The phone nostalgia reminded me of lowered mini trucks with fake cell phone antennas, and also that people bought and installed fake cell phones in their cars, and some even pretended to talk on them when stuck in traffic. Status symbols, SMH.

Got my other FMA7600 laptop to have its own drive so I don't need to put the one from my other system in there every time.

Pics

Repo Man11 wrote on 2023-09-30, 21:56:

The phone nostalgia reminded me of lowered mini trucks with fake cell phone antennas, and also that people bought and installed fake cell phones in their cars, and some even pretended to talk on them when stuck in traffic. Status symbols, SMH.

This reminded me of one guy who was talking on his cell phone (one of them brick sized ones), something very important business stuff. In the middle of the "call", the phone actually rang, so it turns out he had been faking the call and got surprised that someone actually called 😁. Mobile phone calls were extremely expensive back then, so after buying that phone he couldn't afford to make an actuall call, and still felt the need to show off his fancy new toy.

October's vintage market.
This was one of the bigger ones the OT car guys also came. There was also a big selection of vintage electronics. Mostly audio/video stuff. Vintage radios, LP and VHS players, boomboxes (I recently got the urge to buy one, but not today) amplifiers and full hifis. I ended up not getting too much.

A PCMCIA USB expansion card. It seems to be unbranded, so either very generic and I'll have no issue using it or very special and it'll be a pain in the ass to find drivers.
Issue #1 of a Terminator comic series. I had #2 since my childhood. I still have to hunt down #3 and #4.
And finally a pin-up decor plaque. I didn't find one that would appeal to me in a while. Most of them were... uncouth. I don't know if that's the right way to describe them.

RandomStranger wrote on 2023-10-01, 15:28:

This Gericom notebook seemd to be a beast with a 1.7GHz Pentium M and Radeon 9800. Looked like it could be a decent Windows 98 performer. It also turned on, but the screen was very dim. I don't think it's only because the dirt. I'm not looking for another laptop so I left it. Though if next month they bring it back, I don't know if I'll have the strength not to buy it.[/details]

Looks like a decent Pentium M performer, with the Radeon 9800.
Despite being OEM'd by ECS/Uniwill (a whole lotta Gericoms from that period were ECS/Uniwill rebrands), they definitely are worth it.
While I wouldn't bet 98 on running reliably, it would make a really cool 2000/XP machine.
(I had an Acer Travelmate closely similar in specs, except with a Radeon 9000 instead of 9800 - 98SE didn't quite like to run on it and had to settle for XP.)

Thermalwrong wrote on 2023-09-27, 20:29:

Today I made some real progress with my MS-6168 motherboard which would not power on after I bought it from a scrap lot and reca […]
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Today I made some real progress with my MS-6168 motherboard which would not power on after I bought it from a scrap lot and recapped it. I made the mistake of not testing it first and not recording my progress a few years back so it's interesting to pick it back up and figure out what I was doing.
ms6168-repair-2023 (1).jpg
Maybe it had one visibly blown MOSFET running the CPU power section because I'd swapped that out but it still wouldn't power - pulled the other MOSFET, which tested as two resistors so that's fautly too. It has a high-side and low-side MOSFET, run by the SC1153CSW controller chip. From checking with my thermal camera, I knew that at least one MOSFET got really hot with no CPU fitted.
Decided to replace with new-old-stock original parts from a UK seller and these new MOSFETs test okay so I fitted them.
Ran the board for a bit and initially it was giving "--" or "8C" which means nothing on my tester card, I was worried that maybe the northbridge was damaged or something else broken.
Power consumption with the new MOSFETs fitted is ~13w using the PicoPSU and the bench power supply, so I can easily see if there's anything crazy going on with power draw.

The board has sat for several years though so I thought I'd try reseating the CPU card and setting the multiplier right for the CPU. There we go, now it boots up to "D3" - very curious that it does not beep at all, even with the separate speaker fitted. I bet I broke a trace around there someplace.

