PcBytes wrote on 2026-11-07, 19:46:

Tried fixing the 2180CDT. Unfortunately unable to fix. CPU remains cold no matter what I use - K6 or Pentium MMX.

Are the jumpers set correctly?

RetroLizard wrote on 2026-11-07, 19:51:

PcBytes wrote on 2026-11-07, 19:46:

Tried fixing the 2180CDT. Unfortunately unable to fix. CPU remains cold no matter what I use - K6 or Pentium MMX.

Are the jumpers set correctly?

There's no jumpers as it's a laptop. Toshiba Satellite 2180CDT.

PcBytes wrote on 2026-11-07, 22:52:

RetroLizard wrote on 2026-11-07, 19:51:

PcBytes wrote on 2026-11-07, 19:46:

Tried fixing the 2180CDT. Unfortunately unable to fix. CPU remains cold no matter what I use - K6 or Pentium MMX.

Are the jumpers set correctly?

There's no jumpers as it's a laptop. Toshiba Satellite 2180CDT.

That's unfortunate. I wonder what it is.

RetroLizard wrote on 2026-11-08, 03:44:

PcBytes wrote on 2026-11-07, 22:52:

RetroLizard wrote on 2026-11-07, 19:51:

Are the jumpers set correctly?

There's no jumpers as it's a laptop. Toshiba Satellite 2180CDT.

That's unfortunate. I wonder what it is.

Hmm being an older laptop could be any thing but the CPU not getting warm is a pointer to the PSU inside it has failed or the VRM on the motherboard has gone.

Went to VCF Montreal 2.0 and going back tomorrow (EDIT: later today, so time for bed now).

Bought two Aopen branded, AW200 sound cards (based on a rebranded ALs4000 or derivative thereof, AFAIU) for a potential follow-up on my ALS4000 experimentation Re: Bought these (retro) hardware today Hopefully, these are less noisy than my other ALS4000 based cards.

Everyone and their cat will have been taking photos and videos by the thousands which will end up posted everywhere. Regardless, here is one from the presentation by Jason Scott.

Browsing through local marketplace ads, and spotted a passively cooled Asus V3800 with 5ns memory. Hmm that's strange... 😏

Seemed TNT2 cards went so long that the supply of original spec memory dried up. I have one from 2001 with ridiculously overspec memory on it. Maybe they were trying to use up a bunch that 3DFX had or had non-cancellable order for. 🤣

Still working on the huge move that will bring anything music related into room A and anything computer/gaming related into room B. Most of it has moved now, but I still need to connect everything (yuck) and swap out some parts between two PC's as one will be dedicated to gaming and the other one will be the music studio PC. Nothing fancy, all it needs to do is take in an optical stereo signal and record it in Audacity as all the rest happens in hardware without computers.

I did (with Claude) a version of the Compaq Presario 71oo series BIOS to include XT-IDE Universal BIOS that is good enough to share... Including a Flashing utility. Of all my systems from the 90s, this BIOS was the weirdest and buggiest. I only tested it on my 7152... If someone has a 7150, 7170 or 7180 and is brave enough to test it, that would be great!

Trashbytes wrote on 2026-11-08, 03:47:

RetroLizard wrote on 2026-11-08, 03:44:

PcBytes wrote on 2026-11-07, 22:52:

There's no jumpers as it's a laptop. Toshiba Satellite 2180CDT.

That's unfortunate. I wonder what it is.

Hmm being an older laptop could be any thing but the CPU not getting warm is a pointer to the PSU inside it has failed or the VRM on the motherboard has gone.

Charging brick is external unlike Compaq's Armada line of the time, and as far as tested the VRM components passed the shortcircuit checks.

PcBytes wrote on 2026-11-08, 22:59:

Trashbytes wrote on 2026-11-08, 03:47:

RetroLizard wrote on 2026-11-08, 03:44:

That's unfortunate. I wonder what it is.

Hmm being an older laptop could be any thing but the CPU not getting warm is a pointer to the PSU inside it has failed or the VRM on the motherboard has gone.

Charging brick is external unlike Compaq's Armada line of the time, and as far as tested the VRM components passed the shortcircuit checks.

Id be checking the entire power in and circuit between it and the VRM ..something isn't telling it to turn on and send power.

Don't know how much this qualifies as "retro" but there's quite a bit of old stuff involved.

Playing around with "remote controlling" non-typical "connected stuff" within my home while on trips...

--

My original setup is a small Win7 "server" with "stuff" connected by serial port (made a computer-switchable 1-7 serial switch so I could control several things) with little "embedded" systems attached by serial and also via network (mostly cameras). I access this remotely with "AnyDesk".

I built a UPS that could (obviously) know when mains power was out, and also could see if the server was ON (monitor +5 rail) and "press" the front panel power button. When power failed, it would:
- switch to UPS generated power immediatly
- If power came back on in under 5 mins - just go back to normal.
- If >5min, press server power button, wait for it to power-OFF
- Cut power to the server and go "OFF"
- When power comes back on, wait till it's "stable"for 30 mins, then
- Restore power to server
- Press server power button to bring it back up
This worked very well and could survive extended power outages quite nicely (I live in a rural area) - I've used it for >10 years.

