Well, I can safely say it's been a success!

Luckystar 6BX2, brought to snuff with a BIOS patch + update. Running a 500MHz Katmai P3 with no issues so far.

BONUS: HDD limit patched, as well as Coppermine (and Tualatin... but you'd have to be an absolute madman to run a Tuallie in a babyAT form!) support added. Untested yet, but if anyone wants, I can share the patched BIOS to test it out, if ye have a slotket handy. Oh, and 133FSB support, though idk if that's feasible given that I have no idea how low in voltage the VRM goes.

debs3759 wrote on 2024-07-18, 03:39:

NHVintage wrote on 2024-07-18, 02:58:

I finished my pink core Duo machine, and snagged the missing card I needed to install and use my Tecmar 8-bit ISA expansion chassis. Been on the lookout for that for a year now.

Is the case pink as well as the components? I have a lovely glossy pink case from around the Core2 era. Not perfect for airflow if I were to overclock the CPU and GPU though, just a nice novelty 😀

Nope, just the case is pink.

PcBytes wrote on 2024-07-27, 23:40:

if anyone wants, I can share the patched BIOS to test it out

That’s cool. I think it’s a good idea if you submit the patched bios to TheRetroWeb entry so that it’s not lost.

oldhighgerman wrote on 2024-07-27, 11:50:

Am I hallucinating or do I have a similar green heatsinked 486 that says IBM?

They are the same CPU, it might well be the case. The IBM ones are usually blue instead of green.

Minutemanqvs wrote on 2024-07-28, 12:34:

oldhighgerman wrote on 2024-07-27, 11:50:

Am I hallucinating or do I have a similar green heatsinked 486 that says IBM?

They are the same CPU, it might well be the case. The IBM ones are usually blue instead of green.

I've got a blueish green cyrix and have seen greenish blue IBM, so IDK if maybe they don't flush the color through much when they change over at the anodizing place. ... so there's a fade from one to the other colors.

Bruno128 wrote on 2024-07-28, 12:18:

PcBytes wrote on 2024-07-27, 23:40:

if anyone wants, I can share the patched BIOS to test it out

That’s cool. I think it’s a good idea if you submit the patched bios to TheRetroWeb entry so that it’s not lost.

Given the submission forms seem a bit too complicated for me, I'll just post it here, through the forum's attachment section.
Small note about the BIOS - may display "Unknow CPU ID" during boot, can be safely disregarded.

I installed a replacement 35mm fan for PowerColor EvilKing IV TV and the rattling is gone. Those fans are still sold new on Chinese online marketplace albeit with JST connector so I also practiced with the crimping tool.
And I also attached a NTC probe to heatsink for temperature monitoring using a janky external display.

Washed a circuit board/mainboard for the first time today. Had a disgusting Asus P5WDH deluxe that was caked in nicotine.
Prepped everything really well (shallow plastic tub filled with distilled water + soft brush + dishwashing detergent) and so far so good. Afterwards i quickly rinsed in 99.9% IPA. Blowdried it really well. Front came out great but the rear has some weird white residue stuck on it that the brush+detergent didn't take off. I grounded the board during the process with a wire stuck to one of the screw holes but this may have been overkill.

Now i need te re-mount the heatsinks and see if it still powers up. Took alot of pics to perhaps make a how-to but don't know if it's worth a seperate thread. The topic has probably been beaten to death already.

Recap this Vibra16 sound card. Besides fixing the crackling sound, now it sounds much clearer. Stargunner never sounded this good before 😄

dominusprog wrote on 2024-07-29, 07:44:

Recap this Vibra16 sound card. Besides fixing the crackling sound, now it sounds much clearer. Stargunner never sounded this good before 😄

The attachment IMG_20240729_105722.jpg is no longer available

Those caps are so pretty. Where did you get them from?

zuldan wrote on 2024-07-29, 08:29:

dominusprog wrote on 2024-07-29, 07:44:

Recap this Vibra16 sound card. Besides fixing the crackling sound, now it sounds much clearer. Stargunner never sounded this good before 😄

The attachment IMG_20240729_105722.jpg is no longer available

Those caps are so pretty. Where did you get them from?

