darry wrote on 2022-06-17, 01:33:

Well, I'm pretty much giving up on this board for now . Not even sure it's worth a recap . […]
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darry wrote on 2022-05-14, 17:46:

Got an ECS 865PE-A7 REV 1.0 with some 2.8GHz P4 on it and various other items salvaged from a dirty and rusty (on the outside) case . It might become a project to try to get PC/PCI working by tapping signals from the ICH5 southbridge . No idea if a BIOS mod would be required .

No idea if anything works yet. The caps are OSTs and others from the bad old days, but that system had extensive cooling (fans) and what looked like a fan controller, so it might still work, but even so, it's probably only a matter of time before recapping is unavoidable.

Well, I'm pretty much giving up on this board for now . Not even sure it's worth a recap .

Reasons ?

a) I soldered a pin header to the S-IRQ labelled solder point (which I presumed might be PC/PCI) and was able to, AFAICT, get some traction in the ICH5 patched version of setupds with both a YMF724 and a YMF744 . Specifically, S-IRQ tests succeeds with the sb-link cable connected (and fail without the cable connected), but all the DMA tests fail, no matter the channel (maybe that's the reason the connector is named S-IRQ rather than PC/PCI or SB-LINK ?). The fact that the two pins that should be ground actually are at ground initially gave me hope. I tried playing with ICH5 PC/PCI registers (using ru.exe) to try to get it to work, but came up empty (not fully understanding how PCI BARs are supposed to work may be part of the problem).

b) At least one of the caps is bulging and will need to be replaced, along with all the other electrolytics

c) The bone headed idiot (IMHO) who layed out this board thought it would be a good idea to put what look to be two voltage regulators that both get extremely hot between the AGP slot and the first PCI slot AND to put electrolytic caps around them (see point b). Cooling those regs is practically impossible with an AGP card such as an FX 5900XT installed . Replacing the caps would just delay the inevitable (again IMHO).

d) Likely due to points b and c, the board is somewhat unstable and crashes intermittently, among other things (but not exclusively), when running serren.exe from http://rayer.g6.cz/programm/programe.htm

e) In terms of DOS sound card chipsets compatibility, I have tried an AU8830 (works in Doom, but not in Cubic Player, or example), 2 difference CMI8738 variants (no PCM audio, FM works), an ESSE Maestro 2E (only FM works, but have not played with the card's PCI registers as it is noisy as hell), YMF724 and YMf744 cards (FM works, no PCM audio ), a CS4630 based Turtle Beach Santa Cruz (FM works, PCM works perfectly for a few seconds before hard-locking the machine in Doom, for example), a Fortemedia FM801-AU (PCM seems to work, but a bit glitchy at times in legacy mode 2 and FM works fine and 2 different ALS4000 based cards (FM works, but PCM sound like stuttering crap in WBDMA, which is the only mode that works at all for PCM)

Consequently, I might have gotten a bit drunk before ordering

1) An Asus P5P800 (probably pointless as ICH5 based as well) (I am dumb)

2) A MSI MS-6580 (ICH4 based, so no DDMA either and no PC/PCI) (I can be quite the idiot, it seems)

3) An Asus P4S800-MX (I might have sobered up a bit at this point as this one has an SIS963L southbridge which should support DDMA)

I am also considering getting a Trident 4DWave based card (why the hell not ? I own a an example of practically everything else that is PCI and has legacy DOS support, except an EV1935/ Opti 935)

There goes the discretionary budget for the rest of this Summer . 😉

P.S. I have some spare CPU coolers for socket 478 and I am crazy enough to try mounting a socket 775 one on a socket 478 board .

With a hobby like this, who needs chores ?

I received the Asus P4S800-MX. It looks to be in great condition and has Rubycon and Matsushita caps, so likely a a good sign.

However, I don't have any socket 478 compatible coolers . Doh!!! The Deepcool Gammaxx and Coolermaster Hyper 212 units I do have are meant for socket 775 or newer and adapting one of those does not seem feasible using only the included mounting hardware. Consequently, I ordered an underpowered Startech FAN478 and an Asus branded "19437-pb" (that's what the auction calls it) with 2 heatpipes .

Getting a socket 775 board with DDMA support was practically impossible (there does exist at least one Asrock model, but that is practically unobtainium), so I had to fallback on a socket 478 board. Oh what joy!

