cj_reha wrote:

gdjacobs wrote:

cj_reha wrote:

Coincidentally been organizing my room too. 😁

What's that turntable in a mil spec case? 😳

Oh, that's a turntable my dad gave to me. I can't find too much info on it, but it's stamped US ARMY and supposedly the model is "MX-39/TIQ-2"

It comes with some 33 rpm records that are huge, even larger than regular LP albums. It works fine, but I don't use it much because I'm not sure if I could get a replacement needle.

Nice! Found a little more info for you. The AN/TIQ-2 is an Army public address system.
http://www.bunkerofdoom.com/mil/AN_TIQ2/AM-20_TIQ-2.PDF
https://books.google.ca/books?id=HOQXAAAAYAAJ … 0stylus&f=false

The two standard stylii are the A-1M and A-3M by Astatic. Four of each would have been standard issue (stored, I believe, in the tonearm).

Next one from the pile of scrap mainboards, and that one is a true gem. A Biostar MB-1216H with a 286 @ 16 MHz and hardware EMS support. The battery was already removed long before it could leak; someone apparently took some care of the board in the past.

luckybob wrote:

@artex
Spends hundreds on computers parts. Uses $5 folding chair.

HAHA! I deserve that... 😀 I do have a 'for real' office chair I use in my office and main PC setup. It's off to the side for the picture though...

Watching old school cyan/magenta 3D movies with my children. That kind of 3D movie, wich uses old 1970's or something 3D technology. We used the 3D glasses, that came with Duke Nukem Forever. And as I have the PC and the Ps3 editions, I have 2 pair.

brostenen wrote:

Watching old school cyan/magenta 3D movies with my children. That kind of 3D movie, wich uses old 1970's or something 3D technology. We used the 3D glasses, that came with Duke Nukem Forever. And as I have the PC and the Ps3 editions, I have 2 pair.

Whoa - that's definitely random (and retro!) - very cool!

brostenen wrote:

Watching old school cyan/magenta 3D movies with my children.

Whoa! How old are they, and what do they think of that technology?

Gutted out the HP Pavilion 7955 from the case due to issues, and planning on upgrading my Socket 370 system to the Pentium 4 board from the Pavilion or keep the Socket 370 as-is.

I also took the liberty of installing 512MB more RAM in the PowerMac G3 (going to do another test tomorrow after work to see what would happen).

I recapped another Socket A motherboard last night. An ECS K7S5A. It really satisfies me to take a dead board, slap some new Nichicons into it, and watch it live again. Hopefully it sells on ebay for someone looking to make a XP gamer.

https://imgur.com/gallery/W68EO

Nichicons sure do look pretty. That is THREE motherboards I've saved from the scrap heap this week!

luckybob wrote:

I recapped another Socket A motherboard last night. An ECS K7S5A. It really satisfies me to take a dead board, slap some new Nichicons into it, and watch it live again. Hopefully it sells on ebay for someone looking to make a XP gamer.

https://imgur.com/gallery/W68EO

Nichicons sure do look pretty. That is THREE motherboards I've saved from the scrap heap this week!

Nice job! I have a K7S5A too, it seems to have many lives as it has survived an awful lot. I've had it since 2002 or so. I recapped it like 7-8 years ago but didn't do a particularly thorough job so I plan to recap it again some day. There's an unofficial BIOS available that allows it to run Barton core CPUs (with 266 FSB). After I recapped it I ran a Barton 2400+ in it with a Ti 4200 and it was nice. 😀

Tried installing the replacement sound card I got in my 486 box...but I think I deaded the system in the process. It won't POST at all, no matter how I rearrange, reseat or remove cards and RAM. I imagine either a solder joint broke somewhere because it happened after trying to reseat the very-hard-to-insert VLB video card (which has always given me fits since day one), or the power supply has failed. Well, at least I didn't smell or see any magic smoke, so maybe there's some hope. I suppose this at least gives me something to work on during the agonizingly cold winter now. 😵

Tried (and failed) to find the schematics for my old motherboard (Gigabyte GA-5AA Rev 1.1) which recently decided to semi-die on me. It's just not recognising any keyboards at all even during POST so frantically pressing DEL (or anything else for the matter) does nowt. Noted that the clock pin voltage to way off reading a meagre 0.77 when it should be around 5. But, without the schematics its going to be a bugger to figure out. Ah well, back to the google treadmill I guess to see if I can hunt it down.

