On my P2/P3 testbench, I ordered a ATX extension cable and spliced in molex/sata/fdd power connector right to the ATX extension. Now i have a single-cable solution on my default testbench.

I still have separate cables coming from PSU that is under the table. This extension with all the power for devices stays with that particular testbench. Whenever i need to power another machine, not the testbench, i can just disconnect this single ATX extension cable from PSU ATX connector and move that testbench away.

(Unfortunately i missed one when counting wires, so one wire got an extra sleeve without any additional cables coming out of it. It's the green one.)

Kahenraz wrote on 2024-01-13, 06:16:

Nexxen wrote on 2024-01-13, 00:54:

Reorganized my mobo storage order.
I have to stop buying them. They have puppy eyes though...

I have this same problem. I just went through my motherboard collection a few weeks ago and made a pile of "what was I thinking" boards.

I can relate 😀
And I don't have multiple of the same board model (like a Super S7, or older). But nice boards surface from time to time and it's a pity to see them go to recycling.

My issue #1 is that I don't have enough room anymore. Even the basement space is full of other stuff.

Kahenraz wrote on 2024-01-13, 06:16:

Nexxen wrote on 2024-01-13, 00:54:

Reorganized my mobo storage order.
I have to stop buying them. They have puppy eyes though...

I have this same problem. I just went through my motherboard collection a few weeks ago and made a pile of "what was I thinking" boards.

Opening my closet can result in an avalanche event 🤣

I did a small Ooopsie...

I needed some old serial Eeproms... Around 4 or 5.
Then i found an ebay seller offering an auction for just 1 euro per chip, wich is a good price.
So i bought all the remaining stock of 9. (If i need 5 i want at least 2 spare chips...) for 9 euros plus 4 shipping.
Today the chips arrived and i found out that the offer was not for 1 chip per auction... It was for 10.

Now i have 90 tiny (4kbit / 512byte) and pretty special serial eeproms basically nobody uses today 😁

Thats ok for me...

EDIT:
The best part is... I even ordered the wrong parts. I needed 2 wire serial eeproms and ordered 3 wire serial eeproms. 😐

Maybe i can use them for another project instead...
Great success... like always...

Played a bit with my 486 EISA, swapping CPU to the DX4ODPR100 and did some tests. Unfortunately the slow cache modules didn't allow to run it with the WS0. The performance of the Olivetti EVC-1 video card was not impressive 😀, however, I didn't expect much from it.
Here is the results in compare with the Ultimate 486 Benchmark Comparison tread:

1MB details		
2CPU								Vog Intel DX4100	Intel DX4100
3Model								SK096 (P24D) 	DX4ODPR100
4L1 Cache							16KB WB			16KB WT
5L2 Cache							256KB WB		256KB WB
6RAM									128M FPM		32MB FPM
7
8Symantec Sysinfo v8.0 (arb. units) 	216				120,9
9PC-Config v9.33 (% of Pentium 100)	66				50
10CpuIndex v2.3 (arb. units) 			9				9
11PiDOS [25k digits] (sec.) 			22				25
12Landmark v2.0		
13Integer ALU (Mhz)					363				338
14Floating-point FPU (Mhz)			819				815
15Video (char/sec)					13845			1746
16Checkit 4		
17Dhrystones											39211
18Whetstones											13579,5
19BIOS Video Speed									23674
20Direct Video Speed									453735
21Chaikin Benchmark DOS v1.0		
22Memory - ALU (arb. units)			7,2				6,9
23Floating Point (arb. units)			8,3				7,9
24Bytemark v2, 32-bit Windows		
25(ALU) Numeric Sort (iterations/sec)	25,9			22,69
26(ALU) String Sort (iterations/sec)	1,41			0,66
27Bitfield (mil of iterations/sec)	3,81			3,75
28ALU) FP Emulation (iterations/sec)	1,57			1,41
29(FPU) Fourier (iterations/sec)		376				348,9
30(ALU) Assignment (iterations/sec)	0,192			0,18
31(ALU) IDEA (iterations/sec) 		50,3			47,83
32(ALU) Huffman (iterations/sec)		32,6			31,65
33(FPU) Neural Net (iterations/sec)	0,191			0,171
34(FPU) LU Decomposition (iter/sec)	7,23			6,24
35Integer Index (% of Pentium 90)		72,4			61,33
36Floating-point Index (% of P90)		39				34,77
37Roy Longbottom Dhrystone v1.1		
38[Integer, Optimised]		
39DHRY1OD (VAX MIPS Rating)			93				62,8
40Roy Longbottom Linpack		
41[Rolled Double Precision, Optimised]		
42LINPCOD (MFLOPS)					4,6				3,91
43Roy Longbottom Whetstone		
44[Single Precision, Optimised]		
45WHETCOD, MWIPS (MFLOPS)				26,2			25,24
46N1, Floating Point (MFLOPS)			7,9				7,19
47N2, Floating Point (MFLOPS)			6				5,54
48N3, If Then Else (MOPS)				9,5				9,2
49N4, Fixed Point (MOPS)				15,4			14,13
50N5, Sine, Cosine (MOPS)				0,81			0,95
51N6, Floating Point (MFLOPS)			4,1				3,89
52N7, Assignments (MOPS)				8,6				5,08
53N8, Exp, Sqrt, etc (MOPS)			0,53			0,52
54Speedsys v4.78		
55Score (arb. units)					42,4			37,38
56Video Memory Bandwidth (MB/s)		34,4	
57System Memory Bandwidth (MB/s)		100				58,13
58Ave. L1 Cache (MB/s)				94				53,92
59Ave. L2 Cache (MB/s)				50				32,65
60Ave. RAM Throughput (MB/s)			37				20,38

