Ozzuneoj wrote on 2021-01-02, 01:15:

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.

Fair enough.

Rebuilding my digital archive of all my motherboards as I accidentally formatted the external hd I was moving stuff to.
I'm a moron for not copying it in two different locations, but I assumed it was fine.
Doing stuff @4 in the morning is the formula for failure: be warned!

Nexxen wrote on 2021-01-02, 03:16:

Rebuilding my digital archive of all my motherboards as I accidentally formatted the external hd I was moving stuff to.
I'm a moron for not copying it in two different locations, but I assumed it was fine.
Doing stuff @4 in the morning is the formula for failure: be warned!

I have lost a lot worse things, from making stupid "assumed backup" mistakes!!

e.g. I was a keen musician for 15 years, and afterwards wiped 90% of the written-out compositions. The work which embodied the culmination of all I'd learned and achieved. Akin to wiping your Ph.D. thesis, assuming your Ph.D. took 15 years.

Be warned indeed. 😀

(But also, be aware that if the worst happens re: data loss, life still generally goes on....)

Currently copying my archive of Asus motherboard manuals from their 2002 ftp site, before the CD they are on finally fails. Going to see what other archives I made back then, and eventually save everything to M-Disc DVDs. The goal for this year is to track down manuals and drivers for as many early boards as I can find.

My Asus MoBo manual archive spans from socket 7 through A and 478.

Shreddoc wrote on 2021-01-02, 03:26:

I have lost a lot worse things, from making stupid "assumed backup" mistakes!! […]
Show full quote

Nexxen wrote on 2021-01-02, 03:16:

Rebuilding my digital archive of all my motherboards as I accidentally formatted the external hd I was moving stuff to.
I'm a moron for not copying it in two different locations, but I assumed it was fine.
Doing stuff @4 in the morning is the formula for failure: be warned!

I have lost a lot worse things, from making stupid "assumed backup" mistakes!!

e.g. I was a keen musician for 15 years, and afterwards wiped 90% of the written-out compositions. The work which embodied the culmination of all I'd learned and achieved. Akin to wiping your Ph.D. thesis, assuming your Ph.D. took 15 years.

Be warned indeed. 😀

(But also, be aware that if the worst happens re: data loss, life still generally goes on....)

Is that where you got your username? Shredding documents? Honest question.

Shreddoc wrote on 2021-01-02, 03:26:

I have lost a lot worse things, from making stupid "assumed backup" mistakes!! […]
Show full quote

Nexxen wrote on 2021-01-02, 03:16:

Rebuilding my digital archive of all my motherboards as I accidentally formatted the external hd I was moving stuff to.
I'm a moron for not copying it in two different locations, but I assumed it was fine.
Doing stuff @4 in the morning is the formula for failure: be warned!

I have lost a lot worse things, from making stupid "assumed backup" mistakes!!

e.g. I was a keen musician for 15 years, and afterwards wiped 90% of the written-out compositions. The work which embodied the culmination of all I'd learned and achieved. Akin to wiping your Ph.D. thesis, assuming your Ph.D. took 15 years.

Be warned indeed. 😀

(But also, be aware that if the worst happens re: data loss, life still generally goes on....)

Yes, it happens. I live on.
I'm slowly tracking down stuff, long and boring indeed 😀

@Debs I had a cd with all the drivers but it became unreadable after 17 years, no recoverable data. Really uncanny, usually you get something from a raw data read.
If I had known what future had for me I'd have kept everything I came across.......

Ozzuneoj wrote on 2021-01-02, 05:09:

Is that where you got your username? Shredding documents? Honest question.

Not intentionally!, just part of the universe's random serendipity I guess.

I certainly don't define my life by that long-ago deletion of material, and even if I did, naming myself for a personal mistake would be like Bill Clinton giving himself the nickname Cigar Lewinski. 😉

Hey y'all! I'm Bill, but y'all can jist go ahead and call me Cigar!

Could I get an idiot-check please?

I was going through a haul of computers I got and among them was an Barton Athlon XP 2800+ powered Compaq. I pulled the CPU, burned black over the back of the processor, burned brown around the front of the core (tan colored CPU for ref). Figured it was the CPU so I threw my only other Barton 2800 on it and turned it on with the heatsink off and it immediately blew up the 2nd CPU. Smoke column within literally 3 seconds of the power button coming from the CPU core. It actually appears to have blown open what looks like traces on the top of the die. I usually do this and pull the power as soon as I see a BIOs screen or after 5 seconds.

The board and PSU (since I'm not sure whos fault this is) are both going in the garbage, but do Bartons burn up that quick without a heatsink? This is from 100 percent cold, and the CPU was pretty much cool to the touch by the time I had it pulled 30 seconds later. or is this motherboard just a murderer? I wanted to double check what the safe time is on AXPs without a heatsink for future trouble shooting purposes. I know I've heard that these are prone to thermal issues and easy to burn out but this seems excessive even for that.

Also is it even worth trying a CPU that has smoked out on another board? I'm thinking that if it failed violently enough to smoke within 3 seconds that its surely dead, and might even damage my other 462 boards (which I dont really have many of)

Edit: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vQG1Lr1DmZk 200f/93c degrees within 5 seconds, but no smoke for him at least. Hit 500f within 15 seconds though.

