Finlay received the IBM ps1 type 2121. Had to resort to a parcel forwarder and that lead to customs.

I love this little computers from IBM. This is my 4th machine from the original ps1, but the first with a 386. The sound card is also a good find, and the final droplet that pushed me to all the hassle.

Found also 2 motherboards on local ad site for 10€ each. It stated that they didn't work, for repairs or parts. Toke the gamble and after couple of hours they working again.

The first one was a Soyo SY-5EMA+ V1.0. It had several scratches on the bottom side of the PCB that severed a total of 8 track in critical places. All of them "signal" type near the bios eeprom. After restoring them the MB came back to life. A strange quirk in this MB is that the voltage settings don't "align" with the manual on "theretroweb.com".

The second was a GCT 8ITB ( DataExpert TX430II). verified the correct jumper settings and voltages, and it camed to life. Probably a wrongly configured jumpers.

It seams that it can go as low as 2.0V in vcore and FSB @ 83Mhz... on a Intel 430TX? I will have to fiddle a bit more to see where can this MB be pushed.

Finlay my first "trip" for a recycling company where I found a bunch of interesting CPU's @ 3€ a pop:

Pentium III 933
CELLERON 1000
Pentium III 667
CELLERON 1200
CELLERON 1200
Pentium III 800
Cyrix 6x86MX 233
Am5x86-P75 133
486DX2
Pentium 133
AMD K6-2 300
Athlon XP 2000+
Athlon 1333Mhz
Athlon XP 2800+
AMD Athlon 1 GHz
Athlon XP 3000+
Duron 1200
Core i3-7100
Pentium 4 630
Core 2 Duo E7400
Core 2 Duo E7500
Pentium 4 640
Core 2 Quad Q6600
Pentium E6600
Pentium 4 3GHz
Pentium 4 1,5GHz

Nexxen wrote on 2024-09-19, 08:59:

eesz34 wrote on 2024-09-19, 01:10:

I remember ordering a new 214MB Seagate 3.5 drive in the late 90s, and it arrived in a white Seagate branded box that was big enough to hold a mini tower. It had custom foam with the drive right in the center of it all. That thing might have survived a drop from a 2nd story window. My teenage self was impressed.

Anyone have one of these? I'd love to see a photo. I don't recall seeing that box for much longer after I received it.

Exactly what I would have expected in those days, as it did cost a bomb. Old times seriousness.

Yep, I don't recall the exact price but it was a little over $1USD per megabyte.

Dollar a MB sounds like about 1993 pricing, I bought a 1.6GB in 1997 for under $200.

I haven't got any super huge HDD packaging, got a 2.5" case from Compaq that has an inch or two of impact foam in, then some that made a 3.5" drive about as big as a shoebox.

Not my purchase but, I was going though eBay sell history, some absolute chad bought a Pentium III 1133Mhz Coppermine Enginnering sample at the end of August. Good lord, I wish I would have seen that auction... So rare... These were the CPU's Recalled by Intel as Faulty and never produced again.

Wes1262 wrote on 2024-09-17, 05:10:

AGP4LIfe? wrote on 2024-09-16, 21:10:

Was it 183Mhz or 200Mhz ??

I need to check, I vacuum-packed it up (lots of humidity in my garage 🙁 ) after cleaning it and stored it, and I don't have easy access to it right now because it's at the bottom of a bunch of other cards. I am fairly certain it was 182/183mhz because I bought this card specifically because it was advertised as a "183mhz" DDR. But that doesn't mean your card was modded, because yours is different. I have the old style cooler which by the looks of it is less efficient than yours. Yours is definitely a late card, maybe from the 7200 line.

So, I ended up sending that 7200 back as it had errors in 3D and 2 capacitors missing on the back. But I found another 7200 with the same board part number/bios/cooling solution/Ram. And it also is 200mhz / 200mhz!
So it must have been a very late last revision batch before the next gen came out. I haven't seen anything on the web about them or any benchmarks ect! Kinda cool. Here's some pics.
It actually beats my GeForce 2 GTS by about 4% in 3Dmark2001, but loses to the GeForce 2 pro. Pretty cool!

Another round of parts today:

- ABIT BX6 R2
- 2x256MB PC133 SDRAM
- P3 Coppermine SL3XK
- V3 3000, unfortunately died in a 3DMark99 run w/ artefacting (not pictured, card used on BX6 is a 2000)
- ASUS AGP-V3800 32MB PURE - Riva TNT2 Pro (not pictured)

AGP4LIfe? wrote on 2024-09-19, 14:06:

Not my purchase but, I was going though eBay sell history, some absolute chad bought a Pentium III 1133Mhz Coppermine Enginnering sample at the end of August. Good lord, I wish I would have seen that auction... So rare... These were the CPU's Recalled by Intel as Faulty and never produced again.

i have had that 1133/256/133/1.75V search saved on ebay for years and i've never seen one email from that xD i think they all get purchased the instant they get listed 😁

AGP4LIfe? wrote on 2024-09-19, 14:50:

So, I ended up sending that 7200 back as it had errors in 3D and 2 capacitors missing on the back. But I found another 7200 with the same board part number/bios/cooling solution/Ram. And it also is 200mhz / 200mhz!
So it must have been a very late last revision batch before the next gen came out. I haven't seen anything on the web about them or any benchmarks ect! Kinda cool. Here's some pics.
It actually beats my GeForce 2 GTS by about 4% in 3Dmark2001, but loses to the GeForce 2 pro. Pretty cool!

