An Apollo PC-Elevator 386 for XT

Looks like it can allow to run a 386 code on XT

Repo Man11 wrote on 2025-05-24, 18:45:

The capacitor plague personified...

Sweet stuff and deja-vu!
Brand new high-quality caps turned mine from a very sad MB to a rock solid performer =)
Project KA7, yay or nay ?

Ozzuneoj wrote on 2025-05-25, 03:38:

Repo Man11 wrote on 2025-05-24, 23:31:

A Chaintech 5HTMO motherboard. Did they ever make I/O shields for this style of motherboard to fit in an ATX case?

Hmm... it seems they did!
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Several_ … %28smial%29.jpg

Chances are I've seen one of those when digging trough the old box full of them at a local computer store, but it didn't register since I've never before had a motherboard with this arrangement of the I/O ports. I might have to go and have another look now that I have a need for one.

@Repo Man11 Hope your KA7 works post recap. I couldn't get mine (KA7-100) to work.

bofh.fromhell wrote on 2025-05-25, 14:20:

Sweet stuff and deja-vu! Brand new high-quality caps turned mine from a very sad MB to a rock solid performer =) Project KA7, ya […]
Show full quote

Repo Man11 wrote on 2025-05-24, 18:45:

The capacitor plague personified...

Sweet stuff and deja-vu!
Brand new high-quality caps turned mine from a very sad MB to a rock solid performer =)
Project KA7, yay or nay ?

My previous worst was this Soyo board; I expect I'll be as successful with this Abit, though it will be a roll of the dice since I'm afraid to even see if it will POST in the condition it is in.

I see these AGP Pro slots on boards occasionally. Are there any AGP Pro cards that would be desirable to plug into one? I can't think of any.

Repo Man11 wrote on 2025-05-25, 18:26:

bofh.fromhell wrote on 2025-05-25, 14:20:

Sweet stuff and deja-vu! Brand new high-quality caps turned mine from a very sad MB to a rock solid performer =) Project KA7, ya […]
Show full quote

Repo Man11 wrote on 2025-05-24, 18:45:

The capacitor plague personified...

Sweet stuff and deja-vu!
Brand new high-quality caps turned mine from a very sad MB to a rock solid performer =)
Project KA7, yay or nay ?

My previous worst was this Soyo board; I expect I'll be as successful with this Abit, though it will be a roll of the dice since I'm afraid to even see if it will POST in the condition it is in.

one of the last high end MB from Soyo, it all went downhill from there

at the time of launch (Q4 2001) i was in my first DDR platform, Thunderbird 1200Mhz 266 FSB + Soyo K7ADA (Ali Magik 1). It was a BEAST for the price so i saw little point on spending more.

Kahenraz wrote on 2025-05-25, 18:30:

I see these AGP Pro slots on boards occasionally. Are there any AGP Pro cards that would be desirable to plug into one? I can't think of any.

Never seen an AGP Pro card for consumer PC use, but as the additional pins were only for additional power, most high end cards would need external power anyway, making AGP Pro relatively pointless.

I do own a few Mac AGP Pro cards (Radeon 9800 for example), and I believe there are quite a few workstation/CAD cards like the 3DLabs Wildcat 7110 that utilise AGP Pro on x86.

I got my hands on this decommissioned SBC HS7250M from Boser (manual here: http://www.boser.com.tw/manual/909-01505_hs-7 … _march_2010.pdf). It doesn't look bad, but on the back of the PCB, one SMD capacitor is broken off, marked 330 J67. I assume it's a 330uF 6,3V? tantalum - am I wrong? That wouldn't be a problem, but it looks like the soldering surface for the negative pole is torn off. It can be repaired by soldering with plated holes?- the continuity between the plus pole and the holes is.

