Viewing a thread - Recently Played/Bought/Messed with

You are logged in as a guest. ( logon | register )

Recently Played/Bought/Messed with Jump to page : < ... 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 ... > Now viewing page 34 [25 messages per page]	View previous thread :: View next thread
Computer Speak -> General Computing	Message format

Old Guy 88

Posted 2018-05-09 10:52 PM (#1247 - in reply to #1245)
Subject: Re: Recently Played/Bought/Messed with

Intel P5

Posts: 68

Location: N.E. Pennsylvania USA

@TWM the Motherboard is Gigabyte GA-6BXC with a 440 BX Chipset
I never had that much RAM back in the day either. Working on a socket 370 Pentium III, waiting for more parts

DXZeff

Posted 2018-05-10 5:58 AM (#1248 - in reply to #1247)
Subject: Re: Recently Played/Bought/Messed with

TM Crusoe

Posts: 618
500

Location: Hull, UK

How does that Promise controller hold up? There were a bunch of them from that time which were notorious for actually slowing things down - even the big SX6000, a particularly notable example. Either way, it does seem like a good machine, in principal, it's not at all how I would spec it, but that's what makes it interesting I guess.

Speaking of the Pentium III, I'm trying to repair this;

Ordered new hard drives for it - a story in itself, involving 'item isn't actually for sale' and shit, in the end having to import drives from Israel of all places (why the hell do they have so many SCSI drives? Oy vey, my RAID array!) because I swear SCSI drives are cursed, this kind of thing happens EVERY TIME that I order them from anywhere, it sucks - then dug the system out to fuck around with things, largely modding CPU microcode into the BIOS properly because it was missing. Problem, this didn't happen because the system gave me a black screen, no POST.
Initially I wasn't concerned, it's done this before and I don't know why, it just does, usually the problem goes away if the CMOS is wiped and you hammer the reset switch a bunch of times, in fact, it's probably the firmware getting mad because of that missing microcode and thinking the CPU is broken.

No luck. Probably a loose CPU card, then, because the supports were in the bottom of my Pentium II's case, the one which was stolen, so good luck finding more. Nope.
Damn, hope it's not the RAM, don't fancy replacing 2GB of SDRAM, that shit always seems to end up being expensive. Hey, I know the hard drives are busted and I've had machines not POST before when a fucky drive is connected, so unplug those. Nope. Remove the expansion cards. Nope. Install the original 500MHz Katmai CPUs. Nope. Wait, now it works if I mash the reset button.

Reinstalled the 1100MHz CPUs and tried again, now it runs but freezes. The fans pitch down slightly, is the PSU broken? Seems OK.
Try again, maybe it isn't... actually it really isn't, I'm only measuring 1.5V from this 5V rail here... oh, shit that connector is hot, I didn't accidentally stuff the current probe in there, did I? I mean, that should melt my meter, but maybe the system is sapping enough from the PSU to stop that happening. Nope, these are the right probes and they've been removed, but that connector is still getting hot - why? It's not going anywhere, it isn't connected to anything. Perhaps it has dirt in it, clean it out, nope, still gets hot. This is a mystery to me as I can't find anything wrong with this connector on the PSU, but it heats up and drags the voltages down, it's as if the insulation has broken down somehow. Incidentally, the PSU needs replacing anyway because it isn't ballsy enough to run the new drives, though what it can be replaced with is currently an issue, because this board uses that extra connector which some DP boards did at the time. It's not a big deal, it would be possible to mod one onto another PSU if needed.

Now, hard drives, yes, a plan was formed, we have four of these coming in;

And if all goes well, they should be much more fun than the old 7.2K Atlas drives, because of this device;

The problem being, there are different versions of this thing and SuperMicro actually blundered on this - the only time I've seen them do so - because the website states a different model to the manual I have, the manual states a different model to the label on the slot and Adaptec's pages aren't clear either as they specify this board as untested. Shit. So this might not work, but the drives can still be used without it anyway.

Outside of that, music, lots of music, about to start work on the next video, but don't know how long it will take - as per usual - because there are things in the way, the K6 has to be around in some capacity at the same time and the weather has been prohibitively hot.

Oh, there is one more thing, the Athlon. Remember the problems with performance? Well, not sure what they were, but after dicking around with AGP port settings, they seem to have gone away after a few tweaks, NFS III can also now run under Win98 in Direct3D mode, though with a patch and using an unofficial DX8 renderer. The steering wheel also works, so yeah, further proof that it's not broken and the TBS Malibu has a problem. Nonetheless, here;

First lap was a bit rough. Shouldn't be a stretch for a K7, really, but damn is it nice to play this game so smooth and with a wheel, totally recommend doing so if you can.

twm

Posted 2018-05-11 11:35 AM (#1249 - in reply to #1248)
Subject: Re: Recently Played/Bought/Messed with

Chips 386

Posts: 37

@Old Guy 88
That was a stupid line from me: I completely forgot when (and why) we got dual-channel memory controllers. Thanks for the hint.

I have some shady VIA-based (Apollo Pro 133) P3 board – got it a year ago with an AT case. Still don't know the revision of its chipset: I suspect 2x AGP and (not so fast, VT82C596B SB) UDMA66. Yet, it does work with P3 866 (133 bus) I found in a scrapped MB ~5 years ago.
Maybe I need to build something around it.

@DXZeff
Some guy in my district sells bunch of similar HITACHIs (73 GB, HUS103073FL3800) for ~5 USD / each. ...Seems like I'm just sharing that info mindlessly – I don't have any use of SCSI atm.

It's nice to see a perfect NFS3 lap. Poor Mulligan. I need to do (to lose) Hometown for sure.
PS any chance for a short Max Payne run on that Athlon?

Edited by twm 2018-05-11 11:44 AM

Old Guy 88

Posted 2018-05-13 4:25 PM (#1250 - in reply to #71)
Subject: Re: Recently Played/Bought/Messed with

Intel P5

Posts: 68

Location: N.E. Pennsylvania USA

@DXZeff The Promise controller in my Slot one work well , used it to overcome the drive limit on the Motherboard controller, just got a ASUS TUSL2-C for cheap because the socket has a chipped retaining clip. almost bought this
https://www.ebay.com/itm/SuperMicro-P6DBE-v3-0-Dual-Slot-1-Motherboa... but still not sure.
@TWM not a problemI forget stuff all the time I still might put SCSI on that Supermicro slot one system i have. trying out too many systems at the same time

twm

Posted 2018-05-15 4:35 PM (#1251 - in reply to #1250)
Subject: Re: Recently Played/Bought/Messed with

Chips 386

Posts: 37

Old Guy 88 - 2018-05-13 6:25 PM
the socket has a chipped retaining clip

I have a SS7 board with the clip almost broken off. More precise, it still holds but it has a crack on its lower side, so... In simple words, it's unable to hold any radiator.
Maybe I should break it completely and then use some special glue.

Old Guy 88

Posted 2018-05-16 3:38 PM (#1252 - in reply to #71)
Subject: Re: Recently Played/Bought/Messed with

Intel P5

Posts: 68

Location: N.E. Pennsylvania USA

@twm That looks like a nice Motherboard. I was able to get this cooler to work on my socket 370 motherboard it has three clips in each side.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00006B8DB/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o...

twm

Posted 2018-05-16 5:41 PM (#1253 - in reply to #1252)
Subject: Re: Recently Played/Bought/Messed with

Chips 386

Posts: 37

@Old Guy 88
That's an interesting solution, and I guess it shouldn't be too large for a S7 board. How about the noise?
All my Socket 7 coolers (I have just a few though) have 1 clip per side, except this one:

It is actually from S370 machine, and it doesn't suit good for S7 because of a really hard pressure it provides even on S370 board.
I still feel like I should fix that central clip to get more solid adhesion between the radiator and the CPU cap.

Seems like I'll get an early Socket A QDI board at the upcoming saturday. Still don't sure do I need one, but it has 1 ISA slot and it goes with nice Chicony keyboard. Also some audio board and video card. Well, I feel myself like a hoarder, heh.
Also, a fellow gave me this few days ago. It's from abandoned car (which is sentenced to recycling), he said:

Old Guy 88

Posted 2018-05-16 10:13 PM (#1255 - in reply to #71)
Subject: Re: Recently Played/Bought/Messed with

Intel P5

Posts: 68

Location: N.E. Pennsylvania USA

@twm I had to modify the clip because of the tension. I took the fan off removed the clip and used a Dremel and ground down the Pivot in the center of the retaining clip to lower the pressure on the socket.

twm

Posted 2018-05-16 10:59 PM (#1256 - in reply to #1255)
Subject: Re: Recently Played/Bought/Messed with

Chips 386

Posts: 37

@Old Guy 88
Hm... Thank you for the explanation. That Thermaltake cooler has a more tricky construction: its retaining clip cannot be detached from the radiator, I'm afraid, – it is press-fitted into the radiator (I hope my explanation is understandable). But I'll try to lower the pressure (to some extent).
And thank you for sharing that Amazon link, maybe I'll order a few.

Edited by twm 2018-05-16 11:02 PM

DXZeff

Posted 2018-05-17 11:07 PM (#1257 - in reply to #1256)
Subject: Re: Recently Played/Bought/Messed with

TM Crusoe

Posts: 618
500

Location: Hull, UK

Yeah, sometimes you're lucky and Socket 370 / 462 coolers actually have holes wide enough to fit over those side pegs. Either way, those ALi boards interest me because they're not something I've ever used and, like the Via and SiS boards which I have, there are mixed reports about them that leave you wondering what to believe.

@Old Guy 88 - that SuperMicro board is basically the non-SCSI version of what is in the system posted above, the one with the new drives in, an exceptionally good board.

I''ve been taken up with editing lately, proved a chore as the camcorder is getting worse, may have to replace it sooner than planned at this rate.

Old Guy 88

Posted 2018-05-18 12:40 AM (#1258 - in reply to #71)
Subject: RE: Recently Played/Bought/Messed with

Intel P5

Posts: 68

Location: N.E. Pennsylvania USA

@DXZeff hope your camcorder holds out, you`ll have to get a Galaxy 9+ like Wayback tech. got my heatsink to fit on my 370 motherboard with the broken socket after i hacked the bracket to clear the first memory slot. gave the motherboard a bath and it posted so ..
Still thinking about putting a SCSI hard drive in that Supermicro system.
Happy Editing

Old Guy 88

Posted 2018-05-18 5:14 PM (#1259 - in reply to #1257)
Subject: Re: Recently Played/Bought/Messed with

Intel P5

Posts: 68

Location: N.E. Pennsylvania USA

@DXZeff Hey I heard Mullet Man was Invited to the Royal Wedding.
Hope he takes some video

Edited by Old Guy 88 2018-05-18 5:26 PM

twm

Posted 2018-05-20 11:49 AM (#1260 - in reply to #1259)
Subject: Re: Recently Played/Bought/Messed with

Chips 386

Posts: 37

@DXZeff
I'll be able to compare both ALi and MVP3 boards - I also have the latter which I got around 2004, so... Well, at least I hope so - to run them both and get some clear comparison.
And peg - seems like I got the right word for those... white plastic hooks on the socket, lol.

@Old Guy 88
That's a very clear illustration with the paint marks you made, thanks. May be useful for me if I'll order that cooler.

Got this keyboard yesterday:

Nothing extraordinary, but I quite like such late-90s keys: they're cheap, still not terrible to type. Plus its layout / design - I really prefer this one. And yes, it has Cyrillic letters too, so I may type moloko and such stuff easily.
P.S. just noticed that short Backspace. Sigh.

Edited by twm 2018-05-20 11:59 AM

Old Guy 88

Posted 2018-05-21 12:17 AM (#1261 - in reply to #71)
Subject: RE: Recently Played/Bought/Messed with

Intel P5

Posts: 68

Location: N.E. Pennsylvania USA

@twm Very Cool Keyboard

Another Rescue from the recycler
Had Broken front door and Bad Video Card and Hard Drive
Dell XPS 600
GC375 Nvidia NForce 4 SLI Motherboard
Pentium D 945 3.4Ghz
2BFG Geforce 7800 GT in SLI
8GB DDR2
500GB Hard Drive
Creative Labs Sound Blaster SB0460
Windows 7 Pro 64Bit
Stupid Propriatary Power Supply
Front light color can be changed in BIOS[should make computer at least 20% Faster LOL]

twm

Posted 2018-05-21 2:51 PM (#1262 - in reply to #71)
Subject: RE: Recently Played/Bought/Messed with

Chips 386

Posts: 37

Regarding ATX cases, I'm beginning to think, should I make a choice and put some of them into the bin. The space - they start to take up too much space.

A pal gave me Pentium D machine. Not so powerful one like that Dell and not branded, but the same sturdy steel and... You know, that late NetBurst era. I haven't much need of it, honestly: my main C2D is quite close to that staff and it does work fine.
Maybe I should find a new home for it.
And seems like I prefer not to think about it, sigh.

