Clean and Referb of two Sidewinder 3D Pro joysticks, one is a little finicky n has had some repair work it seems on the PCB (there's a crack but not going through much of anything) both seem to have some factory touch ups so maybe something wasn't quite right at the factory.

Next was fitting a Gotek Floppy emulator to my AMIGA 500, which has already had a Fat Agnus upgrade, however the original floppy drive is K/O (I did service it but it won't load the disks I have, limited selection, found a tiny ballbaring stuck to the magnetic spindle which was clipping on a transistor with every rotation, may account for the drive's death).

Gotek Floppy install was a success which is nice and the AMIGA 500 is not all worky worky and loading games for the first time in many years.

Tried using Audigy 2 drivers on a SBLive 5.1 as that was suggested on several forums. Turns out it works, and the results are quite interesting.

This might just be the ultimate SBLive driver setup from a retro gaming perspective. It gives you VxD drivers with EAX as well as improved SB16 emulation that can load soundfonts in DOS games running under Win98.

I managed to get Halo barely running on my G4 after installing an airport extreme, so now I can make dumb jokes about this being how it was meant to be played.

Finally got around to testing the motherboards I recapped (about time!)

The good: I tested the GA-K8VT800PRO with AMD Mobile Athlon 64 3400+ and it POSTed just fine 😀 Why a mobile CPU, you ask? Well, because I didn't have any normal s754 CPUs around, but I DID have an Acer Aspire 1520 where the GeForce FX Go 5700 GPU had gone bye-bye. Who could have thought that these things actually need cooling and not some piss-poor excuse that makes southbridge heatsinks look huge?!

The bad: The Abit KD7 board seems to turn off as soon as it powers, and two LEDs on the bottom right briefly flicker before it powers off, probably indicating something draws too much current. MOSFETs, maybe? Also, that was the only board I've seen with bulging Rubycon caps. Weird.

The ugly: Asus A7NBX-E. This board stays on, but it doesn't POST. It doesn't have a 4-pin header, so being more 5v-dependent, it's probably picky about the PSU. I kinda forgot about it, and left it running. I later noticed some of the brand-new caps I installed had started bulging, which is obviously not good. They are soldered correctly (I'm not making the same mistake twice!) Should I steer clear of RD caps? I hadn't had any issues with them previously, but now I'm getting kinda paranoid... Did I buy my way back into the Capacitor Plague!?

The boring: I also changed two caps on a Foxconn G31MX, right next to the lever on the PCI-E x16 slot, because they were leaking. Haven't tested it though, maybe tomorrow.

synrgy87 wrote on 2020-05-28, 21:54:

already had a Fat Agnus upgrade

I saw that there are an Fat Angus recreation in the works. It is FPGA based and will be an 2mb Chipram compatible chip. As of now, it is only the firmware that needs to be written.

I think it is the creator of TerribleFire accelerators, that are develloping it.

Else on the Gotek mod you made. I am thinking about getting a couple of those for my Amiga's. Especially the near stock Rev5 machine that I have fixed up.

I ran into some games I want to play on my DOS machine that are not compatible with EMS, and revising my autoexec.bat/config.sys menu would be a pain and I don't want to make boot disks if I can avoid it, so I just downloaded the philscomputerlab DOS starter pack and modified his files. 😀 Works great, thanks Phil!

I also got a small metal stand for my monitor so I could move my MT-32 to the top of the desk where it belongs!

Sadly there isn't enough clearance to also fit the SC-55mkii, so it's down with the speakers now.

Playing through half life 1 for the first time. It's quite enjoyable. Also checked out THPS2, where have these gems in plain sight been?

Half life 1 is a great game I've played it through so many times.

TechieDude wrote on 2020-05-29, 01:20:

Finally got around to testing the motherboards I recapped (about time!)

The bad: The Abit KD7 board seems to turn off as soon as it powers, and two LEDs on the bottom right briefly flicker before it powers off, probably indicating something draws too much current. MOSFETs, maybe? Also, that was the only board I've seen with bulging Rubycon caps. Weird.

The ugly: Asus A7NBX-E. This board stays on, but it doesn't POST. It doesn't have a 4-pin header, so being more 5v-dependent, it's probably picky about the PSU. I kinda forgot about it, and left it running. I later noticed some of the brand-new caps I installed had started bulging, which is obviously not good. They are soldered correctly (I'm not making the same mistake twice!) Should I steer clear of RD caps? I hadn't had any issues with them previously, but now I'm getting kinda paranoid... Did I buy my way back into the Capacitor Plague!?

Sounds like overvoltage from a defective power supply got the better of those. What series were they?

RD caps? Have a picture/specs?