And the second question: how can the SBC be powered without the need for a backplate? The PCB has one MOLEX connector (5V and 12V plus 2x ground) and one in-line 5pin with ground, PSON, 5VSB and 2x VCC (VCC is 5V?)
Will it be enough to plug in the corresponding outputs from the ATX PSU and turn on the computer via the two-pin CN2? I've never had an SBC, so I don't have any experience with this, but it would be fun to get this little guy running.

Sorry for the poor quality of the photos and thank you to everyone for the advice.

A buddy of mine from work saved this machine from the fates and brought it to me. He had originally come across the video card that was in the system and gave that to me, then found the system itself.

The video card was a Medion branded MSI GeForce 4 Ti 4200 AGP 128MB. This card will be replacing an MX440 I currently have in my little Windows 98SE machine.
(Windows 98SE - Basic Build - Opinions Welcome)

The system itself is nothing impressive, a Medion machine from 2002/2003 with a branded MSI board in it, the Medion MD5000 1.0. Along with a P4 Northwood 2.66 CPU.
(https://theretroweb.com/motherboards/s/medion-md5000-1-0)

I had never actually heard of Medion before, but, it appears they're based in Germany and still around and still selling computers. They also seem to be partnered with Aldi Foods (Also a German company), something I wasn't expecting to see, but hey, I shop at Aldi all the time and see lots of "cheap" electronics for sale, so perhaps they sell Median computers alongside the canned goods?

The most impressive thing for me about this board is its IO. It's got everything you could want from a system at that area, as seen from the photos, particularity the front panel. The case is cracked so I will just be making a 3D printed 5.25 bay adapter for the internals and using them elsewhere with this board, but I think I can definitely get some use out of it.

Of course, it's going to need a recap before I do anything with it. Got some bulgers and leakers, as seen in the photos.

Either way, more hardware saved, and it was the best price. Free! 😀

StriderTR wrote on 2025-06-07, 18:41:

a Medion machine from 2002/2003

Fun to see such a machine over there in the US!

Like you already said, Aldi sold these machines in their supermarkets. At the time I worked in a computer shop. Guess who had to service and repair these? Not Aldi, they only shoved the carton boxes. Although Medion stuff came with a three year warranty, these boxes died a lot. Crammed and hot because of the lack of air flow.

Anyway a Ti4200 is always nice to have.

PD2JK wrote on 2025-06-07, 21:26:

Fun to see such a machine over there in the US! […]
Show full quote

StriderTR wrote on 2025-06-07, 18:41:

a Medion machine from 2002/2003

Fun to see such a machine over there in the US!

Like you already said, Aldi sold these machines in their supermarkets. At the time I worked in a computer shop. Guess who had to service and repair these? Not Aldi, they only shoved the carton boxes. Although Medion stuff came with a three year warranty, these boxes died a lot. Crammed and hot because of the lack of air flow.

Anyway a Ti4200 is always nice to have.

Wow, that is so interesting! I have seen Medion products before and I shop at Aldi as well. I never would have connected the two!

If the airflow was poor, that thing never stood a chance in the cap plague era. I'm glad to see that it ended up in the hands of someone who is capable of replacing the caps. 😀

By the way, would that Ti 4200 have been stock? I see it has an nvidia case badge... that just seems like an unusually capable GPU for a brand that normally sold systems in supermarkets. Maybe in the US Medion systems were sold elsewhere as a more premium thing... but I never remember seeing decent gaming PCs for sale anywhere back in those days. To get a PC with a good video card you pretty much had to order them or buy them from a dedicated computer store. It may have been different in more populated areas though.

I'm in Canada and Medion computers were a thing here too for many years. I fixed many of them in the 2000's.

No idea if the brand is still sold anywhere.

Medion is ALDI private brand for electronics stuff - still found on market: https://www.aldi-onlineshop.de/c/elektronik-- … s--notebooks-8/

Since 2011 they're Chinese (Lenovo), the head office is still located in Essen, Germany. Not sure if PCs and laptops are assembled in Germany or EU...