61Cachechk v4.0		
62L1 Cache (MB/s)						104				102,2
63L2 Cache (MB/s)						56				51,5
64Memory (MB/s)						37				24,4
65RAM Access Time (Read) (ns)			114				171
66RAM Access Time (Write) (ns)		61				132
673Dbench v1.0 (arb. units)			71,4			24,3
68Doom v1.9s timedemo3 (fps)		
69FPS									40,8			10,99
70Quake v1.06 timedemo1		
71FPS [320x200, fs, console off]		12,1			7,7
72Test completion time								125,3
73VIDSPEED (write)		
74320x200x256											1847
75640x400x256											2232
76640x480x256											1818
77800x600x256											2232

Moar LX fun.

QDI Legend V, Deschutes 300 SL2W8 (which apparently might be one of the unlocked Deschutes?), 2x128MB PC100 and a nice selection of my personal cards - MX440, 8139C NIC, NEC UsB2 card, ES1373 PCI, and a 20GB Maxtor.

Still got a long road to go with it - the 98SE install on the Maxtor was an absolutely untouched 98SE install done on a CT-5AGM2 I sold.

Also, a group shot of the slots 😁

From left to right - Luckytech P6BX2 w/ Katmai 500 (yes, it is a Katmai, reshelled into what was a boring locked Deschutes 266 I think), Soyo 6BA+IV w/ Coppermine 650, Zida 6DLX w/ Celeron 433, and my most favourite Slot1 combo - BE6-II w/ P3 1000B SL5DV. Been hoping I'd swap it for a 1000EB, and I think I know just the right classified and fellow retro enthusiast to order some chips from 😀

Does anyone know the name of these loops motherboards use for chipset heatsinks? They just look like standard 2.54mm headers but with a loop. I've tried searching mouser and aliexpress but can't find them. Searched through all the test points and headers.

kingcake wrote on 2024-01-13, 23:33:

Does anyone know the name of these loops motherboards use for chipset heatsinks? They just look like standard 2.54mm headers but with a loop. I've tried searching mouser and aliexpress but can't find them. Searched through all the test points and headers.

loop.jpg

http://www.yinghuachina.com/Products/594.html

these?
i searched for "pin header hook"

Those little fuckers are the worst thing ever used as heatsink mounts.

DerBaum wrote on 2024-01-13, 23:35:

http://www.yinghuachina.com/Products/594.html […]
Show full quote

kingcake wrote on 2024-01-13, 23:33:

Does anyone know the name of these loops motherboards use for chipset heatsinks? They just look like standard 2.54mm headers but with a loop. I've tried searching mouser and aliexpress but can't find them. Searched through all the test points and headers.

loop.jpg

http://www.yinghuachina.com/Products/594.html

these?
i searched for "pin header hook"

Thank you! They weren't showing up because I put 2.54mm in all my searches. Looks like they list them under 5.08mm pitch since they skip a position.

