I was messing around with testing some sound cards and MIDI daughterboards I had laying around untested. I installed the wavetable onto a cheap ALS100+ sound card and fired the system up, only to get the good old magic smoke. I shut everything down and checked to find out, in my hurry, I had misaligned the socket and pins, which shorted the 5V rain to G. The 5V rail on the card that connected to the daughterboard had gone up in flames. The Wavetable worked fine with another card. I patched the sound card's 5V rail and gave it another try; it got detected and initialized, but there was no sound. I took a multimeter to it and found out that the 560R metal film resistor on the 5V rail that connected to the TEAC2025 measured infinite resistance. I replaced it with a 390R ceramic resistor I had laying around and the card started working fine again after that. Bullet dodged, but 2 hours lost. 😁

Began cleaning this oversized 250 Watt Hipro power supply from the Highscreen 08/15 bigtower. That's a lot of wasted space. Just like the insides of the bigtower itself. 😉

I don't see 92mm temperature controlled Panaflows everyday so I decided to give it a good clean instead of replacing it with a Noctua.

Caps look good, voltages are 5.15V and 11.59V with only a single HDD attached. The +12V is a bit on the low side, but maybe it'll level when hooking up a complete system.
The Panaflow is quiet!

This unit should be ok for the next few years. Truth is of course, you never know when the magic smoke will come out.

PD2JK wrote on 2024-12-16, 12:51:

Began cleaning this oversized 250 Watt Hipro power supply from the Highscreen 08/15 bigtower. That's a lot of wasted space. Just […]
Show full quote

Began cleaning this oversized 250 Watt Hipro power supply from the Highscreen 08/15 bigtower. That's a lot of wasted space. Just like the insides of the bigtower itself. 😉

The attachment DSC_2659.JPG is no longer available

I don't see 92mm temperature controlled Panaflows everyday so I decided to give it a good clean instead of replacing it with a Noctua.

The attachment DSC_2657.JPG is no longer available

Caps look good, voltages are 5.15V and 11.59V with only a single HDD attached. The +12V is a bit on the low side, but maybe it'll level when hooking up a complete system.
The Panaflow is quiet!

This unit should be ok for the next few years. Truth is of course, you never know when the magic smoke will come out.

Wow, that really is a lot of wasted space.

Also, Panaflo fans seem to last forever. I have an 80mm in a PC that has been in regular use since 2002 or 2003 and it still works fine. I realized a year or two ago that it was a bit excessive for cooling an Athlon XP (even overclocked), so I rewired a 4pin power adapter to run it at 5v instead of 12v and it is so much quieter now and still keeps the system cool. Should last another 20 years this way. 😁

I recently acquired a working IO Magic 4x4x6 CDRW drive. Haven't seen one of these in years. Sad thing is, I have no use for an external CD-ROM.

So, I'm thinking of pulling the drive and putting in my DOS system that currently has no optical drive, and I want one in there.

What is the interface on the back of that external drive?

Updated one of my systems with a spare window side panel and cold cathode I got recently. Love it!

Shadzilla wrote on 2024-12-16, 19:13:

Updated one of my systems with a spare window side panel and cold cathode I got recently. Love it!

Did you put a foil on the window with a cutout for the logo?

That's really oldsChOOL

Shadzilla wrote on 2024-12-16, 19:13:

Updated one of my systems with a spare window side panel and cold cathode I got recently. Love it!

That looks awesome great job. I remember systems like that back in the day good times.

I remember seeing that kind of thing a lot at LAN parties, such a cool late 90s/early 2000s vibe.

The panel was made back in the day by a custom PC company in the UK. It's just a standard Lian Li panel with the logo laser cut into it (very nicely done, great detail and clean cut). Then I've stuck a clear perspex sheet behind it. Simple as that 😀

Kahenraz wrote on 2024-12-16, 19:02:

What is the interface on the back of that external drive?

USB Type B, analog out, digital out.

I just found 2 other IDE CD-ROM drives I didn't know I had, so one of those will go in the DOS rig. The IO Magic will stay whole. I'll use it at some point. 😀

Mestre16 wrote on 2024-12-14, 14:05:

BitWrangler wrote on 2024-12-03, 14:18:

Living wrote on 2024-12-03, 11:51:

SPANISH? north americans learn some language in school? thats portuguese...

See, that's how bad my Spanish is, 🤣 ... kind of almost a repeat of the time I told a Dutch guy his German was awful. There are monoglots and polyglots, I am a sesqui-glot, speak English and halfass know a couple of others.

But to reallocate the besmirch-ment of education systems, I schooled in the UK, they only tried to teach me French and German.

Afinal és do Canadá? Aqui no Brasil é comum o meio-glota (nem mesmo a língua materna, a criatura usa direito). Encontrei o termo 'sequilingue', que se refere ao falante de uma língua e meia. Isso é o legal de um fórum, sempre dá pra aprender alguma coisa nova, mesmo depois de mais de vinte e cinco anos navegando a web, e após todas as mudanças que já vimos. Minha intenção de escrever em português, era realmente gerar algum apelo com os conterrâneos, ou mesmo gerar a curiosidade nos amigos do mundo todo. Tem uma música aqui que diz algo como, 'sei de tudo um pouco, mas quase tudo mal' (I know a little about everything, but almost everything is wrong).

Yes, I moved to Canada over two decades ago. Looking around the various social media platforms, some would say that there's a lot of North American half linguals.

Anyway, good luck finding some Brazilian retro tech friends.

