Was looking a bit into my cellar, photographed two machines' internals.

Both are s754 machines.

The blue machine had a sticker on the case. I checked the GPU and it has been upgraded to 9600 Pro. No idea what cpu the green motherboard may have.

At some point might start a revival project base on one of them.

I haven't had a good week, it wasn't a fan but I was mishandling a craft knife blade and cut my finger very badly. It's healing but I have a numb area on the tip of my middle finger now 🙁

Still swapped out the DSP chip on a CT2770 and checked how bad the midi bugs are on the regular DSP since my CT3620 hasn't been upgraded yet. Wow the SB16 is a fairly useless MIDI output without these fixes.

And another day, another torn Toshiba HDD flex cable:

The jumper wires mid-cable are my fault where I was trying to clear the polyimide insulation for the 5v power segment, but cut through the cable too. The mini grinder is really the only way to get these traces cleaned up

I'm not sure whether I caused this or whether it's the reason the laptop was sold for parts, I'm betting it's the latter though since it took me a while to spot it.
Ahh, I need to design up an adapter board to take the place of these flex cables.

Thermalwrong wrote on 2024-04-21, 20:38:

I haven't had a good week, it wasn't a fan but I was mishandling a craft knife blade and cut my finger very badly. It's healing […]
Show full quote

I haven't had a good week, it wasn't a fan but I was mishandling a craft knife blade and cut my finger very badly. It's healing but I have a numb area on the tip of my middle finger now 🙁

Still swapped out the DSP chip on a CT2770 and checked how bad the midi bugs are on the regular DSP since my CT3620 hasn't been upgraded yet. Wow the SB16 is a fairly useless MIDI output without these fixes.

And another day, another torn Toshiba HDD flex cable:
2016_0114_014716_001 (Custom) (1).JPG
2016_0114_050622_002 (Custom) (1).JPG
toshiba-550cdt-flex-cable.jpg

The jumper wires mid-cable are my fault where I was trying to clear the polyimide insulation for the 5v power segment, but cut through the cable too. The mini grinder is really the only way to get these traces cleaned up

I'm not sure whether I caused this or whether it's the reason the laptop was sold for parts, I'm betting it's the latter though since it took me a while to spot it.
Ahh, I need to design up an adapter board to take the place of these flex cables.

Ouch that sucks, didn't you pay attention on Blue Peter when they told you to ask an adult to do the cutting? 🤣 ... yeah I split the tip of a finger down the middle on a piece of sharp metal the year before last, and it cut feeling off from half of it, don't know exactly how long it took, but a couple months after it was back to normal.

I decided to part with my spare VIA EPIA-800 board since, so I am in the process of getting it hooked up to verify it's all still working and take some photos. While it's nice to have a spare board, it's just collecting dust and should really be getting used. I figure I can put whatever funds I get from it into my "collection" toward another 3D printer. 😜

I also won a prize from a drawing I entered a couple months back and had completely forgot about! I literally just got the email and thought it was a scam at first, thankfully I quickly remembered entering the drawing before I marked the email as spam.

It's a silver metal commemorative Doom floppy disk, looks pretty cool. It's coming from somewhere in the UK, and should be here May 2nd it says. Can't wait to see it!

StriderTR wrote on 2024-04-22, 18:10:

I also won a prize from a drawing I entered a couple months back and had completely forgot about! I literally just got the email and thought it was a scam at first, thankfully I quickly remembered entering the drawing before I marked the email as spam.

It's a silver metal commemorative Doom floppy disk, looks pretty cool. It's coming from somewhere in the UK, and should be here May 2nd it says. Can't wait to see it!

That looks awesome! Didn't realize at first glance that they deliberately "aged" the box as well. 😁

This is more retro hardware adjacent than actual hardware related, but it's something I've been wanting to do for a long time.

I have a workbench I had previously built for model and miniature painting. I've decided to re-purpose it for papercraft and attempt restoration of old hardware and game boxes.

I've got quite a few boxes with varying degrees of wear. While I can appreciate the aged patina on some of the boxes, those with actual tears or creases I'd like to try to repair.