I hope that that that the SIS 963L provided orts on the motherboard are LBA48 enabled by the BIOS and that they "like" JMicron IDE to SATA adapters. I will find out soon enough .

Seems another posting DFI k6xv3+/66 is up on the Evilbay for anyone interested, cant provide a link but it shouldn't be too hard to locate it, I kinda wanted it but I already have two AT variants and no spare ATX cases so thought people here might be interested in this lovely Socket 7 board.

I have no affiliation with the seller just posting this here for the collectors out there.

'Untested' of course, seller's photos:

Toshiba Satellite S4000 CDS and an IBM Thinkpad 365 (2625). The Satellite I fear is going to have an awful screen, but I live in hope... specs say:

DISPLAY 4000CDS
Type Color Bright Dual Scan (800 x 600)
Size 12.1” Diagonal
Dot Pitch .3075mm x .3075mm
Contrast Ratio 40:1 (Typ)

Otherwise it's a nice 2D gamer I think - PII 233MHz, at least 32MB, 4GB HDD, 2mb PCI Chips and Tech video, Yamaha sound.

The ThinkPad I'm a bit more interested in, I have a very similar model (486 DX/50 - model 2620) but that has a very flaky keyboard. I know no details on the exact model of this new one so it could be a 486DX4-75 or it could be up to a P133. A BM 5x86C 100MHz would be cool!

Both seem to come with external floppies so they must both have internal CD ROM drives? No power supply with the ThinkPad so I get why it's untested, but they could have tested the Satellite. I guess I'll find out in a few days when they turn up!

SteveC wrote on 2022-06-22, 12:45:

'Untested' of course, seller's photos: […]
Show full quote

'Untested' of course, seller's photos:

Toshiba Satellite S4000 CDS and an IBM Thinkpad 365 (2625). The Satellite I fear is going to have an awful screen, but I live in hope... specs say:

DISPLAY 4000CDS
Type Color Bright Dual Scan (800 x 600)
Size 12.1” Diagonal
Dot Pitch .3075mm x .3075mm
Contrast Ratio 40:1 (Typ)

Otherwise it's a nice 2D gamer I think - PII 233MHz, at least 32MB, 4GB HDD, 2mb PCI Chips and Tech video, Yamaha sound.

The ThinkPad I'm a bit more interested in, I have a very similar model (486 DX/50 - model 2620) but that has a very flaky keyboard. I know no details on the exact model of this new one so it could be a 486DX4-75 or it could be up to a P133. A BM 5x86C 100MHz would be cool!

Both seem to come with external floppies so they must both have internal CD ROM drives? No power supply with the ThinkPad so I get why it's untested, but they could have tested the Satellite. I guess I'll find out in a few days when they turn up!

Dual Scan isn't great for gaming, lots of ghosting with moving sprites and such, its good for office use however.

Yah, some are worse than others. Some of the enhanced types of Dual Scan kinda overlap with the crappier active matrix implementations. Cold is the enemy of LCD performance though and some have warmish backlights which help. So for DS screens, don't rush to do LED backlight mods. Anyway, I doubt it will be "great" for fast action games ever, but there's some that are tolerable for commander Keen type platformers. It wasn't perfect but I managed to play Frontier:Elite II on the P55 class Tosh and Armada that I have (had maybe because they aren't returned to working yet) As a general check of a machine running windows, if you easily lose track of mouse pointer without having it extra large or turning on pointer trails, then it super sucks for gaming... if you can keep it in sight apart from when you move too fast, it'll do "slow" action games... if you wiggle the mouse frantically and can see it all the time you're doing that, it will do fast action games.

edit: BTW if you wanna make sure you can fight your way out of a rough bar having been slipped a roofie, finish doom with fists only on "hurt me plenty" on a mono LCD 386sx25 🤣

I've always wondered if passive matrix screens deteriorate over time. I never saw one new, but all used or vintage ones that I've seen are nausea inducing.

Kahenraz wrote on 2022-06-22, 16:49:

I've always wondered if passive matrix screens deteriorate over time. I never saw one new, but all used or vintage ones that I've seen are nausea inducing.

Been a while since I've seen one new. AFAICR, the ones I remember were crappy.

