Did some testing of a Terratec Maestro 32/96 sound card.

I wanted to see if it would fit in the first ISA slot, since I need the other two for potentially longer sound cards. It was one of the tightest fits I've seen with the IDE pin header within a half-millimetre of the CPU fan.

I really do like this card. It reminds me of the Guillemot SC8600 with dual MIDI options (one in memory and one via wavetable header).

Tested a Gainward Dragon 3000. There's something funny about running a Voodoo 2 12MB alongside a Geforce 2 Pro, of all the things I could pair it up with, but it was fun nonetheless.

PcBytes wrote on 2024-11-01, 19:38:

Tested a Gainward Dragon 3000. There's something funny about running a Voodoo 2 12MB alongside a Geforce 2 Pro, of all the things I could pair it up with, but it was fun nonetheless.

Why? It works even in Ryzen 😀

Shponglefan wrote on 2024-11-01, 19:30:

Did some testing of a Terratec Maestro 32/96 sound card. […]
Show full quote

Did some testing of a Terratec Maestro 32/96 sound card.

I wanted to see if it would fit in the first ISA slot, since I need the other two for potentially longer sound cards. It was one of the tightest fits I've seen with the IDE pin header within a half-millimetre of the CPU fan.

I really do like this card. It reminds me of the Guillemot SC8600 with dual MIDI options (one in memory and one via wavetable header).

The attachment Terratec Maestro 3296 testing.jpg is no longer available

The attachment Terratec Maestro 3296 test fit.jpg is no longer available

I love this card. Do you like how Doom sounds with FM? It’s just so different. Are you going to pair it with a waveblaster?

zuldan wrote on 2024-11-01, 21:07:

I love this card. Do you like how Doom sounds with FM? It’s just so different. Are you going to pair it with a waveblaster?

I haven't really tried the FM yet. At the moment I've been mainly testing the General MIDI capabilities.

And yes, I've paired it with an NEC XR385 (Yamaha DB60XG clone). It sounds pretty awesome. 😀

Not exactly super-retro but I'm working on my Pavilion ZD8000 and I am struggling with a multiboot setup, namely with the Windows 9x part of it. If I could get everything working on this I would have one heck of a nice 9x/XP machine.

Recapped and tested my GF3 Ti 200. Spread some Rubycon love...

It was first time over past 7 or so years in retro computing when Capacitor "hissed at me with blue smoke". I have to admit I stress tested it few years ago. Card is passive I assume Aldi branded PC-s back in days had good case ventilation. While it's low end GF3 it gets really hot even with default clocks including memory. Those Raspberry Pi heatsinks on memory chips is my mod.

Discovered something really amazing last night about some Trident TVGA 9000C cards, they can get a huge speed boost with "this one weird trick" Re: Lowend 486 ISA VGA Graphics Quick Test, Mostly Tridents plus Oak, ATI, Tseng ....

I'm gonna do more with that, but I'm still needing both hands to keep my jaw from dragging on the floor.

Edit: actually this is a false alarm, maybe, some weird config on my motherboard did it, but can't figure what exactly what that config was or what caused it.

Got a thermal camera. This is my life now.

Shponglefan wrote on 2024-11-02, 20:36:

Got a thermal camera. This is my life now.

Yeah they are fantastic. Couldn’t imagine my life without one. 🤣. It’s so fast finding shorts now. Also really interesting to see where the heat spots are on motherboards and video cards. Helps with new builds, targeting air flow or adding heat sinks.

My 20-month-old son hit my second wireless mouse, which I use when I'm sitting on the couch and want to watch series, on the table several times, causing a microswitch in it to break. So I transplanted another microswitch from an already broken mouse. Now I always have to remember to put the mouse away when the little one is playing in the living room.😅

Fired up the old XP box to game and find it had issues. Froze at desktop. One of the game/file HD's decided to start to die, spent last few hours transferring files from bad hd to a good one. If you think it be an easy process, no is not.
Every time I tried copying a bad file it would lock up Explorer so would have to reboot and try again not grabbing that file 🤣. Crystal disk said a few weeks ago no issues.
FWIW: is a WD 2TB Black drive with 45,000+ hours going bad, so was sorta expected to being close to having an issue but have others at 60,000+ hours and still work (and Crystal disk says they are fine).
This was a "all of a sudden thing", my guess is the media on platter just got flakey...

Horun wrote on 2024-11-03, 03:27:

Fired up the old XP box to game and find it had issues. Froze at desktop. One of the game/file HD's decided to start to die, spe […]
Show full quote

Fired up the old XP box to game and find it had issues. Froze at desktop. One of the game/file HD's decided to start to die, spent last few hours transferring files from bad hd to a good one. If you think it be an easy process, no is not.
Every time I tried copying a bad file it would lock up Explorer so would have to reboot and try again not grabbing that file 🤣. Crystal disk said a few weeks ago no issues.
FWIW: is a WD 2TB Black drive with 45,000+ hours going bad, so was sorta expected to being close to having an issue but have others at 60,000+ hours and still work (and Crystal disk says they are fine).
This was a "all of a sudden thing", my guess is the media on platter just got flakey...

Ouch!

It's a good idea to make backups/snapshots of important systems.

I also had a 2TB WD Black die on me, but this was many years ago when NVME didn't exist and high capacity SSDs were really expensive. I wouldn't say they are the most reliable ones. Maybe they are prone to fail after many power cycles. And since WD introduced SMR... I prefer Seagate.

