debs3759 wrote on 2022-01-27, 18:55:

I just bought a 286 board on Amibay that had a leaky battery (I asked the seller to remove it) and a fair amount of damage in the vicinity. Sold as not working and outside the seller's expertise. For €20 + shipping I'm prepared to use it to learn whether I am capable of doing such repairs. Already got 5 litres white vinegar, just need some IPA to finish off the cleaning, prior to attempting the tracks repair. Will probably do a full recap as well, because why not 😀

I find white vinegar smelly and not so effective. I instead use a fairly saturated citric acid solution and use it instead. Depending on the board design it may require some socket desoldering to clean all the residue and find all broken traces. One of the reasons I no longer fix them - too much of a time investment with mixed chances of success (so I sold a huge collection of boards like this to some guy in Canada 2 months ago https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/19Y4k2 … es9?usp=sharing - best decision ever).
Also 20Eur for board like this is crazy (unless it's some really rare/collectible model or in pristine condition).

cyclone3d wrote on 2022-01-28, 00:55:

Those GTX295 cards that are sticky is not because of the "paint" breaking down. It is a blasted rubber coating that they like to […]
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Those GTX295 cards that are sticky is not because of the "paint" breaking down. It is a blasted rubber coating that they like to use on a bunch of different stuff.
I've had to remove it from a SATA dock, flightsticks, my Logitech G9 mouse, some 3dConnextion CAD mice, boom boxes and on and on.
I really wish that it would be banned because it just turns into a sticky gooey mess.
Some stuff I've just thrown out because it was not worth my time to clean that crap off.
The best thing I have found that will clean it off is Lemon essential oil.
Since you can take the covers off those cards, you may be able to clean it off without as much fuss depending on how solvent resistant those covers are.

I had this kind of sticky plastics in my old car too (Renault VelSatis, previously used by French presidents. Costs nothing as 2nd hand, because electronics don't works well... and some spontaneously combust)
The stereo/gps/climate control buttons were always super dirty, with dust, hair and everything glued in it.
I tried alcohol, white spirit and acetone.
Alcohol was the less aggressive, i could clean dust and all, but the surface stayed sticky. So you have to clean it often.
White spirit does not work well, and smells really bad (for use in a car you definitely don't want that)
Acetone just melts the plastic...
And then the problem solved by itself. A tank truck destroyed my car parked in front of my house. So insurance paid for another car and i made sure that there was no sticky plastics in the new one 😁

I think that there is no real solution. For cars, owners sometimes sand + re-paint the plastic. But it takes time. And i will definitely don't do this for a GPU.

kixs wrote on 2022-01-22, 00:17:

Board supports EDO memory. Overall the lack of cache shows on the performance - by guess it's just around 486DX2-80. EDO helps […]
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WJG6260 wrote on 2022-01-21, 18:24:

That 486 board is so strange! No jumpers, and the "Aladdin" marking makes it even more interesting, especially since ALi's M1487 […]
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kixs wrote on 2022-01-20, 19:59:

and an "ultra" small 486 PCI motherboard with onboard Cyrix 5x86: […]
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and an "ultra" small 486 PCI motherboard with onboard Cyrix 5x86:

Nothing tested so far... but I hope everything is functional - it better be! 🤣

That 486 board is so strange! No jumpers, and the "Aladdin" marking makes it even more interesting, especially since ALi's M1487/9 is the FinALi chipset, not the Aladdin. Plus that SUPER late chipset date of almost 1997...just wow! I wonder if it supports EDO?

If you benchmark it, please share results! This is a really well-thought-out board. And a weird one.

How cool! Gotta love anything Cyrix!

Board supports EDO memory. Overall the lack of cache shows on the performance - by guess it's just around 486DX2-80. EDO helps a bit as performance increases by around 10%. But this depends on the benchmark/app/game.

BurnedPinguin wrote on 2022-01-21, 22:45:

Can you dump the BIOS please?

Sure. As it's still on my test desk... BIOS settings are pretty basic too.

