So I went to pickup "a few" systems in a nearby town a couple of days ago. Well by a few he meant 25+ full ATX towers. Somehow managed to shove them all into my Grand Marquis (glad I sprung for the Monroe Gas Magnum HD Shocks a couple months back....) Alot of generic stuff but a few goodies thrown in. Just started working on this beauty:

350W Rosewill PSU
Gigabyte K8NXP-SLI Socket 939
AMD Athlon 64 3500+ (2.2GHZ I believe)
3GB of RAM
GeForce 7900GTO 512MB
8GB HDD

Reseated the GPU and reset the BIOS and it fired right up.... into Windows 7. This machine was used way past its acceptable lifespan. I have a 2nd 7900GTO sourced as soon as the dude feels safe leaving his house to ship it and I think I'm going to throw a AthlonFX (or X2, not sure yet) in and a 2nd 7900GTO along with my X-FI ExtremeAudio and have an absolute banger of a DX9C system. Maybe I can finally play FEAR at 1920x1200. Needless to say I'm DBAN'ing W7 (part of my deal with this guy is any HDD gets a secure deletion) back to hole from wence it came and putting XP on it.

That case is such a fucking work of art. Does anyone know who made this? It looks like a Falcon Northwest blue to me but I can't find any pictures of FNW cases matching this design.

In more modern news I'm rebuilding my main system onto 4th Gen Intel since thats at a low price point now and still provides performance similar in gaming to a Coffee Lake i5.

* Customized Red/Black CoolerMaster CM690-II Advanced with 5.25 USB3.0 Bay adapter and a Drawer adapter. Also has a 2.5/3.5 inch X-DOCK Hotswap bay ontop.
* ASUS Z87 Deluxe (has built in ASMedia USB/SATA expander)
* Core i7 4770S w/ CoolerMaster Hyper212 EVO (given for free)
* 16GB G.SKill RiPJAWS X XMP2 2133MHZ
* NVIDIA GeForce GTX 780Ti 3GB CC OC (carry over)
- LG IPS 27" 1920x1080, Dell UltraSharp 17" 1280x1024
* Creative Soundblaster X-Fi Titanium FATAL1TY (PCIe version, 109db/115db 5.1/Stereo SNR. Not far behind a Xonar Essence)
- Sony MDR-7506 Studio Reference Headphones, Sony Soundbar (can't remember the model, nice sounding though with big subwoofer) for speakers, Boom mic.
* 128GB NVME SSD (via PCIe to NVME adapter)
* 1x2TB HDD, 2x 1TB HDD
* Creality Ender3

That 939 system will be sweet with the slied gtos and the athlon 64 x2 that will be a great XP machine.

Horun wrote on 2020-06-04, 23:34:

The DFI G686ipa rev B+ arrived yesterday. Looks and works great ! Included 2x 16m EDO, paper manual and backplate. Also the spare 200M/1Mb cpu seller included works just fine on my Intel Venus, think the DFI needs a BIOS update but it is already at the last version I could find (11/16/96). Sooo am happy ! ... got all that for $67. In my area that is a good buy ! Sorry for the bad pics, was dark last night and phone has issues.

that's pretty nice :3

a few random cards...

Tseng ET3000AX and Video Seven "VGA16" (V7VGA?)

this absolutely gorgeous early version of a míro Crystal 20SD PCI, I just love how clean those traces are and how they contrast with the dark PCB
and a DEC S3 805 VLB

two more VLB cards, Hercules Stingray with ALG2228 and a pretty CL GD5428 card

Media Vision Jazz16 with OPL3 clone and an addon board, I presume amplifier? could not really find any info about the chip on it "UTC HM2025" TEA2025 clone?
and a Creative 3DLabs Permedia 2V

imi wrote on 2020-06-05, 00:36:

a few random cards... […]
Show full quote

a few random cards...

Tseng ET3000AX and Video Seven "VGA16" (V7VGA?)
hardware38_71.jpg

this absolutely gorgeous early version of a míro Crystal 20SD PCI, I just love how clean those tracks are and how they contrast with the dark PCB
and a DEC S3 805 VLB
hardware38_72.jpg

two more VLB cards, Hercules Stingray with ALG2228 and a pretty CL GD5428 card
hardware38_73.jpg

Media Vision Jazz16 with OPL3 clone and an addon board, I presume amplifier? could not really find any info about the chip on it "UTC HM2025" TEA2025 clone?
and a Creative 3DLabs Permedia 2V
hardware38_74.jpg

