Things I need to do today -

Download and install the S3-Trio64V VLB drivers for Windows 3.1 on new DOS PC.
Install Oregon Trail II and Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego Deluxe for my Daughter.
Identify way to get Where in Time is Carmen Sandiego to install to CF hard drive. (right now it thinks that the c drive is not working and tells me to close the drive door.)
Aside from that, just waiting for my replacement motherboard for another 486 project, and the DX4-100 and the AMD PR75 chip to show up.

Started repairing the other M/75 display casing (Pen/Touch) with the Baking Soda + Superglue trick. It's almost finished. I used the Ultralite's hinge cover and tried the BS+SG trick on it since it looks brand new (probably the nicest part of that whole mess). I also reinforced it with J.B. Weld Steelstick like I did the one for the 40EC. I took the foil tape off the 40EC, it looked stupid, and the JB Weld Repair inside looks good anyway.

Messing around with the M/75 some more. Decided to keep it "Microsoft" for now. Gave it the 80GB from my P/75 and reconfigured it as a triple boot (DOS/WFWG/W95) so I can take advantage of Windows Sound System SoundBlaster Emulation.

Checked, my Motherboard for the 40EC is almost here. After that, I think I'll be ordering another panel from China for the time being. I'm going to take a break from electronics repairs for awhile - esp since I have some Husband things to do (Valentines day, My Wife's Sister's Wedding, and so on) coming up. Put the Ultralite on the back burner - I may just suck it up and get the more expensive one later in the year if I achive something big....esp since it'll be nice to get a monochrome screen for display purposes.

I think the next series of projects during the summer will be getting the 486 Desktop in order again.....and maybe get it another one of those 44pin to mSATA adapters so I can have that insane speed I had before. Just needs a Lian-Li RH17 Mobile Rack (another one) and I'm done. I'll keep the old one in case I can fix it (or hack it to work again).

I had the opportunity to work on a computer I hadn't seen in almost 11 years! I built a computer for a guy back in early 2010, which he wanted to use for some light gaming. He was working on a budget (retired) so the specs were:

Athlon II X3 435 (I think... thanks to NewEgg wiping out purchase history after 10 years, I have no records from the first 10 years I shopped there)
Asrock Am3 motherboard (760G I think)
2x2GB DDR2 800
OCZ ModXStream 500W 80Plus
Radeon HD5670 512MB GDDR5 (amazing to think this was a cutting edge, highly efficient entry level gaming card at the time with only 512MB GDDR5)
WD Blue 320GB
Windows 7

Amazingly, he said it still did everything he needed, but the hard drive started accumulating so many bad sectors that it killed Windows, so he bought a newer HP mini-desktop recently. Honestly, the HP isn't really much better after all those years. It has a Celeron G4900 (massively faster per thread, but only has two cores and no HT), 4GB of DDR4 (no capacity upgrade), Intel UHD 610 (slower than the 5670 in a lot of cases), and a spinning hard drive.

After I got his stuff moved to the new system and did some tweaks for him, he said I could have the old one for parts if I wanted it! I obviously said yes. I'd say he got his money out of it, and I apparently did a decent job back then of gauging what would meet his needs for a long time.

So, I have no idea what I'm going to do with it now, but I now have a computer I built for a guy 11 years ago, and all it needs is an SSD to be a completely serviceable basic system, capable of (very) light gaming. I have scads of 2nd and 3rd gen i5 Optiplex systems that I got from a recycler last summer, so this thing certainly isn't next in line when it comes to performance, but if anyone has any ideas for it, let me know. The 5670 would still be a solid card for less intensive games that don't need a lot of vram. I might keep it as a backup since it's not really worth passing on as a gaming card.

