libby wrote on 2021-12-17, 02:12:

cusl2-c.png

As for me, I spotted this ASUS CUSL2-C on eBay and tossed an offer at it immediately, winning. It's a Black Pearl edition which just has a different northbridge heatsink on it for some reason. It's one of only a few Pentium 3 motherboards which were sold which had a black PCB, the others being the Aopen AX6BC Pro II Millennium Edition which is unobtanium, or the AOpen AX3S models which have a lot of unnecessary features built on that I'd rather choose for myself with some snazzy black PCB expansion cards in a build.

http://ixbtlabs.com/articles/asuscusl2cbblackpearl/

Minor differences with Cusl2-c.
Nice board all black 😀

EvieSigma wrote on 2021-12-17, 02:04:

appiah4 wrote on 2021-12-16, 08:39:

TrashPanda wrote on 2021-12-16, 08:13:

Is that one of the rebadged OEM models ? IIRC they didn't release any 8000 series to retail.

Interesting GPU to have.

That is one of the typo models 😁 It's actually an HD6950.

I have a Sapphire HD6970 that was my main GPU for five years, don't really know what to do with it now. It worked just fine when it was retired and it's been kept in its box ever since, so I'm sure it still works...

Unfortunately this one is fuxored. It POSTed fine and even ran fine for a while before starting to get checkerboard 2D visual artifacts in Windows, then in DOS and BIOS and after a while refused to display anything at all. Repairing a PCI-E GPU is beyond my ability, but I'll ask around to see if I can find someone who could do this kind of repair reliably. The checkerboard artifacts and the way that the issue kept getting worse with use leads me to believe it has to do with one of the BGA VRAM chips needing a reflow/reball..

PcBytes wrote on 2021-12-17, 08:15:

Wonder how the 440GX would fare against standard BX.

440GX is a sister chip to 440BX other than supporting 2GB RAM and slot 2 xeons. It is still AGP 2X with the same clock divider issue when running 133MHz FSB. However, I would question the overclocking potential of the board without a good BIOS. Also I don't know if there's VRM circuitry (or lack thereof) to permit 5/12V xeons so you may be limited to the somewhat rare 2.8V ones. I very seldom see 700 or 900MHz 2MB in 2.8V package.

440GX did not initially support coppermine based P3 xeons, so the 700/900 chips may not work at all unless there was some BIOS trickery happening. Obviously there's no point running the 133FSB xeons as they're just regular coppermine P3s in a clunkier package.

I would personally pass on this board unless the red PCB and sheer rarity of it are worth the $350 ask. They will be to someone, I'm sure. I would personally invest in a HP Kayak XU or Compaq SP750 system and transplant it into an ATX case if I were wanting to show a system off, as those are OR840 based dual processor systems with RAMBUS and support way more processors and features.

appiah4 wrote on 2021-12-17, 08:46:

EvieSigma wrote on 2021-12-17, 02:04:

appiah4 wrote on 2021-12-16, 08:39:

That is one of the typo models 😁 It's actually an HD6950.

I have a Sapphire HD6970 that was my main GPU for five years, don't really know what to do with it now. It worked just fine when it was retired and it's been kept in its box ever since, so I'm sure it still works...

Unfortunately this one is fuxored. It POSTed fine and even ran fine for a while before starting to get checkerboard 2D visual artifacts in Windows, then in DOS and BIOS and after a while refused to display anything at all. Repairing a PCI-E GPU is beyond my ability, but I'll ask around to see if I can find someone who could do this kind of repair reliably. The checkerboard artifacts and the way that the issue kept getting worse with use leads me to believe it has to do with one of the BGA VRAM chips needing a reflow/reball..

Remove any plastic bits that can be removed and any heatsinks and brackets and throw it in the oven at a temp where the solder will reflow itself, then let it cool slowly overnight and it should return to working status, did this to an old 8800 Ultra numerous times.

PcBytes wrote on 2021-12-17, 08:15:

As far as I could find, it should support it. If m1919 is reading this, let us know if your mobo could run the P3 Xeon out of th […]
Show full quote

TrashPanda wrote on 2021-12-17, 07:42:

Just found a Freeway FW-6400GX / 150 Slot1 + Slot 2 board on eBay ...Slot 2 takes the PIII Xeons right ?

Im now wondering if I can shove one of the PIII Xeons I have in it, if so ..I might just buy it.

