devius wrote on 2024-03-01, 14:54:

dominusprog wrote on 2024-03-01, 10:18:

PD2JK wrote on 2024-03-01, 08:45:

badum tss

Cyrix didn't have any fabrication plants, so they partnered with IBM, Texas Instruments and SGS Thomson (STMicroelectronics).

The CPU itself say's "it's ST", so who are we to doubt that it is indeed an ST? 😆

BTW, judging by the small "badum tss" I'm pretty sure PD2JK was also joking.

In college when the computer fairs were flooded with cheap ST chips the joke was "It's Simply Terrible". Me and my hardware buddies at the time checked out a few and it seemed like IBM>Cyrix>ST ... I dunno why they'd want to take chances on something they put their own name on, but they did run okay at marked speeds with ample cooling on them.

One can no longer tell the ST 6x86 I've got is an ST, pentium 100s were still north of $100 when I got it new out the tray for $20 it was a 133Mhz P166+ model.... so naturally I was trying to run it at 2x83. It was getting too hot and crashing... okay SERIOUS heatsink time not one of those 3/8 high ones you basically could get for free with the CPU..... still crashing... investigation of the matter revealed the cap on the CPU was a bit domed one way and the heatsink was all warped the other. The RS components white thermal paste isn't cutting it when there's a mm gap all round and it's just contacting in the middle... late 90s and you mention thermal paste and most ppl are all "Wat?" never mind about what I am about to do... lap the CPU! ... so yeah after an hour or so with the various grades of emery paper on the glass door off an entertainment cabinet, it's flat! ... but all the markings are gone... so yeah, lets gooooo... thermal paste... strap it in... 2x83 stable at last! w00t... that thing got beat on for 3 years like that. Wasn't until I got a K6-266, which I ran at 300, naturally, that wife said "why come you get the fast PC?" and I upgraded that machine to a VX board from an FX and put an MII 366+ in it, what's it say on here, 2.5x100, no no no, 3.5 x 83 oughta do it... oh shit, feels faster than mine on desktop... better sneak in a K6-2 upgrade...

edit: turned out I had a pic, ST is top right, that IBM top left wasn't lapped, just what I found under one of those dry pads when apparently the heat cycling scuffed it for years. Green 486 with the badge missing is I think a Dx2-66 I was trying to persuade to do 80 with a fan clipped on. The actual 80 has a weird tint of green I wonder if they were still flushing out IBM blue from the anodising rig when it was made??

BitWrangler wrote on 2024-03-01, 15:34:

In college when the computer fairs were flooded with cheap ST chips the joke was "It's Simply Terrible". Me and my hardware budd […]
Show full quote

devius wrote on 2024-03-01, 14:54:

dominusprog wrote on 2024-03-01, 10:18:

Cyrix didn't have any fabrication plants, so they partnered with IBM, Texas Instruments and SGS Thomson (STMicroelectronics).

The CPU itself say's "it's ST", so who are we to doubt that it is indeed an ST? 😆

BTW, judging by the small "badum tss" I'm pretty sure PD2JK was also joking.

In college when the computer fairs were flooded with cheap ST chips the joke was "It's Simply Terrible". Me and my hardware buddies at the time checked out a few and it seemed like IBM>Cyrix>ST ... I dunno why they'd want to take chances on something they put their own name on, but they did run okay at marked speeds with ample cooling on them.

One can no longer tell the ST 6x86 I've got is an ST, pentium 100s were still north of $100 when I got it new out the tray for $20 it was a 133Mhz P166+ model.... so naturally I was trying to run it at 2x83. It was getting too hot and crashing... okay SERIOUS heatsink time not one of those 3/8 high ones you basically could get for free with the CPU..... still crashing... investigation of the matter revealed the cap on the CPU was a bit domed one way and the heatsink was all warped the other. The RS components white thermal paste isn't cutting it when there's a mm gap all round and it's just contacting in the middle... late 90s and you mention thermal paste and most ppl are all "Wat?" never mind about what I am about to do... lap the CPU! ... so yeah after an hour or so with the various grades of emery paper on the glass door off an entertainment cabinet, it's flat! ... but all the markings are gone... so yeah, lets gooooo... thermal paste... strap it in... 2x83 stable at last! w00t... that thing got beat on for 3 years like that. Wasn't until I got a K6-266, which I ran at 300, naturally, that wife said "why come you get the fast PC?" and I upgraded that machine to a VX board from an FX and put an MII 366+ in it, what's it say on here, 2.5x100, no no no, 3.5 x 83 oughta do it... oh shit, feels faster than mine on desktop... better sneak in a K6-2 upgrade...

edit: turned out I had a pic, ST is top right, that IBM top left wasn't lapped, just what I found under one of those dry pads when apparently the heat cycling scuffed it for years. Green 486 with the badge missing is I think a Dx2-66 I was trying to persuade to do 80 with a fan clipped on. The actual 80 has a weird tint of green I wonder if they were still flushing out IBM blue from the anodising rig when it was made??

