devius wrote on 2022-03-13, 12:39:

The media bus slot? Lol

Well I do have a ASUS PCI-AS300 card to go in there which is a SCSI card with Sound Card .. the sound card is pretty useless but the SCSI part is interesting, the SB32 CT3600 in this system is one of the uhh terrible ones with both hanging note bugs so I guess itll be thrown in the spares bin as I have better quality cards. (it does have genuine OPL3 + Wavetable header so it might be more useful than the SB32)

Odly enough the only other Media Bus card I have been able to find is one with a Mach64 + Vibra 16 .. again not a terribly useful card I think Ill stick with the somewhat useful Scsi.

TrashPanda wrote on 2022-03-13, 12:40:

weedeewee wrote on 2022-03-13, 12:28:

TrashPanda, a COAST module ?

More importantly a compatible known working coast module !

Others beat me to it! It was either the cache module or the VLB slot, both of which are nice.

It seems like making replacement cache PCBs would be a really easy thing for someone who knows how to do it. Are compatible chips difficult to source?

Kahenraz wrote on 2022-03-13, 12:47:

TrashPanda wrote on 2022-03-13, 12:40:

weedeewee wrote on 2022-03-13, 12:28:

TrashPanda, a COAST module ?

More importantly a compatible known working coast module !

Others beat me to it! It was either the cache module or the VLB slot, both of which are nice.

It seems like making replacement cache PCBs would be a really easy thing for someone who knows how to do it. Are compatible chips difficult to source?

VLB slot is a MediaBus slot basically a PCI + ISA slot in one.

As for the module, no idea how hard the chips are to source but I have tried a few times to get a compatible coast module and one never worked and the other got eaten by the post coming from Germany.

But if you like when I get the module I will post some high res photos of it here so you can look into it.

TrashPanda wrote on 2022-03-13, 12:25:

I wonder if anyone can figure out why I grabbed it.

The CPU seems like a normal P54C with original Intel cooler glued to it?
Was it about the COAST module? Rare enough, but not gold dust.

Cuttoon wrote on 2022-03-13, 13:08:

TrashPanda wrote on 2022-03-13, 12:25:

I wonder if anyone can figure out why I grabbed it.

The CPU seems like a normal P54C with original Intel cooler glued to it?
Was it about the COAST module? Rare enough, but not gold dust.

Known working compatible coast modules may as well not exist here in Australia, so I snagged this as soon as I saw it, I can always sell any parts I dont need.
Have tried a couple of times to get a module, one never worked the other is with the postal gods when it went missing on its way from Germany.

I bought this curious little gem. It's a GeForce FX 5900 "SP". I knew it would be a lower specced variant but I wasn't sure of the exact clocks, since it wasn't listed on the Wikipedia article.

It turns out it's the worst of the bunch! 300 Mhz core / 350 Mhz memory. Overclocks just fine up to 400 Mhz core. I didn't want to stress it beyond that but I suspect it can clock much further.

The FX 5900 is one of my favorite NVIDIA cards from this area. DirectX 9 shaders and good enough for most applications.

Cuttoon wrote on 2022-03-13, 13:08:

TrashPanda wrote on 2022-03-13, 12:25:

I wonder if anyone can figure out why I grabbed it.

The CPU seems like a normal P54C with original Intel cooler glued to it?

Should be an Intel boxed CPU. Those came with the heatsink attached in those days. The (btw very small) heatsink was glued to the top of the CPU from the factory and the fan could be clicked into place without needing to screw in anything.

IIRC and I might have got this wrong because the whole COAST debacle is shrouded in myth and legend, a 430FX COAST stick is only likely to work on 430FX boards, being COAST 1.1 or something, whereas for Triton II boards like 430HX and 430VX you want COAST 1.3 or so. Also a weirdness with 430FX boards is a COAST module might not give you more cache, it often just gives you different cache, disabling what's on the motherboard. There's some marginal performance increase in going from the standard SRAM to pipeline burst type. This may depend on module type, there may be modules wired to add capacity and others not capable off it. Messing around back in the day, I had a 430FX board with pipeline burst type modules on the board, one COAST stick just replaced that 256kB with it's own 256kB and one COAST stick added to it for 512kB. However, this ended up slowing the board down, because onboard took 2-1-1-1 timings or something real tight and the addon for 512 made it need 3-2-2-2 or something sucky. I believe this was with 64MB of RAM or less. Anyway, whatever "achievements" I managed with COAST sticks back then, and they were hard to find even then, got it ingrained in me that it was not worth the headache to mess with them for marginal gain.

It looks like there is cache already on the board there. But maybe it's a different size or those chips aren't cache at all.

Lots of stuff today as the local bazaar just reopened legally.