As far as I could find, it should support it. If m1919 is reading this, let us know if your mobo could run the P3 Xeon out of the box, or if there was anything else needed to get it running.

Speaking of which, that board could very well make a killer machine, even if it isn't dual Slot 2.
(the only ones I know of is EPoX's GXB-M and the ASUS XG-DLS)
Wonder how the 440GX would fare against standard BX.

Onto the main topic, I've won YET ANOTHER Gericom lappy. Here are its specs, these things are just pure awesomeness. OEM'd by Uniwill/ECS, model G730, so likely a recap might be in order, but I'll have to see.

Pentium 4 2.5GHz (likely an nice Northwood core due to 512kb L2 cache, Prescotts usually have 1MB if my memory serves me right) desktop chip
Intel i845 chipset (not sure what kind though, all I know is it's using SDRAM so likely the original 845 iteration?)
512MB RAM
Radeon Mobility 9000 (aka M9)
40GB HDD
WinXP

Dual slot 2 in a desktop board hmmm having one of each might be fun too, I have the CPUs and ram for it.

Nada on teh Slot 2 dual boards aside from a Dell Precision one but its clearly a server board and not designed for an ATX case.

PcBytes wrote on 2021-12-17, 07:19:

Speaking of custom PCBs, didn't ABIT's ST6 come in a white variant as well?

Yeah... ABIT ST6 "Casper"... because you know... it's white... ghostes are white <facepalm>

libby wrote on 2021-12-17, 08:53:

440GX is a sister chip to 440BX other than supporting 2GB RAM and slot 2 xeons. It is still AGP 2X with the same clock divider i […]
Show full quote

PcBytes wrote on 2021-12-17, 08:15:

Wonder how the 440GX would fare against standard BX.

440GX is a sister chip to 440BX other than supporting 2GB RAM and slot 2 xeons. It is still AGP 2X with the same clock divider issue when running 133MHz FSB. However, I would question the overclocking potential of the board without a good BIOS. Also I don't know if there's VRM circuitry (or lack thereof) to permit 5/12V xeons so you may be limited to the somewhat rare 2.8V ones. I very seldom see 700 or 900MHz 2MB in 2.8V package.

440GX did not initially support coppermine based P3 xeons, so the 700/900 chips may not work at all unless there was some BIOS trickery happening. Obviously there's no point running the 133FSB xeons as they're just regular coppermine P3s in a clunkier package.

I would personally pass on this board unless the red PCB and sheer rarity of it are worth the $350 ask. They will be to someone, I'm sure. I would personally invest in a HP Kayak XU or Compaq SP750 system and transplant it into an ATX case if I were wanting to show a system off, as those are OR840 based dual processor systems with RAMBUS and support way more processors and features.

Just went and grabbed one of the CPUs, its 700/100/1m 5/12v so not the 2meg cache ones but still the 5/12v model. Ah well Ill find a board for them eventually and yeah 350USD is a bit much at $540 AUD once GST and postage is added.

There is an OR840 board up on eBay right now but they dont do international shipping so US only 🙁

We did a lottery with presents here in the company that i work and the colleague who got my name will give me an Amiga 1200 for present next week.

Marry him/her.

Maybe it will be only printed on the paper 🤣

Like this fruits/vegetables:
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1012 … ply-crisis.html

kixs wrote on 2021-12-17, 11:08:

Maybe it will be only printed on the paper 🤣

Like this fruits/vegetables:
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1012 … ply-crisis.html

Yes. Very likely.
http://rockybergen.com/whatsnew/2021/6/11/ami … sics-papercraft

appiah4 wrote on 2021-12-17, 11:04:

Marry him/her.

And we mean Right Now !

Got 5 silent ATX PSUs for cheap (16€ including shipping): FSP300-60HHN(85)
All are used but in quite a good shape. Sadly two of them got damaged during transport, the motor of the fan rippt themselves loose from the frame. A litte glue fixed that (hopefully), they are good as new now.

Can you suggest any good glue for putting plastic together? Superglue is no very capable with this, it often fails me, especially with smaller parts.

I also got an AT power supply that seems NOS (also 16€ including shipping): FSP: SPI-300G
No dust on the fan and it works without issues. I can finally test the AT board I had laying around and maybe fix it. I avoided to buy AT boards because I had no cheap power source for them and the adapters from ATX to AT seems to high in price, if even available.

subnet_zero wrote on 2021-12-17, 14:53:

Got 5 silent ATX PSUs for cheap (16€ including shipping): FSP300-60HHN(85)
All are used but in quite a good shape. Sadly two of them got damaged during transport, the motor of the fan rippt themselves loose from the frame. A litte glue fixed that (hopefully), they are good as new now.