Really annoying as I can find boards that came before and after it but for this one, nope. Business as usual for me I usually struggle to find things where others just trip over what they need.

luckybob wrote:

I recapped another Socket A motherboard last night. An ECS K7S5A. It really satisfies me to take a dead board, slap some new Nichicons into it, and watch it live again. Hopefully it sells on ebay for someone looking to make a XP gamer.

https://imgur.com/gallery/W68EO

Nichicons sure do look pretty. That is THREE motherboards I've saved from the scrap heap this week!

For the three motherboards I have recapped so far, I used German electrolytic capacitors (condensators as we call them). The German counterparts have not let me down yet. Nichicon craze be damned! 😀

gca wrote:

Noted that the clock pin voltage to way off reading a meagre 0.77 when it should be around 5.

Clock is a 5V-driven signal, not a steady 5V power source. Measuring <1V is perfectly fine in this case (it alternates between ~5V and ~0V very fast). Doesn't tell much, however, as signals can only be checked using a scope.

derSammler wrote:

gca wrote:

Noted that the clock pin voltage to way off reading a meagre 0.77 when it should be around 5.

Clock is a 5V-driven signal, not a steady 5V power source. Measuring <1V is perfectly fine in this case (it alternates between ~5V and ~0V very fast). Doesn't tell much, however, as signals can only be checked using a scope.

Ah, I see. Well that's problematic as I don't have a scope. Any suggestions as to anything else I could look at to determine why no keyboards are being seen by the system (they have been tested on other machines and work just fine btw). I'm kinda new at this sort of thing.

I would start with:
- check keylock pins for (unwanted) short
- resolder keyboard connector (may have bad solder joints)
- replace 8042 keyboard bios chip

Also, there's normally a fuse/diode that protects from overvoltage. If someone did something bad in the past, it may be blown.

//edit:
Seems like the Gigabyte GA-5AA has no separate 8042 keyboard bios chip, so ignore that one.

I replaced the apparently noname (Stone brand) bulging 330uF 25V capacitors (5 in total) on a GA-BX2000 board with the most conveniently available noname (Rec brand) 330uF 25V capacitors.

Only once the deed was done did I realize I replaced 105C rated caps with 85C rated ones.

Tell me Vogons will this board explode in my face if I use it?

Swapped the Mitsumi 48x CD-ROM drive with a Delta 52x CD-ROM drive in my Packard Bell Pack-Mate 28 Plus, and now, practically everything matches the color of the case. The reasons why I replaced the CD drive were because the Mitsumi drive is:

1) Not serviceable by anyone, except for the manufacturer (costly)
2) The CD Drive wouldn't eject or close by either pushing the eject button or the tray
3) Noisy AF

I'll post a picture on here later on, and I'm going to install the drivers from the diskette that it came with.

Specs of the CD-ROM Drive:

Max speed: 52x (can also be slowed down by using CD Be Quiet (cdbq) with the following command: cdbq /ide:2 /mode:1 /rate:600 for 4x speed).
Analog and Digital Audio output to the sound card
Headphone jack with the volume wheel for playing CDs without software running and playback controls as well
Supports CD-RW format, UDMA-33, Muti-read, Vertical Mount, Digital Audio Extraction
Supports 656MB or 748MB discs (Mode 1 and Mode 2), as well as 80mm and 120mm discs

appiah4 wrote:

I replaced the apparently noname (Stone brand) bulging 330uF 25V capacitors (5 in total) on a GA-BX2000 board with the most conveniently available noname (Rec brand) 330uF 25V capacitors.

Only once the deed was done did I realize I replaced 105C rated caps with 85C rated ones.

Tell me Vogons will this board explode in my face if I use it?

Nah, most probably they'll just die way faster than they should have.

konc wrote:

appiah4 wrote:

I replaced the apparently noname (Stone brand) bulging 330uF 25V capacitors (5 in total) on a GA-BX2000 board with the most conveniently available noname (Rec brand) 330uF 25V capacitors.

Only once the deed was done did I realize I replaced 105C rated caps with 85C rated ones.

Tell me Vogons will this board explode in my face if I use it?

Nah, most probably they'll just die way faster than they should have.

Ok I'll use it as such for now then replace the whole 330uF cap lot with quality caps when I get hold of them then 😀

it will be fine. Its not like the board is going into production or anything.