Started work on repairing not one, but three Korg 05R/W sound modules.

I'd been collecting them hoping to find a fully working one, but it seems these units are highly prone to failure.

Started working on the one on the right, having already replaced a few caps which seems to have corrected issues with distorted sound/extended warmup. But looks like it will also need a new potentiometer as the volume control isn't working.

Once I get to a fully working one, I'll repeat the repairs on the others and hopefully wind up with three fully working units.

Scoured ebay for a reliable socket 462 mobo. Hoping to find a nib specimen. Does that count as "activity"?

Would a recap likely solve the intermittent no start/lock up issues of this Foxconn mobo? Something tells me it's a pipe dream.

I drilled two rivets out of an old ATX case (to remove the HDD cage, it was too big and prevented me from installing AT boards).

Small victory for a 23 year old, but as someone who's super un-handy with repair or power tools. Its a nice feeling 😁

Merovign wrote on 2022-04-16, 19:19:

I've been trying without much success to find out what Goodwill does with computers around here. I have found some parts and even a box of software or two, but I haven't seen an actual computer at Goodwill in probably 8-10 years.

I've been to at least 7 or 8 different Goodwill stores, both in the Midwest and Georgia, and none of them had any computers. Lots of LCDs, speakers, routers, and things close to computers... but no computers. I wonder why they seem to have stopped carrying them.

Cosmic wrote on 2022-04-17, 01:24:

Merovign wrote on 2022-04-16, 19:19:

I've been trying without much success to find out what Goodwill does with computers around here. I have found some parts and even a box of software or two, but I haven't seen an actual computer at Goodwill in probably 8-10 years.

I've been to at least 7 or 8 different Goodwill stores, both in the Midwest and Georgia, and none of them had any computers. Lots of LCDs, speakers, routers, and things close to computers... but no computers. I wonder why they seem to have stopped carrying them.

I'm pretty sure goodwill puts most of the big ticket items up on auction sites now. At least that's what they've started to do with video games

Shponglefan wrote on 2022-04-17, 01:11:

Started work on repairing not one, but three Korg 05R/W sound modules.

I'd been collecting them hoping to find a fully working one, but it seems these units are highly prone to failure.

As an owner of several synthesizers, I've found cracked solder joints at the back for the MIDI, RCA connectors, and mechanical/ground legs of these connectors, to be a common fault.

Cosmic wrote on 2022-04-17, 01:24:

Merovign wrote on 2022-04-16, 19:19:

I've been trying without much success to find out what Goodwill does with computers around here. I have found some parts and even a box of software or two, but I haven't seen an actual computer at Goodwill in probably 8-10 years.

I've been to at least 7 or 8 different Goodwill stores, both in the Midwest and Georgia, and none of them had any computers. Lots of LCDs, speakers, routers, and things close to computers... but no computers. I wonder why they seem to have stopped carrying them.

I've been told they basically centralized that at a few locations (like the one hundreds of miles away from me) because of some liability problems with people leaving personal and financial info on donated computers and not having/wanting to have IT people in every city cleaning up the mess.

I suspect from what was said about fresh windows installations that genuinely old hardware is either junked (GRRRRRRR) or sold separately to specialists in bulk.

The region where I live has been picked pretty dry. I don't really have the money right now to travel to places where they have better pickings.

It's not retro, really, but I did get 5x 16Gb thumb drives for $4.50 today, so there's that. I just tested a bunch of HDDs last night (PASSED) and I'm continuing to pare down what I'm willing to live with. I had been gathering and sorting hardware forever but I finally am putting together the *systems* one by one, I have a PII Win98 system and an i7 XP system set up. I'm seriously considering trying to find some cheap window ATX cases for putting AT boards in, just because I can't really find enough desktop AT cases and they're kind of too pricey for me shipped right now. I would love to find an Everex Step case or one of the many more stylish AT clone cases from the late 80s / early 90s, one day, for a 386 or 486 build - but if I can get compact, barely-bigger than SFF ATX cases that fit full-height cards... that might be good enough. I want to have the collection be a reasonable size so I can reclaim my Disused Computer Shop... I mean apartment.

Because I'm a complete weirdo, I keep thinking of multiple computers in one case to help solve the space problem. Originally it was a "retro rack" idea with TFX/SFX power supplies and drives under the board... I was thinking about multiple systems in one tower case but that seems extraordinarily hackish and requiring a lot of metal cutting. Or 3D printing. Or both. All that to get away from minitowers.

I haven't had luck at any Goodwill/CashConverters/whatever in the past few years. If its anything retro and gaming, they usually know what they have and price to Ebay match or its put up online or behind glass.

Recycling Centres are where iv still managed to find good deals from time to time.

In my area the main thrift places are picked over regularly. During my 15-minute previous visit alone, another two separate and obvious nerd looking people slowly slinked past/around the electronics area. No doubt resenting the fact that I'd arrived first, and was slowly taking my time to look at everything! (probably some kind of meme in there)

The less obvious places are ok, provided expectations are modest. The real unicorns are not getting any less unicorn-y.