Tell me about it 😁 . The IBM PR150+ which according to Wikipedia waste 25W as heat, damaged my first A-Trend ATC-1020 board. But I love them nonetheless.

Although some TI chips can be detected as such, Cyrix, ST and TI 486 are essentially the same die, as are IBM, Cyrix, ST 6x86

Got another Armada 1750 with a 14" XGA 1024x768 screen, unfortunately this one doesn't have the ATI GPU but as it happens I have a PII 400 Armada with the ATI GPU and a partially working screen so a motherboard swap is in order. This one has a Chips GPU with 2Mb so its a nice board for a DOS only Armada and I have a couple of 800x600 spares to give it a new home.

Got 4 of these now so will be stripping and building two good machines using the nicest parts, I may then part out the remaining 2 for spares, the HDD caddies go for a nice amount on Evil Bay.

These were the first laptops I worked with in around 1999 if I remember correctly, they worked very well and were reliable 😀
We had 3Com 589 PCMCIA NICs on them.

Minutemanqvs wrote on 2024-03-01, 21:10:

These were the first laptops I worked with in around 1999 if I remember correctly, they worked very well and were reliable 😀
We had 3Com 589 PCMCIA NICs on them.

Absolutely, same 3Com pcmcia almost the same laptop, mine was a Tillamook 266Mhz, it was very rugged.
This was around year 2000, didn´t hav ea digicam back then., some day I will come across one o these laptops again

PicoGUS just arrived!

TheMobRules wrote on 2024-03-01, 07:00:

ubiq wrote on 2024-03-01, 04:23:

ASUS ISA-486SV2 (rev 3.10)

OMG is that MR BIOS the one that came with the board? If so, please dump the contents! As far as I know no one has been able to find MR BIOS for 486 SiS chipsets!!

EDIT: look like someone else has the same board and dumped the BIOS already in this post.

Heh, I would be happy to dump but BIOS, but yeah - looks like someone beat me by less than 2 weeks! Same rev and everything. 🙂

BitWrangler wrote on 2024-03-01, 05:38:

If you wanna go somewhat fast on the VLB board you might have to pull half the cache, some slugs in it.

What does this mean, exactly?

ubiq wrote on 2024-03-02, 05:32:

Heh, I would be happy to dump but BIOS, but yeah - looks like someone beat me by less than 2 weeks! Same rev and everything. 🙂 […]
Show full quote

TheMobRules wrote on 2024-03-01, 07:00:

ubiq wrote on 2024-03-01, 04:23:

ASUS ISA-486SV2 (rev 3.10)

OMG is that MR BIOS the one that came with the board? If so, please dump the contents! As far as I know no one has been able to find MR BIOS for 486 SiS chipsets!!

EDIT: look like someone else has the same board and dumped the BIOS already in this post.

Heh, I would be happy to dump but BIOS, but yeah - looks like someone beat me by less than 2 weeks! Same rev and everything. 🙂

BitWrangler wrote on 2024-03-01, 05:38:

If you wanna go somewhat fast on the VLB board you might have to pull half the cache, some slugs in it.

What does this mean, exactly?

There are a number of 25ns cache chips in there with the 20ns chips, the 25ns ones will force the faster 20ns ones to operate slower. the 25n/20n on teh ICs is the speed inditcator.

Trashbytes wrote on 2024-03-02, 05:54:

ubiq wrote on 2024-03-02, 05:32:

Heh, I would be happy to dump but BIOS, but yeah - looks like someone beat me by less than 2 weeks! Same rev and everything. 🙂 […]
Show full quote

TheMobRules wrote on 2024-03-01, 07:00:

OMG is that MR BIOS the one that came with the board? If so, please dump the contents! As far as I know no one has been able to find MR BIOS for 486 SiS chipsets!!

EDIT: look like someone else has the same board and dumped the BIOS already in this post.

Heh, I would be happy to dump but BIOS, but yeah - looks like someone beat me by less than 2 weeks! Same rev and everything. 🙂

BitWrangler wrote on 2024-03-01, 05:38:

If you wanna go somewhat fast on the VLB board you might have to pull half the cache, some slugs in it.

What does this mean, exactly?

There are a number of 25ns cache chips in there with the 20ns chips, the 25ns ones will force the faster 20ns ones to operate slower. the 25n/20n on teh ICs is the speed inditcator.

Ah, got it - thanks!

There were 2 Nvidia cards at the local shop for 6€, a TNT 2 without any obvious markings, but I found it via the FCC ID and it’s a « Joytech » and a GeForce 2MX 400. I never had a TNT before and the other one will be perfect for testing. The MSI card probably came from a Medion PC, there was a "MED" sticker dangling on the BIOS.

