hyoenmadan wrote on 2020-12-31, 03:04:

[You may want to try older versions of PQmagic, like 5 or 4.
...

It seems you're right. My version is 7 so what you say is completely plausible.

Btw I tried pcchips m919 at 180mhz today and it was very underwhelming.
I think I'm better off running it at 160mhz, at least with this cache/ram configuration. M912 did it definitely better even if it was a bit fiddly with the extra VLB settings. For some reason it could drive the cache at 2-1-1-1 (bank interleave, perhaps?) and the RAM at 1WS (better sticks?).

Caluser2000 wrote on 2020-12-31, 02:14:

Went for a 180km ride on my 1976 Honda CB550 Super Sport..

Nice ! Long ago owned a 1976 Honda Elsinore like this one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=iqVNDQesLCY
I lived on the eastern Oregon high desert and could ride for miles thru the desert scrub brush. Was a great time, wish I never moved to the big city.
-------------
Today went digging thru Archive org Way back machine for a few things. One was all the removed versions of MS WinHelp32 for Vista, Win7 and Win8.
Got lucky and after a hour got all the versions, uploaded here: https://archive.org/details/winhlp-32-for-win … in-7-win-8s.-7z
Also made up a manual (in .DOC format) for a Octek Rhino 15+ REV 2 which is missing from www.elhvb.com/mobokive/archive/Octek
that took me a few hours going back and forth in time to get enough of the original .doc to assemble it back together,
unfortunately the original pictures for the board and layout were gone. Will up it here in the library

A few days ago, I built maybe something that isn't quite vintage yet, but it is a first Gen i7 960 -ASUS P6T Deluxe mobo, 12 GB RAM (forget exactly but Kingston, NOS, fastest that the board supports), Corsair 128 GB SSD, Radeon (IIRC) 58xx HD video card, and a Thermaltake P/S (not the best, but the best one I had lying around) and some kind of 500 GB traditional hard disk. This will be for my dad, who will use it to stream and check emails. I saved it from a hideous MDG hacked up case (which I used for my server) and put it in this elegant, tall blue case from 2003.

(My images are always crap, but this time it's because I didn't take the foil off the back of a new rear plate after a digitizer swap)

Originally, a P4 3.0 HT was in there, and the PS or Mobo failed after 8 hours (conveniently after I configured the system with dual boot Win98/XP and loaded all my games onto it, and turned it off for the night - it never turned back on) probably because the sh*t ass PS that was in there killed the board, which I bought off auction so I'm not really sure what was up with it as it seems that all the computers from that lot had been tampered with at some point.

I put a black 1.44 and a DVDROM (came with white ones)

Someone took the power supply bracket, but my washer solution seems to be fairly solid:

And then, yesterday, I built my Ikea computer - basically a Ryzen 3400G integrated into a piece of Ikea furniture that I bought as-is for the purpose of, well, matching it with my living room decor:

There are some retro components - the LCD readout and the rest [of that panel is from a 486, so is the PC speaker. There will be a build video soon-ish, depending on when I can get to editing the footage, as that there happens to be the editing station as well 😉

I later found some wiring loom so it actually looks a lot better now:

I'm gonna get the key hooked up to the power on - for now it's the turbo button (16 is the GB of RAM - 34 when pressed to symbolize the CPU that's in there) so for obvious reasons it can't be "held down) because while I know I have several keys, I don't know where they are ATM.

Panel closed:

And I added some legs (also from Ikea, cut and painted, different product)

Some of the wiring needs cleaning up still, but it is in a usable state- once I get some drops from my office down to the living room 😉

Jed118 wrote on 2020-12-31, 22:30:

A few days ago, I built maybe something that isn't quite vintage yet, but it is a first Gen i7 960 -ASUS P6T Deluxe mobo, 12 GB […]
Show full quote

A few days ago, I built maybe something that isn't quite vintage yet, but it is a first Gen i7 960 -ASUS P6T Deluxe mobo, 12 GB RAM (forget exactly but Kingston, NOS, fastest that the board supports), Corsair 128 GB SSD, Radeon (IIRC) 58xx HD video card, and a Thermaltake P/S (not the best, but the best one I had lying around) and some kind of 500 GB traditional hard disk. This will be for my dad, who will use it to stream and check emails. I saved it from a hideous MDG hacked up case (which I used for my server) and put it in this elegant, tall blue case from 2003.

(My images are always crap, but this time it's because I didn't take the foil off the back of a new rear plate after a digitizer swap)

Originally, a P4 3.0 HT was in there, and the PS or Mobo failed after 8 hours (conveniently after I configured the system with dual boot Win98/XP and loaded all my games onto it, and turned it off for the night - it never turned back on) probably because the sh*t ass PS that was in there killed the board, which I bought off auction so I'm not really sure what was up with it as it seems that all the computers from that lot had been tampered with at some point.

I put a black 1.44 and a DVDROM (came with white ones)

Someone took the power supply bracket, but my washer solution seems to be fairly solid:

And then, yesterday, I built my Ikea computer - basically a Ryzen 3400G integrated into a piece of Ikea furniture that I bought as-is for the purpose of, well, matching it with my living room decor:

There are some retro components - the LCD readout and the rest [of that panel is from a 486, so is the PC speaker. There will be a build video soon-ish, depending on when I can get to editing the footage, as that there happens to be the editing station as well 😉

I later found some wiring loom so it actually looks a lot better now:

I'm gonna get the key hooked up to the power on - for now it's the turbo button (16 is the GB of RAM - 34 when pressed to symbolize the CPU that's in there) so for obvious reasons it can't be "held down) because while I know I have several keys, I don't know where they are ATM.

Panel closed:

And I added some legs (also from Ikea, cut and painted, different product)

Some of the wiring needs cleaning up still, but it is in a usable state- once I get some drops from my office down to the living room 😉

I have a soft spot for X58/socket 1366 , like your P6T. It has an enormous software compatibility span (XP to Windows 10), incredible longevity (still usable today), PCI and PCI Express support, impressive bandwidth ( by virtue of dropping FSB in favor of QPI, integrating an on chip memory controller and a large number PCIE lanes) and impressive RAM upgradability (running 48GB in one of mine).

IMHO, this platform is iconic and historically significant . Again IMHO, it is something to hold on to once your father outgrows it (or more likely software bloat catches up to it).

On a different note, I have a soft spot for that case design too, but I am a bit worried about thermals .

I installed a new belt for the Citizen W1D floppy drive as the NOS is still in transit (USPS is understaffed at the moment) and it would throw sector errors or general read errors. So I'm not sure if it's because the belt is a bit tight, but I digress. Once I receive the NOS one, I'll swap them around and look at the other one and see what's going on.

Used DVD Decrypter, DGIndex, AVISynth, ffmpeg, the Xvid VfW codec and VirtualDubMod to rip a DVD Video into an .AVI file.
Because the target device either supports DVD Video or AVI files, but not H.264, and this specific disc isn't recognized for some reason.

I'm old.

I started writing a table of my retro builds so that I can check where my things are while years go by. About 1/5 ready.

darry wrote on 2021-01-01, 06:32:

I have a soft spot for X58/socket 1366 , like your P6T. It has an enormous software compatibility span (XP to Windows 10), incredible longevity (still usable today), PCI and PCI Express support, impressive bandwidth ( by virtue of dropping FSB in favor of QPI, integrating an on chip memory controller and a large number PCIE lanes) and impressive RAM upgradability (running 48GB in one of mine).

IMHO, this platform is iconic and historically significant . Again IMHO, it is something to hold on to once your father outgrows it (or more likely software bloat catches up to it).

On a different note, I have a soft spot for that case design too, but I am a bit worried about thermals .

Oh yeah, once he moves on to some other machine, (likely that I'll be furnishing) I'll be taking this one back. I picked this case FOR thermals, as the case it was in was small but had tons of fans (IIRC 5 extra ones, with holes in the case made anywhere from amateur-style to actually pretty good) so I thought a larger case will dissipate heat better. There's two exhaust fans by the CPU (one hardwired, one connected to SYS FAN on the mobo), the power supply just above it has a 5 or 6 inch fan (length of the PS anyhow) and there's one more fan in the side of the plexiglass. Like with the Ikea PC, I have extra fans lying around if I need them 😉 Keep in mind, the only game my dad will play on that is spider solitaire, so not too CPU intensive.