Considering the Ati was less than half the price of the GTS (150$ vs 400$) I would say that's great value. Doesn't get enough recognition! Great card. Also I really need to check mine then. But again the old style cooler tells me I might have some older version of the card.

My GTX 480 arrived yesterday, but I think it died during the first test boot. It displayed as far as the Windows 2000 boot loader, but it tripped the power supply's circuit breaker shortly after. The system wouldn't power on with the card installed after that.

I tried it in another computer with a larger power supply to try again, but that computer also wouldn't start. I think the GTX 480 suffers from a short circuit somewhere.

Unfortunately, I think the GPU damaged my motherboard when it failed (does that happen?). The motherboard won't display graphics with a card in the primary PCIE slot (I tried 4 known good cards). I hope the CPU's PCIE lanes didn't suffer that damage since I have a backup motherboard.

Two more hot AGP pickups! MSI GeForce Ti 4800 SE, and Matrix G400 Max. 😀

fosterwj03 wrote on 2024-09-19, 21:26:

I think the GTX 480 suffers from a short circuit somewhere.

Unfortunately, I think the GPU damaged my motherboard when it failed (does that happen?). The motherboard won't display graphics with a card in the primary PCIE slot (I tried 4 known good cards). I hope the CPU's PCIE lanes didn't suffer that damage since I have a backup motherboard.

trace PCIE power on that slot, mot likely traces are blown

AGP4LIfe? wrote on 2024-09-20, 02:01:

Two more hot AGP pickups! MSI GeForce Ti 4800 SE, and Matrix G400 Max. 😀

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I really like the G400 Max. A really underrated card. Performances are close to that of TNT2 ultra and Voodoo3 3000. I found it very difficult to get in France. I don't know why. Found multiple V3 / GF256 before getting a G400 Max.

Do you plan to use it in a system ?

I think i also have the same GF4 but rusty to the point that the cooler motor is turning into dust.

AGP4LIfe? wrote on 2024-09-20, 02:01:

Two more hot AGP pickups! MSI GeForce Ti 4800 SE, and Matrix G400 Max. 😀

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You mean those "Hot AGP Pickups in your area" ads are legit? 🤣

acl wrote on 2024-09-18, 07:34:

I just got my hands on a 286 system.
Schneider AT286 System 201

Loved the look of those Schneider PC's at the time. They were trying to differntiate themselves from Amstrad I think...

nfraser01 wrote on 2024-09-20, 21:03:

acl wrote on 2024-09-18, 07:34:

I just got my hands on a 286 system.
Schneider AT286 System 201

Loved the look of those Schneider PC's at the time. They were trying to differntiate themselves from Amstrad I think...

Yes it looks very modern. Far less bulky than some contemporary designs.

The external 5.25 floppy drive have the same design and it can be stacked on the top (see here https://oldcrap.org/2022/09/10/schneider-fd1200t-fdd/)

Scored a retro PC with a peculiar mainboard.

Specs:

CPU - AMD Athlon 900MHz T-Bird 100FSB
MB - Amptron/iCue IS-MK7AV
RAM - 640MB
ODDs: LG DVD-ROM + DVDRW
PSU: Deer DR-B450E
Case: JNC 4MH16
GPU: Geforce 2 MX 400 Dell OEM
LAN: RTL8139C
HDD: 80GB
Sound: SB16/Vibra16 ISA

acl wrote on 2024-09-21, 09:53:

The external 5.25 floppy drive have the same design and it can be stacked on the top (see here https://oldcrap.org/2022/09/10/schneider-fd1200t-fdd/)

Nice!

acl wrote on 2024-09-18, 07:34:

I just got my hands on a 286 system. Schneider AT286 System 201 […]
Show full quote

I just got my hands on a 286 system.
Schneider AT286 System 201

I traded it with a local collector. Apparently the PSU have some problems .

There is one 3.5 inch floppy drive. The other bay is empty. There is also a 40MB hard drive. The MB format seem proprietary but have some free ISA slots. The system have apparently been upgraded with a Paradise PVGA1A.

I found some docs online (in German) and the system can be connected to an external 5.25 floppy drive that stacks up onto the case and matches the design.

286 systems are not exactly in my period of interest... because this system have about the same age as myself. (It's "Made in West Germany" (!!)) But i will happily experiment with it.

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That's a really interesting looking case design! I guess with the slanted text, it's designed to be used in either a tower or desktop configuration?

Hope you have fun with it, 286 systems can be neat to experiment with to see what limits they can be pushed to.

Today, I scored a few fun items. A couple of ISA video cards, a NIB CDROM, SCSI CDRW, ISA ethernet card, and TWO Compaq "shitboxes"

The 5600 says it doesn't work. The 6150 says it might work, but...

Before cleaning of the 6150, I noticed some damage I'm going to want to take care of right away. The damage is on the back of the CPU socket, resistor R20. Super excited to get this one working. Hoping that's all that's wrong.