Provided BIOS dump is bad, it's supposed to be compressed and probably supposed to be 128KB, and not 64KB.
Please redump the BIOS as NSSI is limited to system BIOSes 64K and smaller, and uncompressed system BIOS.
See attachment for recommended flasher, when launched in DOS, the first option is to dump.

Just these two. The Philips whas missing a keyboard and mouse, so I had to hunt them down. Monitors are trickier to find, maybe I'll get lucky.
The Compaq is only missing a mouse, but shouldn't be hard to come by. Obviously, the Compaq 1024 monitor isn't in the photograph, but is in my posession.

Compaq Prolinea 575: P75 / 4x 8MB RAM / Caviar 22100 (2,1GB) / ALS120 / Rockwell 33k6

To Do:
-Clean
-Replace coin cell battery (soldered)

Philips P3238: Siemens 80286-12 / 2x 1MB RAM / ST157A

-Clean / retrobright the crap out of that mouse
-Modify the Dallas with a CR2032 battery holder, maybe I'll include a diode this time.
-Get the ST157A to work. The correct CHS data isn't listed in the selection of the 30 predefined disk types, so trial and error I guess.
-Replace almost all capacitors in the power supply. They are not leaking, but this thing is _old_.

Today i got snailmail. A new Killer K1 \o/ Box was only opened. I think that someone looked the cooled model - it can be seen printed on the box what's inside =|

BitWrangler wrote on 2022-01-27, 20:21:

Nice, got one in the same line a 1580DMT, but it died on me, haven't got to serious diag yet... it's ergonomics felt great to me, comfortable to use. DOSsy stuff ran great, loved playing Frontier: Elite 2 on it.

Its a fun little laptop. I'm enjoying it. Though I have two others i just got so I dont know if ill keep this one. Here is A Toshiba Satellite Pro 420 CDT i got thrifting as well

This one is really nice. I was enjoying some Jill of the Jingle and Raptor Call of the Shadows on it. PLayed great. Ill be keeping this one for sure.

The little mouse nub is missing but still works with just that stick. The buttons for the mouse functions are a bit sticky, not sure how to clean that as just rinsing it off doesnt work.

I always laughed at the "killer" nic stuff. Its hardly better than onboard, and server-grade Intel NICs are 1/10th the cost if you choose ebay. Your internet provider is the cause of like 99% of all your latency issues.

PD2JK wrote on 2022-01-28, 14:04:

Philips P3238: Siemens 80286-12 / 2x 1MB RAM / ST157A https://tweakers.net/fotoalbum/image/ALk3WToESJKVWiPtwGxfc2hS.jpg -Clean […]
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Philips P3238: Siemens 80286-12 / 2x 1MB RAM / ST157A

-Clean / retrobright the crap out of that mouse

I actually like that aged urine yellow mouse. I found a similar colored Tandy mouse years ago. No body shaming my mice. 🤣

liqmat wrote on 2022-01-28, 18:41:

PD2JK wrote on 2022-01-28, 14:04:

Philips P3238: Siemens 80286-12 / 2x 1MB RAM / ST157A https://tweakers.net/fotoalbum/image/ALk3WToESJKVWiPtwGxfc2hS.jpg -Clean […]
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Philips P3238: Siemens 80286-12 / 2x 1MB RAM / ST157A

-Clean / retrobright the crap out of that mouse

I actually like that aged urine yellow mouse. I found a similar colored Tandy mouse years ago. No body shaming my mice. 🤣

SBDEV2.jpg

no amount of disinfectant can cure the disease this mouse has .. it has ALL of them.

liqmat wrote on 2022-01-28, 18:41:

I actually like that aged urine yellow

SBDEV2.jpg

eew! Love that old mouse, not so sure about the aged look though 😀

TrashPanda wrote on 2022-01-28, 18:46:

liqmat wrote on 2022-01-28, 18:41:

PD2JK wrote on 2022-01-28, 14:04:

Philips P3238: Siemens 80286-12 / 2x 1MB RAM / ST157A https://tweakers.net/fotoalbum/image/ALk3WToESJKVWiPtwGxfc2hS.jpg -Clean […]
Show full quote

Philips P3238: Siemens 80286-12 / 2x 1MB RAM / ST157A

-Clean / retrobright the crap out of that mouse

I actually like that aged urine yellow mouse. I found a similar colored Tandy mouse years ago. No body shaming my mice. 🤣

SBDEV2.jpg

no amount of disinfectant can cure the disease this mouse has .. it has ALL of them.