But with RAM fitted, the board now POSTs and there's output on the screen which has no errors, so the following parts are working:
Northbridge - great, there were some scratches on it from where the heatsink was removed so I was worried. Heatsink is now re-fitted.
Voodoo 3 - working and the fan works properly, power consumption seems to be normal
Voodoo 3 memory - good so far, no noise on the display
CPU & Slot 1 socket - good, the socket did need contact cleaner sprayed in it to work properly. Just testing with a P2-350 for now but would like to run a coppermine CPU on this board once it's working. In fact that's why I have 2x MS6168 boards, one is a V1 and can only do katmai at best, but this board when it works should support coppermine as it's a V2.
Memory - also good, counted up to 128MB

Then I decided to re-check the thermal camera to see what's going on - one of the MOSFETs is running at 120C while the other is cold - finally I'm using my thermal camera for the job it's intended for. It let me to zero-in on where the faulty components were visually.
ms6168-repair-2023 (4).jpg
That's bad though so I shut it down and I pulled off the MOSFETs to re-test them, they're both fine so lets look at the controller next. The SC1153CSW gives a good reading of mega-ohms between ground and DH - driver output for the high-side MOSFET, when it's running the DH pin shows something like 4.5v. Checking the DL - driver output for the low-side MOSFET, that reads 22ohms from it to ground / source. When running, the DL pin reads 0.05v

With the SC1153CSW removed the 20 ohms short is gone but very curiously, the corresponding pins on the DC/DC controller also do not read as short once it's removed from the board. So I don't know for sure whether it's a shorted component or a short somewhere else on the board.
ms6168-repair-2023 (2).JPG
Checking my good MS-6168, the low side MOSFET's Gate leg does read mega-ohms to ground / source.
I really hope the new SC1153CSW chip fixes this!!

I'd post this in the other MS6168 rebirth thread but it's not been posted in for a long time so I don't wanna bump it. My experience with this board is different any-ways - I got it in a scrap lot something like 4 years ago and after replacing the obviously bad caps, it'd turn itself off like it had a short. I had no thermal camera back then and less diagnostic ability so it's sat in a box for a long long time, not possible to meaningfully test it all those years.

I got the new SC1153CSW and installed it - the reading between source and gate went from 20 ohms to 3+ mega-ohms with the chip replaced!
The MOSFETS were reinstalled and that took ages, I was worried I overheated them but they're fine.
The one capacitor I destroyed its ground leg of, I ran a thick wire on the back of the board to the next closest capacitor's ground leg.

Upon initially setting this back up I was really worried because it would not start up - that's my fault but not damage to this board! oh no, the other day I forgot my bench power supply has two outputs and both were hooked up. I was testing a laptop so the PicoPSU got 24v volts and started smoking - I thought it was just a TVS diode I destroyed but no, it no longer turns on.
It's tragic and dumb that I broke a PicoPSU because of a silly mistake like that, but the PicoPSU is replaceable and this board aint.

So here it's running from an ATX power supply - tested CPU voltage before installing a CPU and that's a steady 2v, the MOSFETs are both running cold, where previously the high-side MOSFET would be 80C by now.

Put the CPU in and it's POSTing 😁 It's already POSTed before but now the MOSFETs run COLD with the CPU running, as it should be! In the previous test the high-side MOSFET hit a max of 120C before I shut it off.

The board is fully re-capped and needs the Voodoo 3 fan quietened some along with a better BIOS, right now it's got the Packard Bell AMI bios which isn't great.
I'm guessing that before this board was sent off for recycling, it just stopped working one day - it ran for enough years that most of the caps were bad, then one or probably both MOSFETs blew and damaged the vcore dc/dc controller chip along with it, or maybe the controller started it??

I'll have to make a proper build around this soon 😀 Maybe a video memory upgrade too...

I was offered two AMD K6. A K6-2+@550 and a K6-III+@400.
Which one you would choose to pick up? The III+ even if it has lower freq? Does it have any overclock margin?

You might be able to get both to about 670 I think.

Not really sure what's the difference, but if there isn't any big one, I guess you could pick up both if the price is cheap.

Thermalwrong wrote on 2023-10-02, 01:24:

[...] […]
Show full quote

[...]

So here it's running from an ATX power supply - tested CPU voltage before installing a CPU and that's a steady 2v, the MOSFETs are both running cold, where previously the high-side MOSFET would be 80C by now.
ms6168-v2-repaired (2).JPG
Put the CPU in and it's POSTing 😁 It's already POSTed before but now the MOSFETs run COLD with the CPU running, as it should be! In the previous test the high-side MOSFET hit a max of 120C before I shut it off.
ms6168-v2-repaired (1).JPG
ms6168-5minutes.jpg

Great work!

The board is fully re-capped and needs the Voodoo 3 fan quietened some along with a better BIOS, right now it's got the Packard Bell AMI bios which isn't great.

Neither is the retail Award BIOS. I'm still not sure which is least bad.

I'm guessing that before this board was sent off for recycling, it just stopped working one day - it ran for enough years that most of the caps were bad, then one or probably both MOSFETs blew and damaged the vcore dc/dc controller chip along with it, or maybe the controller started it??
ms6168-rebirth-possible.jpg
I'll have to make a proper build around this soon 😀 Maybe a video memory upgrade too...

