PcBytes wrote on 2022-04-27, 20:07:

Recapped an Spire Jewel 380W PSU I bought for peanuts because I needed something that had the -5v rail as well a powerful 5v rai […]
Show full quote

Recapped an Spire Jewel 380W PSU I bought for peanuts because I needed something that had the -5v rail as well a powerful 5v rail (and boy, it did not disappoint.).

Picture is before the recap. Wanna point out that the 2 main caps aren't original to it when I got it, they're 680uF 200v Panasonic CE caps. For those who know PSU OEMs, it's Sun Pro who did it. Surprisingly good though my OCD kinda gets triggered knowing the 3.3v and 5v rails are a wee bit high (5.3v and 3.4v) despite recapping it.

Just asking since I saw this, but the red encircled items are not that terrible yellow glue already turned brown?
The blue circle == same, but can't see clearly enough if that's the same brown stuff as what's inside the red circles.

Almost. This one does look like the tan glue a bit, but it's not - it's elastic and it doesn't seem to be conductive or corrosive, instead it's a bit similar to hot glue.

The one I've been talking about usually crumbles when you try to remove it in its state. This one is like gum, and can be easily removed, and doesn't seem to be conductive in any form.

brian105 wrote on 2022-04-30, 09:40:

I have no idea what it is. I tried to get it off with IPA but it didn't change. The bottom of the cooler which sits on the die d […]
Show full quote

Nexxen wrote on 2022-04-30, 08:21:

brian105 wrote on 2022-04-30, 05:35:

https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/424000117717073920/968325125667688538/20220425_213806.jpg?width=503&height=671 […]
Show full quote

Cleaning a 7950GT and repasting. Put Kryonaut and the thing still idles at 50c.. idiots at nVidia made the reference cooler a 1-slot blower solution, and Foxconn kept that solution. It actually doesn't get that much hotter when playing Portal, but the fan always sounds loud and terrible.

What is that ring on the core? Sadako rev?

I have no idea what it is. I tried to get it off with IPA but it didn't change. The bottom of the cooler which sits on the die doesn't have this ring.
Closer shot:

I thought it was your lighting or camera reflection.
Cute little thing that makes you wonder "how?".

It's impossible to tell how viscous these glues/epoxies are by visual inspection. Poke at it with a screwdriver. One consistency that I've seen for the bad formula is that it crumbles under only a small amount of pressure, like a stale cookie.

If you remove it or scrape away at it a bit and the PCB is discolored, this is also a sign that it may have turned corrosive and damaged the PCB.

I managed to pull out some from two coils next to the standby transformer. It's like gum in consistency, which makes me think it's a totally different glue, and isn't corrosive. I remember someone giving me a rather clean Delux unit (400W supposedly) that was based on the same AT-2005B platform and instead had bad secondary caps without any discoloration. Same kind of tan glue, and it came off in the same way, like gum.

Not that it couldn't happen, but I have not encountered any gum-like glues or epoxies that have shown signs of corrosion.

I'm hesitant to say that all glues must be soft or malleable and to be wary of anything that is not. There are plenty of rock hard epoxies that aren't corrosive either. The signature that I have seen so far (again, my sample size is very small), is that the bad kind of glue is dry and crumbly. So if the glue is hard and not crumbly, then it's probably fine.

Of you've pulled glue off of coils, then you may have to apply a replacement. Coils can resonate and may even create audible noise at certain frequencies. I have no data, but I would imagine that the glue also helps to relieve some of the stress from the solder joints, if the component does in fact resonate.

Knowing how cheap the OEM is (Sun Pro, and the retailer is Spire - the same guys behind the Spire fans) , they'll probably work fine 🤣

Retro activitiy of the day: I had smoke coming out of an old hard drive..

octopus wrote on 2022-04-30, 19:14:

Retro activitiy of the day: I had smoke coming out of an old hard drive..

Nice. I had smoke coming out of the Turbo switch this morning. I misaligned the pins (really easy to do) and nearly started a fire. Good news is that only the button mechanism is fried so a quick trip to ebay found nearly identical latching buttons. Another project for another day.

Kahenraz wrote on 2022-04-30, 16:06:

Not that it couldn't happen, but I have not encountered any gum-like glues or epoxies that have shown signs of corrosion.

I'm hesitant to say that all glues must be soft or malleable and to be wary of anything that is not. There are plenty of rock hard epoxies that aren't corrosive either. The signature that I have seen so far (again, my sample size is very small), is that the bad kind of glue is dry and crumbly. So if the glue is hard and not crumbly, then it's probably fine.

Of you've pulled glue off of coils, then you may have to apply a replacement. Coils can resonate and may even create audible noise at certain frequencies. I have no data, but I would imagine that the glue also helps to relieve some of the stress from the solder joints, if the component does in fact resonate.

Some older glues could be subject to biological attack... since they're basically dehydrated horse soup.

Shponglefan wrote on 2022-04-28, 23:50:

NyLan wrote on 2022-04-27, 20:03:

Created my Windows 3.11 WFW 8x floppies set :love_you_gesture: […]
Show full quote

Created my Windows 3.11 WFW 8x floppies set 🤟

2022-04-27 20.04.27.jpg

Comparison between mine and official one :
2022-04-27 20.05.24.jpgmedia-disk01.jpg

That's quite good! What are you using for labels?

Detailed a bit on my github : https://github.com/NyLan-1/
😎

Figuring out how to clone ide drive onto SD card using G31 core2duo motherboard with single ide and Hirens boot CD. One version, not 15.2, has something image 2013 on it. Was able to backup. I'll have to use a motherboard with two ides for the direct clone option. PITA

Figuring out how to clone ide drive onto SD card using G31 core2duo motherboard with single ide and Hirens boot CD. One version, not 15.2, has something image 2013 on it. Was able to backup. I'll have to use a motherboard with two ides for the direct clone option. PITA.
Ide drive comes from duron 600 time computer with tnt2 m64. Want to change over to rage 128 pro and update sound but want to have fallback option of things go south

Tested a "crappy" Mendocino CPU I had laying around for some time.
Turns out, it's not as worthless as I thought. It's the king of the Mendocinos. 8x66MHz.
Is it a good overclocker or why pay people up to 20 bucks for this?

RaiderOfLostVoodoo wrote on 2022-05-02, 10:04:

Tested a "crappy" Mendocino CPU I had laying around for some time.
Turns out, it's not as worthless as I thought. It's the king of the Mendocinos. 8x66MHz.
Is it a good overclocker or why pay people up to 20 bucks for this?

Because it's the king of the Mendocinos 😜

RaiderOfLostVoodoo wrote on 2022-05-02, 10:04:

Tested a "crappy" Mendocino CPU I had laying around for some time.
Turns out, it's not as worthless as I thought. It's the king of the Mendocinos. 8x66MHz.
Is it a good overclocker or why pay people up to 20 bucks for this?

Everything you always wanted to know about Celeron overclocking - according to this review your sample may run @ 600MHz.
https://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/intel-ce … uide,218-6.html

RaiderOfLostVoodoo wrote on 2022-05-02, 10:04:

Tested a "crappy" Mendocino CPU I had laying around for some time.
Turns out, it's not as worthless as I thought. It's the king of the Mendocinos. 8x66MHz.
Is it a good overclocker or why pay people up to 20 bucks for this?

It might be the fastest some 440LX boards will take, stuck into a slotket. (Depending on whether there were beta bioses or hacks to take coppermine celerons or not)

However, ppl with a 440BX would be looking for a 366, because they are all multiplier locked, so PII-eater high bus speeds of 100 plus exceed the capabilities of the core/process on higher multipliers. You might be able to run this one at 75 Mhz, but unless it's a golden ticket 83Mhz is unlikely. They don't look so great at 66 compared to a PII because of the lower cache capacity, but because it's full speed cache, synchronous with the core, where the PII is not, those are off core at various dividers, when the bus speeds are increased it catches up with the PIIs.

BitWrangler wrote on 2022-05-02, 11:40:

RaiderOfLostVoodoo wrote on 2022-05-02, 10:04:

Tested a "crappy" Mendocino CPU I had laying around for some time.
Turns out, it's not as worthless as I thought. It's the king of the Mendocinos. 8x66MHz.
Is it a good overclocker or why pay people up to 20 bucks for this?

It might be the fastest some 440LX boards will take, stuck into a slotket. (Depending on whether there were beta bioses or hacks to take coppermine celerons or not)

However, ppl with a 440BX would be looking for a 366, because they are all multiplier locked, so PII-eater high bus speeds of 100 plus exceed the capabilities of the core/process on higher multipliers. You might be able to run this one at 75 Mhz, but unless it's a golden ticket 83Mhz is unlikely. They don't look so great at 66 compared to a PII because of the lower cache capacity, but because it's full speed cache, synchronous with the core, where the PII is not, those are off core at various dividers, when the bus speeds are increased it catches up with the PIIs.

It's also an especially helpful chip for early PPGA-only s370 boards as it's the fastest Mendocino officially available for such boards.
I'm unsure about adapters for to add Coppermine CPUs to these boards but usually this won't help much as most of the s370 PPGA-only boards are LX ones (an early Coppermine could be worth it for a BX board, but an adapter and perhaps some BIOS update would probably be needed).

Finally finished uploading the Soundtrack to Transport Tycoon which was recorded off the Miditech Pianobox USB GM Module. I really enjoyed listening to each track while recording. TTD has an absolutely awesome soundtrack! I'm interested in peoples thoughts on this module. There doesn't appear to be many recordings of this device so next on my list is Doom 2 and Rise Of The Triad.

Here is the Playlist for Transport Tycoon

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL8qJAX … TuBJ1kEWP7yr8qj

BitWrangler wrote on 2022-04-29, 03:25:

Look at this real interesting hole though, the eZ80! 🤣

eZ80 is kind of the opposite of the Z280. They did a great job of extending the address space this time but didn't bother trying to extend the instruction set in other ways. Too bad there is no PLCC or DIP version.

Anyway I just had a terrible idea... Changing memory banks with the Z280 MMU takes more instructions than I would like, but I could always add my own bank switching logic outside the chip which would just take a single OUT instruction. *menacing laughter*