Mmm...reading another thread, maybe Athlon 64X2 isn't retro, still...

Contacted Darmstadt yesterday for updated Client Software from EUMETSAT, it arrived from Germany this morning.

Moved on to fitting drives today into the ANTEC 4U Rack, since still waiting for a back plate for the Mobo. The extension cables for ATX20 and ATX4 came today, and I found an old Molex Splitter, so all the drives are now fitted and have have power, and all have their data cables. Realised that I meet the minimum specs for the Client Software, two cores, 4GB RAM, 1Gbit LAN, USB2 (for EKU), and Windows 7, but I'm using PATA EIDE ATA133, which might not be quick enough for a continuous data stream of 77 Mbit, and bursts up to 85 Mbit. At least both boards support SATA 3GB/s.

Ho hum, still need a new 1 metre dish, this is going to be interesting, ha.

Wireless wrote:

... but I'm using PATA EIDE ATA133, which might not be quick enough for a continuous data stream of 77 Mbit, and bursts up to 85 Mbit. At least both boards support SATA 3GB/s.

I think any HDD manufactured since ~2005 should easily handle a ~90Mb/s stream (that's ~11MB/s), as long as it's in good working condition. Besides, ATA "133MB/s", SATA "3Gbps", etc are bandwidth limits, not ratings.

I dont really know if it can be called a retro activity.

I have cased my "World of Warcraft computer". For the last 8 months the motherboard and other parts have cluttered my "secondary computer table" but not any more.

Spec

Gigabyte P35C-DS3R (2007)
Intel QX9650 @10*400 (2007)
2*4GB DDR3 @1600 8,8,8,24
Geforce 8800 GTX Ultra (2007)

I have also used a GTX 285 with this system but as it is a year 2007 build the 8800 GTX Ultra is perfect.
I would like to run XP but the system runs Windows 7 because of Discord.

The case is some random tower from the local electronic waste dumpster.

Made a new DIY Voodoo 2 SLI bridge cable. Hopefully this one will last longer than 6 months.

Downgraded my K6-2 system from a Voodoo 2 12MB to a Voodoo 2 8MB, the 12MB was really unnecessary.

Upgraded my P3 system from a Voodoo 3 to a GeForce 2 GTS (still debating downgrading that to a GeForce 256 DDR..) and a Voodoo 2 12MB SLI (albeit mismatched Creative/Orchid using FastVoodoo drivers).

I'm much happier with the configurations now. Hopefully I can trade one or the other Voodoo 2 12MB and end up with a matching pair one day..

Cyrix200+ wrote:

Found some games, transferred them to the 486SX and played them. Dangerous Dave is a hard game! Fascinating that I still know th […]
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Found some games, transferred them to the 486SX and played them. Dangerous Dave is a hard game! Fascinating that I still know the levels after more than +-20 years.

GrandPrix Circuit.... Sweet. I used to play it in the 80's, on my parent's 286-8 with EGA and 640k of Ram.

SW-SSG wrote:

Wireless wrote:

... but I'm using PATA EIDE ATA133, which might not be quick enough for a continuous data stream of 77 Mbit, and bursts up to 85 Mbit. At least both boards support SATA 3GB/s.

I think any HDD manufactured since ~2005 should easily handle a ~90Mb/s stream (that's ~11MB/s), as long as it's in good working condition. Besides, ATA "133MB/s", SATA "3Gbps", etc are bandwidth limits, not ratings.

I think the real problem could be what the documentation refers to as a disc buffer, which is should be 32MB or 64MB (preferred), and they suggest use of 'fast SATA' connection to the HDD to not miss received segments of data.

The other issue is the one machine would only receive data from satellite 24/7, about 15GB a day I'm told, as its only purpose, another machine would be linked to it via 1 Gbit LAN, and would copy data from the receiving computer storage to create animation sequences on the processing machine, and output this as Video.

A lot of it will be thousands of 8 bit images, some of the data I won't be interested in to start with. but other stuff I plan to eventually run at 10 bit.

Cyrix200+ wrote:

Found some games, transferred them to the 486SX and played them. Dangerous Dave is a hard game! Fascinating that I still know th […]
Show full quote

Found some games, transferred them to the 486SX and played them. Dangerous Dave is a hard game! Fascinating that I still know the levels after more than +-20 years.

One day... Imma gonna build a system using that case. Step 1 - find case.

