I fitted the first replacement chipset cooler for my two A7N8X's - I want to go active, as they have to endure some torture.

The old chipset cooler was using the pink "goo" type thermal compound. Easily to be removed with some eletronics contact cleaner like T6-Oszillin.

Those cooler exist since forever, so I was not surprised they fit and work well

Just wanted to get a PCI Promise SATA controller for Win98 use, only to go down the obscurities rabbit hole once more.

My first attempt got me this Chinese knock-off using a chip intended for motherboard integrated controllers. Thankfully it was new in the box and came with a drivers CD, because Promise drivers don't work with it. It works and performs as expected, but there's no connector for the HDD activity led.

I thought OK, these are relatively cheap, let's get another one to have the original thing and a working HDD led, only to end up with a Dell OEM card this time... Of course, Promise drivers don't work with it either. At least that one is flash-able to the Promise BIOS with the right utility that was kindly attached to the thread, some later version that doesn't exist on Promise's site, or I would never have managed to do so.

I think I'll stop trying with these cards.

konc wrote on 2026-07-18, 20:12:

Just wanted to get a PCI Promise SATA controller for Win98 use, only to go down the obscurities rabbit hole once more. […]
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Just wanted to get a PCI Promise SATA controller for Win98 use, only to go down the obscurities rabbit hole once more.

My first attempt got me this Chinese knock-off using a chip intended for motherboard integrated controllers. Thankfully it was new in the box and came with a drivers CD, because Promise drivers don't work with it. It works and performs as expected, but there's no connector for the HDD activity led.

I thought OK, these are relatively cheap, let's get another one to have the original thing and a working HDD led, only to end up with a Dell OEM card this time... Of course, Promise drivers don't work with it either. At least that one is flash-able to the Promise BIOS with the right utility that was kindly attached to the thread, some later version that doesn't exist on Promise's site, or I would never have managed to do so.

I think I'll stop trying with these cards.

u$s 60 to 175 a FastTrak S150?? jeez...

Living wrote on 2026-07-19, 00:26:

u$s 60 to 175 a FastTrak S150?? jeez...

Where do these prices come from, ebay? If so, they're a joke and I refuse to believe anyone pays them. I know I haven't bought anything from this fantasy marketplace in years.
I paid 8€ for the used one and 15€ to an actual business for the new in box.

Cleaned and serviced an IDE CD Drive and an IDE DVD Drive I got at a new-ish thrift in my hometown earlier this month. Installed the CD drive, a Creative CD5233E into my 486 and immediately ran into issues. Suddenly my dos cd drivers couldn't see the drive. After a lot of struggling and trying different things I figured it out. Way to much effort just to get a beige drive in my beige computer instead of a black cd drive.

For the record, whoever you are in the future running into this same issue, there is an unlabeled/undocumented 4 pin jumper block to the right (if viewed from behind) of the Molex/4 pin power connector. You need to move the jumper to the position farther from the power connector/to the right position if you are having trouble getting the drive to show up in dos. I was able to get the drive to load up properly with that jumper in the right position and my master/slave/CS jumper in the middle position.

CD Be Quiet! Doesn’t' seem to work on my particular drive but it has firmware 1.0 instead of the 2.02 or whatever the CDBQ drive list has, so that might be the issue, either way it throws an IDE error when I attempt to slow the drive down. Just living with the whine until I can get a SCSI cd drive to hook up to my Pro Audio Spectrum 16 and free up the IDE channel for something else (probably a secondary storage drive) so it's not the worst.

I finally got Snow Leopard installed on my Mac Pro 5,1. Now to get software for it.