As it stands, it has Windows 10 on it and it runs it very well - TONS of overclocking potential too - maybe in the future, I'll see if I can get an extreme edition CPU just for the hell of it. I don't imagine they're expensive. *edit hah - actually - https://www.ebay.ca/itm/Intel-Core-i7-975-3-3 … tEAAOSw11BcNF8m

I got an Ultra XConnect PSU, after the suggestion by somebody else. Just got it in the mail yesterday, but haven't tried it out yet. Excited to see how good it is.

RetroLizard wrote on 2021-01-01, 15:33:

I got an Ultra XConnect PSU, after the suggestion by somebody else. Just got it in the mail yesterday, but haven't tried it out yet. Excited to see how good it is.

I wouldn't use one of those units to power anything I cared about. Did you look them up before seeking one out? Depending on the model there can be lots of failures and problems, they used bottom of the barrel capacitors and there appear to be several different manufactures of the internals (some worse than others), which is almost always a bad sign. Some have Fuhjyyu capacitors, which are notoriously some of the worst ever made, many of which had already failed back in 2005-2006.

https://www.badcaps.net/forum/showthread.php?t=1895

Ultra power supplies were fancy looking junky units. Neat as a collector's piece maybe since they look very early 2000s but they cut all the wrong corners to make them look that way. Fan grills cut in the shape of the name brand, (blocking airflow) is the first sign that performance and reliability came second.

Just my two cents. I was recently given a one of these and it was dismantled by the previous owner. That makes one power supply I've ever been given in 20 years that had been torn apart. Likely because it wasn't working properly and it wasn't cheap, so the owner wanted to fix it. It had Fuhjyyu caps. I junked it. I recommend opening it first if you're set on using it. Check the brand name on the caps.

Ozzuneoj wrote on 2021-01-01, 18:04:

I wouldn't use one of those units to power anything I cared about. Did you look them up before seeking one out? Depending on the […]
Show full quote

RetroLizard wrote on 2021-01-01, 15:33:

I got an Ultra XConnect PSU, after the suggestion by somebody else. Just got it in the mail yesterday, but haven't tried it out yet. Excited to see how good it is.

I wouldn't use one of those units to power anything I cared about. Did you look them up before seeking one out? Depending on the model there can be lots of failures and problems, they used bottom of the barrel capacitors and there appear to be several different manufactures of the internals (some worse than others), which is almost always a bad sign. Some have Fuhjyyu capacitors, which are notoriously some of the worst ever made, many of which had already failed back in 2005-2006.

https://www.badcaps.net/forum/showthread.php?t=1895

Ultra power supplies were fancy looking junky units. Neat as a collector's piece maybe since they look very early 2000s but they cut all the wrong corners to make them look that way. Fan grills cut in the shape of the name brand, (blocking airflow) is the first sign that performance and reliability came second.

Just my two cents. I was recently given a one of these and it was dismantled by the previous owner. That makes one power supply I've ever been given in 20 years that had been torn apart. Likely because it wasn't working properly and it wasn't cheap, so the owner wanted to fix it. It had Fuhjyyu caps. I junked it. I recommend opening it first if you're set on using it. Check the brand name on the caps.

+1
The single one that I ran across was in a Value Village Pentium 4/ Geforce 4 ti 4200 combo find for $10. Caps were all Fuhjyyu's and it had gnarley coil whine and a lovely 11.1 Volt 12v rail.

Having a (not so) great time trying to get Windows 2000 installed on a P2B-F motherboard PC with no floppy or optical drive.. Not going too well so far.

Ozzuneoj wrote on 2021-01-01, 18:04:

I wouldn't use one of those units to power anything I cared about. Did you look them up before seeking one out? Depending on the […]
Show full quote

RetroLizard wrote on 2021-01-01, 15:33:

I got an Ultra XConnect PSU, after the suggestion by somebody else. Just got it in the mail yesterday, but haven't tried it out yet. Excited to see how good it is.

I wouldn't use one of those units to power anything I cared about. Did you look them up before seeking one out? Depending on the model there can be lots of failures and problems, they used bottom of the barrel capacitors and there appear to be several different manufactures of the internals (some worse than others), which is almost always a bad sign. Some have Fuhjyyu capacitors, which are notoriously some of the worst ever made, many of which had already failed back in 2005-2006.

https://www.badcaps.net/forum/showthread.php?t=1895

Ultra power supplies were fancy looking junky units. Neat as a collector's piece maybe since they look very early 2000s but they cut all the wrong corners to make them look that way. Fan grills cut in the shape of the name brand, (blocking airflow) is the first sign that performance and reliability came second.