Turning my RaspberryPI-3 into a Commodore64 with Combian64. It has Danish keymap. Yay!! 😜

Guess playing Epic Pinball counts 😁

Recapped a Slot 1 mainboard today. Wasn't really needed, as I found out when checking the removed caps. But the new caps were free, so who cares. 😉

derSammler wrote:

Recapped a Slot 1 mainboard today. Wasn't really needed, as I found out when checking the removed caps. But the new caps were free, so who cares. 😉

This post is relevant to my interests...

Did you test the caps with an ESR meter? We've had a lot of discussions lately as to whether it makes sense to replace 20 year old caps on boards that are currently working fine. Boards from before 2000 or so seem to be overall extremely high quality, yet there is very little information about the actual condition of capacitors from this era.

Well, I replaced the caps because they looked bulged. I never replace caps "just because" because it makes no sense. It's just stressing the hardware unnecessary.

Anyway, yes, I tested them using an capacitance meter (which tests ESR as well). Even they looked bulged, they were all still fine.

derSammler wrote:

Well, I replaced the caps because they looked bulged. I never replace caps "just because" because it makes no sense. It's just stressing the hardware unnecessary.

Anyway, yes, I tested them using an capacitance meter (which tests ESR as well). Even they looked bulged, they were all still fine.

This is very good to know. How close were they to the expected values?

Ozzuneoj wrote:

derSammler wrote:

Well, I replaced the caps because they looked bulged. I never replace caps "just because" because it makes no sense. It's just stressing the hardware unnecessary.

Anyway, yes, I tested them using an capacitance meter (which tests ESR as well). Even they looked bulged, they were all still fine.

This is very good to know. How close were they to the expected values?

If you really would go by the expected lifetime values, most of them would need replacement after 6000h "already".

CkRtech wrote:

Cyrix200+ wrote:

Found some games, transferred them to the 486SX and played them. Dangerous Dave is a hard game! Fascinating that I still know the levels after more than +-20 years.

<snip>

One day... Imma gonna build a system using that case. Step 1 - find case.

They are a little bit common here. This was the second one I saw for sale. The first one sold for too much money. There was also another Vogon-er who had one. It is the case we had for the first computer in our household. 😀

I've had a case like that... but sold it a while ago. It should be in Spain now if I remember correctly. It's a lovely case.

jaZz_KCS wrote:

Ozzuneoj wrote:

derSammler wrote:

Well, I replaced the caps because they looked bulged. I never replace caps "just because" because it makes no sense. It's just stressing the hardware unnecessary.

Anyway, yes, I tested them using an capacitance meter (which tests ESR as well). Even they looked bulged, they were all still fine.

This is very good to know. How close were they to the expected values?

If you really would go by the expected lifetime values, most of them would need replacement after 6000h "already".

I meant, when measured how far off were they from the original ratings? Yeesh, any mention of capacitors is like walking on eggshells around here. 🤣

Oh... so at some point they started to make ATX PSU's not all rated the same, even if they are labelled the same...

Two identical old PSU's of the same age, supposed to be 350 Watt, having exactly the same Mobo, Processor, Ram, and Video Card, one powers up fine, the other won't even spin the CPU Fan for more than five seconds...

I'm thinking the one that does fire up at the moment is going to fail sooner than I thought.

Looks like I'm buying a couple of new ones then, that was unexpected. Plus having read up on the GA-K8N, it seems people in the near past had issues with PSU's of 500 Watt being unable to boot these, so I may have to go much bigger for longevity.

Aw well, the FIC AZ11E with Athlon XP 3200+, combo I have planned next will just have to wait a tad longer.

Installed the MediaVision Pro Audio Studio 16 card into my Socket 370 system with success after changing the IRQ and DMA to be set to ISA legacy and disabling the on-board audio, but in Windows 98SE, the sound effects are playing way too fast (about 10x faster), and I have the clock set to use the one that's on the card with the MS-DOS driver and set as 28MHz clock in Windows to no success. In MS-DOS mode, it works without issues, especially with the Sound Blaster settings (works in MS-DOS prompt in Windows as well).

Today I started work on adding s-video and stereo input to my Epiphan DVI2PCIe. I finished drilling the holes and tapping the #6 threads for the screws. Tomorrow I'll solder the connections and test it out.

The thumbscrews were only for testing the fit.