Am hopefully on the right track to snatch what could possibly be my ONLY chance to get an 440BX ABIT mobo, a BE6-II.

Here's high hopes I win it.

Kahenraz wrote on 2022-04-17, 01:58:

As an owner of several synthesizers, I've found cracked solder joints at the back for the MIDI, RCA connectors, and mechanical/ground legs of these connectors, to be a common fault.

That's a good point.

On the one unit I started working on, it did have cracked solder joints on both the power connector and one of the RCA connectors. I reflowed both of those connectors.

I finally got around to trying out each 3D accelerated version of Tomb Raider. The 3dfx, PowerVR, and Verite versions are the best. Software would be next. The S3 version is OK, but the Virge DX can't hold the game to at least 15-20fps with eye-candy enabled. The Mystique MSI version is no good, at least on the Mystique 220; awful dithering and black levels might as well be gray. I can only imagine back in the day the CPUs of the time would not have been able to power this game in software mode at 640x480 very well (I was playing the Sega Saturn version at the time), so the S3/Matrox might have been of some benefit. Descent II runs pretty well on the DX, though.

Tidied up my Compaq Portable 286.

Soory aboot the image being too big, eh? My cable management isn't the best, but it's better than having cables on top of cards and causing the top cover to not seat properly.

Got messing around with the R51. Going to drop $30 on maxing out the ram + adding bluetooth and taking it apart for fresh thermal paste + free Pentium M 1.8ghz upgrade from the Celeron. Have a 80gb 7200rpm drive handy, and intend to run Linux Lite in the garage as a handy multimedia/word processor. Plus can finally do some reformatting and backing up of numerous old laptop IDE drives. EDIT: removed repeated thinkpa 770 rant.

When I get the R51, the thinkpad 770 and P4 straightened out Il take some pics and make a thread.

Goodwill is spotty. One near me will rarely have stuff like C64 floppy drives, a new style Xbox 360 $30, P35? Gigabyte lga 775 board. But usually just TV's and general crap.

chris2021 wrote on 2022-04-17, 01:20:

Scoured ebay for a reliable socket 462 mobo. Hoping to find a nib specimen. Does that count as "activity"?

Would a recap likely solve the intermittent no start/lock up issues of this Foxconn mobo? Something tells me it's a pipe dream.

Watch out that even NIB 462 boards can have toast caps. I bought a NIB sealed Abit VIA KX 333 ultra board that blew the defective Nichicons within hours of use and never ran right after a recap. If your hardware operates well right now a good quality recap will probably fix your issues, and might be worth recapping if it works and suits your needs.

I got a MSI KT3 Ultra2 with toast caps and after a recap all that the board was good for was killing CPUs I tried it with. 🙁 Socket A is a pretty tough platform to find a good reliable board for. I have a KM266 mATX board I'm currently using for my Voodoo 3 PC and I hope it doesn't fail on me.

appiah4 wrote on 2022-04-18, 07:56:

I got a MSI KT3 Ultra2 with toast caps and after a recap all that the board was good for was killing CPUs I tried it with. 🙁 Socket A is a pretty tough platform to find a good reliable board for. I have a KM266 mATX board I'm currently using for my Voodoo 3 PC and I hope it doesn't fail on me.

I honestly gave up on 462 when my recapped P4 came back to life. Every board I had in storage was dead. Last known working configs, extra parts, nothing would bring any of them to life. Was dumping DDR2 stuff at the same time in $30 working Windows 10 rigs with OEM 7 codes and geforce 8600 Quadros. A OEM Pentium D with 4gb of ram even is still surprisingly useful with a basic 3D card.

Meatball wrote on 2022-04-18, 02:38:

I finally got around to trying out each 3D accelerated version of Tomb Raider. The 3dfx, PowerVR, and Verite versions are the best.

It runs even better on PowerVR when the chip is overclocked. I've tried at up to 80 Mhz.

Gah 3 weeks and I haven't managed any retro endeavors at all, not even simple stuff. The first week was all interruptions and randomness, then I went in zombie mode and could barely think and was exhausted, either it was the start of the pollen affecting me, or I maybe got BA2, but apart from brain fog and exhaustion it didn't really have any other covid-ish symptoms. Crossing my fingers for a better week this week.

Finally built P2 configuration. It took some time to collect all the parts. I had stupid things missing, like IO shield or 80mm fan grill 😀.
Cable management is not final ... still testing things.

Current config:
* Asus P2B
* PII 450
* 256MB RAM
* TNT2 (Diamond Viper V770)
* 3dfx V00d00 2 12MB (CMC Orbit 3D)
* Vibra16s with OPL3
* Digital DEC 'Tulip' NIC

Sort of a triple '2' configuration: P2 - Voodoo 2 - TNT2.

Pics: