Going through a ton of stuff I picked up today from my local CL listing looking for "free old PC hardware".

So far, this is mostly from one box, various AGP/PCIe video cards, PCI sound cards, PCI raid and capture cards with all their attachments and cables. Was a PCI slot tester in there, can always use those.

A "seems to be working" HP Omnibook 900. Haven't done much testing on it, other than boot to BIOS, but if it works good it will make a good Win95/98 machine.

Got a lot more to go through yet, then the testing begins. Enough to keep me busy for a while. 😜

Ozzuneoj wrote on 2024-12-07, 14:21:

It is unusual for one to be made so late, but some of the earliest VGA monitors also only used 9-pin connectors.
It's possible that since it is a "Digital" brand, it may have been used for a workstation that used an older or non-standard 9-pin VGA connector.

After replacing the blown capacitor, cleaning the affected lines and covering them with nail polish, and cleaning other details (like a extrange rust that dripped on the board from one of the cables that cover the CRT) I partially reassembled it. It still doesn't show any illumination on the screen , I don't know if it needs an input signal for that (I still dont have how to connect it to the PC), being "EnergyStar" it may be an additional energy saving mode. I can feel the electrostatic charge of the screen when it turn on (I think it means that the high voltage is working). the filaments glow, then turn down when the monitor goes low power mode. I'll check some voltages before going for key components.
But I have 3 other monitors in the repair queue, a Samsung 997 (my favorite), a Samsung 793, and an Acer V772 (it shows an image, but only in 640x480x70Hz, it was deformed before, but after a capacitor change, it's back to normal, but still only in that setting). I'm interested in the Acer and this DIGITAL because they are smaller and take up less space in the workshop. The 997 is the one I want to use, it is one of the best monitors I have seen/owned. I used it for years and then gave it to a neighbor, until it stopped working, I have checked it but I still can't find the problem, I suspect the power source, there is a ticking sound around there. The 793 will be as a backup, once it works.

Yesterday I made a trip to a retro engine fair, unfortunately no old or modern PC hardware, only engine stuff, but for fans of the genre, definitely worth seeing.

PC@LIVE wrote on 2024-12-08, 07:47:

Yesterday I made a trip to a retro engine fair, unfortunately no old or modern PC hardware, only engine stuff, but for fans of the genre, definitely worth seeing.

I’d take that Jag 🤤

CMB75 wrote on 2024-12-08, 09:41:

PC@LIVE wrote on 2024-12-08, 07:47:

Yesterday I made a trip to a retro engine fair, unfortunately no old or modern PC hardware, only engine stuff, but for fans of the genre, definitely worth seeing.

I’d take that Jag 🤤

If you're in Italy 🇮🇹, I could see who has it, then we have to see if it's on sale (???).

But anyway there were other cars 🚗, Ferrari Testarossa, a Goggomobil coupe 250, various Defender Land Rovers, Fiat 850 Spider, AlfaRomeo GTV from the 80s, and many others like Fiat 500, various Minis from the 70s-90s, plus many motorcycles 🏍.

Recapped two motherboards (SS7 and s462). Listed all my CPU's and tested some s462 CPU's.
55 and counting, ranging from i386SX-16 to Sempron 2600+ or P4-2.8. Some of these (around 10) are in systems.
A while back I did the same for GPU's. About 50 or so PCI/AGP/early PCIe ...
Will need to test and sell off a lot of these. Not many motherboards though

Rebuilt my PIII rig. Replaced the BE6-II with a CUV4X. Never truly dabbled with Socket 370 motherboards, so I wanted to build with one.

Cataloging the first part of this haul (from a few posts back in the thread).

There are 3 or 4 full systems I need to go through yet, and a lot of various other items (drives/cables/adapters/power supplies/monitors)

Not bad for free. Going to take a while to test it all and see what works and what needs repair. Will keep me busy a while. 😜

Thoughts on any of it? All seems pretty standard.