There isn't a lot of restoration material out there for restoring old boxes. Most of what I've found is pretty basic. I've got a some different techniques in mind to try to restore these. My ultimate goal would be able to do crease or tear repairs that are virtually invisible. We'll see if that is achievable.

I'm going to practice on some sacrificial pieces of paper and cardboard before moving onto the classic boxes.

Shponglefan wrote on 2024-04-23, 01:38:

This is more retro hardware adjacent than actual hardware related, but it's something I've been wanting to do for a long time. […]
Show full quote

This is more retro hardware adjacent than actual hardware related, but it's something I've been wanting to do for a long time.

I have a workbench I had previously built for model and miniature painting. I've decided to re-purpose it for papercraft and attempt restoration of old hardware and game boxes.

Workbench - Boxes.jpg

I've got quite a few boxes with varying degrees of wear. While I can appreciate the aged patina on some of the boxes, those with actual tears or creases I'd like to try to repair.

There isn't a lot of restoration material out there for restoring old boxes. Most of what I've found is pretty basic. I've got a some different techniques in mind to try to restore these. My ultimate goal would be able to do crease or tear repairs that are virtually invisible. We'll see if that is achievable.

I'm going to practice on some sacrificial pieces of paper and cardboard before moving onto the classic boxes.

Workbench - Adlib Box.jpg

Workbench - Game Boxes.jpg

I had no idea that cardboard box restoration was a thing. It never would have crossed my mind.

Shponglefan wrote on 2024-04-23, 01:38:

This is more retro hardware adjacent than actual hardware related, but it's something I've been wanting to do for a long time. […]
Show full quote

This is more retro hardware adjacent than actual hardware related, but it's something I've been wanting to do for a long time.

I have a workbench I had previously built for model and miniature painting. I've decided to re-purpose it for papercraft and attempt restoration of old hardware and game boxes.

Workbench - Boxes.jpg

I've got quite a few boxes with varying degrees of wear. While I can appreciate the aged patina on some of the boxes, those with actual tears or creases I'd like to try to repair.

There isn't a lot of restoration material out there for restoring old boxes. Most of what I've found is pretty basic. I've got a some different techniques in mind to try to restore these. My ultimate goal would be able to do crease or tear repairs that are virtually invisible. We'll see if that is achievable.

I'm going to practice on some sacrificial pieces of paper and cardboard before moving onto the classic boxes.

Workbench - Adlib Box.jpg

Workbench - Game Boxes.jpg

Very cool! I would love to see what you come up with for box repair.

If you have time, I think that would be thread-worthy. 😀

Read the Wikipedia page on Dune II. (Re)discovered that there had been a Dune 2000 which I had completely forgotten about, despite having played it a lot during LAN parties back then.

There isn't a lot of restoration material out there for restoring old boxes

There is a RMC episode where he is ironing his boxes...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uarvsGKRXKI

Getting the Zenith Data Systems Z-Note 325Lc repaired. Fixed the floppy booting issues, but it doesn't want to read/write 1.44MB diskettes (I think the cable needs to be replaced), but ironically reads and writes 720K diskettes fine.

I also made a 4.8V battery for the system to keep the time and date setting (4x rechargeable AAA batteries, some wire to bridge the - and + leads in parallel, red wire for +, black wire for -, soldered to the motherboard (the original connector wiring is totally corroded), and it keeps the settings).

Just need to find a way to disable the hard drive from being detected in the BIOS so I can use the XUBDisk to start from it.

Yesterday:

- fixed an early 10s 1TB Seagate ST31000528AS that had a corrupt partition which in turn caused long times for reading and a UNMOUNTABLE_BOOT_VOLUME crash
- sold my ole' Zida 6DLX w/ a Celeron 433 slotket and a few other things like 128MB SDR, a GF 4 MX440 and a 10GB Xbox HDD (slim Seagate ST310014ACE), along with 98SE
- retested my "penny modded" 🤣 X1950XTX PCI-E. That thing runs like a trooper ever since... just keep it away from Windows 10 (desktop UI glitches with it for whatever reason.)
- checked a K6-II Plus I had on a ol' reliable Luckytech-SYE P5MVP3 mobo, still running! Not sure what GPU to pair it with - Geforce 2, TNT2 M64 or a Savage 4.

