Currently in the middle of upgrading the Socket 7 system to a Super Socket 7. Currently hit a few snags:

1) the new Startech 230W AT PSU has the wires soldered to the push-toggle switch, which the PSU will be installed in my Packard Bell Pack-Mate 28 Plus in place of the old 195W AT PSU
2) cards, case cover, and HDD/FDD mounting bracket cannot be installed as the screws keep spinning and won't stop (need new sets of screws that are about 1/4"-1/2" long and thicker thread size than the original screws.

Attempted to rethread the case, but that didn't work out too well. Also got some rust off of the bottom of the case and I'll be getting some Krud Kutter, take everything out again, and soak the bottom of the case into a container or bucket and dispose of the chemical properly.

Took apart my Compaq iPAQ PCMCIA sleeve which contains a battery for extended runtime. This battery and the battery inside the iPAQ itself are the same model, so I wanted to determine a suitable replacement. I took some measurements and found some unregulated solder tabbed LIPO batteries for $8ea that will fit. After the battery mod, I'll have close to 4000mAh of capacity. Compaq used a proprietary connector on the batteries with a ribbon cable, so I really have no choice except to solder a new battery to the ribbon connector. The oem replacement batteries can no longer be found, and no company sells aftermarket models anymore.

While I had the thing apart, I glued the PCMCIA sleeve shell mounts back into place with some gorilla glue because the plastic standoffs basically turned to sand when I took it apart. The glue held nicely, similar to epoxy, and I can screw it all back together tight.

Built myself a little system:

Dual P3-933
Thermaltake Sl1 Golden Orbs
Asus P3C-D
1GB RDRAM
2x Quantum Atlas SCSI HDD
Caddy-loading Plexwriter
DVD-RW
LS-120
Zalman 300W PSU
...and all of that in a transparent acrylic case.

Now, where am I going to find a WD Raptor X with little window...? 😉

That's sweet looking. And I love the dual golden orbs. How does the system perform?

Oh yea, thats what daddy likes!

Ended up killing a floppy drive today. No idea what I did, simply cracked it open and cleaned the head with 70% rubbing alcohol.

Put her back together and. Nope, won't read discs anymore. Opened her up again to watch as it works and...can't tell. I think the top head isn't making contact? I can see the disk spinning but the top head stays still/doesn't touch.

I'm no floppy disk expert. Maybe someone knows how to fix her.

likely knocked a head out of allignment. its VERY easy to do on newer, cheaper drives

Tracking down misplaced old hardware (mostly peripherals, USB 2.0 PCI cards, storage controller cards, video cards and CPU coolers; sometimes RAM and CPUs). Almost none of it is organized.

Retiring some very obsolete stuff, mainly not-so-great digital cameras (getting picture data off the units then getting rid of them) and an old MiniDV camcorder. Though there is something on two MiniDV cassettes I want to digitize before the camcorder's retirement. I need an AC adapter prior to this, as the previous one was abused...

Some RAM chips should arrive in at least a week or two, and it's for a Biostar MB-1212V 286 board I'm slowly testing.

dionb wrote on 2020-06-23, 23:26:

Built myself a little system:
8><CUT
...and all of that in a transparent acrylic case.

Niice, a Sunbeam !

luckybob wrote on 2020-06-24, 01:23:

likely knocked a head out of allignment. its VERY easy to do on newer, cheaper drives

Worth fixing or should I just chuck it? I only have 1 other working FDD.

unless its a special unit, I wouldn't bother. Even if you "fix" it, its likely to fail again fast.

looking close at your pic, the top head is WAY out of allignment. The spring should be between the two little studs in the center.

chrismeyer6 wrote on 2020-06-23, 23:52:

That's sweet looking. And I love the dual golden orbs. How does the system perform?

Haven't had time to thoroughly test it yet - basically just transplanted the guts of a system I picked up recently into this case - but I don't think I've ever seen Windows XP boot so fast. That Atlas 10k drive is a beast. Talking of beasts, the noise the system makes is something else. Remarkably the worst of it isn't the HDDs but the two orbs. A nice beige fan controller is on the shopping list too, particularly given all those (6 in total) case fans. They can get some impressive airflow going at slow speeds.

Tested some of my favorite DOS games using my recently acquired AWE64.

I was mostly interested in the AWE32 mode, but I had a surprisingly decent experience with FM synthesis using CQM. Despite all the trash talk about it, CQM definitively sounds much better than what Creative's later cards like the SBLive use for FM synth.

I plan to do a proper side-by-side comparison between genuine OPL3, CQM and SBLive FM synth at some point, with examples which point out the most prominent differences between them.

Joseph_Joestar wrote on 2020-06-24, 06:37:

Tested some of my favorite DOS games using my recently acquired AWE64.

I was mostly interested in the AWE32 mode, but I had a surprisingly decent experience with FM synthesis using CQM. Despite all the trash talk about it, CQM definitively sounds much better than what Creative's later cards like the SBLive use for FM synth.

