used to get it there. But yeah, no love lost, the BE6 was a great 45 dollar pickup on ebay and has been great so far.

Reply 28 of 39, by zPacKRat

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mastergamma12 wrote on 2020-06-18, 06:38:

Don't feel bad, years ago, I tried to pair my PA-2013 with a Creative TNT2 and had nothing but BSODs.

I couldn't even manage a BSOD, only hard locks. 🤣

Reply 29 of 39, by Anonymous Coward

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I throw in the towel when I see a PCI motherboard has a VIA chipset.

If you have the right chipset revision, with the right motherboard revision, with the right BIOS revision (with the right settings), with the right 4 in 1 driver version and with the right hardware configuration it's possible you could have a solid machine, but probably only if the moon is full.

"Will the highways on the internets become more few?" -Gee Dubya
V'Ger XT|Upgraded AT|Ultimate 386|Super VL/EISA 486|SMP VL/EISA Pentium

Reply 30 of 39, by pentiumspeed

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Threw the towel away on a FIC made notebook back in the day when after owner gave it to me. Couldn't get parts for this. Ugly and low quality.

Cheers,

Great Northern aka Canada.

Reply 31 of 39, by schmatzler

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Anonymous Coward wrote on 2020-06-19, 15:46:

I throw in the towel when I see a PCI motherboard has a VIA chipset.

I read this so often here and I always wonder if there are really THAT many shitty VIA motherboards out there.
The second VIA board I bought (after the FIC PA-2012 which is a steaming pile of garbage) was an Abit VH6T and I have the most stable machine you can get.

It only locks up when I do stupid things or provoke it to. Has great overclocking options in the BIOS, every hardware I throw into it just works, it's a retro gamers dream! 😀

It runs pretty well without the 4in1 drivers, too.

"Windows 98's natural state is locked up"

Reply 32 of 39, by chrismeyer6

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My Abit KT7A-raid has the via kt-133a chipset and I've never had any stability issues with that system. I've owned the board since they first came out and still use it.

Reply 33 of 39, by appiah4

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I don't get the VIA hate. I think VIA 694T is a great Socket 370 chipset and I love KT333 for sticking to Uni-AGP and ISA Bus for so long. Haters will hate I guess.

Retronautics: A digital gallery of my retro computers, hardware and projects.

Reply 34 of 39, by mastergamma12

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One of the reasons I went with the P3C-E was so I could avoid dealing with VIA. I had a 693 DFI board and it was one of the buggiest pieces of shit I've ever used.

NNH9pIh.png

The Tuala-Bus (My 9x/Dos Rig) (Pentium III-S 1.4ghz, AWE64G+Audigy 2 ZS, Voodoo5 5500, Chieftec Dragon Rambus)

The Final Lan Party (My Windows Xp/7 rig) (Core i7 980x, GTX 480,DFI Lanparty UT X58-T3eH8,)
Re: Post your 'current' PC

Reply 35 of 39, by Joseph_Joestar

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I had my Abit KT7A revision 1.0 (VIA KT133A) for 20 years now and it still works perfectly. No bulged capacitors, no problems with the SBLive or Audigy cards. No stability issues whatsoever when running the latest official BIOS and the 4.43 drivers.

That's just my experience though, I've heard from plenty of people who had various problems with VIA chipsets.

PC#1: Pentium MMX 166 / Soyo SY-5BT / S3 Trio64V+ / Voodoo1 / YMF719 / AWE64 Gold / SC-155
PC#2: AthlonXP 2100+ / ECS K7VTA3 / Voodoo3 / Audigy2 / Vortex2
PC#3: Athlon64 3400+ / Asus K8V-MX / 5900XT / Audigy2
PC#4: i5-3570K / MSI Z77A-G43 / GTX 970 / X-Fi

Reply 36 of 39, by mastergamma12

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My later VIA boards are fine like my Shuttle AK32V, Abit KW7 and my Asus SK8V. Unfortunately everything older than KT266 has always been a nightmare for me. I used to have a Tyan KT133A and it was absolute mess. No bulging caps either.

Speaking of bulging caps, I still need to recap my Biostar M7MKB and my Gigabyte 7IXE4.

NNH9pIh.png

The Tuala-Bus (My 9x/Dos Rig) (Pentium III-S 1.4ghz, AWE64G+Audigy 2 ZS, Voodoo5 5500, Chieftec Dragon Rambus)

The Final Lan Party (My Windows Xp/7 rig) (Core i7 980x, GTX 480,DFI Lanparty UT X58-T3eH8,)
Re: Post your 'current' PC

Reply 37 of 39, by NScaleTransitModels

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Only ever had two total losses on old motherboards. One was an FX-3000 I received yesterday, which was a shame since it had 486, 386, and 387 sockets. It would not post, and wouldn't even give any beep codes.
The other was a no-name 386 board that could not initialize the keyboard controller. I received it when I first got into DOS-era PCs and had kept it around for close to 10 years, but could never figure out what was wrong. No visible keyboard BIOS chip, and bypassing traces/ fuses did no good, so I tossed it last month.
So when do I throw in the towel? When there's no input, or there's no output 😛

Builds:

  • ECS FX-3000; 386DX-40@50; ET4000AX, ISA 1mb
  • Acer VI9; 486DLC-40; Mach32, VLB 2mb
  • Chicony CH-471A; CX486s-40; Mach32, VLB 2mb
  • Gateway 2000 P5-60; Pentium-60@66; S3 928, PCI 3mb
  • DTK PKM-0033S; AM5x86-133@160

Reply 38 of 39, by Horun

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NScaleTransitModels wrote on 2020-06-19, 20:35:

Only ever had two total losses on old motherboards. One was an FX-3000 I received yesterday, which was a shame since it had 486, 386, and 387 sockets. It would not post, and wouldn't even give any beep codes.
The other was a no-name 386 board that could not initialize the keyboard controller. I received it when I first got into DOS-era PCs and had kept it around for close to 10 years, but could never figure out what was wrong. No visible keyboard BIOS chip, and bypassing traces/ fuses did no good, so I tossed it last month.
So when do I throw in the towel? When there's no input, or there's no output 😛

No output for me. I have a basic socket 7 Pentium board with KB error on boot, no visible damage, changed KB controller = same issue. Was going to to pitch it but because it does boot am willing to wait. If it never beeped, never showed a screen or never gave a good POST card code and could not quickly figure out the issue would have tossed it long ago. That is just me...

Hate posting a reply and then have to edit it because it made no sense 😁 First computer was an IBM 3270 workstation with CGA monitor. https://archive.org/details/@horun

Reply 39 of 39, by chinny22

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schmatzler wrote on 2020-06-19, 16:50:
I read this so often here and I always wonder if there are really THAT many shitty VIA motherboards out there. The second VIA bo […]
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Anonymous Coward wrote on 2020-06-19, 15:46:

I throw in the towel when I see a PCI motherboard has a VIA chipset.

I read this so often here and I always wonder if there are really THAT many shitty VIA motherboards out there.
The second VIA board I bought (after the FIC PA-2012 which is a steaming pile of garbage) was an Abit VH6T and I have the most stable machine you can get.

It only locks up when I do stupid things or provoke it to. Has great overclocking options in the BIOS, every hardware I throw into it just works, it's a retro gamers dream! 😀

It runs pretty well without the 4in1 drivers, too.

I think it suffers same hate as OEM PC's
They have good stuff but the vast majority of stuff sold and that people come across is the low end budget stuff so they assume all product must be just as terrible.