GFX – AGP

BFG GeForce 6600 GT 128MB GDDR3
PNY GeForce 7600 GS 512MB GDDR2 – Needs New Fan
PNY GeForce 6200 256MB DDR2 – Low Profile
ATI Radeon 9000 128MB DDR
ATI Radeon 9250 128MB DDR
Jayton 3DForce2MX 32MB SDR – GeForce2 MX

GFX – PCIe

Sapphire Radeon X700 Pro 256MB DDR
XFX GF 7200GS 256MB DDR2 – Low Profile
Asus EN210 GeForce 210 512MB DDR2 – Low Profile
Visiontek Radeon VT4350 512MB DDR2 – Low Profile
EVGA GeForce 210 1GB DDR4 – Low Profile, Needs New Bracket

Sound – PCI

Sound Blaster Audigy EAX Advanced HD – SB1394 / SB0090
Sound Blaster Audigy EAX Advanced HD – SB0160
Sound Blaster Live – CT4870
Sound Blaster – CT4810
Diamond XtremeSound 7.1 – GQ968

Video Caprure – PCI

Hauppauge 1178 Internal TV Tuner/Video Recorder - WinTV-HVR-1600
Kworld ATSC 110 HDTV/Analog Tuner
Kworld ATSC 120 Analog Tuner
Pinnacle Systems Bendino v1 0a Video Capture

Storage

Transend 44-Pin IDE 128MB Flash Module - PTM820

Various Other Cards

Promise FastTrak SX4000 ATA IDE Raid Controller – PCI
Promise FastTrak TX2000 ATA IDE Controller – PCI
NetCell Syncraid 3100 SATA Raid Controller – PCI
Adaptec AHA-2930CU SCSI Controller – PCI
Adaptec 29160 PCI to Ultra160 SCSI Card
ADS Tech USB Host - PCI (USBX-500)

Could 2.89 Volt be enough to hold an EISA configuration?

Maybe I can program it with the TL866, floppy is not working because I'm using an Adaptec 2742AT SCSI EISA card with floppy controller. Chicken and the egg...

Dallas DS1225Y-200 flip side.

I'm this far, might as well add a CR2032 holder.
And if it's not working, I need to use an ISA controller card for floppy functionality.
Edit; which was inevitable.

At least we now have something without amnesia.

Dual Pentium (almost), Dual Dallas.

Quite the hassle, maybe I like jumpers more. Reseating a card into another slot means reconfiguring. And each card needs it own !mfgtype.cfg file when doing this.

However, still no show with the floppy drive on the Adaptec. Hints anyone?

A bit TOO retro...? I took this apart to see if I can get parts. Yes. Yes I can. It needs a set of tubes and a re-cap. I was surprised to see the tubes are indeed available. Will be repairing this thing soon.

I also FINALLY assembled the A7N8X-E Deluxe into a working unit.

Did I go too far or not too far enough?? 🤣

Major Jackyl wrote on 2024-12-09, 23:54:

A bit TOO retro...? I took this apart to see if I can get parts. Yes. Yes I can. It needs a set of tubes and a re-cap. I was surprised to see the tubes are indeed available. Will be repairing this thing soon.

Idk what it is with this tubes. Seeing those old things always warms my heart.

I played around with my not Coppermine compatible GA-6BC mainboard and some Processors. Got everything to run, expect the CPU I wanted to use.
It will run a PIII 450 overclocked to 133mh bus speed, a Celeron 900 @ 1008 MHz but won't post with a 1GHz PIII at its native 133mhz bus speed. iI am confuesd.

/MZ wrote on 2024-12-10, 10:53:

I played around with my not Coppermine compatible GA-6BC mainboard and some Processors. Got everything to run, expect the CPU I wanted to use.
It will run a PIII 450 overclocked to 133mh bus speed, a Celeron 900 @ 1008 MHz but won't post with a 1GHz PIII at its native 133mhz bus speed. iI am confuesd.

Is it the 1GHz you're booting at 100 MHz FSB on the image? Because, I was wondering if it was the stepping, your board didn't like - but if the CPU works at 100 FSB, thent it's not that.

Wonder if it's a power issue ...

I ran Memtest86 on every PC I own because I just had a DDR4 module fail in a new-ish PC.

It was the only module I’ve ever had fail, only a couple of days after loudly declaring that I’d never seen a memory failure. Whoops!

All the retro PCs were solid as a rock of course.

Cyfrifiadur wrote on 2024-12-10, 13:18:

I ran Memtest86 on every PC I own because I just had a DDR4 module fail in a new-ish PC.

It was the only module I’ve ever had fail, only a couple of days after loudly declaring that I’d never seen a memory failure. Whoops!

All the retro PCs were solid as a rock of course.

Save that module, try it in another machine... might work fine in that one. I had a 1GB DDR SODIMM fail in one laptop, as in it worked fine for a year, XP started getting errors, ran memtest, got a fail, put it aside, 5 years later, that mapping thing exists for linux to exclude bad blocks, install it in a machine to map it, different than original, memtests with no errors, huh... been running XP fine on it.