StriderTR wrote on 2025-06-07, 18:41:

The most impressive thing for me about this board is its IO. It's got everything you could want from a system at that area, as seen from the photos, particularity the front panel. The case is cracked so I will just be making a 3D printed 5.25 bay adapter for the internals and using them elsewhere with this board, but I think I can definitely get some use out of it.

The frontpanel was tailormade for the Medion case. For other cases it needs some McGyver mod. It is also not very easy to find other boards with the same connectivity.

StriderTR wrote on 2025-06-07, 18:41:

A buddy of mine from work saved this machine from the fates and brought it to me. He had originally come across the video card t […]
Show full quote

A buddy of mine from work saved this machine from the fates and brought it to me. He had originally come across the video card that was in the system and gave that to me, then found the system itself.

The video card was a Medion branded MSI GeForce 4 Ti 4200 AGP 128MB. This card will be replacing an MX440 I currently have in my little Windows 98SE machine.
(Windows 98SE - Basic Build - Opinions Welcome)

The system itself is nothing impressive, a Medion machine from 2002/2003 with a branded MSI board in it, the Medion MD5000 1.0. Along with a P4 Northwood 2.66 CPU.
(https://theretroweb.com/motherboards/s/medion-md5000-1-0)

I had never actually heard of Medion before, but, it appears they're based in Germany and still around and still selling computers. They also seem to be partnered with Aldi Foods (Also a German company), something I wasn't expecting to see, but hey, I shop at Aldi all the time and see lots of "cheap" electronics for sale, so perhaps they sell Median computers alongside the canned goods?

The most impressive thing for me about this board is its IO. It's got everything you could want from a system at that area, as seen from the photos, particularity the front panel. The case is cracked so I will just be making a 3D printed 5.25 bay adapter for the internals and using them elsewhere with this board, but I think I can definitely get some use out of it.

Of course, it's going to need a recap before I do anything with it. Got some bulgers and leakers, as seen in the photos.

Either way, more hardware saved, and it was the best price. Free! 😀

Nice! 😀 didnt know they sold medions in the states, last time i saw a medion for sale in aldi here in the uk was prob 2006-2008, they had a media model which had every kind of video input/output you could need with slots for every kind of flash card available on the market it even had a scart socket on it, it was a heaving tower that was £800+, so they did make some high end models, also never seen anything so expensive in aldi. 🤣

most medions are useless thanks to medions own bios, i have an MSI PM8PM and an MSI P4M900M2 both with medions bios, they had removed the PCI/IRQ menu in the bios meaning plenty of conflicts in win98, gpu conflicted with the sound card which conflicted with something on board also one had the floppy header permanently disabled, eventually i did manage to flash a stock MSI bios which fixed the problems and made the boards usable.

last one i got was the same MD5000 just the board though, i expected the same problems as the other 2 boards i have, and without a stock MSI bios i though it would be unusable, turns out its works great for win 98, only problem i had was conflicts with my sound cards midi, after disabling the options in the bios relating to the midi/gameport it worked perfectly, i do need to find an I/O plate and one of those front panels would be nice.

also id keep the GPU with the pc, im guessing the yellow connector on the card connects to the svideo/composite on the front panel, it will make for a good 98 build as it is with dos compatible sound.

The composite & SVHS connectors are inputs and tend to be connected to the TV/modem card which was included in those medion computers.

PD2JK wrote on 2025-06-07, 21:26:

Fun to see such a machine over there in the US! […]
Show full quote

StriderTR wrote on 2025-06-07, 18:41:

a Medion machine from 2002/2003

Fun to see such a machine over there in the US!

Like you already said, Aldi sold these machines in their supermarkets. At the time I worked in a computer shop. Guess who had to service and repair these? Not Aldi, they only shoved the carton boxes. Although Medion stuff came with a three year warranty, these boxes died a lot. Crammed and hot because of the lack of air flow.

