Kahenraz wrote on 2021-12-14, 12:55:

I salvaged a Dell computer yesterday but I forgot to take photos and it's in a literal dumpster right now. The case is proprietary and I don't know if the PSU is standard ATX. The motherboard is definitely custom.

It also has a couple of bulging caps and omg why do I NEVER had the right values for these things? I laterally just ordered a ton of extra stock recently but NOT THIS ONE (3300uF 4V).

It's probably low ESR. I wonder if 3300uF at 16V will work...

Yes you can probably safely use higher voltage caps is you use high quality low ESR caps (usually higher voltage means higher ESR as well). If they are on a motherboard then use Low ESR caps anyway

PSU in every Dell machine I saw over years had a proprietary pinout. And yeah, bulging caps is a thing in older Dell hardware (even made after capacitor plague). Happened on several PERC controllers I had, recently I've seen older (XP era) Precision workstation which also has a lot of bulged caps on the motherboard.

PcBytes wrote on 2021-12-11, 14:27:

The Socket 7 machine might have an L&C/Deer PSU so I'd take caution trying to power it up.

Nope, Star PSU, just lke the 486. Appears to be a lter model PcChips board. The Moondog 486 is already setup, I robbed the SS7 for it's floppy and CD-ROM. It's happily hanging around under my TV playing DOS games now.

The SS7 I have not even powered up yet, if it does not work, I may end up using it in part to rebuilt a Socket 3 M919 motherboard I have that won't POST, and build a 3rd 486 desktop system out of it, and sell the other board (which has ALL of it's rear slot mounted ports....oddly it has PS/2 keyboard and mouse AND AT For the keyboard, USB, Serial, Parallel, Game, Sound, the whole 9 yards). I may also just flip it for parts after fixing it up/rebuilding it so I can finish upgrading/maxxing out my other boxes.

HanJammer wrote on 2021-12-14, 12:14:

Missing foot and a door, but still 15kHz, Analog/TTL RGB 80s NEC multisync monitor is a cool find 😁

nice find indeed! I don't think the missing stand is really a problem, IMO these CRTs look better without their stand when they're setup on a desktop case 👍

Have you tested it, does it work?

This was a historic week. My employer ceased MPEG2 broadcasting. Everything is now MPEG4 or HEVC. Great news for progress and network capacity.

And for me, because it meant some pretty old hardware was at last fully surplus to requirements.

First catch, a Tektronix MPEG test system, for MPEG1 and 2:

Nice beige case, very nice slot loader DVD. But what's inside?

- Asus CUV4X-DLS
- 1x P3-800
- 512MB PC133
- Matrox G450
- three huge custom MPEG decoder/analyzer boards
- 1x 40GB IDE HDD
- 2x 36GB U160 SCSI HDD

Nice stuff. I already had far too many dual Slot1/So370 boards, but no Via ApolloPro 133D yet, despite it being the commonest. Well, now I do. Tbh most enthusiastic about the DVD drive, but in terms of gift horses I've had much worse 😉

Dual socket 370s are nice. I have a really good dual Tualatin board years ago that I threw in a dumpster because it was old and I was moving. This was before I started collecting. I'm still extremely regretful to this day.

It was a red dual Tualatin board that required ECC memory. That's all I remember.

Kahenraz wrote on 2021-12-16, 23:22:

Dual socket 370s are nice. I have a really good dual Tualatin board years ago that I threw in a dumpster because it was old and I was moving. This was before I started collecting. I'm still extremely regretful to this day.

It was a red dual Tualatin board that required ECC memory. That's all I remember.

Red dual So370? That would have been a pretty unusual one. Shame!

It got it from a special RMA because the model they kept sending me of the board I had had a defect. It's possible that it was somehow unique and not a production model.

Again, I am very regretful on many levels for throwing it away. It's not the only valuable piece of retro gear I've thrown our the years but it's in probably the most unique.

dionb wrote on 2021-12-16, 22:23:

This was a historic week. My employer ceased MPEG2 broadcasting. Everything is now MPEG4 or HEVC. Great news for progress and network capacity.

And for me, because it meant some pretty old hardware was at last fully surplus to requirements.
(...)