Local store, they are all Elna Silmic series except for two large green Sanyo caps on the right.

Been setting up my Gateway GP6-400's original mainboard, the WS440BX, for sale. I plan to keep the GP6 shell but install an "off-the-shelf" slot 1 mobo (to be decided which.) and upgrade it a little.

So far everything runs great - 40GB HDD, a Savage 4 16MB, RTL8139C NIC, 128MB RAM (2x32+1x64MB sticks) and a P2 350MHz since I don't have the original 400MHz anymore. 98SE is installed and currently getting the games together.

And of course... my "ghetto" power switch. 🤣 (yes, it is momentary)

Got an Epiphan DVI2USB. Got the Win2000 drivers from wayback machine. Got a VGA-to-DVI cable. Now I can run my 286 without it needing its own monitor, and capture image/video if I want to. Of course I can do the same with more modern systems too, but it gets choppy with big resolutions because of the USB 2 bandwidth maxing out. I tried capturing 1280x720 with it and it seems to average 12fps, which might not be a problem if you can slow down the thing you're trying to capture. (BTW, I noticed a certain application has completely broken vsync. I don't mean it is missing vsync and tears randomly. I mean it has vsync but tears ALWAYS, in certain screen resolutions. Ultra lame.)

Preserving this FTP the whole day (and many days more for sure), three parallel streams at the moment...it is SSSOOOOO slow. And in addition have to check if every file has been copied correctly - this FTP is weird, sometimes connection is lost and some files downloaded are larger than on the FTP server and (partially) defective / data integrity is lost.

kind regards
soggi

PcBytes wrote on 2024-07-27, 23:40:

Well, I can safely say it's been a success!

Luckystar 6BX2, brought to snuff with a BIOS patch + update. Running a 500MHz Katmai P3 with no issues so far.

BONUS: HDD limit patched, as well as Coppermine (and Tualatin... but you'd have to be an absolute madman to run a Tuallie in a babyAT form!) support added. Untested yet, but if anyone wants, I can share the patched BIOS to test it out, if ye have a slotket handy. Oh, and 133FSB support, though idk if that's feasible given that I have no idea how low in voltage the VRM goes.

I ran a Tualeron 1200 in a baby AT Via chipset motherboard ( EP-370-B ) with a Lin Lin adapter. It worked very well, it was used as a parts look up computer at my job for at least a year that way. It was the fastest AT computer I've ever setup.

Repo Man11 wrote on 2024-07-29, 23:48:

It was the fastest AT computer I've ever setup.

There is a challenge I've actually never thought of before. I've seen lots of "Fastest AGP...", "Fastest Socket 7...", "Fastest Windows 98..."... but I've never seen a fastest AT build thread.

I'm not positive but I may have a board that would work for such a build, though a Lin-Lin adapter is pretty much out of the question.

One more for the to-do list I supposed...

I was gonna desecrate a PC Portable with a 1.4 Ghz Tualatin setup in the noughties, PC partner board I got didn't even support coppermine though and there was a lot of friggin around with slotkets. Time passed a bit to where 1.4Ghz was slow and the prices of PC Portables had moved away from "free if you take it" and collector interest was being feebly felt, so I canned the idea. Still got the PC Partner board, pile of slotkets and partially disassembled PC Portable. Got a PII 450 going in the PC Partner and was going to make a router out of it in late noughts, but then I started finding WRT-54Gs for cheap so started messing with those. Pic of the PC Partner here, bottom one, Re: the unofficial Vogons server centric thread

Major Jackyl wrote on 2024-07-27, 17:14:

I re-organized today, to figure that out. I got curious. With 26 drives currently in the drawer, a total 0f 5279.4GB (Card is for a tape drive under)

Brilliant direction for storage with the capacity label on the back. Very easy to know what you've got!

I got all the pieces for my 2004 939 build but i couldn't really use the case as is, the lower portion barely had any space to let the fan breathe, the upper part had none and overall the cover plate was mangled up and a meh silver and black color, after 2 days i'm really happy with the result.

I played some Yoda Stories , 1(one) mission, for about 2-3h , on my 486, testing a old,yellowe AT kb,in the meantime...