To do today:
- fiddle with Soltek SL-75FRN2-RL BIOS... mainly patch the "Unknown CPU type" to "AMD Athlon XP-M". Somone on Techpowerup sent me guide on how to do that, and I have two BIOS-es to do this on - Soltek and MSI K7N2 Delta-ILSR. Soltek sports a 2600, the MSI sports a 2400.
- test out an AGP HD3450 from ASUS with a nForce 2 mobo to figure out which driver version would suit best - this idea came from @Ozzuneoj's experiencea with ATI cards and nF2 based boards.
- come up with a plan to tidy stuff up

Shponglefan wrote on 2024-04-23, 01:38:

This is more retro hardware adjacent than actual hardware related, but it's something I've been wanting to do for a long time. […]
Show full quote

This is more retro hardware adjacent than actual hardware related, but it's something I've been wanting to do for a long time.

I have a workbench I had previously built for model and miniature painting. I've decided to re-purpose it for papercraft and attempt restoration of old hardware and game boxes.

Workbench - Boxes.jpg

I've got quite a few boxes with varying degrees of wear. While I can appreciate the aged patina on some of the boxes, those with actual tears or creases I'd like to try to repair.

There isn't a lot of restoration material out there for restoring old boxes. Most of what I've found is pretty basic. I've got a some different techniques in mind to try to restore these. My ultimate goal would be able to do crease or tear repairs that are virtually invisible. We'll see if that is achievable.

I'm going to practice on some sacrificial pieces of paper and cardboard before moving onto the classic boxes.

Workbench - Adlib Box.jpg

Workbench - Game Boxes.jpg

it will be interesting to see before/after and also a run down of what you did, an area of restoration new to me

The replacement of the capacitors has been done, unfortunately I do not have professional equipment, and this complicates my work a lot, the welding station I have is quite cheap, and it only acts as a welder, it does not have a pond vacuum, for that I use a manual one, but despite everything sometimes I can not free the holes, for the more stubborn ones I have to act manually or use other techniques, I do not use tiny tips and drill, although they could facilitate a lot and shorten the time ⏱, necessary to free the obstructed holes.

Now this MB SOYO SY-6IZM/3, is ready to be tested on the bench, but I noticed a strange resistance in the back of the Slot1, maybe it's a repair or it's a mod to improve stability (?), or it bypasses some BIOS setting, making people believe that the CPU is for example an FSB 100 instead of 66, but not being a technician and being quite ignorant of Slot1, I have no idea what that resistance connected to that pin does, and I think it's grounded on the other side, maybe it adds a tenth of VCORE, but they are just assumptions, It could be anything else.

There are also three PC100 RAMs of 64 MB each on board, the amount is more than enough to install Windows 98SE or similar, but if necessary they can be changed with others of 128 MB or 256 MB, and it would already be possible to install later Windows like XP, besides I don't think it is possible, except that you perform a CPU Upgrade.

PC@LIVE wrote on 2024-04-23, 10:49:

Now this MB SOYO SY-6IZM/3, is ready to be tested on the bench, but I noticed a strange resistance in the back of the Slot1, maybe it's a repair or it's a mod to improve stability (?), or it bypasses some BIOS setting, making people believe that the CPU is for example an FSB 100 instead of 66, but not being a technician and being quite ignorant of Slot1, I have no idea what that resistance connected to that pin does, and I think it's grounded on the other side, maybe it adds a tenth of VCORE, but they are just assumptions, It could be anything else.

If the res is connected to ground it is pulling down some +V.
I'd like to know what's for too.

If I read it correctly it's a 220 ohms resistor, nothing high.

