@Jade Falcon
OH LORD that case is nice. One of the few that can house the bastard sized asus dual p-pro. (p65up5)

c0keb0ttle wrote:

Got my hands on one of these locally recently: […]
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Got my hands on one of these locally recently:

IMG_2124.JPG

IMG_2125.JPG

The Box is in pretty bad shape, and I don't think the disks are all there, but the card itself looks good.

Oh yeah. Turtle Beach directly competed with the Creative AWE32 and Gravis cards back in the day. They had excellent MIDI capabilities and were not cheap.

luckybob wrote:

@Jade Falcon
OH LORD that case is nice. One of the few that can house the bastard sized asus dual p-pro. (p65up5)

Thanks, I did look nice.

That is one kickass looking case. Congrats on the find!

Another Athlon xp system for pocket change, notable parts being an fx5600xt and sadly only a single stick of 1GB Patriot DDR400 RAM with good timings.

keropi wrote:

@ MMaximus
I owe you some EGA pics too, what do you want to see?

Anything really... it's always nice to see these old 9pin dinosaurs still working after all these years 😀

The untested $25 CT1600 arrived in extremely good shape, and tests perfectly. A low serial number too, if that matters. I was really impressed just how clean this card was. Even the pins barely show signs of wear.

SaxxonPike wrote:

The untested $25 CT1600 arrived in extremely good shape, and tests perfectly. A low serial number too, if that matters. I was really impressed just how clean this card was. Even the pins barely show signs of wear.

1.jpg

2.jpg

Looks like in image #2 has a missing piece, which doesn't look like it affects the functionality. Interestingly enough, looks like a CD-ROM IDE port is on there. The lowest price I came across for that card is $70 on eBay.

dexvx wrote:

I find it strange most Abit boards (Past the p3 generation) go for almost peanuts.

Let us be honest here. Late ABIT boards had a lot of flaws with somewhat questionable quality, compared to top tier boards from ASUS or DFI.

The Serpent Rider wrote:

dexvx wrote:

I find it strange most Abit boards (Past the p3 generation) go for almost peanuts.

Let us be honest here. Late ABIT boards had a lot of flaws with somewhat questionable quality, compared to top tier boards from ASUS or DFI.

Most Asus boards aren't *great* either. However, people like Asus because of their flagship boards. I think the poor caps issue seriously damaged Abit's reputation in the AXP/P4 years which they never recovered from. And when you're doing great with the switch to Asus/Gigabyte/MSI, why bother switching back?

IMO, DFI didn't get good until their LanParty series. I have several earlier DFI boards and they were quite bland.

dexvx wrote:

I think the poor caps issue seriously damaged Abit's reputation in the AXP/P4 years

Actually most of the AN7 boards I found every now and then have bad caps. My own board was plagued too.

The Serpent Rider wrote:

dexvx wrote:

I find it strange most Abit boards (Past the p3 generation) go for almost peanuts.

Let us be honest here. Late ABIT boards had a lot of flaws with somewhat questionable quality, compared to top tier boards from ASUS or DFI.

Right. Bad caps can be cheaply fixed. Dead northbridge, not so much. Asus boards were mediocre up until AM2 / late 775. Socket 478 and some socket A boards are extremely unreliable (and I have photos of the dead pile to prove it). Yes, the AN7 gets bad caps - but it will run regardless. As for asus socket A stuff, capacitors go bad (not as often as on abit socket a boards tough) and even worse - the mosfets are crap. They used the cheapest fets they could find, even on mid end boards like the A7N8-X and the P4P800.

dexvx wrote:

Most Asus boards aren't *great* either. However, people like Asus because of their flagship boards. I think the poor caps issue seriously damaged Abit's reputation in the AXP/P4 years which they never recovered from. And when you're doing great with the switch to Asus/Gigabyte/MSI, why bother switching back?

IMO, DFI didn't get good until their LanParty series. I have several earlier DFI boards and they were quite bland.

^This.

kanecvr wrote:

Right. Bad caps can be cheaply fixed. Dead northbridge, not so much. Asus boards were mediocre up until AM2 / late 775. Socket 4 […]
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The Serpent Rider wrote:

dexvx wrote:

I find it strange most Abit boards (Past the p3 generation) go for almost peanuts.

Let us be honest here. Late ABIT boards had a lot of flaws with somewhat questionable quality, compared to top tier boards from ASUS or DFI.

Right. Bad caps can be cheaply fixed. Dead northbridge, not so much. Asus boards were mediocre up until AM2 / late 775. Socket 478 and some socket A boards are extremely unreliable (and I have photos of the dead pile to prove it). Yes, the AN7 gets bad caps - but it will run regardless. As for asus socket A stuff, capacitors go bad (not as often as on abit socket a boards tough) and even worse - the mosfets are crap. They used the cheapest fets they could find, even on mid end boards like the A7N8-X and the P4P800.

dexvx wrote:

Most Asus boards aren't *great* either. However, people like Asus because of their flagship boards. I think the poor caps issue seriously damaged Abit's reputation in the AXP/P4 years which they never recovered from. And when you're doing great with the switch to Asus/Gigabyte/MSI, why bother switching back?