If you don't install a heatsink on an Athlon XP, the core/die can't get rid of it's heat.
In a matter seconds it is toast.

Especially those older Thunderbirds and Palominos.

PD2JK wrote on 2021-01-02, 13:47:

If you don't install a heatsink on an Athlon XP, the core/die can't get rid of it's heat.
In a matter seconds it is toast.

Especially those older Thunderbirds and Palominos.

Socket 462 cpus are crazy difficult to deal with, core breaks, core fries, h/s must be correctly placed and with the least amount of force and thermal paste is required even for a test to avoid unpleasant odours.

I don't like to test them as they require extra attention: real drama kings!

@theabandonwareguy: you can never be too sure if it's a dead cpu or a bad psu. I usually remove the cpu and see if voltages on the mobo are correct, than put back the dead cpu and see. I personally never had a dead athlon kill a motherboard, but had a classic K7 (slot a) kill 2 before realizing the culprit was the K7... just because I thought the core was unsupported on the first one...

Today there was no great success but slow progress... 😜

• Replaced the 5->12VDC circuit in the VTech Laser 200 with a step-up/dc booster board. That's progress, I get very fuzzy RF output but it turns out that the floating board with the PAL demodulator chip is also responsible for the colour, so now I get colored composite output! Doesn't appear to have any other damage. Once I change the SRAM chips, I believe that this thing will be usable at least via the composite output and then I'll give a try to fix the RF mod. After I get it to boot, I'll also look into finding an equivalent for the NA31XJ transistor in the original step-up circuit, just to keep it as original as possible...
• Attempted to resurrect a Sinclair Spectrum 48K issue 4A. Replaced the 7805 regulator and some leaked capacitors, bridged cut traces eaten by corrosion, identified a bad transistor (TR4) and an overheating lower ram 4116 IC, this will have to wait, like the Laser, to get spares...
• Attempted to repair a heavy sixxer (pretty clean and totally stock, no composite mod), after replacing its dead 7805 it works okay except for the sound. I get sound but its volume is lower than static/crackle. Will have to check the 2N3563...

Next in line is a 2600Jr which, like the CX2600P mentioned above did, won't turn on.
Update: RF modulator mistuned or not working, might do the composite mod

TheAbandonwareGuy wrote on 2021-01-02, 12:37:

The board and PSU (since I'm not sure whos fault this is) are both going in the garbage, but do Bartons burn up that quick without a heatsink? This is from 100 percent cold, and the CPU was pretty much cool to the touch by the time I had it pulled 30 seconds later. or is this motherboard just a murderer? I wanted to double check what the safe time is on AXPs without a heatsink for future trouble shooting purposes. I know I've heard that these are prone to thermal issues and easy to burn out but this seems excessive even for that.

Tom's Hardware did a video a few years back showing what happened to Intel and AMD processors without heatsinks. The Intel processors throttle down without burning up. The AMD processors die with a plume of smoke just like you described. AMD has fixed the throttling issue since then, but I don't know if Barton had the fix.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UoXRHexGIok

I was able to boot up my Tyan Thunder MP S2460. Thanks for that "POST PCI debug card". It turned out that the first and (probably) third memory slots are bad, but it started on slot 2 & 4 with total amount of 2048 MB ram.
Then ...
I started experimenting with L5 SMP mod and ...
I blew my only one Athlon MP 1800+. Stupid move. Didn't mounted heatsink, instead the heatsink mount shortened the current and the processor "popped" 🙁 Stupid me

winuser_pl wrote on 2021-01-02, 19:33:

I was able to boot up my Tyan Thunder MP S2460. Thanks for that "POST PCI debug card". It turned out that the first and (probabl […]
Show full quote

I was able to boot up my Tyan Thunder MP S2460. Thanks for that "POST PCI debug card". It turned out that the first and (probably) third memory slots are bad, but it started on slot 2 & 4 with total amount of 2048 MB ram.
Then ...
I started experimenting with L5 SMP mod and ...
I blew my only one Athlon MP 1800+. Stupid move. Didn't mounted heatsink, instead the heatsink mount shortened the current and the processor "popped" 🙁 Stupid me

Nice board. Gonna yield lots of fun 😀
Have you checked for continuity? Maybe a solder joint is loose?
Bios version?

Any 4x/8x cards that will work in a 2x AGP slot?

I think I've found the reason. Somebody has ripped off the resistor near the ram slot 1. Maybe it was me 😁 years ago. It is really close to the CPU socket, probably an accident happened 😁

winuser_pl wrote on 2021-01-02, 20:39:

I think I've found the reason. Somebody has ripped off the resistor near the ram slot 1. Maybe it was me 😁 years ago. It is really close to the CPU socket, probably an accident happened 😁

Do you need the value?

Yes, it would be helpful although I think there are couple resistors with code "220" I will measure the resistance.

EDIT: I just measured the resistor next to the ripped one and it is 22.6 Ohms. I'll buy couple, but there will be a problem with the soldering job. These resistors are "the tinest" ones 😁

winuser_pl wrote on 2021-01-02, 20:41:

Yes, it would be helpful although I think there are couple resistors with code "220" I will measure the resistance.

Yep, 220.

I remember cpu supports up to 1800+, no XP.

OK, I bought some SMD resistors. The shop forced to buy 100 pcs. It's 0402 SMD 22 Ohm high tolerance 😁