Broke down and bought a Geforce 2 GTS to test against a voodoo 3 on a Via Mp3 motherboard.

Finally got a Syquest 44MB unit.
Came in a nice beige box with a yellowed front bezel I now have to retrobrite.

My issue is that I thought I had a 50pin centronics cable but I don't.
Now I have to understand if (1) I can use it with a normal flat cable not knowing ,

if (2) my controller card will terminate it or

if (3) how the heck I do teminate it using the output system provided.

See pics.

Edit: if I wanted to use an adapter?

Nexxen wrote on 2025-09-02, 22:56:

Finally got a Syquest 44MB unit. Came in a nice beige box with a yellowed front bezel I now have to retrobrite. […]
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Finally got a Syquest 44MB unit.
Came in a nice beige box with a yellowed front bezel I now have to retrobrite.

My issue is that I thought I had a 50pin centronics cable but I don't.
Now I have to understand if (1) I can use it with a normal flat cable not knowing ,

if (2) my controller card will terminate it or

if (3) how the heck I do teminate it using the output system provided.

See pics.

Edit: if I wanted to use an adapter?

Ah yes. I love that drive, but am not an expert by any means. The empty rows are for the terminator resistors/pack.

I downloaded a manual for the 555 a while ago, because I couldn't "wing it" setting the SCSI ID; it's upside-down.

Booting from it is an awesome experience. Very soothing computer noises. Loud, but not whine-y. A delightful clattering of the heads.

Major Jackyl wrote on 2025-09-03, 21:49:

Ah yes. I love that drive, but am not an expert by any means. The empty rows are for the terminator resistors/pack. […]
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Nexxen wrote on 2025-09-02, 22:56:

Finally got a Syquest 44MB unit. Came in a nice beige box with a yellowed front bezel I now have to retrobrite. […]
Show full quote

Finally got a Syquest 44MB unit.
Came in a nice beige box with a yellowed front bezel I now have to retrobrite.

My issue is that I thought I had a 50pin centronics cable but I don't.
Now I have to understand if (1) I can use it with a normal flat cable not knowing ,

if (2) my controller card will terminate it or

if (3) how the heck I do teminate it using the output system provided.

See pics.

Edit: if I wanted to use an adapter?

Ah yes. I love that drive, but am not an expert by any means. The empty rows are for the terminator resistors/pack.

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I downloaded a manual for the 555 a while ago, because I couldn't "wing it" setting the SCSI ID; it's upside-down.

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Booting from it is an awesome experience. Very soothing computer noises. Loud, but not whine-y. A delightful clattering of the heads.

I did make it work, I started a dedicated thread for help but in the end I just had to read the manual... 🤣
Your picture shows what I need to use it stand-alone. Thanks a lot!

Now I know what I have to buy.
Cables are another hassle. Prolly I'll buy some adapter that'll come handy for other stuff in the future.

I bought the Biostar MB-1333/40PME 386 motherboard with 8MB, FPU and AMD DX-40.

From eBay pictures, we couldn’t see how corroded it was… A new adventure begins, I guess…

Just acquired rare 2006 Cooler Master Cavalier 1 case new in box:

That case is awesome.

Managed to pick up a cheapish Asus P2B 1.10 today.

The only problem is I have an ABIT BH6 already, and I'm not sure which to use for my Tualatin build.

Gigabyte GA-586DX: came with 2xP233MHz MMX and 4x32MB RAM, had to replace some broken caps, needs Dallas RTC mode but works fine
PCChips/Hsin Tech M529: came with P133MHz, 256KB COAST and 2x16MB RAM, FDD does not work, needs repair of some broken traces
Soyo SY-4SAW: came with Am5x86-P75 and 2x8MB RAM, no battery damage, but CPU needed pins repair and solder, works fine, needs CR2032 socket
CT2770: looks fine, not tested for now
Diamond Viper V550: nice looking, not tested
74-1881A Mitsumi CD ROM controller: nothing to test it with
ALG2301 PCI video card, works

Nick4 wrote on 2025-09-05, 19:56:

Just acquired rare 2006 Cooler Master Cavalier 1 case new in box: […]
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Just acquired rare 2006 Cooler Master Cavalier 1 case new in box:

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Remember when Cooler Master made quality products 🙄.