TechieDude wrote on 2020-05-29, 01:20:

The ugly: Asus A7NBX-E. This board stays on, but it doesn't POST. It doesn't have a 4-pin header, so being more 5v-dependent, it's probably picky about the PSU. I kinda forgot about it, and left it running. I later noticed some of the brand-new caps I installed had started bulging, which is obviously not good. They are soldered correctly (I'm not making the same mistake twice!) Should I steer clear of RD caps? I hadn't had any issues with them previously, but now I'm getting kinda paranoid... Did I buy my way back into the Capacitor Plague!?

By "RD" you mean the RD series manufactured by Samwha? If so, keep in mind those are general purpose caps and those are not suited for a board like that ASUS which needs low ESR, in particular the larger ones near the CPU. So even if those worked for a time you would start having problems very soon.

Also, given that they bulged shortly after you installed them... are you sure you didn't reverse the polarity? ASUS motherboards are known for having different markings for the positive and negative leads which is very confusing.

evasive wrote on 2020-05-29, 18:44:

Sounds like overvoltage from a defective power supply got the better of those. What series were they?

Don't remember, but I think they were MBZ.

RD caps? Have a picture/specs?

The are the infamous Samwha ones, which in hindsight, I should've known better than to use. See below.

TheMobRules wrote on 2020-05-29, 19:00:

By "RD" you mean the RD series manufactured by Samwha? If so, keep in mind those are general purpose caps and those are not suited for a board like that ASUS which needs low ESR, in particular the larger ones near the CPU. So even if those worked for a time you would start having problems very soon.

Also, given that they bulged shortly after you installed them... are you sure you didn't reverse the polarity? ASUS motherboards are known for having different markings for the positive and negative leads which is very confusing.

Yep, they're Samwha. Crap. Also, I have no idea where the hell I can get high ripple, low ESR caps in Greece, if someone could help me at that, I would really appreciate it. Every electronics store I've been to has either those Samwha RDs or other cheap caps at whatever capacitance I ask, or a ziplock bag filled with random caps that may or may not include something close to what I need. It's disgusting.
Also, I put the negative lead into the white side, like almost any board dictates. Isn't that the supposed polarity?

Also, I put the negative lead into the white side, like almost any board dictates. Isn't that the supposed polarity?

I suggest you follow some of the traces all the way back to the power connector. There's no '+' sign at all in there?

evasive wrote on 2020-05-29, 20:03:

I suggest you follow some of the traces all the way back to the power connector. There's no '+' sign at all in there?

None at all. However, I just noticed that EVERY OTHER cap is the opposite. So there we have it: I put them in reverse, and I had no idea whatsoever that ASUS had it this way. Sigh. Live and learn.

oh f*ck.

at least you know 2 things now:
1) always take pictures before removing stuff
2) you'll have to order your caps online

evasive wrote on 2020-05-29, 20:15:

oh f*ck. […]
Show full quote

oh f*ck.

at least you know 2 things now:
1) always take pictures before removing stuff
2) you'll have to order your caps online

Indeed. If it's any good, only 2 started bulging. The rest seem fine, and I've already removed them all to check them

Used a GoTek FDE to install MS-DOS 6.22, W3.1, and Soundblaster 16 drivers. Disabled CPU Cache in Bios to make bomb32.exe (Tank Wars) run at a reasonable speed.

Considering getting an old server computer with Windows 2k Server for running an old computer network. Any tips on what hardware to go with?

Listening to the Descent soundtrack with Windows 3.1 Media Player and Turtle Beach Multisound Classic.

I've been trying to install VLC on my 1st gen iPad, which is basically a paperweight since Vogons was updated and doesn't look right on it anymore (Vogons was the last of my sites that still worked 😋)

I want VLC on there so that I can watch MKV versions of Miami Vice season 1 on there, but getting apps onto iOS 5.1.1 is no easy thing I've discovered - I wasn't up for jailbreaking. Anyway if this all sounds like a waste of time then yes, I was bored.

I'm now converting the MKV to MP4 to see if that works, my Ryzen is ripping through the conversion at 100% so we'll see!

I dunno if it fits modern or retro, but I am testing latest build of DOSBOX-X to install Windows 98SE and run some 3DFX games. So far the install and updates are going... games next day.

Unfortunately I have to work this weekend switching from the multi-migrated W2K -> W2K3 -> W2K8R2 domain to a new, pristine W2K19 domain😏. (I know I’m a little late)

Fortunately this gives me plenty of time tinkering with retro stuff instead of watching endless progress bars😀.

As mentioned before I had some problems with my Voodoo5 5500. One of the original fans is just too loud/noisy. I tried using silicone grease and sewing machine oil to no avail.
During the disassembly of the fans I noticed the noisy fan had a missing sealing rubber. As the original stickers were untouched I have to assume it was missing from the beginning.

Now, if I have to replace the fans I might as well do it properly.

I removed the original fans, the factory coolers, put on some Arctic Silver and fit some one inch copper coolers on top of the BGAs. The new fans have a voltage range of 7.5-13.8 VDC so I’ll solder in 47Ω resistors to have them run as slowly as possible while keeping them in spec.

Finally some aligned coolers on a Voodoo5 5500...