P.S. yet, I want to obtain some early 00s (00-01) ATX box. Those which similar to Baby-AT in term of size.

Edited by twm 2018-05-21 3:02 PM

waybacktech

Posted 2018-05-23 7:51 PM (#1264 - in reply to #71)
Subject: Re: Recently Played/Bought/Messed with

IDT WinChip

Posts: 237
100

Location: USA

This would be a fun item to mess with. - https://www.ebay.com/itm/Vintage-Make-IT-486-upgrade-chip-for-80286-...

Old Guy 88

Posted 2018-05-23 10:23 PM (#1265 - in reply to #71)
Subject: Re: Recently Played/Bought/Messed with

Intel P5

Posts: 68

Location: N.E. Pennsylvania USA

@waybacktech $400.00 Is it worth that much? I watched your 3 part Pentium II video again. Really cool
Hope you do more like that in the future

Edited by Old Guy 88 2018-05-23 10:39 PM

waybacktech

Posted 2018-05-24 2:12 AM (#1266 - in reply to #1265)
Subject: Re: Recently Played/Bought/Messed with

IDT WinChip

Posts: 237
100

Location: USA

I'm glad you liked it 88. No that chip isn't worth anywhere near $400, well not to me and I am sure a lot of other people, I'd rather have 2 or 3 Voodoo 5's, but those 286 to 486 processor upgrade chips are rare to see for sale, that is the only one I have come across for sale. I figured there might be some people who never have actually seen such a creature before and might enjoy looking at the photo's of an obscure piece of vintage hardware.

DXZeff

Posted 2018-05-25 12:13 AM (#1269 - in reply to #1266)
Subject: Re: Recently Played/Bought/Messed with

TM Crusoe

Posts: 618
500

Location: Hull, UK

Still have a 286-to-386 upgrade for a PS/2 Model 50 around here somewhere, may as well sell it at some stage as there's little chance I'll ever want to play with one of those systems.

After waiting for years, I managed to get hold of another one of these;
Uploaded Image

Maybe, just maybe, the Pentium OverKill 83 can actually be finished after all, though this changes the plan to run Windows 95, probably, because whilst it was possible to get the MediaFX running, this thing probably won't. It will also sacrifice Sound Blaster compatibility due to some idiotic (and I suspect deliberate) decisions taken by SPEA, freeing up a card but limiting the machine's capabilities. At this point I don't care, evidently the machine isn't required for this as its competing build, the P66, does that job just fine, so it's still on target as 'overblown' if nothing else.
Fun fact: SPEA made the first FireGL cards, or it appears that way at any rate, this was before that though.

Edited by DXZeff 2018-05-25 12:18 AM

Old Guy 88

Posted 2018-05-25 5:29 PM (#1270 - in reply to #1269)
Subject: Re: Recently Played/Bought/Messed with

Intel P5

Posts: 68

Location: N.E. Pennsylvania USA

@DXZeff that card should make an interesting video

DXZeff

Posted 2018-05-25 7:03 PM (#1271 - in reply to #1270)
Subject: Re: Recently Played/Bought/Messed with

TM Crusoe

Posts: 618
500

Location: Hull, UK

Not sure about that, would probably lump it in with the AITech and the Snappy if it ever got one. Out of the two is has more in common with the Snappy parallel port capture devices than it does with boards like the AITech, because it is slow and can only take stills from a video stream. It's a shame because the PCI bus would be able to beat the limits of the ISA cards from this time, such as how the WinTV is trapped at half resolution captures due to bus speed limits. The card can supposedly decode MPEG1 at up to 720x576 30p but I could never get that to work on the old one, decoding only a single frame, presumably it is very choosy about how a file was encoded. The CS4920, which went nuclear on my old one and is what killed it, is not a full blown audio solution, so the system cannot use it as a sound card, it is, however, hardwired to Address 220h and DMA 1 as far as I could tell with the old card.

