Where do all these desktops come from? 😀 Around here, it's minitowers for miles.

Well, you just gotta love it when the board you bought as nonworking not only works but boots into DR-DOS and accepts a BIOS reflash flawlessly. The board is a FIC SD-11 Rev 1.8 (the actual release version) I bought 10-15 bucks (not including shipping) to use as a comparison to the NOS Rev 1.7 board I bought a few months ago. They looked identical so I bought it to check under the NB heatsink to see if the difference was a more recent NB stepping. Turned out no, they both have C0 stepping NBs best as I can tell but maybe the stepping number is just really faint? It was a massive pain to read the other numbers so it's not impossible. The only real issue this board has is a bad PS/2 keyboard jack (the speaker just beeps when I push a key) so I might just replace it with a color coded jack because I don't have a I/O shield for this mobo. It does work with a wireless USB Keyboard/Mouse combo plugged in but sometimes it quits working after a reset. So, it looks like I'll have a control when I get around to repopulating the unused VRM slots on my NOS board. It'll be interesting to see if the instability issues Redhill mentioned and general PSU fussiness wind up being resolved by having the full 8 mosfet VRM that Compaq used on the Aspen 2 boards. I suspect so: the PSUs Compaq used had only a 30 amp 5 volt rail, lower that what Redhill found worked well (35 amp). As it is the board boots into a minimal DR-DOS bootdisk and runs the BIOS flasher without issue with a 700mhz Slot A T-Bird using a modern (IOW, weak 5v rail) 650 watt 80+ Bronze EVGA psu without any problems!!!

BitWrangler wrote on 2021-06-02, 22:05:

Caluser2000 wrote on 2021-06-02, 21:39:

Most likely fit a Socket 7 or Super Socket 7 mobo in that case. Or maybe that vlb 486/386 mobo I have c/w vlb video card and ide multi i/o card I have in an anti static bag in the same box.

Well the front two look good, I guess it depends where the drive cage comes to whether the rest work out, or how big a heatsink you want on them etc.

They all fit just fine. The 486 vlb mobo was in a slimline Ollivette 486 PC40 case with a riser of it. I couldn't believe it when I opened the case up. They must of just fitted any old 486 mobo in those cases. The 40 stood for 40meg hdd.

Merovign wrote on 2021-06-02, 22:09:

Where do all these desktops come from? 😀 Around here, it's minitowers for miles.

Mini Towers weren't really used much down here in New Zealand until Windows 95 came out.

The fronts of both cases cleaned up well.

On the bottom one I used P180 FL202P Ovit sanding paper to get rid of the yellowing. No disassembly, soaking in water/oxy mix out in the sun for a few days so no chance of getting patchy. Done in about half an 3/4s of an hour.

The top case just needed a good clean with hot water and soap.

What's next, spraying them blue and flamey to match a Hotwheels monitor? 🤣

BitWrangler wrote on 2021-06-03, 03:03:

What's next, spraying them blue and flamey to match a Hotwheels monitor? 🤣

Lol..........................

Nah. I prefer a la natuerale. Beige all the way baby!

I have been working some more on my ATX-64 build. Still missing to build those extrenders, that connects the two daugherboard's/riser-card's, get a cartridge-connector, have a custom Rom created and buy the last 50% of the chips. Other than that, then I will have to find a case and a PSU.

But the build will not be complete when all that is done. There are Ps/2 keyboard adaptor, that I need to buy and build, as well as an internally mounted PI-1541 drive. (sorry about the last picture's brightness. Hard to take photo's of black PCB's)

The copper standoff's will be removed, once the build is done. They are only there to prevent me from bending components out of shape, when I solder. And to make a flat surface to solder on.

I can't wait to see the finished system. It'll be fun to see a modern C64.

The IT guy at our company passed along a Pentium III laptop to me. It's a Fujitso SeriesS Lifebook, I knew nothing about the configuration until I took it home. The CMOS battery was dead, so I opened it up and replaced it (managed to end up with two extra screws in the end somehow, but everything seems to be working) and now I have a working Pentium IIIm 1.2GHz laptop.

It came with 768MB RAM and Windows XP which kind of crawls, I'll probably do a fresh install of Windows 98SE.