It looks like the mouse is most of them.😧

Law212 wrote on 2022-01-28, 18:36:

Its a fun little laptop. I'm enjoying it. Though I have two others i just got so I dont know if ill keep this one. Here is A Toshiba Satellite Pro 420 CDT i got thrifting as well

Heheh, I have one in that series also... munched it's HDD last year though, so unless I turn one up soon, or do a Compact Flash replacement, I might steal the one from the Armada.

TrashPanda wrote on 2022-01-28, 18:46:

no amount of disinfectant can cure the disease this mouse has .. it has ALL of them.

debs3759 wrote on 2022-01-28, 18:48:

eew! Love that old mouse, not so sure about the aged look though 😀

Well, it had a good ending. A Tandy collector grabbed it and cleaned it up. Still worked. What 30+ years in a humid Florida garage will do to computer hardware.

BitWrangler wrote on 2022-01-28, 19:04:

Law212 wrote on 2022-01-28, 18:36:

Its a fun little laptop. I'm enjoying it. Though I have two others i just got so I dont know if ill keep this one. Here is A Toshiba Satellite Pro 420 CDT i got thrifting as well

Heheh, I have one in that series also... munched it's HDD last year though, so unless I turn one up soon, or do a Compact Flash replacement, I might steal the one from the Armada.

Nice! Vintage laptops were something I wanted and now that I have a few im happy and back to focusing on my desktop builds.

Spotted an unusual old keyboard the other day with none too good pictures; bought it anyway and had a big surprise when it arrived today:

NOS, unused in original box 😁

It's a Datacomp DFK777, with "286/88" selector switch and weird Futaba MA switches, which were the main reason for buying it. They sound and feel like a kind of inverted Model F - clicky and tactile with most of the sound and tactility in the upstroke rather than the downstroke. Not at all sure what to think of them yet, but will give the board a good test drive to find out.

I got this slightly damaged Voodoo 1 card, apparently a "3D128" from Best Data. It's a late reference design, the 600-0012-05 so I can check out other cards to determine what needs replacing. It looks a little bit off in the seller's picture:

When it arrived I started pulling it apart to see if that PCB damage is bad. Missing some filters and capacitors too:

With the VGA port desoldered, the bend isn't too bad. I'm glad the desoldering didn't take any vias with it. The FBI chip looks the most suspect - all that white stuff was superglue and the chip looks pretty normal now I've cleaned it off.

Except for this bit, sure do wish I could find a pinout / datasheet for this chip - that last pin is completely ripped off and the trace it goes to is under the chip 😁

Thermalwrong wrote on 2022-01-29, 02:55:

Except for this bit, sure do wish I could find a pinout / datasheet for this chip - that last pin is completely ripped off and the trace it goes to is under the chip 😁
3D128-BestData3.jpg

Yes, would be nice if it's duplicated or non-essential, but if you're real determined, there's this approach... https://hackaday.com/2017/10/15/get-down-to-t … al-chip-repair/

Received a large box mostly full of CPU trays today. Got one interesting adapter among the 13 CPUs. Not sure how useful it is to have an adapter to run socket 478 in a socket 423 board, but I'm sure I'll have some fun with it 😀

Obviously, you can use it for RDRAM mobos. Some had decent overclocking. Although S478 RDRAM mobos are easier and better to obtain.

Ah yes, insert SL74Q, show the superiority of RAMBUS...... bahahahaaa, I couldn't keep a straight face.