Nice ISA cards. That Jazz16 is odd, never seen one quite like that. Sigma Designs did a bunch of Media Vision OEM stuff for Compaq, etc but always had a name and part number (different # than MV's 650-xxxx- type) . That one has no such MV or Sigma part numbering. The LS-212 is where a genuine Yamaha OPL 262 chip should be, the MV 416 & 514 are proper. The closest I could find is this pic but no headers where your add-on card is and is not same and also not IDE. Very interesting ! If I searched farther could probably find it...

on your example the amplifier chip is already on board in the same spot pretty much, it's most probably an OEM card, there was a sticker on the back I can check again tomorrow, it escapes me right now ^^

I do wonder what that supposed "surround card" is though.

here you can see one with the board removed:
http://www.yjfy.com/images/oldhard/sound/IXW-JAZZ16_2.jpg

Yes think you are right and Thanks !. The Amp is off board for some reason, maybe came in a kit with amped or non amped speakers. They used a jumper bridge OR amped bridge there depending on which speakers were included (a guess). Yes the "surround part" is odd. Going to save the pics to my MV library. If you find any part number let me know please so can include them.

Horun wrote on 2020-06-05, 02:03:

imi wrote on 2020-06-05, 00:36:

a few random cards... […]
Show full quote

a few random cards...

Tseng ET3000AX and Video Seven "VGA16" (V7VGA?)
hardware38_71.jpg

this absolutely gorgeous early version of a míro Crystal 20SD PCI, I just love how clean those tracks are and how they contrast with the dark PCB
and a DEC S3 805 VLB
hardware38_72.jpg

two more VLB cards, Hercules Stingray with ALG2228 and a pretty CL GD5428 card
hardware38_73.jpg

Media Vision Jazz16 with OPL3 clone and an addon board, I presume amplifier? could not really find any info about the chip on it "UTC HM2025" TEA2025 clone?
and a Creative 3DLabs Permedia 2V
hardware38_74.jpg

Nice ISA cards. That Jazz16 is odd, never seen one quite like that. Sigma Designs did a bunch of Media Vision OEM stuff for Compaq, etc but always had a name and part number (different # than MV's 650-xxxx- type) . That one has no such MV or Sigma part numbering. The LS-212 is where a genuine Yamaha OPL 262 chip should be, the MV 416 & 514 are proper. The closest I could find is this pic but no headers where your add-on card is and is not same and also not IDE. Very interesting ! If I searched farther could probably find it...

Could have been sold as part of a multi-media bundle with that Panasonic cd reader/player interface.

I finally rectified my mistake of selling my Pentium Pro system back in 2013 and bought 2 CPUs. The 2 CPU boards are the added bonus, they come from an IBM PC Server 704. It would be cool to get the rest of it's parts and build a server with 4x Pentium Pros.

Got this one. Some people say it is the fastest 486 chip 😀

This is my latest buy - came as NOS, but unfortunately without the drivers/software disk.
Still have to test it with #3 of my sig.

TNX to evasive and Doornkaat, I've probably got the neccessary drivers and software for the display 😀
... it's a bit hard to come by.

Sorry for any double-posting, but I am really, really excited about this pice of hardware 😀) it will complete my #3 which is built from one of my original PCs of that time, only the case is a new add on, but in period.
... hope the display works ...

Recently bought these items...

A Roland M-16DX digital mixer, to replace my M-10DX. Needed a bit of cleaning but works like a charm and came very cheap.

And, mainly BECAUSE it was almost for free, a Currah Speech 64 speech-cartridge for the C64. I already had one, but this one is in a bit nicer shape cosmetically.

ildonaldo wrote on 2020-06-05, 13:34:

This is my latest buy - came as NOS, but unfortunately without the drivers/software disk. Still have to test it with #3 of my si […]
Show full quote

This is my latest buy - came as NOS, but unfortunately without the drivers/software disk.
Still have to test it with #3 of my sig

TNX to evasive and Doornkaat, I've probably got the neccessary drivers and software for the display 😀
... it's a bit hard to come by.

Sorry for any double-posting, but I am really, really excited about this pice of hardware 😀) it will complete my #3 which is built from one of my original PCs of that time, only the case is a new add on, but in period.
... hope the display works ...

Nice. I have probably 3 or 4 of those exact displays. I ran them in all my HTPC's and gaming PC. It should work.. I have had one of mine running for at least 8 years straight 🤣. If you need the original drivers, I have them as well in a ZIP file, but I can make ISO's of the mini CD's that came with them.

These displays do work with LCD Smartie and AIDA64 as well.

dell l100 a002, 750ti and 7770

Just found got this lot for 25€ 😁

I never had a Cyrix 5x86 before, I can't wait to test it !