I wonder if anyone know Sigmatel C-Major audio codec has legacy SB compatibility in Windows 98SE?

chrismeyer6 wrote on 2021-06-03, 12:15:

I can't wait to see the finished system. It'll be fun to see a modern C64.

Still waiting for the pinheader extenders to arive, so I can have it assembled for checking if all sockets have contacts and to make a first power-on test. 😀

xcomcmdr wrote on 2021-05-31, 06:04:

Yep, that UI is a little confusing

Motif was the default UI back then. Like any UI it takes a bit of time to get use to it and it's limitations/advantages. Win3.1 had quite a number of third party UIs like Calmira, TabWorks, a OS/2 Workplace Shell lookalike and others you could use.

Cleaned and tweaked the Toshiba Satellite 300CDT.
I disassembled whole thing to the single screw, then cleaned deeply. Also, I've changed the internal batteries and replaced the thermal paste.
Then, I replaced CCFL to the LED strip in the TFT module. After that, I assembled it again.

Now it's beautiful and clean. Also the screen works perfectly with the LED instead of CCFL tube (tested this one by connecting to lab power supply). However, I don't have any step-up driver to pick up from the shelf, so Toshiba needs to wait a week for completing this restoration.

sirotkaslo wrote on 2021-06-02, 11:43:

Bought a celeron 800 pc today, with 128mb ram, tnt 2 m64 gpu, 2GB HDD, all that for 15€. Guy says he's got a lot of old things, so I guess I've found a new supplier.

that's a fair deal and the combination of celeron 800 + tnt2 means just about anything up to 1999 is within grasp plus, i'm guessing by age, lots of DOS games too

seleryba wrote on 2021-06-03, 18:41:

Cleaned and tweaked the Toshiba Satellite 300CDT. I disassembled whole thing to the single screw, then cleaned deeply. Also, I'v […]
Show full quote

Cleaned and tweaked the Toshiba Satellite 300CDT.
I disassembled whole thing to the single screw, then cleaned deeply. Also, I've changed the internal batteries and replaced the thermal paste.
Then, I replaced CCFL to the LED strip in the TFT module. After that, I assembled it again.

735ECF19-BEB2-4191-AE44-A890FAB2E66D.jpeg

Now it's beautiful and clean. Also the screen works perfectly with the LED instead of CCFL tube (tested this one by connecting to lab power supply). However, I don't have any step-up driver to pick up from the shelf, so Toshiba needs to wait a week for completing this restoration.

that is pristine! great approach using LED too

Jackal1983 wrote on 2021-06-02, 22:25:

Well, you just gotta love it when the board you bought as nonworking not only works but boots into DR-DOS and accepts a BIOS reflash flawlessly. The board is a FIC SD-11 Rev 1.8 (the actual release version) I bought 10-15 bucks (not including shipping) to use as a comparison to the NOS Rev 1.7 board I bought a few months ago. They looked identical so I bought it to check under the NB heatsink to see if the difference was a more recent NB stepping. Turned out no, they both have C0 stepping NBs best as I can tell but maybe the stepping number is just really faint? It was a massive pain to read the other numbers so it's not impossible. The only real issue this board has is a bad PS/2 keyboard jack (the speaker just beeps when I push a key) so I might just replace it with a color coded jack because I don't have a I/O shield for this mobo. It does work with a wireless USB Keyboard/Mouse combo plugged in but sometimes it quits working after a reset. So, it looks like I'll have a control when I get around to repopulating the unused VRM slots on my NOS board. It'll be interesting to see if the instability issues Redhill mentioned and general PSU fussiness wind up being resolved by having the full 8 mosfet VRM that Compaq used on the Aspen 2 boards. I suspect so: the PSUs Compaq used had only a 30 amp 5 volt rail, lower that what Redhill found worked well (35 amp). As it is the board boots into a minimal DR-DOS bootdisk and runs the BIOS flasher without issue with a 700mhz Slot A T-Bird using a modern (IOW, weak 5v rail) 650 watt 80+ Bronze EVGA psu without any problems!!!

I've seen boards having blank spaces but good god, that's almost half of the board that's being empty.