- Chaintech CT-5AGM2 mobo - the only one working without issues.
- Biostar M7MKA mobo - unfortunately didn't work, had some ripped mosfets
- Gigabyte GA-8IPE1000 Rev1.0 - doesn't work either, suspecting a dead southbridge but not sure considering half of the capacitors were already bad Nichicon HMs.
- Gigabyte GA-7VAX - for parts, had a Spire cooler that went on the Chaintech to cool a K6-2 500, and a 850MHz Duron for some reason. AGP slot was desoldered before I got it.
- Seagate ST31000524 1TB 7200.12 HDD - perfectly fine, has some strange partitions though.
- Dell Inspiron 1420 - dirty enough that I had to dump half a bottle of Cif cleaning solvent to clean the casing. Otherwise perfectly fine, needs slight upgrades on the RAM, WLAN and CPU.
- Samsung Galaxy S4 i9505 - had a bad mobo (I think) and the plastic frame that covers the mobo was horribly bent. Used parts from another 9505 and fixed it.

Total spent: $22. 😁

Prolly best thing to happen to the GA-7VAX, Gigabyte never got their VIA socket A boards up to the standards of everyone else, i.e. 100% stable at stock and free of constant niggles. If you wanna get tinfoil hatted about it you'd figure they were taking backhanders from intel to screw them up on purpose, but I'm sure there's a simple explanation where they just kept paying the same engineers to make the same mistakes across multiple chipset generations.

BitWrangler wrote on 2022-01-16, 21:46:

Urgh, bought a 3rd useless DB9 to RJ45 dongle... So I had one a decade or so back that was an honest to goodness RS-232 to Ethernet dongle, but it's been MIA. Bought one that looked similar a couple of years ago, but that turned out to be a RS-232 to RS-485 adapter, bought one earlier this year that was an RS-232 OVER ethernet adapter, i.e. proprietary link protocol in between two RS-232 dongles for serial OVER ethernet.. so one was useless.. find another in a bag of "dongles" today at a thrift... annnd it turns out it's probably just a physical/electrical adapter for a terminal server card, that has RJ45s on... okay maybe it's not totally useless, I might stick an RJ45 pigtail on a motherboard serial header and use it to connect the port for something. I was hoping it was at least the other half of a serial over ethernet setup or like I wanted a really real RS232 to Ethernet NIC.

What turns up in a random drawer today but a RS232 OVER ethernet dongle, and in grabbing range was another, both have the Wiznet W5100 parts, identical looking microcontrollers, so I hope I can get them to talk to each other.

Now I have to think of something suitably bizarre to do with them. ... though actually I might have something nearly sensible... ATSC tuner box with an serial port... If I stick that way up in the attic and can control it over the serial, I can maybe get distant digital stations better (only few feet to antenna, cuts loss on 50ft cable, can boost the analog output at that end and it will still be real crisp.) .... mind you that probably isn't quite out of the range of managing to do it with RS-232 over some good cable anyway. ... Hmmm, now the car I was driving 10 years ago had an 80s ECU you could talk to with serial from a palm pilot, some lashup with that and a tiny wifi router coulda made it possible to talk to that in the driveway, maybe phone it, upload tune, download data... prolly easier with an ESP 8266 though.

Kahenraz wrote on 2022-03-13, 18:52:

It looks like there is cache already on the board there. But maybe it's a different size or those chips aren't cache at all.

Comes with 256k cache on board IIRC, coast is another 256k, will confirm if it adds to it or replaces on board when it arrives.

There was a 512k module but it’s exceedingly rare.

BitWrangler wrote on 2022-03-13, 21:50:

What turns up in a random drawer today but a RS232 OVER ethernet dongle, and in grabbing range was another, both have the Wiznet W5100 parts, identical looking microcontrollers, so I hope I can get them to talk to each other.

If you want to hear of a weird product, I have some bizarre adapters that can send Ethernet over and AC wall outlet.

Kahenraz wrote on 2022-03-13, 23:25:

BitWrangler wrote on 2022-03-13, 21:50:

What turns up in a random drawer today but a RS232 OVER ethernet dongle, and in grabbing range was another, both have the Wiznet W5100 parts, identical looking microcontrollers, so I hope I can get them to talk to each other.

If you want to hear of a weird product, I have some bizarre adapters that can send Ethernet over and AC wall outlet.

Powerline adapters are nothing unusual. Pretty popular solution.

HanJammer wrote on 2022-03-14, 00:15:

Kahenraz wrote on 2022-03-13, 23:25:

BitWrangler wrote on 2022-03-13, 21:50:

What turns up in a random drawer today but a RS232 OVER ethernet dongle, and in grabbing range was another, both have the Wiznet W5100 parts, identical looking microcontrollers, so I hope I can get them to talk to each other.

If you want to hear of a weird product, I have some bizarre adapters that can send Ethernet over and AC wall outlet.

Powerline adapters are nothing unusual. Pretty popular solution.

Yeah, I may have mentioned Powerline/Homeplug 1.0 vs 1.0 Turbo, any experience mixing? having some before.

I think I just like X10, '80s smart home tech, Radio Shack Plug'n'power etceteraaaa.... all sorts of strange crap.