I have a 4010CDS and can confirm the screen is bad. Everything else is great for 2D games, so, maybe connecting an external monitor will make it a more pleasant experience, otherwise you may want to stick to low resolution strategy and world building games.

devius wrote on 2022-06-22, 18:21:

I have a 4010CDS and can confirm the screen is bad. Everything else is great for 2D games, so, maybe connecting an external monitor will make it a more pleasant experience, otherwise you may want to stick to low resolution strategy and world building games.

The active matrix on my 4010CDT is quite decent, IMHO . Maybe your 4010CDS could receive a screen transplant from an otherwise dead/bad 4010CDT, or maybe you could locate a spare compatible active matrix screen ?

No idea about the feasibility of this kind of swap .

darry wrote on 2022-06-22, 19:46:

devius wrote on 2022-06-22, 18:21:

I have a 4010CDS and can confirm the screen is bad. Everything else is great for 2D games, so, maybe connecting an external monitor will make it a more pleasant experience, otherwise you may want to stick to low resolution strategy and world building games.

The active matrix on my 4010CDT is quite decent, IMHO . Maybe your 4010CDS could receive a screen transplant from an otherwise dead/bad 4010CDT, or maybe you could locate a spare compatible active matrix screen ?

No idea about the feasibility of this kind of swap .

IIRC There is extra circuitry in the CDT that supports the active matrix, its possible to mod the CDS but its not the easiest thing to do.

BitWrangler wrote on 2022-06-22, 16:25:

Yah, some are worse than others. Some of the enhanced types of Dual Scan kinda overlap with the crappier active matrix implementations. Cold is the enemy of LCD performance though and some have warmish backlights which help. So for DS screens, don't rush to do LED backlight mods. Anyway, I doubt it will be "great" for fast action games ever, but there's some that are tolerable for commander Keen type platformers. It wasn't perfect but I managed to play Frontier:Elite II on the P55 class Tosh and Armada that I have (had maybe because they aren't returned to working yet) As a general check of a machine running windows, if you easily lose track of mouse pointer without having it extra large or turning on pointer trails, then it super sucks for gaming... if you can keep it in sight apart from when you move too fast, it'll do "slow" action games... if you wiggle the mouse frantically and can see it all the time you're doing that, it will do fast action games.

Yeah that's my test too - mouse disappearing when moved!

I think that pointer trails are an absolute necessity for some of these passive matrix panels. I wonder if that feature was designed for this purpose specifically, or if it was just a happy accident.

Keep in mind that, whole the internal panel may be garbage, out can always hook up an external monitor. I think LGR or 8-Bit Guy did an episode where he showed how the external monitor was significantly more capable like the internal panel was monochrome but could output CGA or something.

darry wrote on 2022-06-22, 19:46:

Maybe your 4010CDS could receive a screen transplant from an otherwise dead/bad 4010CDT, or maybe you could locate a spare compatible active matrix screen ?

Great suggestion, but probably too difficult and I tend to keep computers as original as possible, unless something is damaged and needs to be replaced. It's also a good example of the kind of terrible screens laptops used to have back then, which is neat in itself 😀 And finally I already have a 2550CDT which has a much better screen, although the design isn't as appealing as the 4000 series.

And yes, pointer trails were designed for these types of STN and DSTN screens.

Kahenraz wrote on 2022-06-22, 21:29:

I think that pointer trails are an absolute necessity for some of these passive matrix panels. I wonder if that feature was designed for this purpose specifically, or if it was just a happy accident.

I recall it being compaq who started offering it as an enhancement in the mono panel 386 days on their machines to help keep track of the pointer. So yeah, pretty much specific to laptop panels. However, I do wonder if the idea could have been in use earlier on long persistance mono CRTs.