I just got to thinking about it, but over the years I have managed to get back at least 10 computers I have given to people (either built for, or handed down to), and I get them back almost completely functional after 5-10 years of use. I haven't horded ALL of these systems, thankfully... but a few of them I still have:

Gateway G6-400 - 1999 (first PC that was mine personally... passed on to two different family members before coming back... now used in my living room for retro gaming on the TV, almost completely original).
Abit NF7-S 2.0 + Athlon XP system - 2003 (was mine, then my sister's, then came back, now a tester system I use constantly... only has a new power supply and more RAM)
Epox 9NDA3J + Athlon 64 system - ~2005? (was mine, then sold to someone in 2009, then got it back when they upgraded in 2016)
Asrock AM3+ Athlon II X4 system (got the parts second hand to throw together a very cheap system for a friend back in 2015, threw in a some cheap upgrades a year or two later for Minecraft... eventually some of the SATA ports got flaky, but it still works... hey I should put that X4 CPU in the one I just got!)

Several other systems have been returned to me years later and then either passed on to yet another person or sold for parts. Funny how this keeps happening.

SodaSuccubus wrote on 2021-01-27, 23:53:

I got one of these over the holidays. S Video out of a PlayStation looked AMAZING! Iv been told component is even better, but pricey.

On the flipside: My Megadrive's composit looked like utter trash. Even though a 32x. Iv been told that's normal unfortunately 🙁

MDs don't do S-video natively, time to shell out for those retrovision cables 😭

megatron-uk wrote on 2021-01-27, 23:56:

Just skip those cables on the MD and go straight to RGB scart in to an OSSC and HDMI out. Glorious.

I would argue, that the OSSC and RetroTink, are both things to have at the same time. They perform differently, and you really need to use the right upscaler for any specific machine. For me, the absolute best choice for the C64, are the RetroTink 2x Mini with the use of S-Video cable. It looks even better than CRT, if I use the correct television. I tried it on two 720p televisions, and that sucked. The two best ones that I have, are a Samsung T22A300 television and then my Dell 2001fp, with the use of a HDMI to DVI cable. However the using the Dell monitor, then I have to use some kind of audio splitter cable, in order to be able to get sound. The Samsung television have 3.5mm Jack headphone socket, so I can have my Logitech Z240 speakers hooked up to it. It actually gives a slightly better picture than the Dell monitor, when using S-Video cable, however the Dell monitor gives a slightly better picture quality, when using Composit.

Now.... I am not talking about any RGB signal here, because the C64 do not produce any such signal at all, anywere in the machine. Naturally one would think that S-Video are the absolute best choice in any situation with this machine. However that is not always the case. It really depends on what monitor/upscaler that you are using, what revision of the mainboard the machine have and especially what revision AND model of the VIC-II chip that one have. Commodore64 are really not that great, when it comes to picture quality. The noise level on the video signal are like really bad, if you look at it from an enginers perspective. Actually quite ironic, that the vintage machine, with the absolute worst video signal. Is the best selling machine of all time, the most loved one through the years and the one with the largest software library. Now that is irony on a whole new level. 😁

I am just amazed that I have managed to get a picture quality, that on the Samsung television, looks much like RGB signal, when in reality it is not RGB. It was like "Wow!!! For real?" when I saw it yesterday. Or perhaps it was because it had gotten dark and I was tired? Who knows. I will have to do further testing with demo's and more games. The menu in winther games are still looking better on CRT. Yet that is the only thing that I have found so far. And when it is only a question of one menu, in one game and not in the levels. Well. Then I can live with that.

I agree that the RetroTink is a solution for a different problem than the OSSC - I don't personally have any systems that won't output RGB; I've held off getting a C64 and Atari XE/800 for this reason.

Fortunately, other than those two, every system I wanted (and there are a lot), can output native RGB which can then be fed into the OSSC (by means of two gscartw switches - I used a Wide Hydra previously but it was junk in terms of compatability).