Niceeeee
I have a huge b**er for Tektronix stuff.

+1 ? 😉 🤣

I upgraded a friend's computer and he gave me his mother's old one. Don't know what I'll do with it, but I couldn't turn it down. P4 3.0, X1350 video card, blown out 300 watt power supply (literally - I can see an exploded MOSFET, a couple of puffy caps, and it looks like the fuse is blown), but it booted right up with my spare PSU. I can't say I care for the way the side panels come off on this case.

Kahenraz wrote on 2021-12-16, 23:22:

Dual socket 370s are nice. I have a really good dual Tualatin board years ago that I threw in a dumpster because it was old and I was moving. This was before I started collecting. I'm still extremely regretful to this day.

It was a red dual Tualatin board that required ECC memory. That's all I remember.

sounds like a Freeway FWD-P3C4XD

That's very interesting. I think I would have remembered if it had another brand name on it. Maybe MSI was an OEM for Freeway?

I absolutely received the board back as an RMA from MSI.

Repo Man11 wrote on 2021-12-17, 03:07:

I upgraded a friend's computer and he gave me his mother's old one. Don't know what I'll do with it, but I couldn't turn it down. P4 3.0, X1350 video card, blown out 300 watt power supply (literally - I can see an exploded MOSFET, a couple of puffy caps, and it looks like the fuse is blown), but it booted right up with my spare PSU. I can't say I care for the way the side panels come off on this case.

Enlight 7250. Along with Enlight 7237 it's pretty much the best tower case for vintage PCs from late 90s/early 00s. And the side panels coming of to front is perfect making hardware changes very easy. I still have my original 7237 and desktop version... and two mATX towers... and another Tower with a differnt looking front panel 😁

dionb wrote on 2021-12-16, 22:23:

This was a historic week. My employer ceased MPEG2 broadcasting. Everything is now MPEG4 or HEVC. Great news for progress and ne […]
Show full quote

This was a historic week. My employer ceased MPEG2 broadcasting. Everything is now MPEG4 or HEVC. Great news for progress and network capacity.

And for me, because it meant some pretty old hardware was at last fully surplus to requirements.

First catch, a Tektronix MPEG test system, for MPEG1 and 2:

16396925350060~2.jpg

Nice beige case, very nice slot loader DVD. But what's inside?

16396925573441.jpg

- Asus CUV4X-DLS
- 1x P3-800
- 512MB PC133
- Matrox G450
- three huge custom MPEG decoder/analyzer boards
- 1x 40GB IDE HDD
- 2x 36GB U160 SCSI HDD

Nice stuff. I already had far too many dual Slot1/So370 boards, but no Via ApolloPro 133D yet, despite it being the commonest. Well, now I do. Tbh most enthusiastic about the DVD drive, but in terms of gift horses I've had much worse 😉

Interesting stuff! Could you post some info about the MPEG boards?

I bought for cheap a Victor DM-D2100 MPEG decoder last month, just to satisfy some curiosity, it has a dvb-spi input so i can't test it for lacking anything that plugs into it just yet...

lolo799 wrote on 2021-12-17, 11:34:

[...]

Interesting stuff! Could you post some info about the MPEG boards?

I bought for cheap a Victor DM-D2100 MPEG decoder last month, just to satisfy some curiosity, it has a dvb-spi input so i can't test it for lacking anything that plugs into it just yet...

Will be dissecting the beast this evening with my son. He's been infected with the retro-bug (already modding consoles from before he was born), looking forward to see what he makes of this. While he's figuring out basics, I'll look up the custom cards.

Wouldn't be surprised if they are FPGA-based developed in-house by Tektronix, but could be wrong. It will be DVB-C in any event and there might be some DRM stuff in there too. In the latter case I'll have to be careful, might not be able to share everything.