I stuck my best one (the one that is stable at 133MHz with a Tualatin 1400S on a Slot-T slocket 😜 ) into an original Packard Bell case. Also put on a Zalman CNPS3100 over the CPU and replaced PSU fan with a Noctua Redux 80m fan so it's completely quiet. Runs Unreal Tournament like a dream 😉

Thermalwrong wrote on 2023-10-02, 01:24:

I got the new SC1153CSW and installed it - the reading between source and gate went from 20 ohms to 3+ mega-ohms with the chip replaced!
So here it's running from an ATX power supply - tested CPU voltage before installing a CPU and that's a steady 2v, the MOSFETs are both running cold

👍

Thermalwrong wrote on 2023-10-02, 01:24:

The one capacitor I destroyed its ground leg of, I ran a thick wire on the back of the board to the next closest capacitor's ground leg.

If the cap is in cpu vcore DC/DC converter then thats bad. Such wire adds massive impedance and substantially degrades capacitors performance. If it was indeed ground you could just scratch the solder mask next to the hole. Obviously since its working its probably ok, but in general long leads on electrolytic capacitors is a big no no, its like wiring an inductor in series with capacitor, inductors block AC.
https://article.murata.com/en-us/article/basi … of-capacitors-2 scroll down to "Capacitor equivalent circuits"
more in depth https://passive-components.eu/inductors-equiv … -circuit-types/ There is some heavy math behind this which I barely survived in school 😀 TLDR: its bad, dont do it.

Good point, I'll try soldering it from the top-side instead then, where the hole is still okay and connected to ground. Thanks 😀

dionb wrote on 2023-10-02, 08:28:

Great work! […]
Show full quote

Thermalwrong wrote on 2023-10-02, 01:24:

[...] […]
Show full quote

[...]

So here it's running from an ATX power supply - tested CPU voltage before installing a CPU and that's a steady 2v, the MOSFETs are both running cold, where previously the high-side MOSFET would be 80C by now.
ms6168-v2-repaired (2).JPG
Put the CPU in and it's POSTing 😁 It's already POSTed before but now the MOSFETs run COLD with the CPU running, as it should be! In the previous test the high-side MOSFET hit a max of 120C before I shut it off.
ms6168-v2-repaired (1).JPG
ms6168-5minutes.jpg

Great work!

The board is fully re-capped and needs the Voodoo 3 fan quietened some along with a better BIOS, right now it's got the Packard Bell AMI bios which isn't great.

Neither is the retail Award BIOS. I'm still not sure which is least bad.

I'm guessing that before this board was sent off for recycling, it just stopped working one day - it ran for enough years that most of the caps were bad, then one or probably both MOSFETs blew and damaged the vcore dc/dc controller chip along with it, or maybe the controller started it??
ms6168-rebirth-possible.jpg
I'll have to make a proper build around this soon 😀 Maybe a video memory upgrade too...

I stuck my best one (the one that is stable at 133MHz with a Tualatin 1400S on a Slot-T slocket 😜 ) into an original Packard Bell case. Also put on a Zalman CNPS3100 over the CPU and replaced PSU fan with a Noctua Redux 80m fan so it's completely quiet. Runs Unreal Tournament like a dream 😉

I think your posts on the MS6168 upgrades are what kept me interested. I've got a v1 which is happily running a Katmai P3-550 in a low profile micro ATX case but I've always wanted a bit more and I know that the V1 can only handle P-II and Katmai P-III cpus. I can't remember how I know that though.

Having looked at the datasheet for the vcore controller, I wonder if the *only* difference between the V1 and V2 of the MS6168 is the SC1152CSW on the v1 vs the SC1153CSW on the v2? That would fit given the voltage tables for the two parts. Heh, maybe I should try upgrading my MS6168 V1 with this later chip and see if it'll handle later CPUs

edit: now I'm confused, what is the difference in the V1 and V2 except TV-out, that makes coppermine support possible? Maybe I don't need 2 boards after all

Even with VRM8.1 regulator you can always force 1.8V and Coppermine CPUs will run fine.

hmmm, just watching philscomputer lab. wondering if i can install win98 on sandybridge system. i have ati radeon x800, cmi8738 pci, nec usb, ssd... not bothered about cd audio via ide anymore because bin/cues and daemon set as first cd-drive manually plays track files no issues, so sticking to socket 775 for th ide connections+ide cd-drive is now redundant

Thermalwrong wrote on 2023-10-02, 14:24:

Good point, I'll try soldering it from the top-side instead then, where the hole is still okay and connected to ground. Thanks : […]
Show full quote

Good point, I'll try soldering it from the top-side instead then, where the hole is still okay and connected to ground. Thanks 😀

dionb wrote on 2023-10-02, 08:28:

Great work! […]
Show full quote

Thermalwrong wrote on 2023-10-02, 01:24:

[...] […]
Show full quote

[...]