It's more work than a hobby. My boss gave me an ASUS M6000 notebook to install XP on it so it could be used to interface with some of our older systems.
The problem is, that it's missing its optical drive, it has some longer than normal, probably proprietary connector and I have no drives for it and the XP installer just drops a BSOD when trying to install it from USB. Starting the setup through DLC Boot 2016 mini XP after copying over the installer on its own HDD, didn't help. Installed an XP on a different laptop to its hard drive, but the change is too big, irreparably crashes in the ASUS.

The error code gives me this, and I've already thought about it myself, but this notebook don't have similar settings in the BIOS (v02.54).

Otherwise it seems to be a decent notebook with fine specs for W98 (Pentium M 1.5GHz; 512MB RAM; Mobility Radeon 9100; 40GB HDD), but this way it'll probably be binned.

Ozzuneoj wrote on 2021-01-28, 07:23:

I had the opportunity to work on a computer I hadn't seen in almost 11 years! I built a computer for a guy back in early 2010, w […]
Show full quote

I had the opportunity to work on a computer I hadn't seen in almost 11 years! I built a computer for a guy back in early 2010, which he wanted to use for some light gaming. He was working on a budget (retired) so the specs were:

Athlon II X3 435 (I think... thanks to NewEgg wiping out purchase history after 10 years, I have no records from the first 10 years I shopped there)
Asrock Am3 motherboard (760G I think)
2x2GB DDR2 800
OCZ ModXStream 500W 80Plus
Radeon HD5670 512MB GDDR5 (amazing to think this was a cutting edge, highly efficient entry level gaming card at the time with only 512MB GDDR5)
WD Blue 320GB
Windows 7

Amazingly, he said it still did everything he needed, but the hard drive started accumulating so many bad sectors that it killed Windows, so he bought a newer HP mini-desktop recently. Honestly, the HP isn't really much better after all those years. It has a Celeron G4900 (massively faster per thread, but only has two cores and no HT), 4GB of DDR4 (no capacity upgrade), Intel UHD 610 (slower than the 5670 in a lot of cases), and a spinning hard drive.

After I got his stuff moved to the new system and did some tweaks for him, he said I could have the old one for parts if I wanted it! I obviously said yes. I'd say he got his money out of it, and I apparently did a decent job back then of gauging what would meet his needs for a long time.

So, I have no idea what I'm going to do with it now, but I now have a computer I built for a guy 11 years ago, and all it needs is an SSD to be a completely serviceable basic system, capable of (very) light gaming. I have scads of 2nd and 3rd gen i5 Optiplex systems that I got from a recycler last summer, so this thing certainly isn't next in line when it comes to performance, but if anyone has any ideas for it, let me know. The 5670 would still be a solid card for less intensive games that don't need a lot of vram. I might keep it as a backup since it's not really worth passing on as a gaming card.

I just got to thinking about it, but over the years I have managed to get back at least 10 computers I have given to people (either built for, or handed down to), and I get them back almost completely functional after 5-10 years of use. I haven't horded ALL of these systems, thankfully... but a few of them I still have:

Gateway G6-400 - 1999 (first PC that was mine personally... passed on to two different family members before coming back... now used in my living room for retro gaming on the TV, almost completely original).
Abit NF7-S 2.0 + Athlon XP system - 2003 (was mine, then my sister's, then came back, now a tester system I use constantly... only has a new power supply and more RAM)
Epox 9NDA3J + Athlon 64 system - ~2005? (was mine, then sold to someone in 2009, then got it back when they upgraded in 2016)
Asrock AM3+ Athlon II X4 system (got the parts second hand to throw together a very cheap system for a friend back in 2015, threw in a some cheap upgrades a year or two later for Minecraft... eventually some of the SATA ports got flaky, but it still works... hey I should put that X4 CPU in the one I just got!)

Several other systems have been returned to me years later and then either passed on to yet another person or sold for parts. Funny how this keeps happening.

You can still see all of your order history on newegg. Under the order history page just search for your parts and it'll bring up the order. I thought the same thing but I can still pull up orders all the way back to 2004 when I first started using them.