Radical Vision wrote on 2022-06-21, 08:21:

Take for example the art on these VGA boxes... It was used for OAK, UMC, CL-542X and another old cards, but i got my Diamond Edge 3D nVIDIA NV1 cards with such boxes... I really like what they did really beatiful painting on them... I also like the approach EPoX did on their boxes unique design.. Also the box are of the Hercules seems like was stolen from 3Dfx straight 🤣... ASUS for example on their P2B board have dumb design (well what to expect from ASUS..)

what motherboard model is this one for? do you have the original driver cd ?
maybe the cd has also the files for Epox EP-8RDA3+

darry wrote on 2022-06-22, 05:04:

I received the Asus P4S800-MX. It looks to be in great condition and has Rubycon and Matsushita caps, so likely a a good sign. […]
Show full quote

darry wrote on 2022-06-17, 01:33:

Well, I'm pretty much giving up on this board for now . Not even sure it's worth a recap . […]
Show full quote

darry wrote on 2022-05-14, 17:46:

Got an ECS 865PE-A7 REV 1.0 with some 2.8GHz P4 on it and various other items salvaged from a dirty and rusty (on the outside) case . It might become a project to try to get PC/PCI working by tapping signals from the ICH5 southbridge . No idea if a BIOS mod would be required .

No idea if anything works yet. The caps are OSTs and others from the bad old days, but that system had extensive cooling (fans) and what looked like a fan controller, so it might still work, but even so, it's probably only a matter of time before recapping is unavoidable.

Well, I'm pretty much giving up on this board for now . Not even sure it's worth a recap .

Reasons ?

a) I soldered a pin header to the S-IRQ labelled solder point (which I presumed might be PC/PCI) and was able to, AFAICT, get some traction in the ICH5 patched version of setupds with both a YMF724 and a YMF744 . Specifically, S-IRQ tests succeeds with the sb-link cable connected (and fail without the cable connected), but all the DMA tests fail, no matter the channel (maybe that's the reason the connector is named S-IRQ rather than PC/PCI or SB-LINK ?). The fact that the two pins that should be ground actually are at ground initially gave me hope. I tried playing with ICH5 PC/PCI registers (using ru.exe) to try to get it to work, but came up empty (not fully understanding how PCI BARs are supposed to work may be part of the problem).

b) At least one of the caps is bulging and will need to be replaced, along with all the other electrolytics

c) The bone headed idiot (IMHO) who layed out this board thought it would be a good idea to put what look to be two voltage regulators that both get extremely hot between the AGP slot and the first PCI slot AND to put electrolytic caps around them (see point b). Cooling those regs is practically impossible with an AGP card such as an FX 5900XT installed . Replacing the caps would just delay the inevitable (again IMHO).

d) Likely due to points b and c, the board is somewhat unstable and crashes intermittently, among other things (but not exclusively), when running serren.exe from http://rayer.g6.cz/programm/programe.htm

e) In terms of DOS sound card chipsets compatibility, I have tried an AU8830 (works in Doom, but not in Cubic Player, or example), 2 difference CMI8738 variants (no PCM audio, FM works), an ESSE Maestro 2E (only FM works, but have not played with the card's PCI registers as it is noisy as hell), YMF724 and YMf744 cards (FM works, no PCM audio ), a CS4630 based Turtle Beach Santa Cruz (FM works, PCM works perfectly for a few seconds before hard-locking the machine in Doom, for example), a Fortemedia FM801-AU (PCM seems to work, but a bit glitchy at times in legacy mode 2 and FM works fine and 2 different ALS4000 based cards (FM works, but PCM sound like stuttering crap in WBDMA, which is the only mode that works at all for PCM)

Consequently, I might have gotten a bit drunk before ordering

1) An Asus P5P800 (probably pointless as ICH5 based as well) (I am dumb)

2) A MSI MS-6580 (ICH4 based, so no DDMA either and no PC/PCI) (I can be quite the idiot, it seems)

3) An Asus P4S800-MX (I might have sobered up a bit at this point as this one has an SIS963L southbridge which should support DDMA)

I am also considering getting a Trident 4DWave based card (why the hell not ? I own a an example of practically everything else that is PCI and has legacy DOS support, except an EV1935/ Opti 935)

There goes the discretionary budget for the rest of this Summer . 😉

P.S. I have some spare CPU coolers for socket 478 and I am crazy enough to try mounting a socket 775 one on a socket 478 board .

With a hobby like this, who needs chores ?

I received the Asus P4S800-MX. It looks to be in great condition and has Rubycon and Matsushita caps, so likely a a good sign.

However, I don't have any socket 478 compatible coolers . Doh!!! The Deepcool Gammaxx and Coolermaster Hyper 212 units I do have are meant for socket 775 or newer and adapting one of those does not seem feasible using only the included mounting hardware. Consequently, I ordered an underpowered Startech FAN478 and an Asus branded "19437-pb" (that's what the auction calls it) with 2 heatpipes .