Hmmm so I can maybe plug x10 controller to RS232 over ethernet, plugged into a homeplug/powerline adapter and have the other end plugged in to a PC somewhere else. Which miiiight be useful if the x10 controller doesn't communicate well from a far flung branch circuit, so I could stick it in the nearest socket to the breaker panel or something so it gets best reach.

BitWrangler wrote on 2022-03-14, 01:13:

Yeah, I may have mentioned Powerline/Homeplug 1.0 vs 1.0 Turbo, any experience mixing? having some before. […]
Show full quote

HanJammer wrote on 2022-03-14, 00:15:

Kahenraz wrote on 2022-03-13, 23:25:

If you want to hear of a weird product, I have some bizarre adapters that can send Ethernet over and AC wall outlet.

Powerline adapters are nothing unusual. Pretty popular solution.

Yeah, I may have mentioned Powerline/Homeplug 1.0 vs 1.0 Turbo, any experience mixing? having some before.

I think I just like X10, '80s smart home tech, Radio Shack Plug'n'power etceteraaaa.... all sorts of strange crap.

Hmmm so I can maybe plug x10 controller to RS232 over ethernet, plugged into a homeplug/powerline adapter and have the other end plugged in to a PC somewhere else. Which miiiight be useful if the x10 controller doesn't communicate well from a far flung branch circuit, so I could stick it in the nearest socket to the breaker panel or something so it gets best reach.

I'd be surprised (nay, shocked!) if it can communicate between different properties. That would be a major security risk (and I imagine the signal would degrade over great distances). Would be fun to hack into a neighbour's internet connection through one though. Easier than hacking a wireless connection (although I do know someone who got free access to wifi for a few years, when a local network security engineer forgot to secure his own home connection. Fair game, I say, in the circumstances)

I used a wall adapter in an apartment where we couldn't run a wire, there was no coax drop in the room for the cable box, and the router was too far away. The wall adapter was not the fastest ethernet I'd ever experienced but it was sufficient for the time. It would probably work just fine in a retro corner with basic 10/100. Since the computer will always need to use the wall for power, you might even consider it a very cheap form of wifi.

debs3759 wrote on 2022-03-14, 02:19:

BitWrangler wrote on 2022-03-14, 01:13:

Yeah, I may have mentioned Powerline/Homeplug 1.0 vs 1.0 Turbo, any experience mixing? having some before. […]
Show full quote

HanJammer wrote on 2022-03-14, 00:15:

Powerline adapters are nothing unusual. Pretty popular solution.

Yeah, I may have mentioned Powerline/Homeplug 1.0 vs 1.0 Turbo, any experience mixing? having some before.

I think I just like X10, '80s smart home tech, Radio Shack Plug'n'power etceteraaaa.... all sorts of strange crap.

Hmmm so I can maybe plug x10 controller to RS232 over ethernet, plugged into a homeplug/powerline adapter and have the other end plugged in to a PC somewhere else. Which miiiight be useful if the x10 controller doesn't communicate well from a far flung branch circuit, so I could stick it in the nearest socket to the breaker panel or something so it gets best reach.

I'd be surprised (nay, shocked!) if it can communicate between different properties. That would be a major security risk (and I imagine the signal would degrade over great distances). Would be fun to hack into a neighbour's internet connection through one though. Easier than hacking a wireless connection (although I do know someone who got free access to wifi for a few years, when a local network security engineer forgot to secure his own home connection. Fair game, I say, in the circumstances)

It can happen apparently in North American setups when neighbours are on the "same phase". I've heard it's less likely in the UK because of the transformer drops. They do have a security option like wifi. Anyway, we don't have ring circuits here like UK, so it's one massive octopus spreading out from fusebox/breaker-box so if you've got something that's 70ft of wiring away on one circuit, trying to talk to something that's 70ft down the wire from the box on a different circuit, it might not get a good signal. That might go for the homeplug/powerline or the x10/plug'n'power which use diff frequencies.

Kahenraz wrote on 2022-03-14, 02:43:

I used a wall adapter in an apartment where we couldn't run a wire, there was no coax drop in the room for the cable box, and the router was too far away. The wall adapter was not the fastest ethernet I'd ever experienced but it was sufficient for the time. It would probably work just fine in a retro corner with basic 10/100. Since the computer will always need to use the wall for power, you might even consider it a very cheap form of wifi.

There might have been some point in the oughts where they were comparable in price, but the later, faster homeplug AC600 or so stayed above ~$50 a node, whereas you can get wifi adapters for $10 or a little under, and routers for $30 up. Though if you're picking up used kit now, it may be cheaper finding powerline adapters at $5 a pop vs paying whatever it takes to get wifi that's compatible with older systems. My speeds on them are actually higher than my internet bandwidth so it's not bad for internet... slower than 100Mbit ethernet, a bit less fussy than wireless G and less prone to overload/dropout, so gets better throughput overall despite peak speed lower. This is slow old gear though, it rivals gigabit now. Certainly wouldn't be the bottleneck if 10baseT or 10base2 were involved.