Got back into retrocomputing for awhile, started moving storage into my new abode (Garage). Now I have a computing spot in the garage with the Compaq and Tandy - so now all three PC's are running all year around (my 486 is in my office space now since it sees frequent use and a lot of experimentation).

Broke out the NanTan 9200 and FMA3500C. PLayed some games on the 9200...seems my trackball fix worked nicely once I let the ball settle in.

The FMA3500 is getting an 80GB HDD Finally, the CMOS Battery repair wore out....but I have some ideas (Varta was replaced with CR-series). Going to start focusing on tuning/tweaking/modding/fixing-up that one. Really liked the dry-run of the 80GB HDD.

My mission today is to update the firmwares of all Matrox cards I have, from the Mystique/Millennium to the Parhelias. It looked quite simple in theory. But for older cards the update utility absolutely insists on having a real DOS environment and formatting a diskette...and I have Windows 2000 almost everywhere. So time to get out the 486 for these.

kingcake wrote on 2024-01-13, 23:33:

Does anyone know the name of these loops motherboards use for chipset heatsinks? They just look like standard 2.54mm headers but with a loop. I've tried searching mouser and aliexpress but can't find them. Searched through all the test points and headers.

loop.jpg

You can make one using a normal pin header, remove the plastic part and bend it.

Currently hunting a SCSI-Ultra160 PCI controller and asking myself why did I buy two SCSI based Quantum Atlas drives 🤣

kingcake wrote on 2024-01-13, 23:33:

Does anyone know the name of these loops motherboards use for chipset heatsinks? They just look like standard 2.54mm headers but with a loop. I've tried searching mouser and aliexpress but can't find them. Searched through all the test points and headers.

You can also find them as solder anchors on Digikey:
https://www.digikey.de/de/products/detail/aav … ion/D057/524369

Cleaned up my recent ECS K7S5A purchase as well as the 9600 Pro it came with.

Now, anyone remember HoneyX and Cheapmod BIOSes? 😁

Minutemanqvs wrote on 2024-01-14, 09:29:

My mission today is to update the firmwares of all Matrox cards I have, from the Mystique/Millennium to the Parhelias. It looked quite simple in theory. But for older cards the update utility absolutely insists on having a real DOS environment and formatting a diskette...and I have Windows 2000 almost everywhere. So time to get out the 486 for these.

All the G4XX and Parhelia cards upgraded without any issue with the Windows utility. For the old Mystique / Millennium II it's fun to see that the update utility shows the last flash date, and flashes the firmware twice. Versions were all over the place!

I am investigating why some Aztech soundcards dont have a eeprom but most of them have one.

I have 3 Cards without eeprom (IC U9(11)/UX2)in my collection. So i decided to try what happens if i add an eeprom.

All Aztech cards from Generation 1 to Generation 4 use eeproms.
On generation 1-3 it holds general configuration Data to initialise itself.
For Generation 4 it holds the PNP data to be autoconfigured by the BIOS.

My EEpromless cards are generation 3 cards.

I ordered eeproms (because i got a good price i ordered a lot more then i needed)

and after that i found out that gen. 1-3 is using different eeproms as gen. 4.
Of course i ordered the wrong eeproms.
Generation 1-3 uses 24C00 16byte 2wire serial eeproms.
Generation 4 uses 93C66 512byte 3 wire eeproms.

Conclusion:
1. Sometimes i am an idiot.
2. I ordered new eeproms 😏

I played around with my recent purchase Logitech Soundman 16
Since I'm using ATX power only SS7 board I had to deal with -5V.
So I made for myself this contraption from UA7905C voltage regulator and surplus PicoGUS PCB I have been using for ISA bus poking.

I didn't have back in days PAS so it was my first rodeo
I have to admit PAS16 behaved very smoothly. No speed issues whatsoever on AMD K6-2@280Mhz on SIS530 chipset MB.
Games Terminal Velocity, The Secret of Monkey Island, Doom engine games, Descent, Tyrian... ...all worked fine both in PAS and Thunderboard (SB2.0) mode. Used latest PAS16 dos drivers.
Fantastic software with for installation and mixer as well.
Tested with DOS music players - Impulse tracker, Cubic player, Inertia Player all worked perfectly.

I wonder if there are dos demos supporting PAS/PAS16? Any dos demos using Midas Sound System API perhaps... ...need to do more searching because pouet.net does not seems to have PAS filter for easy searching.

Don't you mean -12V? Did you just reinvent the voltage blaster?