If I counted correctly it's pin B21: 100/66# BCLK Frequency Select, maybe it's a permanent FSB100 hack. Is there a way in BIOS to select the FSB? Maybe for lack of selection it overclocks a lower FSB rated CPU?
Can you select 66/100 in BIOS at all?

https://datasheets.chipdb.org/Intel/x86/Penti … II/24365703.PDF

Vcore is determined by the HIP + the 2 mosfets (I guess; HIP is a mosfet driver).
https://pdf1.alldatasheet.com/datasheet-pdf/v … HIP6018BCB.html

PcBytes wrote on 2024-04-23, 08:04:

Yesterday: […]
Show full quote

Yesterday:

- fixed an early 10s 1TB Seagate ST31000528AS that had a corrupt partition which in turn caused long times for reading and a UNMOUNTABLE_BOOT_VOLUME crash
- sold my ole' Zida 6DLX w/ a Celeron 433 slotket and a few other things like 128MB SDR, a GF 4 MX440 and a 10GB Xbox HDD (slim Seagate ST310014ACE), along with 98SE
- retested my "penny modded" 🤣 X1950XTX PCI-E. That thing runs like a trooper ever since... just keep it away from Windows 10 (desktop UI glitches with it for whatever reason.)
- checked a K6-II Plus I had on a ol' reliable Luckytech-SYE P5MVP3 mobo, still running! Not sure what GPU to pair it with - Geforce 2, TNT2 M64 or a Savage 4.

To do today:
- fiddle with Soltek SL-75FRN2-RL BIOS... mainly patch the "Unknown CPU type" to "AMD Athlon XP-M". Somone on Techpowerup sent me guide on how to do that, and I have two BIOS-es to do this on - Soltek and MSI K7N2 Delta-ILSR. Soltek sports a 2600, the MSI sports a 2400.
- test out an AGP HD3450 from ASUS with a nForce 2 mobo to figure out which driver version would suit best - this idea came from @Ozzuneoj's experiencea with ATI cards and nF2 based boards.
- come up with a plan to tidy stuff up

Hi PcBytes, sorry a bit off topic here. I noticed you own a PCChips M726MRT board. I read the slot 1 can take a coppermine. Do you know what’s the fastest CPU the socket 370 can take? And does the board do 133Mhz bus? I’m thinking about purchasing this board for a build. You said it’s pretty stable.

Nexxen wrote on 2024-04-23, 12:24:

If the res is connected to ground it is pulling down some +V. I'd like to know what's for too. […]
Show full quote

PC@LIVE wrote on 2024-04-23, 10:49:

Now this MB SOYO SY-6IZM/3, is ready to be tested on the bench, but I noticed a strange resistance in the back of the Slot1, maybe it's a repair or it's a mod to improve stability (?), or it bypasses some BIOS setting, making people believe that the CPU is for example an FSB 100 instead of 66, but not being a technician and being quite ignorant of Slot1, I have no idea what that resistance connected to that pin does, and I think it's grounded on the other side, maybe it adds a tenth of VCORE, but they are just assumptions, It could be anything else.

If the res is connected to ground it is pulling down some +V.
I'd like to know what's for too.

If I read it correctly it's a 220 ohms resistor, nothing high.

If I counted correctly it's pin B21: 100/66# BCLK Frequency Select, maybe it's a permanent FSB100 hack. Is there a way in BIOS to select the FSB? Maybe for lack of selection it overclocks a lower FSB rated CPU?
Can you select 66/100 in BIOS at all?

https://datasheets.chipdb.org/Intel/x86/Penti … II/24365703.PDF

Vcore is determined by the HIP + the 2 mosfets (I guess; HIP is a mosfet driver).
https://pdf1.alldatasheet.com/datasheet-pdf/v … HIP6018BCB.html

So I thought it could be an alternative way to raise the FSB, the motherboard has no jumpers, so only from the BIOS can you change the frequency, assuming it is available, some BIOSes are essential, and do not allow you to select other frequencies, so it would be possible for the mod to do what the BIOS cannot do.
Unfortunately I have not yet tried starting the MB, when I do, if I read 400 MHz instead of 266 MHz, it will be clear what it is for.

bjwil1991 wrote on 2024-04-23, 07:56:

Getting the Zenith Data Systems Z-Note 325Lc repaired. Fixed the floppy booting issues, but it doesn't want to read/write 1.44MB diskettes (I think the cable needs to be replaced), but ironically reads and writes 720K diskettes fine.

You can get that behavior when the density select sensor, be it switch or optical is not working, and also when the drive has gone slightly out of alignment.