So here it's running from an ATX power supply - tested CPU voltage before installing a CPU and that's a steady 2v, the MOSFETs are both running cold, where previously the high-side MOSFET would be 80C by now.
ms6168-v2-repaired (2).JPG
Put the CPU in and it's POSTing 😁 It's already POSTed before but now the MOSFETs run COLD with the CPU running, as it should be! In the previous test the high-side MOSFET hit a max of 120C before I shut it off.
ms6168-v2-repaired (1).JPG
ms6168-5minutes.jpg

Great work!

The board is fully re-capped and needs the Voodoo 3 fan quietened some along with a better BIOS, right now it's got the Packard Bell AMI bios which isn't great.

Neither is the retail Award BIOS. I'm still not sure which is least bad.

I'm guessing that before this board was sent off for recycling, it just stopped working one day - it ran for enough years that most of the caps were bad, then one or probably both MOSFETs blew and damaged the vcore dc/dc controller chip along with it, or maybe the controller started it??
ms6168-rebirth-possible.jpg
I'll have to make a proper build around this soon 😀 Maybe a video memory upgrade too...

I stuck my best one (the one that is stable at 133MHz with a Tualatin 1400S on a Slot-T slocket 😜 ) into an original Packard Bell case. Also put on a Zalman CNPS3100 over the CPU and replaced PSU fan with a Noctua Redux 80m fan so it's completely quiet. Runs Unreal Tournament like a dream 😉

I think your posts on the MS6168 upgrades are what kept me interested. I've got a v1 which is happily running a Katmai P3-550 in a low profile micro ATX case but I've always wanted a bit more and I know that the V1 can only handle P-II and Katmai P-III cpus. I can't remember how I know that though.

Having looked at the datasheet for the vcore controller, I wonder if the *only* difference between the V1 and V2 of the MS6168 is the SC1152CSW on the v1 vs the SC1153CSW on the v2? That would fit given the voltage tables for the two parts. Heh, maybe I should try upgrading my MS6168 V1 with this later chip and see if it'll handle later CPUs

edit: now I'm confused, what is the difference in the V1 and V2 except TV-out, that makes coppermine support possible? Maybe I don't need 2 boards after all

Supposedly the big difference between the two is that the V1 has an i440ZX chipset and the V2 the i440BX. Given that it only has two DIMM slots and one CPU slot that shouldn't make a lot of difference - just no ECC support in v1.

PcBytes wrote on 2023-10-02, 07:53:

You might be able to get both to about 670 I think.

Not really sure what's the difference, but if there isn't any big one, I guess you could pick up both if the price is cheap.

SUCCESSFUL K6-2+ to K6-3+ Full Cache Enable Mod is a good read before buying any plus'es 😀

[Edit] quoted the wrong post, so I chose to post this twice, sorry

mrfusion92 wrote on 2023-10-02, 06:44:

I was offered two AMD K6. A K6-2+@550 and a K6-III+@400.
Which one you would choose to pick up? The III+ even if it has lower freq? Does it have any overclock margin?

SUCCESSFUL K6-2+ to K6-3+ Full Cache Enable Mod is a good read before buying any plus'es 😀

Today I upgraded a 1MB Ati mach 64ct to 2MB so 1024x768 at 16bit can be displayed.

Welp, after taking out my DOS system to eventually get back in to TIE Fighter I found out my SC-55’s screen has decided to die. I don’t even know where I could start for trying to fix it, or replace it. Music still plays without issue, and none of the caps look bad.

BetaC wrote on 2023-10-03, 07:45:

Welp, after taking out my DOS system to eventually get back in to TIE Fighter I found out my SC-55’s screen has decided to die. I don’t even know where I could start for trying to fix it, or replace it. Music still plays without issue, and none of the caps look bad.

Luckily, you don't need the screen for any of the functionality for games. The only thing you'll want to know is how to do a hard reset between games if it's not resetting itself properly. You would have to do this with a screen regardless anyways.

First recap successful 😀 panasonic FC on the MS-5191 now no issues with changing audio properties for onboard. also broke coin battery holder clip on 440bx board, so resoldered battery holder from 775 board laying around