--

Earlier this year the "lawn tractor" battery I use to power the UPS gave up the ghost ... and after coming back from as close to death as you can get with a somewhat-forced retirement(story on my site), I've been concentrating on "seeing the world" and am sometimes "away" for months. Not super comfortable with leaving an unattended system running that long.

So I've be playing around with ways to turn it on/off (and other things) remotely (If anyone knows a good existing solution to this kind of stuff, please let me know)

--

My first method involves an internet accessible camera with an IR LED for "night vision" - it sits in the dark of my workshop and has 5 IR sensor spread around it connected to a small homebuilt microcontroller.

With idle, the first time ANY sensor detects IR the controller turn ON the lights, waits for the IR to drop, and goes into "remote" control mode. I can them point the camera (easy with presets) at any of the IR sensors and "press" it by toggling night-vision ON/OFF. This lets me instruct the microcontroller to perform various functions (There's also some feedback LEDs which the camera can see - so I can do more complex "multi press" actions).

This works really well... and I will continue to use/expand it for most things, except...

Earlier this month I was crossing the Atlantic ocean by ship and had only basic internet. This let me do things like visit sites (I posted here a few times), send email etc... but what it wouldn't do was "stream video" - which made my connected-camera unusable (app fails when it can't get video) ... so now I'm working on adding another remote control option:

--

Earlier this summer, we replaced our oil furnace with a much more efficient "heat pump" HVAC system ... and as part of this, we had to update our "echobee" (smart) thermostat. I still have the original one, which among other things lets you control heating, air conditioning and fan over the internet.

I've figured out how to power in independently, and confirmed that it gives me three outputs (Heat, AC, Fan) which I can activate remotely.

The plan is to feed these into the above mentioned microcontroller and adjust it's software to allow alternate control of some of my "stuff" this way...

Received a "dead" DFI NF2 Ultra B from The Sandman

It doesn't boot - well.. most of the time. Sometimes it boots. And then it does not. The default state appeared to be not working. While checking things out on the board while keeping it running, it suddenly showed life. Weird weird..

I first started to check the suspicion from _digitalbath and Sandman with regards to VCore, but that one looks like a text-book example of a three phase regulator.

Phases 1 and 2:

Phases 2 and 3:

They look happy as can be.

I checked the southbridge clocks

RTC: 32.768kHz

12MHz Crystal

14.3MHz Crystal

I also checked via the thermal cam if anything is weird. All pretty normal, though it's interesting to see that the FET for the chipset voltage is pretty toasty (for my liking):

But the signals on the FET as well as the output voltage look fine:

And the CPU VRM section looks completely fine, so that one is out of the picture:

Well.. we'll see.. here are some pictures of it working.. 5 minutes later it didn't anymore.

I'll check tomorrow if it reacts for heat or cold..

BGA balls?

I updated this Convert old ASUS ASC boardviews to KICAD PCB!

myne wrote on 2026-11-09, 14:03:

BGA balls?

I updated this Convert old ASUS ASC boardviews to KICAD PCB!

Feels like it, we'll see.

tehsiggi wrote on 2026-11-09, 14:01:

Received a "dead" DFI NF2 Ultra B from The Sandman […]
Show full quote

Received a "dead" DFI NF2 Ultra B from The Sandman

It doesn't boot - well.. most of the time. Sometimes it boots. And then it does not. The default state appeared to be not working. While checking things out on the board while keeping it running, it suddenly showed life. Weird weird..

I first started to check the suspicion from _digitalbath and Sandman with regards to VCore, but that one looks like a text-book example of a three phase regulator.

Phases 1 and 2:

Phases 2 and 3:

They look happy as can be.

I checked the southbridge clocks

RTC: 32.768kHz

12MHz Crystal

14.3MHz Crystal

I also checked via the thermal cam if anything is weird. All pretty normal, though it's interesting to see that the FET for the chipset voltage is pretty toasty (for my liking):

But the signals on the FET as well as the output voltage look fine:

And the CPU VRM section looks completely fine, so that one is out of the picture:

Well.. we'll see.. here are some pictures of it working.. 5 minutes later it didn't anymore.

I'll check tomorrow if it reacts for heat or cold..

I'm assuming you've tried different CPU and RAM combinations?

TheAbandonwareGuy wrote on 2026-11-09, 15:44:

tehsiggi wrote on 2026-11-09, 14:01:

Received a "dead" DFI NF2 Ultra B from The Sandman […]
Show full quote

Received a "dead" DFI NF2 Ultra B from The Sandman

It doesn't boot - well.. most of the time. Sometimes it boots. And then it does not. The default state appeared to be not working. While checking things out on the board while keeping it running, it suddenly showed life. Weird weird..

I first started to check the suspicion from _digitalbath and Sandman with regards to VCore, but that one looks like a text-book example of a three phase regulator.