PC@LIVE wrote on 2024-04-23, 13:27:

Nexxen wrote on 2024-04-23, 12:24:

If the res is connected to ground it is pulling down some +V. I'd like to know what's for too. […]
Show full quote

PC@LIVE wrote on 2024-04-23, 10:49:

Now this MB SOYO SY-6IZM/3, is ready to be tested on the bench, but I noticed a strange resistance in the back of the Slot1, maybe it's a repair or it's a mod to improve stability (?), or it bypasses some BIOS setting, making people believe that the CPU is for example an FSB 100 instead of 66, but not being a technician and being quite ignorant of Slot1, I have no idea what that resistance connected to that pin does, and I think it's grounded on the other side, maybe it adds a tenth of VCORE, but they are just assumptions, It could be anything else.

If the res is connected to ground it is pulling down some +V.
I'd like to know what's for too.

If I read it correctly it's a 220 ohms resistor, nothing high.

If I counted correctly it's pin B21: 100/66# BCLK Frequency Select, maybe it's a permanent FSB100 hack. Is there a way in BIOS to select the FSB? Maybe for lack of selection it overclocks a lower FSB rated CPU?
Can you select 66/100 in BIOS at all?

https://datasheets.chipdb.org/Intel/x86/Penti … II/24365703.PDF

Vcore is determined by the HIP + the 2 mosfets (I guess; HIP is a mosfet driver).
https://pdf1.alldatasheet.com/datasheet-pdf/v … HIP6018BCB.html

So I thought it could be an alternative way to raise the FSB, the motherboard has no jumpers, so only from the BIOS can you change the frequency, assuming it is available, some BIOSes are essential, and do not allow you to select other frequencies, so it would be possible for the mod to do what the BIOS cannot do.
Unfortunately I have not yet tried starting the MB, when I do, if I read 400 MHz instead of 266 MHz, it will be clear what it is for.

You didn't power it on? Go turn 2000 biolche, by hand! 🤣
Post back when tested. Ciao!

Nexxen wrote on 2024-04-23, 14:07:

PC@LIVE wrote on 2024-04-23, 13:27:

Nexxen wrote on 2024-04-23, 12:24:

If the res is connected to ground it is pulling down some +V. I'd like to know what's for too. […]
Show full quote

If the res is connected to ground it is pulling down some +V.
I'd like to know what's for too.

If I read it correctly it's a 220 ohms resistor, nothing high.

If I counted correctly it's pin B21: 100/66# BCLK Frequency Select, maybe it's a permanent FSB100 hack. Is there a way in BIOS to select the FSB? Maybe for lack of selection it overclocks a lower FSB rated CPU?
Can you select 66/100 in BIOS at all?

https://datasheets.chipdb.org/Intel/x86/Penti … II/24365703.PDF

Vcore is determined by the HIP + the 2 mosfets (I guess; HIP is a mosfet driver).
https://pdf1.alldatasheet.com/datasheet-pdf/v … HIP6018BCB.html

So I thought it could be an alternative way to raise the FSB, the motherboard has no jumpers, so only from the BIOS can you change the frequency, assuming it is available, some BIOSes are essential, and do not allow you to select other frequencies, so it would be possible for the mod to do what the BIOS cannot do.
Unfortunately I have not yet tried starting the MB, when I do, if I read 400 MHz instead of 266 MHz, it will be clear what it is for.

You didn't power it on? Go turn 2000 biolche, by hand! 🤣
Post back when tested. Ciao!

Yes, I haven't turned it on yet, because first I had to change the capacitors of the VRM on the Slot1 side, then looking at the back I noticed the mod, and I immediately thought it wasn't from the factory, however I hope I won't have any nasty surprises when I do the first startup (after replacing the capacitors), if I wanted I could have tried it first, but I preferred to wait, maybe it wouldn't have started at all, three of the six were "In circuit / Leaky", the others although they seemed good, were out of tolerance (capacity), in short, having them changed all six will have made the card work (almost certainly), I hope that was the only problem, and not finding anything else to replace.
I think I have time to do a test tomorrow, or in the next few days, I currently have a full bench with various MBs, I have to remove a couple of them, and put on this and another S.423, I have accumulated several to try.
Ciao 👋