Yesterday I bought an old second hand Fujifilm S5600 digital camera which I wanted to buy in 2006. I had just bought the S5500 back in those times, I still have that working great. Too bad these cameras had some problems on the battery cover when after some times the plastic clips ended up usually broken. I have to study a circuit to use some 800mAh Li-on battery with a micro usb circuit for the charge or simply close the cover making a hole through the plastics.

Horun wrote on 2024-11-03, 03:27:

Fired up the old XP box to game and find it had issues. Froze at desktop. One of the game/file HD's decided to start to die, spe […]
Show full quote

Fired up the old XP box to game and find it had issues. Froze at desktop. One of the game/file HD's decided to start to die, spent last few hours transferring files from bad hd to a good one. If you think it be an easy process, no is not.
Every time I tried copying a bad file it would lock up Explorer so would have to reboot and try again not grabbing that file 🤣. Crystal disk said a few weeks ago no issues.
FWIW: is a WD 2TB Black drive with 45,000+ hours going bad, so was sorta expected to being close to having an issue but have others at 60,000+ hours and still work (and Crystal disk says they are fine).
This was a "all of a sudden thing", my guess is the media on platter just got flakey...

About 20 years ago I've had the same problem with an old HDD and since Explorer refused to copy on various files I used a little program called "unstoppable copier" and it worked although kept stuck on some files for a few minutes.

Replaced this power switch with a new one.

GuillermoXT wrote on 2024-11-03, 10:36:

Horun wrote on 2024-11-03, 03:27:

Fired up the old XP box to game and find it had issues. Froze at desktop. One of the game/file HD's decided to start to die, spe […]
Show full quote

Fired up the old XP box to game and find it had issues. Froze at desktop. One of the game/file HD's decided to start to die, spent last few hours transferring files from bad hd to a good one. If you think it be an easy process, no is not.
Every time I tried copying a bad file it would lock up Explorer so would have to reboot and try again not grabbing that file 🤣. Crystal disk said a few weeks ago no issues.
FWIW: is a WD 2TB Black drive with 45,000+ hours going bad, so was sorta expected to being close to having an issue but have others at 60,000+ hours and still work (and Crystal disk says they are fine).
This was a "all of a sudden thing", my guess is the media on platter just got flakey...

About 20 years ago I've had the same problem with an old HDD and since Explorer refused to copy on various files I used a little program called "unstoppable copier" and it worked although kept stuck on some files for a few minutes.

Wished had something like that Friday as today drive is near totally dead. Explorer shows main Dirs but no more files can be copied , Crystal Disk now shows "no information" and all entries blank.
Luckily had copied most important stuff to a few thumb drives a few months ago. Down side: Had a bunch game ISO's from my own game cd's that could not recover...

Visited the monthly vintage market. Haven't posted much about it in recent months. So accept a dog merchant as an apology.

Anyway, it was a good walk. Sunny, but a bit chilly. There were some nice vintage electronics. I almost bought a PSP, but it didn't turn on so I didn't risk it. Maybe I should have a power bank with various cables with me for these sort of places. Still picked up some stuff other than the home made food stuff I usually buy.

2GB DDR2 RAM
4GB DDR3 laptop RAM
A remote control for my Elitebook. Surprisingly the battery still had charge.
A used Athlon XP 2100+ with unused fan, still has the factory paste and the Athlon XP case sticker.
A fan that I thought will be an old stock AC F12, but it has a molex powered different brand fan inside. Still looks brand new so I don't mind that much.

Horun wrote on 2024-11-03, 16:48:

GuillermoXT wrote on 2024-11-03, 10:36:

Horun wrote on 2024-11-03, 03:27:

Fired up the old XP box to game and find it had issues. Froze at desktop. One of the game/file HD's decided to start to die, spe […]
Show full quote

Fired up the old XP box to game and find it had issues. Froze at desktop. One of the game/file HD's decided to start to die, spent last few hours transferring files from bad hd to a good one. If you think it be an easy process, no is not.
Every time I tried copying a bad file it would lock up Explorer so would have to reboot and try again not grabbing that file 🤣. Crystal disk said a few weeks ago no issues.
FWIW: is a WD 2TB Black drive with 45,000+ hours going bad, so was sorta expected to being close to having an issue but have others at 60,000+ hours and still work (and Crystal disk says they are fine).
This was a "all of a sudden thing", my guess is the media on platter just got flakey...

About 20 years ago I've had the same problem with an old HDD and since Explorer refused to copy on various files I used a little program called "unstoppable copier" and it worked although kept stuck on some files for a few minutes.

Wished had something like that Friday as today drive is near totally dead. Explorer shows main Dirs but no more files can be copied , Crystal Disk now shows "no information" and all entries blank.
Luckily had copied most important stuff to a few thumb drives a few months ago. Down side: Had a bunch game ISO's from my own game cd's that could not recover...

I can see if I still have the program on my external hard drive, there are also other things on it from the win9x and Me times

GuillermoXT wrote on 2024-11-03, 19:11:

I can see if I still have the program on my external hard drive, there are also other things on it from the win9x and Me times

Thanks but I found Unstoppable Copier from Roadkil's website ! Will hook up the bad drive to a newer computer and see if I can grab some more stuff....