DundyTheCroc wrote on 2025-09-06, 13:54:

Gigabyte GA-586DX: came with 2xP233MHz MMX and 4x32MB RAM, had to replace some broken caps, needs Dallas RTC mode but works fine […]
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Gigabyte GA-586DX: came with 2xP233MHz MMX and 4x32MB RAM, had to replace some broken caps, needs Dallas RTC mode but works fine
PCChips/Hsin Tech M529: came with P133MHz, 256KB COAST and 2x16MB RAM, FDD does not work, needs repair of some broken traces
Soyo SY-4SAW: came with Am5x86-P75 and 2x8MB RAM, no battery damage, but CPU needed pins repair and solder, works fine, needs CR2032 socket
CT2770: looks fine, not tested for now
Diamond Viper V550: nice looking, not tested
74-1881A Mitsumi CD ROM controller: nothing to test it with
ALG2301 PCI video card, works

I love dual socket boards. Pentium are not that easy to find.
Congrats!

Broken X800GTO AGP, let's see if we can save it..

.. later ...

aaand a hercules radeon 9600 Pro that's defective as well.

tehsiggi wrote on 2025-09-07, 16:54:

Broken X800GTO AGP, let's see if we can save it..

.. later ...

aaand a hercules radeon 9600 Pro that's defective as well.

Would love to see a post on the repair process 👍😁

Ozzuneoj wrote on 2023-02-26, 03:40:

Got this beauty recently. I don't think it really does anything special that would pertain to gaming, but eh, it's a 4MB Tseng E […]
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Got this beauty recently. I don't think it really does anything special that would pertain to gaming, but eh, it's a 4MB Tseng ET6100 and it is named the Integral Technologies Flashpoint 128, which sounds pretty cool to me. 🤣 There isn't a ton of information out there about the Tseng Viper fx chip, but here is some information here and here, that refers to it being used for real time image scaling. I did find the manual for the Flashpoint 128, and it refers to the whole card as a "Frame Grabber" with very little mention of it even being a VGA card.

I tested it out and it works great in Windows 98SE with the built in ET6000\ET6100 drivers. 😀

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Asininity wrote on 2023-02-26, 03:09:

Ozzuneoj wrote on 2023-02-25, 04:40:

If it's a loose card I'd say there's about a 90% chance that it has some damage to the SMD components on the back. It will just […]
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If it's a loose card I'd say there's about a 90% chance that it has some damage to the SMD components on the back. It will just be a matter of if it's anything vital or if it's just some EMI filters or something.

I managed to snag a Gainward FX 5700 Ultra, a BFG 5700 Ultra and a BFG 5500 PCI from the same seller and all three had at least one damaged component on the back. Thankfully, the 5700 Ultras both run fine. They have an almost identical layout, so I was able to use a multimeter to check the broken components on either one, and they appear to both be filters of some kind. Sadly, the 5500 is totally dead. The two components broken on that must have been vital.

Also got a 3dlabs Wildcat VP990 Pro and it has a broken component near one of the DVI connectors... hopefully it's also nothing vital. I haven't tested it yet... the more I think about it, I have gotten a TON of hardware with PCB or SMD damage lately. I can think of 4-5 other somewhat decent cards in addition to the ones above. 🙁

So many people just didn't take care of this stuff over the years and left it all thrashing around loose in a box. I love it when sellers are so clueless about this (and physics apparently) that they take photos of heavy\bulky cards stacked and then they slide them around in all different orientations for their pictures, sometimes with the brackets perched on the backs of other cards in an attempt to look fancy. I mean... DUH. It'd be like a used car dealership leaning or stacking all of their cars on top of each other on the lot to get attention. 🤦

This makes me wonder if there's a bunch of cards out there that are just a heat gun and a small order from Mouser away from working again.

