Picked up a collection of old PCI-e video cards:

GeForce 7300LE 256MB
GeForce 8500GT 512MB (HP)
GeForce 9500 (GT 120) 512MB (HP)
GeForce GT210 512MB (HP)
GeForce GT220 1GB
Radeon HD3450 256MB (HP)
Radeon X600 128MB

oh and a couple wifi cards. What a waste of money 😁

I received a 4800Ti SuckerEdition for 2,5 European monetary units.

Since I have no interest in these cards, AGP 8x compatibility is bit of a mystery - can this be tested on a D815EEA without causing magic smokes?

A001 wrote on 2022-07-18, 10:31:

I received a 4800Ti SuckerEdition for 2,5 European monetary units.

709.jpg

Since I have no interest in these cards, AGP 8x compatibility is bit of a mystery - can this be tested on a D815EEA without causing magic smokes?

Yes of course

SteveC wrote on 2022-07-18, 10:08:

Picked up a collection of old PCI-e video cards: […]
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Picked up a collection of old PCI-e video cards:

GeForce 7300LE 256MB
GeForce 8500GT 512MB (HP)
GeForce 9500 (GT 120) 512MB (HP)
GeForce GT210 512MB (HP)
GeForce GT220 1GB
Radeon HD3450 256MB (HP)
Radeon X600 128MB

oh and a couple wifi cards. What a waste of money 😁

That 7300LE might surprise you, it's like most of the way up 6x00 performance without all the noise and heat. The x600 is one of the modernest cards you can get working with 98SE IIRC. For shits and giggles, you can see if you can get the 8500 and 9500 doing asymmetric SLI

BitWrangler wrote on 2022-07-18, 14:28:

The x600 is one of the modernest cards you can get working with 98SE IIRC.

Technically it's a Radeon 9600 Pro modded for PCI Express. It's got rebranded another time as X1050, though I don't know if it still works with Windows 98 drivers. Also there is a faster version of X1050 which uses the RV410 GPU (Radeon X700), so based on hardware it should also work in Windows 98, but I also don't know if it works with W98 drivers.

Picked up a 8086 from '87 today. Inside is in mint condition, no blown caps or battery leakage, but it has no picture. Unsure if it's the monitor or graphics driver, although the very high pitch sound that resonates in my skull tells me the monitor may not be working correctly. Going to test with an ISA card later that has VGA port, this one is a DB-9 one that i don't have other monitors for. I recon there's probably some VGA converters available too.

I have one almost exactly like that one, except that the CPU is a 8088 and it has a second floppy drive in place of the HDD. The graphics are CGA, and if yours is like mine it should have a composite out that you should be able to connect to a regular TV.

Also, is it missing the daughterboard where you connect the 8-bit expansion card into?

I got the original reciept from the owner and its indeed a 8088.

The ide controller is on a riser and has a chained port for the 8bit expansion.

Don't have a TV that takes composite anymore, but i have an adapter from composite to VGA so that might work

Oh wow, I always wondered what the purpose of that inside expansion slot was. Very cool!

No picture on the composite out either, concerning

neat "little" 286 SBC with a 20MHz Harris and 287XL and luckily no NiCd battery in sight ^^

After a long long time I finally managed to find my dream vintage laptop.
The glorious Dell XPS M1710!
Its a top of the line model with GeForce 5950GO and the unique unlocked Core 2 Duo T7600G.
It also came with the fantastic 1920x1200 screen.
Due to the well knows problems with cracking solderballs on the GPU's theese are getting very hard to find in working condition.

I've adored this machine since a friend bought one new as a desktop replacement.
Unfortunately hes machine had a few GPU deaths, and when it was no longer under warranty he gave it to me as scrap/spare parts.
Now my machine was sold as "untested" with a dead battery and no charger.
And by pure chance i saved the battery and the charger from my friends scrapper!
Its literally been in a box for over 10 years "just incase".
Turns out my battery is working just fine even tho being flat for a decade.

