Aublak wrote on 2020-11-21, 19:30:

Dammit. I went to go save my BIOS using my TL866II programmer. Threw the chip back into my motherboard. […]
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Dammit. I went to go save my BIOS using my TL866II programmer. Threw the chip back into my motherboard.

Nothing.

Figured the chip wasn't sitting properly. Went to push the chip down. burnt my finger.

Well at least I saved the BIOS. I dunno if I have another similar IC chip on hand.

Wha-

Did you reseat the chip exactly as you removed it?

the_ultra_code wrote on 2020-11-21, 19:40:

Aublak wrote on 2020-11-21, 19:30:

Dammit. I went to go save my BIOS using my TL866II programmer. Threw the chip back into my motherboard. […]
Show full quote

Dammit. I went to go save my BIOS using my TL866II programmer. Threw the chip back into my motherboard.

Nothing.

Figured the chip wasn't sitting properly. Went to push the chip down. burnt my finger.

Well at least I saved the BIOS. I dunno if I have another similar IC chip on hand.

Wha-

Did you reseat the chip exactly as you removed it?

Yeah, I did.
I know now.

The blister on my finger hurts. ouch.

Aublak wrote on 2020-11-21, 19:42:

Yeah, I did. I know now. […]
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the_ultra_code wrote on 2020-11-21, 19:40:

Aublak wrote on 2020-11-21, 19:30:

Dammit. I went to go save my BIOS using my TL866II programmer. Threw the chip back into my motherboard. […]
Show full quote

Dammit. I went to go save my BIOS using my TL866II programmer. Threw the chip back into my motherboard.

Nothing.

Figured the chip wasn't sitting properly. Went to push the chip down. burnt my finger.

Well at least I saved the BIOS. I dunno if I have another similar IC chip on hand.

Wha-

Did you reseat the chip exactly as you removed it?

Yeah, I did.
I know now.

The blister on my finger hurts. ouch.

IDK then. Perhaps you "flashed the chip wrongly?" I'm just pulling guesses out of my butt.

the_ultra_code wrote on 2020-11-21, 19:54:

Aublak wrote on 2020-11-21, 19:42:

Yeah, I did. I know now. […]
Show full quote

the_ultra_code wrote on 2020-11-21, 19:40:

Wha-

Did you reseat the chip exactly as you removed it?

Yeah, I did.
I know now.

The blister on my finger hurts. ouch.

IDK then. Perhaps you "flashed the chip wrongly?" I'm just pulling guesses out of my butt.

Nah, it was in the wrong way. It actually works again.

Damn, that thing got hot. I'm surprised that it survived.
I still smell the burnt plastic.

gex85 wrote on 2020-11-21, 17:04:

Maybe later tonight I'll upgrade it to the latest beta BIOS and play around with a K6-2+ CPU a bit.

Quick follow-up: As expected, the BIOS version 1011.005 (latest beta) detects the K6-2+ 550 without issues.
I already knew that this CPU can be clocked to 600 MHz (6.0 x 100), even without rising the VCore, so I went ahead and raised the FSB. At 630 MHz (6.0 x 105) it still POSTs fine, but 660 MHz (6.0 x 110) didn't work, even with VCore increased to 2.5V. I didn't want to go higher and risk damaging the CPU though.
So I think I'm going to call it a day and leave it at 630 MHz, which is still plenty fast for a SS7 system 😄 Maybe next week I'll try the other 550ACZ chips that I have, just to see if one of them does 660 MHz.

the_ultra_code wrote on 2020-11-21, 14:02:

Don't fret. It's ez. Create a bootable DOS floppy disk (from 9x works), throw onto the disk Asus's AFUDOS utility or whatever th […]
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Aublak wrote on 2020-11-21, 01:05:

I've been kinda sitting on this task for too long. Now is a good time for me to stop being lazy and update it already. 😐 I never updated a bios using floppies. So I've been kicking the can.

Don't fret. It's ez. Create a bootable DOS floppy disk (from 9x works), throw onto the disk Asus's AFUDOS utility or whatever they want you to update the BIOS with, along with the new BIOS file, run

Copy code to clipboard

1afudos.exe /iNAMEOFROM.ROM

from the DOS prompt, and boom, you have yourself a new BIOS flashed.

Besides, I think most boards from the 90s have removable BIOS chips. If anything goes wrong you can remove the chip and manually flash it using a TL866II programmer from China. I can confirm, it's wonderful.

I ended up using Aflash instead like the manual recommended.
My P3B-F BIOS is now updated to 1008.004.