Yes, literally thousands of cards if I had to guess. The problem is knowing what the components were... and when it comes to actually replacing them, not everyone is capable of working with such tiny components. I have done a fair amount of them, but at some point the components just got SO small that it is nearly impossible to do the work manually unless you have a lot of experience (which I do not... hence the pile of cards waiting for the day I'm capable of fixing them).

Quoting myself here out of laziness...

I just bought another one of these cards that is almost identical except it has an ET6000 and a few different supporting components. Got it for a great price too. Pretty pleased. 😁

They're big and have lots of big chips, therefore they must be good 😁

devius wrote on 2025-09-08, 21:14:

They're big and have lots of big chips, therefore they must be good 😁

Yes! Can you imagine how big a modern GPU would be if each MB of RAM required a dedicated 1" square chip? They'd sure look awesome...

Got hold of a matching mouse for my Compaq Deskpro, in really good condition. Ball glides so smoothly it feels just like a heavier optical mouse. 😀

Just got me this pretty sweet looking Baby AT system. I had sworn that I won't get new boxes anymore unless I get rid of something else, I'm running out of space. This system popped for sale for what I think is reasonably priced 70€. The sales ad didn't list any components and first I just thought that what a sweet looking case it has, but I'll pass. I checked few of the photos of the insides and then it hit me: This puppy has Intel Advanced/ZP aka "Zappa" inside!

Socket 5 gets too little love in general, but I have another reason why I needed to have this. It is almost perfectly 30 years ago when I got my Pentium 90 machine and it had exactly similar Zappa (I can't remember the exact revision of my board, but these are probably very close). I at some point in early 2000s recycled most of the system, I still have CT2290 which is in one of my 486s, Diamond S3 868 graphics card, 90MHz CPU and a broken 850MB Conner drive.

I haven't bumped into a Zappa locally before, but few times I've pondered if I should get one from ebay, but I haven't. This system does nothing that my other systems can't do, but as my hobby has progressed during the years, I have went more and more towards period correct stuff and take even slower systems for what they are. If it can't handle something I want, I use something faster. As if each system itself has a story and a place in a history of computing, even a short one until faster and better systems replaced it so I don't feel the need to try to push them to some upper level or skip the system as faster ones are available.

But, here is the case. It is in very good condition, albeit front panel is a bit yellowed and there is some dirt, but very little scratches in general. Next summer this will probably get little retrobrighting. Oddly enough, there is a slot for MHz display, but it doesn't have one, so I will install one there at some point.

Here are the insides, behind the cable hassle there is the beloved Zappa, revision -606 which supports up to 120MHz. Sound card is little disappointing, a crappy CT4180 which I probably have like five already in the bottom of my bin. The graphics card is rather nice surprise, Diamond Stealth 64 VRAM (S3 968, 2MB onboard VRAM installed) and I don't have this type of card in my collection.

I just quickly powered on the system to test if it does work, but there is a 120MHz CPU installed (or at least it is set at that speed, I ran my 90MHz@120MHz also back in the day), 48MB RAM and two HDDs. CDROM is 8x, brand unknown. The other and most likely the drive that has been installed afterwards at some point is a 420MB Conner. I didn't check the other one that closely, but it is probably about 1GB Seagate based on the boot screen information.

All in all, a neat little system and it probably was quite high end when it was originally purchased. It seems well taken care of. Case is really nice, as well as the parts it has besides the sound card.

Got this drive on a local auction site to store my shitty 90's sitcoms on. Why is it special? It still had the previous owner's personal and very explicit pictures and videos on it. That's why you don't just throw your old computer in the trash.

Luckily you're going to format it. Right?
[insert star wars meme]

Two 366 Celly's. Yes guess which mainboards they're going on to and the clock speed.

douglar wrote on 2025-09-02, 19:19:

Broke down and bought a Geforce 2 GTS to test against a voodoo 3 on a Via Mp3 motherboard.

GF2 GTS wipes the floor with V3, TNT2 etc. of course CPU scaling is a thing and it affects a lot how big of a jump there is.