Phases 1 and 2:

Phases 2 and 3:

They look happy as can be.

I checked the southbridge clocks

RTC: 32.768kHz

12MHz Crystal

14.3MHz Crystal

I also checked via the thermal cam if anything is weird. All pretty normal, though it's interesting to see that the FET for the chipset voltage is pretty toasty (for my liking):

But the signals on the FET as well as the output voltage look fine:

And the CPU VRM section looks completely fine, so that one is out of the picture:

Well.. we'll see.. here are some pictures of it working.. 5 minutes later it didn't anymore.

I'll check tomorrow if it reacts for heat or cold..

I'm assuming you've tried different CPU and RAM combinations?

They have tried plentyful. And i have a ton of known good parts. It's proven to be the board. Now we just have to figure out what's going on exactly.

tehsiggi wrote on 2026-11-09, 15:53:

TheAbandonwareGuy wrote on 2026-11-09, 15:44:

tehsiggi wrote on 2026-11-09, 14:01:

Received a "dead" DFI NF2 Ultra B from The Sandman […]
Show full quote

Received a "dead" DFI NF2 Ultra B from The Sandman

It doesn't boot - well.. most of the time. Sometimes it boots. And then it does not. The default state appeared to be not working. While checking things out on the board while keeping it running, it suddenly showed life. Weird weird..

I first started to check the suspicion from _digitalbath and Sandman with regards to VCore, but that one looks like a text-book example of a three phase regulator.

Phases 1 and 2:

Phases 2 and 3:

They look happy as can be.

I checked the southbridge clocks

RTC: 32.768kHz

12MHz Crystal

14.3MHz Crystal

I also checked via the thermal cam if anything is weird. All pretty normal, though it's interesting to see that the FET for the chipset voltage is pretty toasty (for my liking):

But the signals on the FET as well as the output voltage look fine:

And the CPU VRM section looks completely fine, so that one is out of the picture:

Well.. we'll see.. here are some pictures of it working.. 5 minutes later it didn't anymore.

I'll check tomorrow if it reacts for heat or cold..

I'm assuming you've tried different CPU and RAM combinations?

They have tried plentyful. And i have a ton of known good parts. It's proven to be the board. Now we just have to figure out what's going on exactly.

Someone else suggest a BGA joint that's gone thermal, and I tend to agree. Its got to be something changing either mechanically with heat or chemically with heat + power (IE: Caps). But since you've checked all voltages I'd lean towards the former.

tehsiggi wrote on 2026-11-09, 14:01:

I first started to check the suspicion from _digitalbath and Sandman with regards to VCore, but that one looks like a text-book example of a three phase regulator.

Nice! Vcore looks very nice.
It seemed to me, that one of the phases were not workin propperly. I've changed one driver. I am not sure anymore, probably one bootstrap ceramic capacitor too. To be sure, I've changed the mosfets too.
They were not the problem though. The weird thing is, this board bots with a Thunderbird or a Thoroughbred A CPU into a postcode loop but refuses to boot (postcode --) with a Thoroughbred B / Barton CPU. With a FSB200 CPU, the board shuts off. I've checked the FSB sense pins. They seems fine to me.

BGA balls could also make sense to me. Reballing and reflowing is something that I am not able to do. My own Lanparty B is not working properly too. It boots fine withe the postcodes and I am able to get into the BIOS, but I always get graphical errors. Similiar to a broken VGA Memory. I get it via PCI or AGP. So my best guess is, that BGA solder is broken at some point on my board. Unfortunately, I need to call someone someday to do this job.

tehsiggi wrote on 2026-11-09, 14:01:

Well.. we'll see.. here are some pictures of it working.. 5 minutes later it didn't anymore.
I'll check tomorrow if it reacts for heat or cold..

good luck! Maybe worth to take a measure of vdimm? In my eyes, Vdimm is a crucial part of these boards. I saw on some boards, that the right mosfet was dead. It is not that crucial, as the other two are the high- and the low side fets.
I don't think there is a fault, but who knows. The Vdimm part got new mosfets some time ago. So they should be fine.

Trashbytes wrote on 2026-11-09, 03:46:

PcBytes wrote on 2026-11-08, 22:59:

Trashbytes wrote on 2026-11-08, 03:47:

Hmm being an older laptop could be any thing but the CPU not getting warm is a pointer to the PSU inside it has failed or the VRM on the motherboard has gone.

Charging brick is external unlike Compaq's Armada line of the time, and as far as tested the VRM components passed the shortcircuit checks.

Id be checking the entire power in and circuit between it and the VRM ..something isn't telling it to turn on and send power.

I've checked both the side of the board between DC input and the socket, the parts around the socket itself, and nothing tested out bad. At this point I don't know if the board's chipset (whichever that is) is toast or the CPU itself is bung, but the fact it refused to POST with two AFX replacement K6s (475AFX and 500AFX) pretty much tells me it's unfixable. The chip it came with is a 475ACZ.