I was finally able to flash my Supermicro P6SBA Rev 2.0 motherboard from bios 1.5b to 3.1 (the latest to get my Coppermine Pentium III to work properly), out of all the vintage boards that i flashed so far, this one was annoying, non of the AMI flash utilities worked (i tried 3 of them), even well-known uniflash 1.4 didn't recognize the board, at first i thought i needed to find a jumper on board to disable bios write-protection or in the bios menu, nope neither on board or in the bios menu have that option. i almost gave up and maybe taking out the bios chip and re-flashing with USB programmer. I later found out in the manual they briefly mention in the bios section about flashing the bios to use SM2FLASH.COM a flash utility by supermicro themselves, after searching a bit i finally found the flash utility on their website in the archive section alongside the bios rom file, then it finally worked, flashed it without any issues and got it to bios 3.1 it took me much longer than expected.

Here the link to their website for people who also looking the SM2FLASH.COM flash utility https://www.supermicro.com/en/support/bios/archive

dr_st wrote on 2026-07-12, 16:08:

Tried to revive an old Canon Powershot A710 IS and an Office Depot OD-82MS calculator, for the fun of it. Not very successfully.

Upon first inspection it was just a matter of changing batteries. The camera had a dead CMOS battery (CR1220). Replaced that and now it at least remembers time. However, the secondary problem of complaining that the 2xAA batteries need to be replaced, when the batteries still have plenty of charge did not seem to go away.

This was a well-known problem with the Canon A series: the solution is to lift the worn metal contacts so that they make reliable contact with the batteries.
https://lakeuk.blogspot.com/2010/04/camara-fix.html

dr_st wrote on 2026-07-12, 16:08:

... the secondary problem of complaining that the 2xAA batteries need to be replaced, when the batteries still have plenty of charge ...

Are they by chance "rechargeable" batteries?

A big problem I've had over the years with cameras that ran on 2xAA cells ...

The manufacturers don't want to camera batteries to go dead .. die with the lens sticking out etc.
(and think about how customers would complain when their camera they've no put new batteries in for weeks suddenly won't take a needed picture)

So... they add circuitry to monitor battery voltage and complain/shutdown when it gets too low.

I can envision the meeting where this was designed:
- Whats a good voltage to declare battery low
- Well, AAs are 1.5v x 2 batteries = 3v, why not make the "dead" level 2.5v

This works well with dry cells, ... but ...

Rechargeable (NICAD or NMIH) cells have different characteristics - right after changing they tend to "ride high" for a bit, which lets them work for a little while (great when testing if 2.5v is a good value)

But these cells has a nominal "full charged" voltage of 1.2v NOT 1.5v : 1.2v x 2 = 2.4v

Anyone see the problem with a "dead" level of 2.5v yet?

Any time I tried to use rechargeable in my Canon (or a couple other cameras I had over the years which ran on 2xAA cells). it would work for maybe 15mins when the batteries came right off the charger.
but if I left if for much longer powered OFF with the "fully changed" cells in it, it would always think the batteries were dead and refuse to start, saying "low battery"

Try actual DRY cells.

Modded my gamecube with picoloader so I can play some Final Fantasy VII 😝

DaveDDS wrote on 2026-07-23, 10:25:

Are they by chance "rechargeable" batteries?

Oh, no. I've figured out already back then that these are no good for the camera, for the reasons you've explained.

Ydee wrote on 2026-07-23, 09:53:

This was a well-known problem with the Canon A series: the solution is to lift the worn metal contacts so that they make reliable contact with the batteries.
https://lakeuk.blogspot.com/2010/04/camara-fix.html

Thank you for this tip, I will certainly give it a shot.

dr_st wrote on 2026-07-12, 16:08:

The calculator is a "Office Depot" rebranded Casio FX-82MS, and uses a pair of LR44 instead of a single AA/AAA. No problem - found new ones. The calculator turns on as soon as they are installed, and works fine, except when you turn it off - it can no longer be turned on. Seems like the "on" button is dead. Worse - even removing the rear cover - the PCB seems glued/welded to the plastic case in a way that I cannot seem to dislodge it without breaking, so I have no access to the button membrane or the top side of the PCB where the button contacts are.

