I picked up this 1995 CD-ROM drive for just a few bucks, and honestly, it's the cleanest and best looking drive I've ever seen—even compared to models from the 2000s! But it came with one issue: the tray motor was completely seized. So I gave it a little spa treatment—soaked it in WD-40, gently rotated the motor with some pliers, cleared out the WD-40 using compressed air, and added a touch of fresh oil. Now it's running like new, back to its glory days!

Linoleum wrote on 2025-07-28, 23:26:

I picked up this 1995 CD-ROM drive for just a few bucks, and honestly, it's the cleanest and best looking drive I've ever seen—even compared to models from the 2000s! But it came with one issue: the tray motor was completely seized. So I gave it a little spa treatment—soaked it in WD-40, gently rotated the motor with some pliers, cleared out the WD-40 using compressed air, and added a touch of fresh oil. Now it's running like new, back to its glory days!

Wow, that's a good match for that computer with the darker colored button and volume dial.

Nice job!

Ozzuneoj wrote on 2025-07-29, 00:03:

Linoleum wrote on 2025-07-28, 23:26:

I picked up this 1995 CD-ROM drive for just a few bucks, and honestly, it's the cleanest and best looking drive I've ever seen—even compared to models from the 2000s! But it came with one issue: the tray motor was completely seized. So I gave it a little spa treatment—soaked it in WD-40, gently rotated the motor with some pliers, cleared out the WD-40 using compressed air, and added a touch of fresh oil. Now it's running like new, back to its glory days!

Wow, that's a good match for that computer with the darker colored button and volume dial.

Nice job!

Thanks! I thought I would be the only one noticing the color matched buttons... 🤣!

Just testing out some video cards here and I came across something odd.

I have an XFX AGP card that is labeled as "Geforce4 MX440SE 64MB SDR TV-Out VGA". The system detects it as an MX440 (not unusual), but Everest says that is, get this: using SDR running at 333Mhz?

RivaTuner says the card is a 128bit MX440 with SDR Memory. The memory clock (on the info page) is shown as "166.5Mhz (MPLL doubling detected)"; Memory PLL FVCO is 333.0Mhz. SIV shows that the memory clock is 333Mhz.

The memory chips are V-Data VDS6616A4A-6, so they are 6ns SDRAM (166Mhz). The datasheet is available here.

Obviously the chips can't lie... they don't seem to be DDR memory, and they are only rated at 166Mhz. But it is odd that more than one program is detecting the memory clock as 333Mhz. Maybe it's just because the MX440\440SE are supposed to use DDR (often 64bit...), so these programs just assume the speed should be doubled?

Day 1 of my AWE64 memory upgrade adventure. SMD soldering baby, yeah!
Tomorrow I need to program and solder GAL chip in order to get rid those botch wires. Also "beutify" PCB - remove flux and perhaps give some touches to my amateurish soldering...
...and donate this guy for his effort: https://bitsundbolts.com/2025/07/01/the-small … xpansion-board/

Somehow I got Cosmo's Cosmic Adventure working on a V20 processor last night, which, according to the game's documentation, should be impossible.

T-Squared wrote on Yesterday, 19:58:

Somehow I got Cosmo's Cosmic Adventure working on a V20 processor last night, which, according to the game's documentation, should be impossible.

I had to look up that PC you're using (I see you made a thread about it a few months back), because I have never seen a PC like that with a tiny color CRT. I thought any machines that came with built in screen like that were monochrome. Very cool system!

vutt wrote on Yesterday, 19:24:

Day 1 of my AWE64 memory upgrade adventure. SMD soldering baby, yeah!
Tomorrow I need to program and solder GAL chip in order to get rid those botch wires. Also "beutify" PCB - remove flux and perhaps give some touches to my amateurish soldering...
...and donate this guy for his effort: https://bitsundbolts.com/2025/07/01/the-small … xpansion-board/

It's an interesting project. A couple of years ago I managed to buy these boards (image below) from "the bay". I think they were produced by a Russian seller. It might be sanctions related that I haven't seen these being sold since.

Speaking of Awe expansion, I bought SimmConn 7 years ago.

Bought a PC based on potatocam photo that looked like it had a nice EISA motherboard but was filthy and damaged

Then picked it up:
- no damage, little filth
- case is a very nice AT bigtower from the early 1990s
- nice EISA+VLB motherboard (TMC PET48PN)
- decent VLB VGA and I/O cards, MS bus mouse card and 3.5" and 5.25" HD FDDs

Also pile of RAM in the board, looks like 8x 4MB 30p SIMMs and 2x 8MB 72p SIMMs so 48MB on an early 486. Impressive.

But...

Hooked up the motherboard, attached a PSU, VGA and POST card and:

00
C1

** BLAM **

Tantalum cap exploded on me. The board is riddled with them. Need to replace a lot and just hope nothing else was damaged when it blew. Probably also need to perform surgery on the DS1387 RTC+SRAM chip, but at least it's socketed.

Ozzuneoj wrote on Yesterday, 20:41:

T-Squared wrote on Yesterday, 19:58:

Somehow I got Cosmo's Cosmic Adventure working on a V20 processor last night, which, according to the game's documentation, should be impossible.

I had to look up that PC you're using (I see you made a thread about it a few months back), because I have never seen a PC like that with a tiny color CRT. I thought any machines that came with built in screen like that were monochrome. Very cool system!

It's about to be expanded more, since I recently got a Xircom PE2-10BT parallel ethernet adaptor!

There seems to be a problem with the CRT circuitry, because the colors don't seem to contrast well enough. I don't care if they don't match up exactly with CGA/EGA specification, I'm more worried about the fact that the dark colors look nearly the same as the light colors.

DarthSun wrote on Yesterday, 21:04:

Speaking of Awe expansion, I bought SimmConn 7 years ago.

The attachment 1AweG1.jpg is no longer available

The attachment 1AweG2.jpg is no longer available

Is this an original part?