Thanks a bunch.

Aublak wrote on 2020-11-21, 22:02:

I ended up using Aflash instead like the manual recommended. My P3B-F BIOS is now updated to 1008.004. […]
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the_ultra_code wrote on 2020-11-21, 14:02:

Don't fret. It's ez. Create a bootable DOS floppy disk (from 9x works), throw onto the disk Asus's AFUDOS utility or whatever th […]
Show full quote

Aublak wrote on 2020-11-21, 01:05:

I've been kinda sitting on this task for too long. Now is a good time for me to stop being lazy and update it already. 😐 I never updated a bios using floppies. So I've been kicking the can.

Don't fret. It's ez. Create a bootable DOS floppy disk (from 9x works), throw onto the disk Asus's AFUDOS utility or whatever they want you to update the BIOS with, along with the new BIOS file, run

Copy code to clipboard

1afudos.exe /iNAMEOFROM.ROM

from the DOS prompt, and boom, you have yourself a new BIOS flashed.

Besides, I think most boards from the 90s have removable BIOS chips. If anything goes wrong you can remove the chip and manually flash it using a TL866II programmer from China. I can confirm, it's wonderful.

I ended up using Aflash instead like the manual recommended.
My P3B-F BIOS is now updated to 1008.004.

Thanks a bunch.

np

Imperious wrote on 2020-11-21, 12:40:

Got a Jetway (J-Mark) 5TXC rev 2 from Ebay as not working for $30 AUD delivered including Pentium 200 MMX CPU. A real bargain, h […]
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Got a Jetway (J-Mark) 5TXC rev 2 from Ebay as not working for $30 AUD delivered including Pentium 200 MMX CPU.
A real bargain, has Intel TX chipset and support for 83mhz bus speeds and up to 4.5x multi.

Anyway it was dead, no post at all. I pulled the Bios chip and noticed pins 15 and 16 were corroded. Cleaned up the
socket pins as best as possible and cleaned the Chip pins with sandpaper, loaded the latest bios (in my eprom programmer) that I got from
the J-mark website in the Web archive and Walla! all working now.

Excellent! I recently upgraded from a VX to a TX chipset (honestly just for the PS/2 support) but I benchmarked it against my old one (nothing special, NSSI and CONFIG) and it is slightly faster too. Not really noticeable - are you running DIMMs?

Jed118 wrote on 2020-11-22, 02:03:

Imperious wrote on 2020-11-21, 12:40:

Got a Jetway (J-Mark) 5TXC rev 2 from Ebay as not working for $30 AUD delivered including Pentium 200 MMX CPU. A real bargain, h […]
Show full quote

Got a Jetway (J-Mark) 5TXC rev 2 from Ebay as not working for $30 AUD delivered including Pentium 200 MMX CPU.
A real bargain, has Intel TX chipset and support for 83mhz bus speeds and up to 4.5x multi.

Anyway it was dead, no post at all. I pulled the Bios chip and noticed pins 15 and 16 were corroded. Cleaned up the
socket pins as best as possible and cleaned the Chip pins with sandpaper, loaded the latest bios (in my eprom programmer) that I got from
the J-mark website in the Web archive and Walla! all working now.

Excellent! I recently upgraded from a VX to a TX chipset (honestly just for the PS/2 support) but I benchmarked it against my old one (nothing special, NSSI and CONFIG) and it is slightly faster too. Not really noticeable - are you running DIMMs?

Yes I just put in a 128mb Dimm to test with for now. Back in the day I had a DFI HX chipset board which got killed by the Chernobyl Virus. Eventually I threw that out, unfortunate as I could have fixed it easily now. This is the closest to that
so I could rebuild my original system specs as they were. I have plenty of other socket 7 boards but this is the only one with an Intel chipset.
I'll install Windows 95 and S3 Virge and my Voodoo 1 as well as Creative SB16 and that's as close to my 1998 PC as possible, although it will perform a bit better due to
SDRAM and higher available FSB speeds. Old DFI board couldn't exceed 66mhz.

For some reason I have been getting interested in Win 3.1 programming. I used to do a fair bit of Win32 programming back in the second half of the 90's (plain C Win32 and MFC) but never really gave much thought to Win16.

Anyhow, I stumbled on this second hand book online a while ago and ordered it. I had actually forgotten about it since it took so long to arrive but now that its here, the condition it's in is really good. It even has the companion floppy disk and the pouch is still sealed! Love it.