FWIW - I've had to fix a few different calculators with these problems - sometimes with a fine/sharp knife you can break the glue.

It's uncommon for them to be glued tightly (sometimes not even at all) is usually this all is held in place the the lower part of the case.

BTW A pencil eraser works well for cleaning the contact parts of the board.

And a few ... I've had to add pressure to the LCD conenction strip whic has become partially unbonded.

Did maintenance on an old Logitech MX310 mouse on my dad's PC. The scroll wheel developed issues getting stuck. In addition to being filled with gunk as always happens, the rubber cover of the wheel started disintegrating. This mouse is probably close to 20 years old, although I have 4 more like it which have not developed this problem.

Anyhow, taking it apart is not so hard - just two screws. The mechanism is quite similar to the MX518 as shown here. It is important not to lose the two springs attached to the scrollwheel and to put them back exactly the way they were.

Used a combination of a tiny screwdriver, compressed air and wet wipes to clean the gunk, and all seems good, HOWEVER: The rubber coating of the wheel was beyond salvation, both around the wheel and inside it. I had to remove all of it. Now the wheel works, but (a) only scrolls smoothly, (b) sits deeper in the case and (c) has a much bigger gap around it, so now dust and gunk will get inside more easily. Really only the last part is the problem, so I switched the mouse off with another working one, and moved this one to one of my retro PC systems, where it will be used very rarely, so hopefully will not get so much finger grease and dirt.

Dismantled a Brother WP-4210 I have to service the floppy drive, turns out it's belt was completely dead so I'm waiting on a replacement. At least this thing was easier to get apart compared to an SCM PWP-60, and it uses normal disks instead of the weird 2.8cm things.

Also wrote and tested the Hyundai Super 16TE DOS 3.3 Boot disk image that user Konc here provided me, which resulted in a properly set clock without resorting to things like GLadTICK to set it. Also archived that image so it's out in the wild now.

Took a Targa V1995 C3 out of storage and after having not used any CRTs for Many months(only OSSC) I can say wow - the picture's really nice!
Luckily the tube is still strong so that I can do text work at 0% brightness. I did not run the monitor for long as some caps need to be changed.

Still desperately trying to revive Abit AN7:

And I wanted to know what I have from DDR before I start setting up the Socket A build:

Infineon CE5, BE5, Winbond BH5, BH5 UTT, Samsung TCCD... All in all, I am quite happy with my collection.

RetroLizard wrote on 2026-07-20, 23:45:

I finally got Snow Leopard installed on my Mac Pro 5,1. Now to get software for it.

I assume you have PowerFox? https://powerfox.jazzzny.me

Today I purchased the CDs for a video game with "ATi Get In The Game" promotional branding, just to complete a Radeon 9600 boxed set. I very much doubt the software can be activated now but it bugged me that the original artwork advertised a bundle that was not actually in my tattered remnants of a box.

I also did a lot of research into a "PM" branded Radeon, possibly addressing the riddle that I had when I joined Vogons but no testing yet due to my best efforts to protect hardware from an ongoing heatwave. None of my towers have been turned on for very many weeks.

VanillaFairy wrote on 2026-07-10, 19:28:

... how on earth do I always end up with GPU bottlenecks even when I buy an over-spec'd GPU ...

I'd suspect driver version because later releases can degrade performance of GPUs that are no longer supported. Have you tried drivers that date from when the card was being actively promoted?

Well, I tore down my Win98SE build. Decided to get rid of it and just stick to my DOS rig. I really don't need 6 systems running on my desk. 😜

Been downsizing and getting rid of stuff since we moved. Most of it going to locals on FB for pennies on the dollar or free to get rid of it. Only keeping parts that work with my DOS system. The Win98SE MB and CPU are still sitting here, and I think one spare MB I had for it. Keeping the IDE-SD and SSD adpaters though.

Ever feel like you have too many hobbies? 🤣

Finished a Pentium III SMP build and took some photos.