This is the idiotic design decision which I suspect is deliberate. That chip stops Sound Blaster cards working, but it does not function as an audio CODEC and therefore, isn't used as a sound card by the system, it exists solely to output decoded MPEG audio streams. Now by pure coincidence I am sure, this does not affect a certain sound card that uses Sound Blaster emulation, in fact, rather poor sound blaster emulation, that being the SPEA MediaFX, a card which the manual mentions on nearly every other page, including diagrams of how you would hook them up together and use them in your setup... convenient, no?
Indeed, one might start to wonder if this decision was not made on purpose to aid in sales of the MediaFX card, but surely that is just purely tinfoil hattery and misplaced paranoia, they wouldn't do a thing like that, it must have been an accident.
If you wondered about the MediaFX, it is an Ensoniq S-2000 card, but it requires a different ROM be uploaded on boot to work properly for some reason, the CD interfaces also don't appear to work (confirmed by another owner of the card) and, naturally, it sounds just as crappy as a real S-2000. Sound Blaster emulation cannot be disabled for some reason, can't'find a recording of that, but think Sound Blaster PCI and you've got it, there are some GM renders around though; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1eBg3Arfr20&list=PLKjF5g3P9qvUjznWdb...

The video card does appeal for its sheer overblown, over complicated nature and there is some epic copper work on the PCB, the solder side has the Video7 logo.

As for the system, its story goes back a long way now, to a time shortly before the Pentium 66 came to be. When 586 builds failed to work, a plan was devised to build a '486' so overblown that no further action would be required, the POD was chosen over AMD and Cyrix chips simply as I prefer it and Hooker was also left running that chip at the time, whereas I feel that system is a better fit for the U5. On a whim the current Pentium 66 was started (then at 60MHz) as a competing build, which seemed silly at the time and would surely lead to regret after it went wrong... it didn't go wrong, the P66 quickly won out and worked as intended once given hardware that actually wasn't broken - early on it was stuck with a broken PCI IDE controller and the sound card died. This left the POD in no-man's-land with a dead video card, an impossible to balance OS install and a few other small issues - it cannot boot non-UNIX floppies for one thing - so it sat around for years doing nothing. Other cards were tried but they didn't work out, the T230 has defective memory, the Virge throws a fit in there for some reason and the Cirrus didn't have the bells and whistles I wanted. By now it doesn't matter about running games or anything, I have decided to complete it with the original vision, but without fighting for compatibility, just for the fun of it.
Oh, most Ethernet controllers don't work right in it for some reason, regardless of interface, possibly an interrupt problem, would have to inspect it more closely as the video card issues were the main focus back then.

Old Guy 88

Posted 2018-05-25 8:26 PM (#1272 - in reply to #1271)
Subject: Re: Recently Played/Bought/Messed with

Intel P5

Posts: 68

Location: N.E. Pennsylvania USA

@DXZeff Thanks for the link and the info. Shame how some Companies make sure their hardware only works with there own products.

Old Guy 88

Posted 2018-05-25 11:43 PM (#1273 - in reply to #71)
Subject: RE: Recently Played/Bought/Messed with

Intel P5

Posts: 68

Location: N.E. Pennsylvania USA

Came across this while browsing is it worth the price
https://www.ebay.com/itm/TerraTec-EWS64-Wavetable-ISA-Soundkarte-16M...

Old Guy 88

Posted 2018-05-25 11:45 PM (#1274 - in reply to #71)
Subject: RE: Recently Played/Bought/Messed with

Intel P5

Posts: 68

Location: N.E. Pennsylvania USA

00

Edited by Old Guy 88 2018-05-25 11:48 PM

DXZeff

Posted 2018-05-26 4:43 AM (#1275 - in reply to #1274)
Subject: Re: Recently Played/Bought/Messed with

TM Crusoe

Posts: 618
500

Location: Hull, UK

Oh, I hate when people ask me that, it makes me feel responsible. As with anything, it's worth as much as you're willing to pay for it.

Keep in mind that I have little of any experience with the Analog Devices codec, though supposedly it provides SBPro compatibility to some extent.

From my standpoint, I suppose, it would be; how willing are you to put up with or work around any potential quirks of the AD codec, assuming it has any, and if you are willing, then you do get a good wavetable - that would be the main factor for me, because the codec is just a run-of-the-mill compatible chip, so I'd look at where the price is compared to comparable wavetables. How much will you use it. What software library do you have or plan to obtain that will make use of it.

Edit: Fun fact - one of these was almost bought instead of that Turtle Beach Pinnacle... odds are, the Terratec would have been a better choice out of those two.

Edited by DXZeff 2018-05-26 4:45 AM

Jump to page : < ... 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 ... >
Now viewing page 34 [25 messages per page]

Search this forum
Printer friendly version
E-mail a link to this thread

(Delete all cookies set by this site)
Running MegaBBS ASP Forum Software © 2002-2024 PD9 Software