Got this SB Live! Platinum (CT4760) combo. It has Drive II, digital bracket and all cables. Both card and drive are in excellent condition.

Great! You should join the thread I started on berating SB Live 😉

I don't have the Drive - congrats on finding one!

Mystery "old computer, unknown spec" buy on eBay.

I see a beige mATX tower case, CD-R and a floppy. Push button start rather than a switch.

Rear confirms at least (m)ATX era, a single VGA output graphics card and onboard sound. This could be anything but I'm expecting early 2000s.

But here's the part you guys might be able to help with, what are those dark rectangles on the I/O shield? EMI filters? Does this give us a hint as to the board?

Please excuse crappy low res pic.

Dan386DX wrote on Yesterday, 23:30:

Mystery "old computer, unknown spec" buy on eBay. […]
Show full quote

Mystery "old computer, unknown spec" buy on eBay.

I see a beige mATX tower case, CD-R and a floppy. Push button start rather than a switch.

Rear confirms at least (m)ATX era, a single VGA output graphics card and onboard sound. This could be anything but I'm expecting early 2000s.

But here's the part you guys might be able to help with, what are those dark rectangles on the I/O shield? EMI filters? Does this give us a hint as to the board?

Please excuse crappy low res pic.

I think those are stickers saying what the ports are or what should be plugged into them.

pete8475 wrote on Today, 00:03:

Dan386DX wrote on Yesterday, 23:30:

Mystery "old computer, unknown spec" buy on eBay. […]
Show full quote

Mystery "old computer, unknown spec" buy on eBay.

I see a beige mATX tower case, CD-R and a floppy. Push button start rather than a switch.

Rear confirms at least (m)ATX era, a single VGA output graphics card and onboard sound. This could be anything but I'm expecting early 2000s.

But here's the part you guys might be able to help with, what are those dark rectangles on the I/O shield? EMI filters? Does this give us a hint as to the board?

Please excuse crappy low res pic.

I think those are stickers saying what the ports are or what should be plugged into them.

Aye that did seem to be the obvious answer, I think the low-res picture just makes them look black. Thank you.

Dan386DX wrote on Today, 00:14:

pete8475 wrote on Today, 00:03:

Dan386DX wrote on Yesterday, 23:30:

Mystery "old computer, unknown spec" buy on eBay. […]
Show full quote

Mystery "old computer, unknown spec" buy on eBay.

I see a beige mATX tower case, CD-R and a floppy. Push button start rather than a switch.

Rear confirms at least (m)ATX era, a single VGA output graphics card and onboard sound. This could be anything but I'm expecting early 2000s.

But here's the part you guys might be able to help with, what are those dark rectangles on the I/O shield? EMI filters? Does this give us a hint as to the board?

Please excuse crappy low res pic.

I think those are stickers saying what the ports are or what should be plugged into them.

Aye that did seem to be the obvious answer, I think the low-res picture just makes them look black. Thank you.

Post an update when the pc arrives! I'm curious to see what's in it.

Dan386DX wrote on Yesterday, 23:30:

Mystery "old computer, unknown spec" buy on eBay. […]
Show full quote

Mystery "old computer, unknown spec" buy on eBay.

I see a beige mATX tower case, CD-R and a floppy. Push button start rather than a switch.

Rear confirms at least (m)ATX era, a single VGA output graphics card and onboard sound. This could be anything but I'm expecting early 2000s.

But here's the part you guys might be able to help with, what are those dark rectangles on the I/O shield? EMI filters? Does this give us a hint as to the board?

Please excuse crappy low res pic.

Hypothesis only..

If it had one dark rectangles then I'd guess it was an IrDA transmitter/receiver (or the plug to connect the transmitted/receiver window to). The attached image of a laptop IrDA port shows this is a good match on size. IrDA (1993) had its zenith around the time of Palm III (1998) and was made obsolete by Bluetooth (1999) but lingered at least as far as attached laptop (2006). But there's big problem with your rectangles being IrDA: Putting them on the back of a computer is impractical, and having two of them makes even less sense.

Taking a step back, IrDA is Infrared with a protocol - and the Infrared parts would have been very cheap after Bluetooth. So maybe these are OEM Infrared ports for intrusion detection? Little IR modules or security sensors - a sophisticated flavour of the old intrusion detection switch? IR would be more sensitive than copper. On the other hand, copper would be more convenient than IR. In either case, my hypothesis is a variant of desk locks but electrically connected for BIOS logging.

pete8475 wrote on Today, 00:03:

I think those are stickers saying what the ports are or what should be plugged into them.

yep. its the " 10101 " icons that typically denote serial port

Not sure if this qualifies here, but I acquired a new CD Player deck. It's a Denon DCD-485. My father used to own a DCD-480 in the 90s/00s and it was a fantastic sounding deck. This is a newer version of that with an updated delta sigma dac. I really like its sound.