Hi,

not quite a dumpster but I just excavated (literally, these things were buried under a decade or two's worth of other random junk!) a few old late-1990s/early-2000s "desktop" PCs from my cellar:

Dell GX150 PIII 800MHz
Dell GX110 PIII (maybe PIII 800MHz?) x 2
Siemens Nixdorf Scenic Pro C5 (P200MMX)

the GX150 was used as a WinXP desktop at home
the 2 GX110s were linux-based (RedHat/Fedora?) fileservers/tape backup machines with adaptec SCSI cards and external HDDs/DDS tape drive(s)
the SNI was the old dialup/ADSL gateway running Smoothwall GPL

aaaaagh the memories came flooding back 😀

I powered the GX150 on and apart from the HDD noise (forgot about that too!) all I get is a continual "Windows didn't shut down properly"/reboot cycle 🙁

I've recently reacquired a couple of old Psion machines - a Series 3a 2M and the MC400 laptop - and was hoping to get at some of my old Psion software/backups that were on the GX150. Looks like I'm going to have to take the HDD out and see what's recoverable... other than that wondering what else to do with these oldies?

PCI-SATA card for SSD, max out the RAM and errr, not sure what else.

HanJammer wrote on 2021-12-17, 09:59:

Repo Man11 wrote on 2021-12-17, 03:07:

I upgraded a friend's computer and he gave me his mother's old one. Don't know what I'll do with it, but I couldn't turn it down. P4 3.0, X1350 video card, blown out 300 watt power supply (literally - I can see an exploded MOSFET, a couple of puffy caps, and it looks like the fuse is blown), but it booted right up with my spare PSU. I can't say I care for the way the side panels come off on this case.

Enlight 7250. Along with Enlight 7237 it's pretty much the best tower case for vintage PCs from late 90s/early 00s. And the side panels coming of to front is perfect making hardware changes very easy. I still have my original 7237 and desktop version... and two mATX towers... and another Tower with a differnt looking front panel 😁

I suspected the Enlight PSU that was in it was likely the one that came with the tower, so thank you for confirming that and letting me know what the brand of the case is without having to do an image search. I don't think I'll ever be a fan of having to remove the front cover to take the side panels off, but other than that it seems fine.

zedstarr wrote on 2021-12-17, 13:16:

Hi, […]
Show full quote

Hi,

not quite a dumpster but I just excavated (literally, these things were buried under a decade or two's worth of other random junk!) a few old late-1990s/early-2000s "desktop" PCs from my cellar:

Dell GX150 PIII 800MHz
Dell GX110 PIII (maybe PIII 800MHz?) x 2
Siemens Nixdorf Scenic Pro C5 (P200MMX)

the GX150 was used as a WinXP desktop at home
the 2 GX110s were linux-based (RedHat/Fedora?) fileservers/tape backup machines with adaptec SCSI cards and external HDDs/DDS tape drive(s)
the SNI was the old dialup/ADSL gateway running Smoothwall GPL

aaaaagh the memories came flooding back 😀

I powered the GX150 on and apart from the HDD noise (forgot about that too!) all I get is a continual "Windows didn't shut down properly"/reboot cycle 🙁

I've recently reacquired a couple of old Psion machines - a Series 3a 2M and the MC400 laptop - and was hoping to get at some of my old Psion software/backups that were on the GX150. Looks like I'm going to have to take the HDD out and see what's recoverable... other than that wondering what else to do with these oldies?

PCI-SATA card for SSD, max out the RAM and errr, not sure what else.

For the GX150, try Paragon Adaptive Restore. It's Win7 based and can do wonders. I have quite several 2k and XP installs that went south and PAR brought them back on track.

zedstarr wrote on 2021-12-17, 13:16:

Siemens Nixdorf Scenic Pro C5 (P200MMX)

Siemens pcs from that era where very well built, high quality systems. I really like them alot! Last month I've got a similar one, Scenic Pro M5, with HX chipset mobo, P166, 128 MB EDO. Postcsome photos of the machines, if you can.

PS: wellkome to vogons!

bearking wrote on 2021-12-17, 14:52:

.... Postcsome photos of the machines, if you can.

PS: wellkome to vogons!

Thanks!
I know what you mean about the build quality - it feels bomb-proof by today's standards 😀 Also, as it turns out this isn't the P200MMX, that must be somewhere else in the cellar 😀

A few more pictures are here: https://zedstarr.com/siemens-nixdorf-scenic-pro-c5/