Gave up on an OPL-SA3. Windows 95 sound scheme sounded distorted, except when the dos drivers were loaded and the card was detected as SB. All other media sounded okayish, even the same distorted wave files played through media player. Rotated all drivers that I found, fresh reinstall, to no end. Since I needed an IDE for the CD, went with a SB16, little that I knew... this will lead to a re-capping spree. Ran windows hardware detection, forgot to switch the drive to cable select, so from the second attempt all was running. But it sounded dull. Short jocularity with the mixer showed a total lack of right audio channel. Quick jump to DIAGNOSE and "8 bit testing" already on headphones, showed total absence of the right channel.

Short measurement session showed that the bulky cap after the amp on the channel is the culprit. Please don't blame me, don't have large stash but I found "JACKCON" 470uF, don't know how I obtained those. In my defense, it is clearly stated on the cap body "LOW E.S.R", whatever this means. Noticed the cap juice after the cleaning of the back side, hope it's from the old cap and was spilled during the desoldering.

All caps are ordered and will do a full re-cap once they are in my possession. At least the windows sound scheme is nice and stereo now.

SpoXi wrote on 2024-12-16, 22:47:

Gave up on an OPL-SA3. Windows 95 sound scheme sounded distorted, except when the dos drivers were loaded and the card was detec […]
Show full quote

Gave up on an OPL-SA3. Windows 95 sound scheme sounded distorted, except when the dos drivers were loaded and the card was detected as SB. All other media sounded okayish, even the same distorted wave files played through media player. Rotated all drivers that I found, fresh reinstall, to no end. Since I needed an IDE for the CD, went with a SB16, little that I knew... this will lead to a re-capping spree. Ran windows hardware detection, forgot to switch the drive to cable select, so from the second attempt all was running. But it sounded dull. Short jocularity with the mixer showed a total lack of right audio channel. Quick jump to DIAGNOSE and "8 bit testing" already on headphones, showed total absence of the right channel.

Short measurement session showed that the bulky cap after the amp on the channel is the culprit. Please don't blame me, don't have large stash but I found "JACKCON" 470uF, don't know how I obtained those. In my defense, it is clearly stated on the cap body "LOW E.S.R", whatever this means. Noticed the cap juice after the cleaning of the back side, hope it's from the old cap and was spilled during the desoldering.

All caps are ordered and will do a full re-cap once they are in my possession. At least the windows sound scheme is nice and stereo now.

The attachment Screenshot From 2024-12-16 23-57-00.png is no longer available

Elna, Panasonic and Sanyo caps are great choice for this purpose. And in the case of Elna, they produce these very small (both in height and thickness) caps called Silmic and Silmic II, which can come in handy for sound cards.

dominusprog wrote on 2024-12-17, 17:10:

Elna, Panasonic and Sanyo caps are great choice for this purpose. And in the case of Elna, they produce these very small (both in height and thickness) caps called Silmic and Silmic II, which can come in handy for sound cards.

I remember seeing photos how you handle such cases. The cart content was inspired by them. Astonishing work. Thanks for the advice.

Fixed an HP Ultra VGA 1280. Bad caps in the neck board.

SpoXi wrote on 2024-12-17, 17:39:

dominusprog wrote on 2024-12-17, 17:10:

Elna, Panasonic and Sanyo caps are great choice for this purpose. And in the case of Elna, they produce these very small (both in height and thickness) caps called Silmic and Silmic II, which can come in handy for sound cards.

I remember seeing photos how you handle such cases. The cart content was inspired by them. Astonishing work. Thanks for the advice.

You're welcome 🙂.

Spent a couple of hours trying to get Fatal racing working on a Voodoo 1 and a Voodoo 2 (different machines). Finally got it working with the correct executables, the correct file names of those executables , the correct executable parameters and the correct Voodoo environment variables to use. All the stars lined up and it’s running now.

Also got rid of 3 out of 4 mice used to control 4 DOS machines. I got 4 serial DB9 extension cables routed from the floor (where the machines are located) to the top of my desk. So now when I need to use a machine I just plug a mouse into the corresponding DB9 extension cable for the machine I want to use. Machines are labeled 1 to 4. Extension cables labeled 1 to 4. Only 1 serial mouse on the desk now instead of 4.

Shadzilla wrote on 2024-12-16, 19:13:

Updated one of my systems with a spare window side panel and cold cathode I got recently. Love it!

Mr. Lian-Li flexing his stuff again 😁 looks awesome and indeed takes you back to the Lanparty days!

zuldan wrote on 2024-12-19, 10:50:

Spent a couple of hours trying to get Fatal racing working on a Voodoo 1 and a Voodoo 2 (different machines). Finally got it working with the correct executables, the correct file names of those executables , the correct executable parameters and the correct Voodoo environment variables to use. All the stars lined up and it’s running now.

Also got rid of 3 out of 4 mice used to control 4 DOS machines. I got 4 serial DB9 extension cables routed from the floor (where the machines are located) to the top of my desk. So now when I need to use a machine I just plug a mouse into the corresponding DB9 extension cable for the machine I want to use. Machines are labeled 1 to 4. Extension cables labeled 1 to 4. Only 1 serial mouse on the desk now instead of 4.

Keep your eyes peeled in the thrifts/op-shop whatever you call them down there, and you might find a 4-1 serial switchbox... for some reason they are reasonably common to see in our thrifts... not like weekly, but they turn up as often as network cards or something. Oldschool computer stores might still have them.

dunno if it fits retro or modern, but I just added an usb-c power supply adapter to the Apple //c and it roughly uses from 10 to 20W only. Now I can preserve the original (fuck*** heavy) power supply for longer

Also added a FujiNet to it and now it can access my disk images from my NAS, has a clock, has internet access... Next week I'll add a ROM Xc