Anyway a Ti4200 is always nice to have.

Yeah, I can believe it based on what I seen in this case. I also agree it's nice having a Ti 4200, especially I have a build that ready to use it and it's a nice upgrade for it.

Ozzuneoj wrote on 2025-06-08, 00:27:

By the way, would that Ti 4200 have been stock? I see it has an nvidia case badge... that just seems like an unusually capable GPU for a brand that normally sold systems in supermarkets. Maybe in the US Medion systems were sold elsewhere as a more premium thing... but I never remember seeing decent gaming PCs for sale anywhere back in those days. To get a PC with a good video card you pretty much had to order them or buy them from a dedicated computer store. It may have been different in more populated areas though.

Honestly, I don't know. All I know is it's branded with the Medion name, but it's made by MSI. According to the guy who gave it to me, the Ti 4200 came with the PC when he bought it way back in the early 2000's. The only thing that is missing is the tuner card. He pulled that quite some time ago and has no idea where it ended up. I have a few capture and tuner cards in my collection somewhere. I may look and see, if by chance, any would work with the systems, specifically the front panel connectors.

PARKE wrote on 2025-06-08, 11:39:

The frontpanel was tailormade for the Medion case. For other cases it needs some McGyver mod. It is also not very easy to find other boards with the same connectivity.

I will be keeping the board and connector together for future use. Right now, the board needs to be recapped and I need to see if it's necessary for me to design and print an adapter for the front panel to fit in a standard 5.25 bay.

DudeFace wrote on 2025-06-08, 14:12:

Nice! :) didnt know they sold medions in the states, last time i saw a medion for sale in aldi here in the uk was prob 2006-2008 […]
Show full quote

Nice! 😀 didnt know they sold medions in the states, last time i saw a medion for sale in aldi here in the uk was prob 2006-2008, they had a media model which had every kind of video input/output you could need with slots for every kind of flash card available on the market it even had a scart socket on it, it was a heaving tower that was £800+, so they did make some high end models, also never seen anything so expensive in aldi. 🤣

most medions are useless thanks to medions own bios, i have an MSI PM8PM and an MSI P4M900M2 both with medions bios, they had removed the PCI/IRQ menu in the bios meaning plenty of conflicts in win98, gpu conflicted with the sound card which conflicted with something on board also one had the floppy header permanently disabled, eventually i did manage to flash a stock MSI bios which fixed the problems and made the boards usable.

last one i got was the same MD5000 just the board though, i expected the same problems as the other 2 boards i have, and without a stock MSI bios i though it would be unusable, turns out its works great for win 98, only problem i had was conflicts with my sound cards midi, after disabling the options in the bios relating to the midi/gameport it worked perfectly, i do need to find an I/O plate and one of those front panels would be nice.

also id keep the GPU with the pc, im guessing the yellow connector on the card connects to the svideo/composite on the front panel, it will make for a good 98 build as it is with dos compatible sound.

That's very good info to know, thank you!

I won't even be attempting to power up the board until I can at least replace the visibly bad caps. When that time comes, honestly, I'm not sure what I'll use this for. I have a "good" Win98 system already. I'm sure I'll think of something between now and then.

I am definitely keeping the GPU, it's just being used in my current Win98 system for now since it's much better than the MX440 I had in it. I can always swap it back in the future. 😀

That yellow connector was indeed connected to the front panel. I also assumed that's what it was.

weedeewee wrote on 2025-06-08, 14:51:

The composite & SVHS connectors are inputs and tend to be connected to the TV/modem card which was included in those medion computers.

This system did have a tuner card in it originally. So perhaps that's the case with the connectors. There were connections not being used. I'll have to dig into it further.

Either way, all of this really makes me want to get this board up and running, just to play with it! I do love exploring systems I've never seen before. 😀

Quick note...

The comp/svideo are fed into the Ti 4200. I assume to use the cards capture capability?

There is a TV card input on the motherboard.