The machine itself is in excellent condition considering the age.
A few small barely visible scratches on the lid, but the keyboard and the track-pad looks brand new.
If it wasn't for all the dust inside it you could believe it wasn't used at all.
The thermal goop on GPU and CPU was incredibly hard, so hard I had problems removing it even with a razor-blade.
Fossilized thermal goop combined with the less then optimal fan curves made for a very scary discovery when temps shot past 100c and the machine emergency shot down.
A thorough clean and new paste sorted that out, now the fans can almost react as they should.
And I can happily report that the CPU runs just fine at the max OC setting of 3.16GHz (2.33GHz std).

Besides the GPU being a constant worry.
The only issue it has is that the screen is pretty dim.
It was never that bright even as new, but now its stuck at max brightness to be visible in a normally lit room.
Replacements are available tho.
I remember thinking all the RBG LED's it has being silly back in the day, now I love them =)

Got the manuals and it shows a dip switch for diverting video from the RGB to composite, but it's located in a part of the board that requires complete disassembly, PSU, drives, EM shield the works. Groan....

Edit:
Flipping the dip didnt change anything

Really want to save this system, the previous owner was fond of it and it has a built in ROM assembly monitor/debugger

Picked up a nice clean Cardex S3 Trio64V2 for cheap. Listed as new. Came with the sealed driver CD and manual.

Didn't work at first. Tried a few different things, didn't see any questionable caps. Then inspecting the board I noticed one of the corner BIOS pins was broken off. It's a bit dark but you can see my janky temporary fix. Works just fine now on my test bench in some DOS games. Haven't tried Windows yet but would assume it's OK.

New is questionable but at least it is a simple fix.

myrsnipe wrote on 2022-07-18, 18:56:

Picked up a 8086 from '87 today. Inside is in mint condition, no blown caps or battery leakage, but it has no picture. Unsure if it's the monitor or graphics driver, although the very high pitch sound that resonates in my skull tells me the monitor may not be working correctly. Going to test with an ISA card later that has VGA port, this one is a DB-9 one that i don't have other monitors for. I recon there's probably some VGA converters available too.

What do you mean by graphics driver?
Very high pitch sound is just flyback transformer working but if it's really loud then it may be shot.

There are no cheap/readly available TTL -> RGB Analog converters. Just install any 16 bit VGA in it and it should work (preferably some Trident 8900 or 9000 though).

Should probably have described it as the integrated graphics circuit, obviously theres no dos drivers for this thing. Ive never attempted repair of a CRT so I dont know too much, but it doesnt even attempt to show a picture its just pure black no light (even if it would just show black) and the pitch sounds really off the charts compared to any other CRT I got, its as if I can feel it resonate in my skull when its on.

I have a 16 bit ISA graphics card, but the expansion port is only 8 bit, would it work in a 8 bit slot? Otherwise I've seen some chinese CGA -> VGA boards for ~20 USD on alibaba so I might try that, more realistic than finding another CGA monitor for cheap.

The computer responds with beeps and disk activity when I use the keyboard, so its working for sure, just have to figure out the video output situation

myrsnipe wrote on 2022-07-18, 23:18:

Should probably have described it as the integrated graphics circuit, obviously theres no dos drivers for this thing. Ive never attempted repair of a CRT so I dont know too much, but it doesnt even attempt to show a picture its just pure black no light (even if it would just show black) and the pitch sounds really off the charts compared to any other CRT I got, its as if I can feel it resonate in my skull when its on.

Usually there should be at least a flash of some sort when you are turning it off. Can you test it with some other card? Which model exactly it is?

myrsnipe wrote on 2022-07-18, 23:18:

I have a 16 bit ISA graphics card, but the expansion port is only 8 bit, would it work in a 8 bit slot? Otherwise I've seen some chinese CGA -> VGA boards for ~20 USD on alibaba so I might try that, more realistic than finding another CGA monitor for cheap.

For starters you don't really know if it's CGA or EGA/Hercules (well, CGA will usually have composite output, EGA will usually have so called EGA switches - a block of dip switches, and MDA/Hercules will have none of above) so I wouldn't buy it (at least not yet).
Most 16 bit VGAs/SVGAs will work in 8 bit slot, although Trident cards are the safe bet (most Trident cards will even have a jumper to set 8-bit mode explicitly).