Can you suggest any good glue for putting plastic together? Superglue is no very capable with this, it often fails me, especially with smaller parts.

Many plastic parts in computers are ABS, if the part is not seen, you can use plumbers ABS cement, but it has a yellow tint, if it will be seen, dab acetone on each site of the break until it gets tacky with a Q-tip then force together, and smooth out anything pushed out with a knife. If it's a structural part, strut type thing that you nevereverever want to break again and outlast the rest of the structure.. splint with toothpicks or paperclip wire, lard up with epoxy, bind with thread, lard more epoxy on top to wet the thread.

edit: though in this scenario, the fans sound like they could be commodity parts and replaced easily.
editII: yah that epoxy method is quite overkill, you can usually get a great, more invisible-er, repair by taking a fine drill bit, putting a short hole in each side of the part, cutting a small stiff wire the right length to peg it together, and assembling that all with epoxy.

BitWrangler wrote on 2021-12-17, 15:06:

Many plastic parts in computers are ABS, if the part is not seen, you can use plumbers ABS cement, but it has a yellow tint, if […]
Show full quote

subnet_zero wrote on 2021-12-17, 14:53:

Got 5 silent ATX PSUs for cheap (16€ including shipping): FSP300-60HHN(85)
All are used but in quite a good shape. Sadly two of them got damaged during transport, the motor of the fan rippt themselves loose from the frame. A litte glue fixed that (hopefully), they are good as new now.

Can you suggest any good glue for putting plastic together? Superglue is no very capable with this, it often fails me, especially with smaller parts.

Many plastic parts in computers are ABS, if the part is not seen, you can use plumbers ABS cement, but it has a yellow tint, if it will be seen, dab acetone on each site of the break until it gets tacky with a Q-tip then force together, and smooth out anything pushed out with a knife. If it's a structural part, strut type thing that you nevereverever want to break again and outlast the rest of the structure.. splint with toothpicks or paperclip wire, lard up with epoxy, bind with thread, lard more epoxy on top to wet the thread.

edit: though in this scenario, the fans sound like they could be commodity parts and replaced easily.
editII: yah that epoxy method is quite overkill, you can usually get a great, more invisible-er, repair by taking a fine drill bit, putting a short hole in each side of the part, cutting a small stiff wire the right length to peg it together, and assembling that all with epoxy.

Thanks, I don't know about ABS cement or the acetone trick. I have seen epoxy, but never consider it to buy it for this. It's time to gear up the sticky side of life. 😊

Got this nice CPU today, a first in my collection

AMD K6-III /400AHX
Now I need to find a K6-III+(at a decent price) to have at least one from the whole K6 family

Kahenraz wrote on 2021-12-17, 07:59:

PD2J wrote:

Within days, the mighty (read: slow) Quantum Bigfoot will whir and rattle once again...

When I learned about swap files in Windows when I was a kid and that I could enhance the overall system performance by moving it to its own dedicated drive I decided to use an old Quantum Bigfoot for this exact purpose.

I'm certain that doing this actually degraded performance as (I didn't know at the time) Bigfoot drives are known for their poor performance as a result of the massive platter size. I'm sure it felt faster anyways as a result of placebo. 😀

I always figure it's a speed up if it's at least half as fast as your main drive. If it's the only thing you use it for, apart from maybe storage of infrequently accessed files, then the effect of the heads only having to seek inside a narrow range for swapfile access should be quite a boost even if its data transfer speeds are quite low. Assuming you've made sure your swapfile isn't fragmented all over the drive.

appiah4 wrote on 2021-12-17, 11:04:

Marry him/her.

Yup that's a keeper!

PD2JK wrote on 2021-12-17, 07:54:

Restoring the Highscreen AT with original parts, so the FIC VA-502 came in with only a few bent jumper pins.

Within days, the mighty (read: slow) Quantum Bigfoot will whir and rattle once again...

Hi PD2JK, i see you have this motherboard (VA-502 pcb v1.1), could you please take a look on this topic :
VA-502 motherboard with missing components, see photo
I need information about some components, take your time , there is no hurry...

Thankyou in advance.
SDumas

Bought a curious looking mb. I expect it to be a dual socket 5. Pending further investigations though as the left socket heatsink seems to be permanently attached.