Heh, now I know what manufacturer made a Riva 128ZX I sold two days ago. Thanks. That FCC ID style seemed pretty familiar to me.

IDK if this fits the thread quite right, but if it was hard disks it would, and it's half about the physical media so....

How do you buy a 10 pack of floppies, that turns out to contain 11, and end up needing to use up two you already had?

New math? Nope, when it turns out the floppy box contains the first 11 disks of the Win95 floppy install and you think it prolly wouldn't be too much bother to write the missing two. It might be less hassle than trying to reformat them for classic DOS, might need to DD them in Linux first, can't remember, I know it likes to think disks in other than 1.44 formats are bad. Anyhoo, maybe gone from plus 11 to minus 2. ... Gotta check the numbers though if it seems to be OSR 2 then I ain't even half way.

Minutemanqvs wrote on 2024-03-02, 12:36:

There were 2 Nvidia cards at the local shop for 6€, a TNT 2 without any obvious markings, but I found it via the FCC ID and it’s […]
Show full quote

There were 2 Nvidia cards at the local shop for 6€, a TNT 2 without any obvious markings, but I found it via the FCC ID and it’s a « Joytech » and a GeForce 2MX 400. I never had a TNT before and the other one will be perfect for testing. The MSI card probably came from a Medion PC, there was a "MED" sticker dangling on the BIOS.

That's not a TNT2, it's a S3 Savage4.

RaverX wrote on 2024-03-03, 11:10:

Minutemanqvs wrote on 2024-03-02, 12:36:

There were 2 Nvidia cards at the local shop for 6€, a TNT 2 without any obvious markings, but I found it via the FCC ID and it’s […]
Show full quote

There were 2 Nvidia cards at the local shop for 6€, a TNT 2 without any obvious markings, but I found it via the FCC ID and it’s a « Joytech » and a GeForce 2MX 400. I never had a TNT before and the other one will be perfect for testing. The MSI card probably came from a Medion PC, there was a "MED" sticker dangling on the BIOS.

That's not a TNT2, it's a S3 Savage4.

Ah, even better if it's the case!

Alas the enduring peril of thrift stores...

... I didn't know I wanted a VCR... until I saw a Durabrand (Walmart house brand) VCR for burger money at a thrift today... it's tiny for a non portable VCR, only about 9" deep, you could get it on a bookshelf. Pic reference from sold item on Etsy store for more pics than I can be bothered taking...
https://www.etsy.com/ca/listing/943097413/vin … listing_details
I think Ben is wrong though, it's not 90s, more like noughties. Don't have the remote, so hope the universal one I've got has the code. Is it the perfect VCR? No, for one thing it's not stereo, and definitely build to a low price point. I think I will have to have a "chonker" set up elsewhere for format conversion. This one though, relatively small, it's barely outside the footprint of an LCD TV stand, so will be real easy to add somewhere for "content consumption" like, Terminator, unmessed with Star Wars etc.

A bunch of socket 7 boards. All sold as defective.
My project is to try to repair them. Who knows, maybe I'll learn a thing or two along the way??

I had a really easy repair once. On visual inspection, the board looked fine, but it wouldn't POST and the CPU barely got warm. I started touching the VRMs to see if they were heading up and the system sprung to life! In this case, the VRM had detached from the motherboard, which was its ground connection. This was surprising, because that's typically a very strong connection once soldered.

Kahenraz wrote on 2024-03-05, 02:38:

I had a really easy repair once. On visual inspection, the board looked fine, but it wouldn't POST and the CPU barely got warm. I started touching the VRMs to see if they were heading up and the system sprung to life! In this case, the VRM had detached from the motherboard, which was its ground connection. This was surprising, because that's typically a very strong connection once soldered.

Curious to know which component on the VRM detached. Was it a mosfet, capacitor or something else?

zuldan wrote on 2024-03-05, 03:09:

Kahenraz wrote on 2024-03-05, 02:38:

I had a really easy repair once. On visual inspection, the board looked fine, but it wouldn't POST and the CPU barely got warm. I started touching the VRMs to see if they were heading up and the system sprung to life! In this case, the VRM had detached from the motherboard, which was its ground connection. This was surprising, because that's typically a very strong connection once soldered.

Curious to know which component on the VRM detached. Was it a mosfet, capacitor or something else?

Sounds like it was a Mosfet, typically its soldered directly to the ground plane, on most its a just the source pin going to a pad but other larger fets have the connection as a pad on the rear of the Mosfet and its soldered to a large square ground pad under the fet to provide a stronger connection. I'm guessing this attachment under the fet has cracked and touching it allowed to to connect again.

https://oscarliang.com/how-to-use-mosfet-beginner-tutorial/ is a basic run down of a Mosfet

-corrected some things