IMO, DFI didn't get good until their LanParty series. I have several earlier DFI boards and they were quite bland.

^This.

I had 3 ASUS motherboards from a Socket A to an AM2+ in the past:
A7N8X Socket 462(A) - bad Ethernet adapter (no MAC address and wasn't usable in Windows, but Linux worked without issues)
K8N-E Socket 754 - died mysteriously possible bad caps
Some sort of AM2+ board - bad USB 2.0 headers

I have an ASUS X54C laptop that powers on, then off, on, off, on, off, and full on (possible motherboard issue, bad caps, or power inverter issue), and its external battery drains itself.

The oldest computer I have in my house still has the original motherboard (Packard Bell Pack-Mate 28 Plus), which not only is it indestructible, but it also has an option to hook up an external battery, as well as a PC Speaker. My K6-2 300 system has an Abit AB-TX5 motherboard that still has the original caps, my Dimension 4550 has 4 bloated caps, but still operates.

kanecvr wrote:

Right. Bad caps can be cheaply fixed. Dead northbridge, not so much. Asus boards were mediocre up until AM2 / late 775. Socket 478 and some socket A boards are extremely unreliable (and I have photos of the dead pile to prove it). Yes, the AN7 gets bad caps - but it will run regardless. As for asus socket A stuff, capacitors go bad (not as often as on abit socket a boards tough) and even worse - the mosfets are crap. They used the cheapest fets they could find, even on mid end boards like the A7N8-X and the P4P800.

altough back then the price difference of "good" vs "poor" mobo was between €25-50 (during the socket A time). hell i had a good mobo for around 100-150, my last mobo was atleast double that 😢

Richo wrote:

kanecvr wrote:

Right. Bad caps can be cheaply fixed. Dead northbridge, not so much. Asus boards were mediocre up until AM2 / late 775. Socket 478 and some socket A boards are extremely unreliable (and I have photos of the dead pile to prove it). Yes, the AN7 gets bad caps - but it will run regardless. As for asus socket A stuff, capacitors go bad (not as often as on abit socket a boards tough) and even worse - the mosfets are crap. They used the cheapest fets they could find, even on mid end boards like the A7N8-X and the P4P800.

altough back then the price difference of "good" vs "poor" mobo was between €25-50 (during the socket A time). hell i had a good mobo for around 100-150, my last mobo was atleast double that 😢

Damn, dude. My old 486 that I had from 1994 to 2012 had a PCChips M912 v1.7 (real L2 cache) motherboard that suffered a bad battery holder and the BIOS chip gave out. Up to my surprise, the Packard Bell I have has the original motherboard in it, same with the PSU, and other stuff, minus the RAM, CD drive, sound cards (never had a sound card, except the IBM PC Speaker), and upgrades, such as the HDD from the 428.1MB HDD (original owner upgraded the HDD), the floppy drive (from the 1.44MB FDD to a dual FDD (1.2MB and 1.44MB)), processor (from SX2-50 to a DX2-66), Ethernet (installed by the original owner), and memory (was 4MB onboard at first, but an additional 4MB was installed by the original owner, now has 32MB (2x16MB) SIMM-72 memory [36MB altogether]).

I swore by MSI through the A/AM2 era and was never let down. Occasional Biostar was also used and still work. Today I use an Asus AM3+ board..

I even have an Abit AN7 thats still functional.

Maybe Im just that lucky.

Bought a mystery motherboard.

Does anybody here have any idea what it is?

I know it has a VIA chipset because it has 750MB of RAM and Intel top out at 512MB. Not sure if it's SDRAM or DDR or if it supports Tualatins or not (I hope it does). No clue what that brown slot above the AGP connector is either.

TheAbandonwareGuy wrote:

<snip> […]
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<snip>

Bought a mystery motherboard.

Does anybody here have any idea what it is?

I know it has a VIA chipset because it has 750MB of RAM and Intel top out at 512MB. Not sure if it's SDRAM or DDR or if it supports Tualatins or not (I hope it does). No clue what that brown slot above the AGP connector is either.

That brown slot above AGP is an AMR / Audio-Modem-Riser slot: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Audio/modem_riser

They were common on almost all motherboards of this era.

And no idea on the specs or what it does (or does not support) unless you either give us a model # or give us a better photo where we can discern the model # ourselves.

Found a boxed like new X1650PRO DDR2 for around $5, considering getting it. I already have a 9800PRO for my eventual Socket A build but something that's less period correct but faster and cooler isn't a bad idea in my books..

Also found a Radeon VE for $3 but can't be sure if it's the one to get? I think it's the cut down version right - the one to get is the Radeon SDR/7200?

Yes the Radeon VE is cut down version of the original Radeon. VE was later renamed to Radeon 7000. So no HW T&L and 64bit memory bus.