PcBytes wrote on 2021-06-03, 20:18:

Jackal1983 wrote on 2021-06-02, 22:25:

Well, you just gotta love it when the board you bought as nonworking not only works but boots into DR-DOS and accepts a BIOS reflash flawlessly. The board is a FIC SD-11 Rev 1.8 (the actual release version) I bought 10-15 bucks (not including shipping) to use as a comparison to the NOS Rev 1.7 board I bought a few months ago. They looked identical so I bought it to check under the NB heatsink to see if the difference was a more recent NB stepping. Turned out no, they both have C0 stepping NBs best as I can tell but maybe the stepping number is just really faint? It was a massive pain to read the other numbers so it's not impossible. The only real issue this board has is a bad PS/2 keyboard jack (the speaker just beeps when I push a key) so I might just replace it with a color coded jack because I don't have a I/O shield for this mobo. It does work with a wireless USB Keyboard/Mouse combo plugged in but sometimes it quits working after a reset. So, it looks like I'll have a control when I get around to repopulating the unused VRM slots on my NOS board. It'll be interesting to see if the instability issues Redhill mentioned and general PSU fussiness wind up being resolved by having the full 8 mosfet VRM that Compaq used on the Aspen 2 boards. I suspect so: the PSUs Compaq used had only a 30 amp 5 volt rail, lower that what Redhill found worked well (35 amp). As it is the board boots into a minimal DR-DOS bootdisk and runs the BIOS flasher without issue with a 700mhz Slot A T-Bird using a modern (IOW, weak 5v rail) 650 watt 80+ Bronze EVGA psu without any problems!!!

I've seen boards having blank spaces but good god, that's almost half of the board that's being empty.

The AnandTech review said that the board had a definite "Prototype rushed out the door" feel to it. My suspicions are that the board was originally an OEM only product whipped up by FIC for Compaq to their specs with some eye to a later standalone release (hence the ISA slot that is unused in the Compaq board). I think all of the revisions were seeing how much they could strip off the board and still have it somewhat stable while working around the 751 NB's eccentricities, with 1.7 being the last preproduction version and 1.8 being the actual release version (they are both compatible with the most recent bios version, so I suspect the differences are very slight). Anandtech also mentioned overclocking options in the bios, but neither the most recent bios nor the bioses on both boards I have show any such options. I have a full set of polymer caps for one of these boards, but I might just use polys on the VRMs as well as the chipset power caps and use electrolytics on the memory side of the board. I have some electrolytics for the small value caps, but I probably won't worry with them unless I start getting some weirdness.

It's Retro Truck day for me. Got to figure out the low-rough idle on my 1993 Ford Explorer. How does this fit into "retro computing" you ask? Well, I've read a few places mentioning Explorer/Ranger PCM's having leaky caps....so funny my first full recap might be on the engine computer for a Ford. Got some other things to check first (vacuum leak-ish stuff).

creepingnet wrote on 2021-06-03, 23:02:

It's Retro Truck day for me. Got to figure out the low-rough idle on my 1993 Ford Explorer. How does this fit into "retro computing" you ask? Well, I've read a few places mentioning Explorer/Ranger PCM's having leaky caps....so funny my first full recap might be on the engine computer for a Ford. Got some other things to check first (vacuum leak-ish stuff).

I'd pull the IAC and give it a good cleaning with some brake cleaner. They usually get gummed up with carbon and the valves stick and cause All sorts of idle quality issues.

chrismeyer6 wrote on 2021-06-03, 23:18:

creepingnet wrote on 2021-06-03, 23:02:

It's Retro Truck day for me. Got to figure out the low-rough idle on my 1993 Ford Explorer. How does this fit into "retro computing" you ask? Well, I've read a few places mentioning Explorer/Ranger PCM's having leaky caps....so funny my first full recap might be on the engine computer for a Ford. Got some other things to check first (vacuum leak-ish stuff).

I'd pull the IAC and give it a good cleaning with some brake cleaner. They usually get gummed up with carbon and the valves stick and cause All sorts of idle quality issues.

Yep, that's first order on the menu, clean/check MAF, IAC, and check on a vacuum line that goes fro the intake/throttle body that often gets holes on these 4.0L V6 engines, and inspect all my other vacuum lines,and check the PCV since a tune-up is due soon anyway. Pretty much all that stuff is original except the PCV valve (I've been with this vehicle since I was 10 and it was new in 93').