RandomStranger wrote on 2021-01-28, 11:25:

It's more work than a hobby. My boss gave me an ASUS M6000 notebook to install XP on it so it could be used to interface with so […]
Show full quote

It's more work than a hobby. My boss gave me an ASUS M6000 notebook to install XP on it so it could be used to interface with some of our older systems.
The problem is, that it's missing its optical drive, it has some longer than normal, probably proprietary connector and I have no drives for it and the XP installer just drops a BSOD when trying to install it from USB. Starting the setup through DLC Boot 2016 mini XP after copying over the installer on its own HDD, didn't help. Installed an XP on a different laptop to its hard drive, but the change is too big, irreparably crashes in the ASUS.

The error code gives me this, and I've already thought about it myself, but this notebook don't have similar settings in the BIOS (v02.54).

Otherwise it seems to be a decent notebook with fine specs for W98 (Pentium M 1.5GHz; 512MB RAM; Mobility Radeon 9100; 40GB HDD), but this way it'll probably be binned.

Would you be able to use a USB optical drive to install XP?

Found this inside my dead SCSI hard drive (ST39102LW), no wonder it never worked.

I'm wondering if that drive was in a system that had lightning damage.

Maybe, I have no idea. I got this drive for free as it is.

I'm building an all-black PIII 1.0B and the CPU fan made a horrible racket, and all I had was 5v laptop cooling fans (off one of those USB stands you put your laptop on) and an oversized, passive heating PIII heat sink from a Dell system that had a plastic hood over it, so I combined them, and soldered on a fitting that would plug into the CPU fan on the mobo:

and I stuck it in -

Yes, there is not a lot of room on the intake side, but I could not add the fan in any of the other three positions without some caps, RAM, or the retaining clip getting in the way.

I'm sure that large exhaust fan will help it. It's now MUCH quieter.

I also prepared these other two (233MMX, another 1.0B) for sale:

And some outdoor retrobrite-ing yesterday:

The keyboard cleaned up SUPER nicely - the speakers are out there again today. The sun is very effective, even in -5c temps 😉

chrismeyer6 wrote on 2021-01-28, 14:34:

RandomStranger wrote on 2021-01-28, 11:25:

It's more work than a hobby. My boss gave me an ASUS M6000 notebook to install XP on it so it could be used to interface with so […]
Show full quote

It's more work than a hobby. My boss gave me an ASUS M6000 notebook to install XP on it so it could be used to interface with some of our older systems.
The problem is, that it's missing its optical drive, it has some longer than normal, probably proprietary connector and I have no drives for it and the XP installer just drops a BSOD when trying to install it from USB. Starting the setup through DLC Boot 2016 mini XP after copying over the installer on its own HDD, didn't help. Installed an XP on a different laptop to its hard drive, but the change is too big, irreparably crashes in the ASUS.

The error code gives me this, and I've already thought about it myself, but this notebook don't have similar settings in the BIOS (v02.54).

Otherwise it seems to be a decent notebook with fine specs for W98 (Pentium M 1.5GHz; 512MB RAM; Mobility Radeon 9100; 40GB HDD), but this way it'll probably be binned.

Would you be able to use a USB optical drive to install XP?

I probably would if I had one, though my guess is that maybe because it still goes through USB, it'd still end with a BSOD.

However based on this it finally worked: https://poweriso.com/tutorials/how-to-make-wi … e-usb-drive.htm

Booting up with DLC Boot 2016 mini XP, copying over the i386 folder then running the command from Step 5 and XP installs neatly.
There were two files the installer didn't copy over from the i386 folder to the temporary install folder, but I when the installer ask for them you can browse the i386 folder.

andrea wrote on 2021-01-27, 22:19:

PC@LIVE wrote on 2021-01-27, 22:15:

Yes, I think it can be done without problems, the E21X0 can be overclocked until almost doubling the FSB, and without overvolt. […]
Show full quote

andrea wrote on 2021-01-27, 20:58:

If you can try running the 800FSB CPUs at 1066. All of yours will very likely overclock to 1066 very easily and at stock voltage for a considerable speed boost. In fact, I ran a E4500 (2200/800) at 2933/1066 with less voltage than stock (1.2something vs 1.325 specified I seem to recall)

Yes, I think it can be done without problems, the E21X0 can be overclocked until almost doubling the FSB, and without overvolt.
Currently the 4400 has been slightly overclocked by taking the FSB from 800 to 920, the frequency rises from 2.0GHz to 2.3GHz.
An E4600 that I ordered should arrive in a while.
Unfortunately the MB ECS has video built in, and I wouldn't want to cause problems by raising the FSB too much (up to 1066).

Try doing the BSEL mod with aluminium tape. That way the CPU will present itself to the board as if it were a genuine 1066 chip and all timings and dividers will be in spec.

Interesting, I don't know how it's done, if you can point me a link, I'll try to see if it's easy to do.
Thank you

I think the keyboard came out well after a clean and some retrobrite:

And then, I had to address this rusty case:

Already looks better with just some 120 grit sanding:

After some spraying:

Gonna put the rest of the computer together after class tonight.

chrismeyer6 wrote on 2021-01-28, 14:31:

You can still see all of your order history on newegg. Under the order history page just search for your parts and it'll bring up the order. I thought the same thing but I can still pull up orders all the way back to 2004 when I first started using them.

Wow! This is amazing! I had no idea! I actually made a post about this last year when I first noticed it. I will have to update that post now. Thank you so much for mentioning this!

As a "retro pc" enthusiast, this felt like having part of my own history deleted... I can't believe the stuff is still there, just not easily accessible. I wonder if there's some way to mess with the page source or script to get it to show years that aren't in the drop down list...

Jed118 wrote on 2021-01-28, 23:08:

I think the keyboard came out well after a clean and some retrobrite: […]
Show full quote

I think the keyboard came out well after a clean and some retrobrite:

And then, I had to address this rusty case:

Already looks better with just some 120 grit sanding:

After some spraying:

Gonna put the rest of the computer together after class tonight.

Great work, it looks amazing. Which color codes did you use? I’m still searching for the original color codes for IBM 5150/5160. The one you used looks perfect for some of my other rusty 286/386 cases.

CMB75 wrote on 2021-01-29, 06:56:

Great work, it looks amazing. Which color codes did you use? I’m still searching for the original color codes for IBM 5150/5160. The one you used looks perfect for some of my other rusty 286/386 cases.

I have used this:

https://www.homedepot.ca/product/rust-oleum-p … aint/1000666143

for many years. I completely redid a 386 SCSI system using this paint (plug to my channel in the sig, a six-parter series, check it out!) . I used to spray the base of my LCDs for a better "retro" match for systems I sell on eBay , but I stopped doing it for tower systems because it made no sense. Desktops I'll still do it to though.

It's not an exact match, in fact, it's pretty bright compared to the plastics of the 90s, but if you get a REALLY white case (such as in the 386 SCSI videos on my channel 🤣) it's pretty good.

I painted a model F shroud with this stuff, after filling in a burned in serial code near the function keys and applying textured paint first. Only an eagle-eyed bodyman would be able to find out what I did. AFAIK the new owner in B.C. still hasn't been able to spot it.

Decades of bodywork on cars 😁

Actually, now I got myself a welder, I'm going to build a case cover for a beautiful AT case.

But tonight, I am excited about finishing this 486 SCSI system:

Maybe something like RAL 9010, but this color coding standard is European. IBM is not. 😉

Jed118 wrote on 2021-01-29, 07:29:

But tonight, I am excited about finishing this 486 SCSI system: […]
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But tonight, I am excited about finishing this 486 SCSI system:

just appreciating the workspace you have, a nice retro pc corner