The stop button was not working, but a simple microswitch swap got that fixed. It appears to have suffered water damage at some point, the connector on the front panel board has been desoldered and the flex cable is soldered directly onto the board, but it works so I did not tamper with it.

MattRocks wrote on Today, 01:44:

Hypothesis only.. […]
Show full quote

Dan386DX wrote on Yesterday, 23:30:

Mystery "old computer, unknown spec" buy on eBay. […]
Show full quote

Mystery "old computer, unknown spec" buy on eBay.

I see a beige mATX tower case, CD-R and a floppy. Push button start rather than a switch.

Rear confirms at least (m)ATX era, a single VGA output graphics card and onboard sound. This could be anything but I'm expecting early 2000s.

But here's the part you guys might be able to help with, what are those dark rectangles on the I/O shield? EMI filters? Does this give us a hint as to the board?

Please excuse crappy low res pic.

Hypothesis only..

If it had one dark rectangles then I'd guess it was an IrDA transmitter/receiver (or the plug to connect the transmitted/receiver window to). The attached image of a laptop IrDA port shows this is a good match on size. IrDA (1993) had its zenith around the time of Palm III (1998) and was made obsolete by Bluetooth (1999) but lingered at least as far as attached laptop (2006). But there's big problem with your rectangles being IrDA: Putting them on the back of a computer is impractical, and having two of them makes even less sense.

Taking a step back, IrDA is Infrared with a protocol - and the Infrared parts would have been very cheap after Bluetooth. So maybe these are OEM Infrared ports for intrusion detection? Little IR modules or security sensors - a sophisticated flavour of the old intrusion detection switch? IR would be more sensitive than copper. On the other hand, copper would be more convenient than IR. In either case, my hypothesis is a variant of desk locks but electrically connected for BIOS logging.

Hmm interesting thought - I've never seen those in the wild! Thanks for the detailed reply and explanation; I certainly hadn't considered that! I'll be sure to update you all.

MattRocks wrote on Today, 01:44:

Hypothesis only..

If it had one dark rectangles then I'd guess it was an IrDA transmitter/receiver (or the plug to connect the transmitted/receiver window to). The attached image of a laptop IrDA port shows this is a good match on size. IrDA (1993) had its zenith around the time of Palm III (1998) and was made obsolete by Bluetooth (1999) but lingered at least as far as attached laptop (2006). But there's big problem with your rectangles being IrDA: Putting them on the back of a computer is impractical, and having two of them makes even less sense.

Taking a step back, IrDA is Infrared with a protocol - and the Infrared parts would have been very cheap after Bluetooth. So maybe these are OEM Infrared ports for intrusion detection? Little IR modules or security sensors - a sophisticated flavour of the old intrusion detection switch? IR would be more sensitive than copper. On the other hand, copper would be more convenient than IR. In either case, my hypothesis is a variant of desk locks but electrically connected for BIOS logging.

Interesting hypothesis, for sure. I don't think there is any precedent for desktop PCs to have anything like that though. IRDA headers were found on desktop motherboards for a while but in my experience it is incredibly rare to find them actually hooked up to anything... I honestly don't think I have ever seen an IRDA receiver or device in a desktop for as long as I have been around computers (since the mid 90s).

Maybe they were more common in places that had a greater abundance of high-tech businesses where people would have needed to transfer data from their PDA to a PC, but even during my active retro-collecting period over the past 10 years I've never come across a desktop equipped with any IRDA receivers, or anything that would have connected internally to one of those headers.

luckybob wrote on Today, 05:23:

pete8475 wrote on Today, 00:03:

I think those are stickers saying what the ports are or what should be plugged into them.

yep. its the " 10101 " icons that typically denote serial port

I think that explains it. 🙂

Ozzuneoj wrote on Today, 08:49:

[...]

IRDA headers were found on desktop motherboards for a while but in my experience it is incredibly rare to find them actually hooked up to anything... I honestly don't think I have ever seen an IRDA receiver or device in a desktop for as long as I have been around computers (since the mid 90s).

Packard Bell used them for some multimedia crapware in the mid 1990s - the Fast Media Remote Control.

Today I got this guy for dirt cheap. New old stock, unopened box.

I know it says socket A but my intention is to put it on a socket 7. As far as I remember it should be compatible.

mtest001 wrote on Today, 12:31:

Today I got this guy for dirt cheap. New old stock, unopened box.