I’ve been eyeing a nice 486 PCI based board for a long time so finally bit the bullet. There is some blue stuff around you can see... maybe corrosion? I bought it from eBay, the seller said it was tested/working, so I’ll get it installed tonight. I have a 586/133 I’ll use but for now going to build it around my AMD DX2/66. The seller stated that no ram was included, but he did put 16MB FPM in the box so that was cool of him, plus the IDE and Floppy cables were also in the box, nice bonus. Hopefully I can get all that blue crap cleaned up... it wasn’t on the sellers pictures... but he was selling a few of these boards.

dave343 wrote on 2020-06-05, 20:03:

I’ve been eyeing a nice 486 PCI based board for a long time so finally bit the bullet. There is some blue stuff around you can see... maybe corrosion? I bought it from eBay, the seller said it was tested/working, so I’ll get it installed tonight. I have a 586/133 I’ll use but for now going to build it around my AMD DX2/66. The seller stated that no ram was included, but he did put 16MB FPM in the box so that was cool of him, plus the IDE and Floppy cables were also in the box, nice bonus. Hopefully I can get all that blue crap cleaned up... it wasn’t on the sellers pictures... but he was selling a few of these boards.

0072E643-6F7F-48DB-B37A-0A7B5D60C347.jpeg
2B6BD0F4-327E-4B67-8DAD-7DB12D7FB2DC.jpeg

The blue stuff is battery acid corrosion from the dumb barrel battery. Get rid of that battery and clean and neutralize the acid before it destroys the board. It will continue to eat away at stuff until the acid is neutralized.

You will want to either modify the board to be able to use a CR2032 battery or use an external 3x AA or 3x AAA battery holder.

cyclone3d wrote on 2020-06-05, 20:07:

dave343 wrote on 2020-06-05, 20:03:

I’ve been eyeing a nice 486 PCI based board for a long time so finally bit the bullet. There is some blue stuff around you can see... maybe corrosion? I bought it from eBay, the seller said it was tested/working, so I’ll get it installed tonight. I have a 586/133 I’ll use but for now going to build it around my AMD DX2/66. The seller stated that no ram was included, but he did put 16MB FPM in the box so that was cool of him, plus the IDE and Floppy cables were also in the box, nice bonus. Hopefully I can get all that blue crap cleaned up... it wasn’t on the sellers pictures... but he was selling a few of these boards.

0072E643-6F7F-48DB-B37A-0A7B5D60C347.jpeg
2B6BD0F4-327E-4B67-8DAD-7DB12D7FB2DC.jpeg

The blue stuff is battery acid corrosion from the dumb barrel battery. Get rid of that battery and clean and neutralize the acid before it destroys the board. It will continue to eat away at stuff until the acid is neutralized.

You will want to either modify the board to be able to use a CR2032 battery or use an external 3x AA or 3x AAA battery holder.

Rubbing Alcohol 70%? I’ve been using that the last few minutes trying to get as much as possible off. Does the blue stuff have to be completely gone or if some remains will the alcohol at least neutralize it? I’m going to replace the battery with a 3x 1.2V Nicad Battery pack, I’ve done the same on another 486 board I have and it works awesome.

it's funny, because the battery corrosion is not actually from "acid" it's quite to opposite, it's very basic, you neutralize it by adding actual acid to it, confusing at first, I know ^^
white vinegar is a go to method as it's easily available and not too harsh, the two are very reactive with each other, so you will eventually see bubbling and fizzing happening.
after that you clean it thouroughly with alcohol to clean any residue off otherwise the acid might cause corrosion too.

imi wrote on 2020-06-05, 20:16:

it's funny, because the battery corrosion is not actually from "acid" it's quite to opposite, it's very basic, you neutralize it by adding actual acid to it, confusing at first, I know ^^
white vinegar is a go to method as it's easily available and not too harsh, after that you clean it thouroughly with alcohol to clean any residue off otherwise the acid might cause corrosion too.

Well, now I’m afraid I may have wasted time and $... I flipped the board over and it looks like the blue stuff went through all the tiny circuit lead holes. I’ll test it later tonight, but the damage looks pretty bad... I don’t understand how the guy could say they are new old stock, and tested working. You’d think he would at least try to clean the board up.

Well it can be new old stock, working, and still have a failing battery (some batteries still work even when they start leaking), and the traces may not be eaten enough by the basic liquid to be entirely cut.

This is the reason why I'd take DALLAS batteries over any varta battery. You never really see the end of battery corrosion ...