Getting a socket 775 board with DDMA support was practically impossible (there does exist at least one Asrock model, but that is practically unobtainium), so I had to fallback on a socket 478 board. Oh what joy!

I hope that that that the SIS 963L provided orts on the motherboard are LBA48 enabled by the BIOS and that they "like" JMicron IDE to SATA adapters. I will find out soon enough .

LBA, including LBA48 works, but a drive with its size reduced through DCO is not recognized properly Re: Here's an idea: using high endurance (micro)SD cards meant for continuous video recording as storage for retro gear (minor issue, IMHO, as the BIOS is LB48 capable).

The Startech Startech FAN478 sucks really badly here. Idle temps are in the low 50s ( Celsius) with an ambient temp of 20 Celsius and the fan is noisy . That's with a 3.0GHz Prescott (89W TDP). Startech specifies the FAN478 for up to a 2.8GHz P4 and some sources specify a max TDP handling capacity of 70W . I hope the Asus 19437-pb cooler will be better, but there seems to be very little info about it online .

SteveC wrote on 2022-06-22, 12:45:

'Untested' of course, seller's photos: […]
Show full quote

'Untested' of course, seller's photos:

Toshiba Satellite S4000 CDS and an IBM Thinkpad 365 (2625). The Satellite I fear is going to have an awful screen, but I live in hope... specs say:

DISPLAY 4000CDS
Type Color Bright Dual Scan (800 x 600)
Size 12.1” Diagonal
Dot Pitch .3075mm x .3075mm
Contrast Ratio 40:1 (Typ)

Otherwise it's a nice 2D gamer I think - PII 233MHz, at least 32MB, 4GB HDD, 2mb PCI Chips and Tech video, Yamaha sound.

The ThinkPad I'm a bit more interested in, I have a very similar model (486 DX/50 - model 2620) but that has a very flaky keyboard. I know no details on the exact model of this new one so it could be a 486DX4-75 or it could be up to a P133. A BM 5x86C 100MHz would be cool!

Both seem to come with external floppies so they must both have internal CD ROM drives? No power supply with the ThinkPad so I get why it's untested, but they could have tested the Satellite. I guess I'll find out in a few days when they turn up!

i'd tear down the battery packs and integrate super capacitors 😀 i always liked the old satellites good score

zapbuzz wrote on 2022-06-23, 06:07:

SteveC wrote on 2022-06-22, 12:45:

'Untested' of course, seller's photos: […]
Show full quote

'Untested' of course, seller's photos:

Toshiba Satellite S4000 CDS and an IBM Thinkpad 365 (2625). The Satellite I fear is going to have an awful screen, but I live in hope... specs say:

DISPLAY 4000CDS
Type Color Bright Dual Scan (800 x 600)
Size 12.1” Diagonal
Dot Pitch .3075mm x .3075mm
Contrast Ratio 40:1 (Typ)

Otherwise it's a nice 2D gamer I think - PII 233MHz, at least 32MB, 4GB HDD, 2mb PCI Chips and Tech video, Yamaha sound.

The ThinkPad I'm a bit more interested in, I have a very similar model (486 DX/50 - model 2620) but that has a very flaky keyboard. I know no details on the exact model of this new one so it could be a 486DX4-75 or it could be up to a P133. A BM 5x86C 100MHz would be cool!

Both seem to come with external floppies so they must both have internal CD ROM drives? No power supply with the ThinkPad so I get why it's untested, but they could have tested the Satellite. I guess I'll find out in a few days when they turn up!

i'd tear down the battery packs and integrate super capacitors 😀 i always liked the old satellites good score

The MX300 from China arrived today .. took one look at it and put it through a hot wash, honestly looked like it had come from a smokers PC . .had that yellowish tinge to it, looks 100% better now its been cleaned and once its dry I can test it out. Also bought two 667Mhz Slot 1 Coppermine EB CPUs for the ASUS p2b-d when it arrives.

TrashPanda wrote on 2022-06-23, 10:49:

Also bought two 667Mhz Slot 1 Coppermine EB CPUs for the ASUS p2b-d when it arrives.

This is an interesting thread for p2b-d owners:
Asus P2B-DS Rev 1.06 FSB Modification