Edit: I looked closely at the picture - machine seems to be Zenith Diverse Z - it should have CGA adapter (http://computer-modell-katalog.de/zdiv.htm). So the monitor is Digital RGB. If it's not working - it's definitely worth repairing it as those things are getting pretty hard to come by and repairs are usually easy (although if it's some exotic flyback transformer then it may get hard), yet are very useful. If you don't feel confident working with CRTs (I know I'm not) - then find somebody that will do that for you (there is also cool Facebook group called Vintage CRT Troubleshooting and Repair - it's not big, yet a lot of smart guys are there, ready to give some hints).
If you won't be able to run it with 16-bit (S)VGA - which will require turning on-board graphics off, then your best bet is RGB2HDMI (I wouldn't buy the chinese thingy - it won't be as versatile as RGB2HDMI as you can use it with MDA/Hercules/EGA/CGA/Tandy and more).

No joy on the S3 P86C911 which is the only ISA card i got. I realized I can use a microcomputer to test the monitor, going to do that tomorrow and output an image and see if I can't rule it out as the issue. Otherwise I probably have to pull the computer apart and study the board closely.

Edit: it's the Zenith Z-148, got the original reciept and manuals

S3 911 is pretty cool card, but it's too new I suspect.

You can use something like Commodore 128 or Amiga 500/2000 with a CGA monitor.

I found this pic: https://www.retrotechnology.com/herbs_stuff/z150_mb1.jpg - if your motherboard also has RCA connector, then you can hook it up to any composite-in monitor (many LCDs have them) or TV.
Some specs also here: https://manualzz.com/doc/22395739/zenith-z-14 … -z-200-desktops - if there is some mode switch on board - switch it to color 80-columns mode (as in mono it may not output anything on the composite) and you are good to go.

myrsnipe wrote on 2022-07-18, 18:56:

Picked up a 8086 from '87 today. Inside is in mint condition, no blown caps or battery leakage, but it has no picture. Unsure if it's the monitor or graphics driver, although the very high pitch sound that resonates in my skull tells me the monitor may not be working correctly. Going to test with an ISA card later that has VGA port, this one is a DB-9 one that i don't have other monitors for. I recon there's probably some VGA converters available too.

Yes, 8088.

Back in the day around 1990, I was working during summer between high school fixing these junk. Junk.

They had high failure rate, and PSU is one you never can fix properly as Zenith designed PSU so strangely and use house part numbers on the semiconductors in that PSU. One more thing, DO NOT, I REPEAT, DO NOT KEEP TRYING* that computer until you have PSU completely unplugged from the computer and used a junk hard drive for power load and check for voltage output with multimeter!
The one I had was dead and I waited long time with a partially good 20MB MFM hard drive plugged in, then the hard drive's motor blew big cloud of smoke. 🙁
Best way is to empty the PSU shell and install small common PSU in it from another PC baby AT PSU.

Second, you really absolutely MUST keep the steel shield over the pair of drives otherwise computer will not boot from floppy due to monitor's atop the PC magnetic interfering with them. I found this out hard way.

Third, you are extremely lucky to have an ISA riser, really! And PSU is not rated for hard drive as part of power load. It was a optional part. Lot of them didn't have one even the ones I was working didn't.
The Z148 comes standard with pair of floppy drives.

If someone gave me a Zenith, I'm not interested. I had fill of it. I had a Eazy PC brand new (given to me) didn't like it not compatible due to Nec V40 processor, was lucky to have 128K pack with serial port that is not compatible with much of mouses at hand and we tried many till one that worked and had to solder in 40 pin IDE connector, use XT bus IDE miniscribe 20mb, and install correct burned EPROMs in it for hard drive support before I left for the high school year.
Second, I had to repair a friend's Zenith 8088 memory issue, it was not memory, one TTL IC pin was bent and contact in the socket bent so repaired that fixed it.

I rather have generic 286 at this time or a generic 386DX 25 which I saved up and purchased with the summer work money at same job in summer of 91.

Cheers,