Imperious wrote on 2020-11-22, 03:51:

Yes I just put in a 128mb Dimm to test with for now. Back in the day I had a DFI HX chipset board which got killed by the Chern […]
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Yes I just put in a 128mb Dimm to test with for now. Back in the day I had a DFI HX chipset board which got killed by the Chernobyl Virus. Eventually I threw that out, unfortunate as I could have fixed it easily now. This is the closest to that
so I could rebuild my original system specs as they were. I have plenty of other socket 7 boards but this is the only one with an Intel chipset.
I'll install Windows 95 and S3 Virge and my Voodoo 1 as well as Creative SB16 and that's as close to my 1998 PC as possible, although it will perform a bit better due to
SDRAM and higher available FSB speeds. Old DFI board couldn't exceed 66mhz.

Interestingly enough, I am doing something similar - rebuilding the PC I had in 1998. The one I have now is better in certain regards (Voodoo 3, I had a 2 - AWE 32, I had a clone board - 15k RPM SCSI 2 drive, I had IDE) but it is similar enough that it brings the nostalgia back.

I had 98SE on it, and eventually I think I got Win2K on it, and retired it a couple years later when I made the leap directly to a PIII 800 MHz, which I think took me a week to upgrade to a 933, skipping right over PII and slot CPUs.

Truly that P3 was the last system I cared about, at least enough to remember specific specifications.

These days it's all laptpo

I got another dualbuild booted. I was missing a second cpu for it.

No harddrives yet, and OS is undecided.

That dual build is sweet! I love multi cpu systems. I'd put my vote down for windows 2000 and depending on the amount of ram XP would be good as well.

I repaired Diamond Monster 3D Voodoo 1 card (a lot of cold solder joints, some caps missing). Works great now.

I kinda took a break from computers and messed with some old Hi-Fi equipment instead.
I already had some old machines for a year from a neighbour who wanted to get rid of his stuff, but I never got around to repair them until now. It was actually quite fun to tinker with them for a change, and quite a rewarding experience. (All the pictures are from the web because I'm not at home ATM, but they are the same exact model.)

• Sony RCD-W100 Dual CD Deck
  The attachment 71BkoULreaL._AC_SL1500_.jpg is no longer available
  This one is missing the control knob for the B drive, and it also tended to skip backwards a bit for some reason. I cleaned the lens with alcohol and a Q-Tip. The A drive would eject shortly after closing, which turned out to be because the belt had gone bad. After cannibalising one from my stack of old CD/DVD drives, it works fine. You could say it wants to rock 😜
• Technics SL-PG400A CD Player
  The attachment Technics-SL-PG400A.jpg is no longer available
  This one didn't even spin up. As it turns out, if the laser doesn't see anything, the motor doesn't start. After cleaning it with alcohol and a Q-Tip, it works fine. It's also surprisingly fast with detecting CDs. What really impressed me with that, is how simple the internals are. It also needed the buttons to be cleaned, but I'll probably end up replacing them anyway. It also sounds a bit more detailed than the Sony one for some reason, can't really put my finger on it. It definitely doesn't fear the reaper 🤣
• Kenwood KX-3030 Cassette Deck
  The attachment 1100001791.JPG is no longer available
  This one doesn't even eject. It plays like total crap, and it's probably my biggest challenge so far, considering I don't know anything about tape decks. I did give the faceplate a good wash, though, and it looks like brand new now. It probably needs belts and whatnot. Despite my younger age, cassettes have a bit of nostalgic value for me. I used to record CDs and radio programmes to tape as a kid. I still have some of those tapes years later.

@VEGGE

XP. Problem solved!

for a hard drive, I'd slap a sata-II card in that beast and goto town.

Been going over a 486 DX33 desktop system i got a while ago. It got a single speed cartridge cd rom. And 2 free 5.25" bays. I wanted to put a 5.25" floppy drive in there, but of course it needs drive bay brackets i am missing.
Btw the motherboard has this double 8bit ISA slot, wider than 16bit. What is that for?

Proprietary memory expansion

HanJammer wrote on 2020-11-22, 17:25:

I repaired Diamond Monster 3D Voodoo 1 card (a lot of cold solder joints, some caps missing). Works great now.

Nice. I love mine to death. There's something really satisfying about their design.

This is probably the wrong place to ask, but does anyone know the name of a (early?) Windows app I'm looking for?

A few details I somewhat remember:

• It was about decorating a holiday tree
• It was, if I'm remembering this correctly, by a company/developer called "DR. Computer"
• It ran in Windows 98, and maybe in 95/3.1 as well.