Also, box full of tested modules.. vs NF4 board... 80% failure... finally got one set working.

So, memtest may be right, there's one cell that's just a smidge too weak for that application... but another board, less near that threshold, may be fine... as some have said about an AGP card not being bad until you've tried it in several different motherboards... same with RAM.

H3nrik V! wrote on 2024-12-10, 13:04:

/MZ wrote on 2024-12-10, 10:53:

I played around with my not Coppermine compatible GA-6BC mainboard and some Processors. Got everything to run, expect the CPU I wanted to use.
It will run a PIII 450 overclocked to 133mh bus speed, a Celeron 900 @ 1008 MHz but won't post with a 1GHz PIII at its native 133mhz bus speed. iI am confuesd.

Is it the 1GHz you're booting at 100 MHz FSB on the image? Because, I was wondering if it was the stepping, your board didn't like - but if the CPU works at 100 FSB, thent it's not that.

Wonder if it's a power issue ...

I changes the Socklet, now it works on 133mhz FSB and 1GHz. But den Voodoo 2 SLI is not stable at the overclocked PCI. i am back on 7,5x112 mhz. It is more the fast enough for this Setup anyway.

BitWrangler wrote on 2024-12-10, 14:29:

Save that module, try it in another machine... might work fine in that one. I had a 1GB DDR SODIMM fail in one laptop, as in it […]
Show full quote

Cyfrifiadur wrote on 2024-12-10, 13:18:

I ran Memtest86 on every PC I own because I just had a DDR4 module fail in a new-ish PC.

It was the only module I’ve ever had fail, only a couple of days after loudly declaring that I’d never seen a memory failure. Whoops!

All the retro PCs were solid as a rock of course.

Save that module, try it in another machine... might work fine in that one. I had a 1GB DDR SODIMM fail in one laptop, as in it worked fine for a year, XP started getting errors, ran memtest, got a fail, put it aside, 5 years later, that mapping thing exists for linux to exclude bad blocks, install it in a machine to map it, different than original, memtests with no errors, huh... been running XP fine on it.

Also, box full of tested modules.. vs NF4 board... 80% failure... finally got one set working.

So, memtest may be right, there's one cell that's just a smidge too weak for that application... but another board, less near that threshold, may be fine... as some have said about an AGP card not being bad until you've tried it in several different motherboards... same with RAM.

Good advice, but in this instance the module is somehow still under warranty so I’m doing my first ever RMA.

Although we’re not talking about a few bit flips after a 24-hour burn in here. The test itself refuses to continue once it hits 10,000 errors in under a minute!

Completed 3 sessions of sunny retrobrighting on a Dell keyboard and Compaq mouse (to match my Compaq Deskpro). However, the keys on the keyboard didn't want to whiten much more than a certain point, I don't know why. Other keyboards were much more yellow, almost brown, and I left them pretty white. The rest of the keyboard has become quite white, because like with other plastics, I first use a steel scouring pad to remove a thin top layer. This keyboard has also suffered the same fate as another one that I still need to restore, the cable has "melted" the plastic in the places where it touched it. the scouring pad even the surface a little and is less visible, like below the right Ctrl key, luckily most of the "scars" are in the bottom, and I will "heal them" as much as possible.
I need to take apart the front of the Deskpro to do the same, I've been putting it off for a year, I should have done it in the summer.
Also, cleaning up some very old (circa ~1995) DIGITAL DECrouter90T2 and switch (or repeater, dont know the model) that someone threw away. The plastic on the front was so fragile that it was disintegrating, only the harder metalized case survived. Unfortunately I had to leave behind the backplane that connected them directly to each other. When I find some information about them I will test them. If they are dead, well, they have several components I can reuse in some other projects

Major Jackyl wrote on 2024-12-09, 23:54:

A bit TOO retro...? I took this apart to see if I can get parts. Yes. Yes I can. It needs a set of tubes and a re-cap. I was surprised to see the tubes are indeed available. Will be repairing this thing soon.

I'm a bit surprised that you can still get Nixie tubes - that's a pretty ancient display technology...

They were surprisingly reliable ... make sure the HV supply to them is good.
If no segments of light, it's unlikely to be the tubes...

Dave

That is not nixies but VFDs. One has lost its vacuum unfortunately. If nothing lights up you'll have to see that filament supply is in order and that its bias circuit with system ground is still good (usually a zener is used for that). Anode voltage must also be present of course, 20...50V, depending on particular tubes used and whatever the multiplexing rate is.