I know it says socket A but my intention is to put it on a socket 7. As far as I remember it should be compatible.

The attachment 20251128_131924.jpg is no longer available

It says AMD K6II and K6III so it should probably work

mtest001 wrote on Today, 12:31:

Today I got this guy for dirt cheap. New old stock, unopened box.

I know it says socket A but my intention is to put it on a socket 7. As far as I remember it should be compatible.

The attachment 20251128_131924.jpg is no longer available

Pic of the base?
Well, as our "Gladiator" pointed out, it is also for K6.
The retention mechanism should work fine as S7 cpus are flat. I probably wouldn't use it on a socket A at all (get a bigger one).

I have many of those s370 and they are good for s7 spus.

There you go...

Looks a bit overkill for my current P200 MMX (oc at 225). But I have a plans to replace it with a K6-2 and for it that will be more appropriate.

Ozzuneoj wrote on Today, 08:49:

Interesting hypothesis, for sure. I don't think there is any precedent for desktop PCs to have anything like that though. IRDA h […]
Show full quote

MattRocks wrote on Today, 01:44:

Hypothesis only..

If it had one dark rectangles then I'd guess it was an IrDA transmitter/receiver (or the plug to connect the transmitted/receiver window to). The attached image of a laptop IrDA port shows this is a good match on size. IrDA (1993) had its zenith around the time of Palm III (1998) and was made obsolete by Bluetooth (1999) but lingered at least as far as attached laptop (2006). But there's big problem with your rectangles being IrDA: Putting them on the back of a computer is impractical, and having two of them makes even less sense.

Taking a step back, IrDA is Infrared with a protocol - and the Infrared parts would have been very cheap after Bluetooth. So maybe these are OEM Infrared ports for intrusion detection? Little IR modules or security sensors - a sophisticated flavour of the old intrusion detection switch? IR would be more sensitive than copper. On the other hand, copper would be more convenient than IR. In either case, my hypothesis is a variant of desk locks but electrically connected for BIOS logging.

Interesting hypothesis, for sure. I don't think there is any precedent for desktop PCs to have anything like that though. IRDA headers were found on desktop motherboards for a while but in my experience it is incredibly rare to find them actually hooked up to anything... I honestly don't think I have ever seen an IRDA receiver or device in a desktop for as long as I have been around computers (since the mid 90s).

Maybe they were more common in places that had a greater abundance of high-tech businesses where people would have needed to transfer data from their PDA to a PC, but even during my active retro-collecting period over the past 10 years I've never come across a desktop equipped with any IRDA receivers, or anything that would have connected internally to one of those headers.

luckybob wrote on Today, 05:23:

pete8475 wrote on Today, 00:03:

I think those are stickers saying what the ports are or what should be plugged into them.

yep. its the " 10101 " icons that typically denote serial port

I think that explains it. 🙂

They were very useful for PDAs and could be faster than serial cable hookups for quick data transfer of moderate sized files from desktop to laptop. Though as stated they were pretty rare on desktops, even though the headers were there. I did make several attempts in late 90s to get a plugin for the header, and it was $70 or something for just a wire and two diodes, which felt like a ripoff even if you were desperate for it. They were also hard to find, so no competition in pricing. I never found any in computer fair junkboxes etc when era part supply was plentiful that golden 5 years 97-2002. I believe some of the component catalog people like RS, Farnell, Maplin etc had the PC piece in their catalogs during that time at $$$.

There didn't seem much consensus about placement. My Armada has one at the rear, as did my HP WinCE palmtop, so it was kinda awkward to use like that. Whereas some had side ports which could be more convenient. I guess designers thought they would mostly be used to sharing contacts over cafe tables or something.

As we got into 2000s it was probably actually cheaper to pick up a USB IR dongle than find the header hookup, though those were also hard to find. By that time also the homebrew HEC thing was getting going and the IR bits were getting vacuumed up by those hobbyists to try to use them for AV remote controls.

I think I recall managing to achieve a Windows ICS link over IR once, but it was annoyingly short range, couple of feet. Think that was Win98 on the Armada and a later WinCE 5 or 6 device.

It was "sorta useful" up until about 2005 or so before everything had interoperable bluetooth or everything had wifi. There was a lot of single protocol bluetooth around, could use it for headphones but not mic, could use it for data but not any audio, etc etc.

I guess it's possible that I might find it useful again in retro sense, if I get old PDAs and palmtops going. Often the utilities you need want to be on Win98. So I might put together a cable for a motherboard header then. It's probably do-able with arduino sensor modules and "dupoint" cables without soldering. Just plug the mess together.