Just my two cents. I was recently given a one of these and it was dismantled by the previous owner. That makes one power supply I've ever been given in 20 years that had been torn apart. Likely because it wasn't working properly and it wasn't cheap, so the owner wanted to fix it. It had Fuhjyyu caps. I junked it. I recommend opening it first if you're set on using it. Check the brand name on the caps.

Any alternate suggestions, then?

Every other year I do a check on all my stock systems and running systems.

Last year I patched my 5160’s SixPack card/software to be Y2K compliant. I didn’t touch the system ever since but wanted it to show 2021 today. I tried starting it up and it didn’t work. No display, no beep, just the fan of the PSU.

The source of the problem seems to be the preassembled Blue Lava Systems XT-IDE (rev 4.1) card. Unplugged it and the system works as expected. As the solder pads of that card seem to be of poor manufacturing quality - to be precise not the pads but the soldering - I will rework all solder pads tomorrow.

RetroLizard: What kind of system are you using it in? Because honestly unless it's some crazy 5v heavy Athlon XP pc I would just buy a nice modern 80plus 450watt PSU with enough Molex connectors and call it good.

I was planning on using it in an old Pentium 3 machine. The current PSU I have in said machine is a modern 500W with only four Molex connectors, which isn't enough if I want to add more drives.

RetroLizard wrote on 2021-01-01, 21:58:

I was planning on using it in an old Pentium 3 machine. The current PSU I have in said machine is a modern 500W with only four Molex connectors, which isn't enough if I want to add more drives.

Maybe order a couple Molex Y adapters? Or DIY a couple up out of dead PSU's or fans or such. Be alot cheaper than buying another PSU.

RetroLizard wrote on 2021-01-01, 21:58:

I was planning on using it in an old Pentium 3 machine. The current PSU I have in said machine is a modern 500W with only four Molex connectors, which isn't enough if I want to add more drives.

Physical connectors are the easiest thing to deal with honestly. If that's your only reason, then I would just buy some SATA to molex 4 pin adapters, or simply use molex splitters on the molex connectors that you already have unless the load would exceed the ratings of the wire. How many drives do you need in the system anyway? That's enough for two optical and two hard drives.

If you need more:

https://www.amazon.com/TOTOT-Female-Extension … mozilla-20&th=1

or

https://www.amazon.com/Lheng-Supply-Extension … 09539757&sr=8-9

I stockpiled Seasonic 350W 80plus white\bronze power supplies when they were cheap (refurb\used) so that's all I use for most of my retro systems. Any time I suspected a power supply compatibility issue and switched to an older unit, there was no difference. I have seen a couple Asus socket 370 boards read high on 12v on some newer power supplies, but the PSUs are normal on other boards and the boards are normal with other PSUs, so I'm not sure what that's about. Never caused a problem though.

I'm planning on adding a second cd-rom drive (hopefully one that can read burnable cd-r(w)s, and a 5.25" floppy drive. Maybe another hard drive as well, but not required.

Assuming the newer PSU you have already is of decent quality, you should be fine to just use a splitter. I believe molex connectors are rated for more amperage than SATA power connectors, but I don't think anything you've got there will be an issue unless you try to run all of them split off the same SATA connector. Someone correct me if I'm wrong.

Edit: By the way, I just saw the post where someone recommended the Ultra PSU to you. Their experience is perfectly legitimate, but there's a ton of reports of the complete opposite experience with these units. Whenever I research power supplies I always search for it with "badcaps", "jonnyguru"or "forum" at the end so that I'll find real community feedback, hopefully from experts, and I'll be able to see if there's a trend toward reliability or problems. Sadly, because these were seemingly marketed well (sold by Tigerdirect and microcenter, among others I believe), a lot of the feedback about them comes from users who likely never opened them up or tested voltages. They just used them and assumed all was good if they didn't explode. For reviews they only had to work right while the reviewer used them.

Also, with so many different manufacturers for the internals, a good batch of them may make them seem great, but you never know what you're getting when you buy one. I'm sure there are ones out there that work fine, but the trend is that they never used good components and had cooling issues. A bad combination.