I plan to do a proper side-by-side comparison between genuine OPL3, CQM and SBLive FM synth at some point, with examples which point out the most prominent differences between them.

nice, be sure to post up a link when you're done testing.

i got myself an AWE64 value last year and played with it a whole bunch until I got a aw744l, previously using an SB Live in both dos and windows. i played only 1 or 2 games using awe64's CQM but it wasn't as awful as others like you mention. there were a few times i needed to take the headphones off, if the instrument was a bit "clicky" it would wear my ears out for a bit, even at lower volumes. but overall i would not have been upset with it if i had this in my pc during those days. any game with awe32 support sounds pretty damn good. still havent tested out awe64's GM/MT32 emulation in DOS, i need to compare it to SB live's version which i thought was actually pretty impressive. cheers for the reminders 😉

foil_fresh wrote on 2020-06-24, 07:23:

nice, be sure to post up a link when you're done testing.

Will do! The plan is to compare my Yamaha YMF724F-V against the AWE64 Value (CT4520) and the SBLive 5.1 (SB0100). I'll make some recordings and upload them to SoundCloud sometime over the next couple of weeks. That way, people can listen to the differences and judge for themselves.

still havent tested out awe64's GM/MT32 emulation in DOS, i need to compare it to SB live's version which i thought was actually pretty impressive. cheers for the reminders 😉

From my preliminary testing of the MT-32 mode, I think that the AWE64 does a slightly better job than the SBLive. It might be because the AWE64 loads a specific MT-32 soundfont into memory when doing the emulation - synthmt.sbk. You can also combine this with a tiny bit of Reverb and Chorus (both at 20) using AWEUTIL which gives an even more interesting result.

Did a lot of repairs and rust removal on the case for the Socket 7 rebuild. Bought some #8-32 x 3/8" screws and Rust-Oleum gel rust removal spray and it got rid of tons of rust. The FDD/HDD bracket has a bit of rust left, but after a good spray-down and wipe-down, it will look a lot better.

I then got the system setup and it wouldn't power on with the ATX PSU that I have installed temporarily. Didn't realize that JP3 was set to AT PSU (pins 1-2 shorted) instead of ATX (pins 2-3 shorted), but that was my wild guess since I couldn't locate the manual for the motherboard until I looked in another directory on my phone and found the jumper settings there. Then the NEC MultiSync LCD1530V wouldn't get video, but the POST card's speaker beeped once, so I figured the video card is good and connected the Dell 1702FP monitor to the computer and that got a picture. Time to fix the NEC monitor again or connect my laptop to the display and see if that works and if not, then repairs to the monitor is necessary.

Another snag is when the system detects all of the drives, except for the LS-120 (need to look and see what's going on with that), it locks up at the drive detection., which I believe is a conflict somewhere, so I need to fix that (possible the onboard USB took over the IRQ for either the Primary or Secondary IDE IRQ address(es). Other than that, it's getting close and my GeForce256 DDR 32MB card works. Might as well install the 64MB GeForce256 DDR or keep the 32MB since I can connect VR glasses to the display card, which is nice.

dionb wrote on 2020-06-24, 06:08:

chrismeyer6 wrote on 2020-06-23, 23:52:

That's sweet looking. And I love the dual golden orbs. How does the system perform?

Haven't had time to thoroughly test it yet - basically just transplanted the guts of a system I picked up recently into this case - but I don't think I've ever seen Windows XP boot so fast. That Atlas 10k drive is a beast. Talking of beasts, the noise the system makes is something else. Remarkably the worst of it isn't the HDDs but the two orbs. A nice beige fan controller is on the shopping list too, particularly given all those (6 in total) case fans. They can get some impressive airflow going at slow speeds.

...aaand it's gone 🙁

Or rather: those high speeds are gone. Reason was clean WinXP install without service packs. That was a nice snappy OS back in 2001. I made the mistake of hooking it up to my LAN without explicitly disabling internet access. XP may be End of Support, but Windows Update still triggers and downloads what is available. Leaving you with an equally vulnerable system, but now with lots of extra bloat 😦

Time to install Windows 2000...

That sucks. But 2000 should fly on that system.

Windows 2000 is miles better than the “Windows Fisher Price XP”. The 2000 is my favorite NT version of Windows, theres no other version closer to this one in terms of performance and aesthetics. You’ll be fine if you install BWC for better web browsing options.

dionb wrote on 2020-06-24, 09:17:

...aaand it's gone :( […]
Show full quote

dionb wrote on 2020-06-24, 06:08:

chrismeyer6 wrote on 2020-06-23, 23:52:

That's sweet looking. And I love the dual golden orbs. How does the system perform?

Haven't had time to thoroughly test it yet - basically just transplanted the guts of a system I picked up recently into this case - but I don't think I've ever seen Windows XP boot so fast. That Atlas 10k drive is a beast. Talking of beasts, the noise the system makes is something else. Remarkably the worst of it isn't the HDDs but the two orbs. A nice beige fan controller is on the shopping list too, particularly given all those (6 in total) case fans. They can get some impressive airflow going at slow speeds.

...aaand it's gone 🙁

Or rather: those high speeds are gone. Reason was clean WinXP install without service packs. That was a nice snappy OS back in 2001. I made the mistake of hooking it up to my LAN without explicitly disabling internet access. XP may be End of Support, but Windows Update still triggers and downloads what is available. Leaving you with an equally vulnerable system, but now with lots of extra bloat 😦

Time to install Windows 2000...

You could just reinstall XP and turn off automatic updates, unless you really want 2000 for some reason. Depending on your use case, they are virtually indistinguishable.

Personally, I see no point in fully updating XP (or any pre-7 Windows for that matter) these days. Then again, I would never think of using any such system online, but I can only speak for myself.