Re: LS486E C2 not booting with 3V CPUs

Posted on 2017-12-21, 14:11

by

by FesterBlatz

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

i'm pretty sure that you need a regular PNP power transistor in there, not a Darlington. No, please be careful when giving this kind of advice-because in this case it may prove harmful. Sometimes a darlington is necessary because a regular PNP doesn't provide enough current gain. While it's …

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Re: LS486E C2 not booting with 3V CPUs

Posted on 2017-12-15, 19:01

by

by FesterBlatz

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Are you certain when you put the 5x86 back in, you had it positioned correctly in the socket? If you accidentally had the processor "clocked" incorrectly--meaning pin 1 of the CPU was 90/180/270 degrees off from pin 1 of the socket, most of the time it results in a fried 3v3 regulator.

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Re: Bought these (retro) hardware today

Posted on 2017-12-13, 15:18

by

by FesterBlatz

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I love those Amdek monitors. I have the 310A amber phosphor TTL version of that still like-new in the box. I drag it out sometimes when I feel the need to tinker with some of my XT class machines. Oops. CameraZOOM-20171212213427573.jpg Ah well, never had one of these before. :P Fairly standard 2+ …

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Re: K6-2/3+ Success on Asus P5A 1.06 - simple mod

Posted on 2017-12-12, 19:05

by

by FesterBlatz

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Yep I have a regular K6-2/500 I could try. In fact, being of the larger 0.25 µm process it should draw even more current than the K6-2+. When I get some time I'll drag a scope over and do some poking around to verify the VRM circuit is working properly with either CPU as a load.

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Re: K6-2/3+ Success on Asus P5A 1.06 - simple mod

Posted on 2017-12-12, 13:37

by

by FesterBlatz

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Unfortunately I haven't had much time mess with this lately, but I do seem to be struggling with a stability issue since the mod. I can let quake 2 run for hours without a hitch, but as soon as I start navigating around Windows 98 the machine will just randomly reboot. Never a blue screen or lockup, …

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Re: A strange ISA Card?

Posted on 2017-12-11, 15:32

by

by FesterBlatz

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Does FDDI count? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fiber_Distributed_Data_Interface I still occasionally use an old Cisco 4K series router with FDDI interface installed. I use this for bridging my Ethernet LAN over to a 100meg FDDI ring that connects to my SGI Crimson RE. As far as vintage networking …

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Re: WfW 3.11 ok on Pentium?

Posted on 2017-12-08, 14:37

by

by FesterBlatz

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

For what it's worth, the very first Pentium I laid eyes on was a brand new Packard Bell Legend 60CD with a Pentium 60...right after the Pentium CPU's were released. It came pre-installed with MS-DOS and Windows 3.11.

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Re: Bought these (retro) hardware today

Posted on 2017-12-06, 19:44

by

by FesterBlatz

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Good advice! Best to not tempt Murphy's law. I generally try to make my repairs look...well, invisible. But my German OCD is the reason for this. A functional repair is certainly more valuable than a failed attempt at a pretty one. Care must also be taken not to lift that pad. Lots of flux and swift …

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Re: Bought these (retro) hardware today

Posted on 2017-12-06, 19:30

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by FesterBlatz

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Assuming the leg doesn't bust off when twisted back into place, that's a doable repair for a skilled tech. I recently just repaired an Ensoniq SoundScape OPUS with the same exact damage. ..but this will be difficult :-( IMG_9942.JPG Ugh, I have fixed Voodoo 2's like that, but this one is in pretty …

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Re: Help with Octek Fox M 286 (broken chip)

Posted on 2017-12-05, 00:11

by

by FesterBlatz

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I'd say your changes are pretty poor, unfortunately. The problem is whatever function that PLD was programmed to perform is unique to that board. In order to repair it, you'd need to find someone with the same motherboard who's willing to send the PLD to someone else with a device programmer. …

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Re: Bought these (retro) hardware today

Posted on 2017-12-01, 17:06

by

by FesterBlatz

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I remember learning to type in Middle School with a classroom full of those running WordPerfect 5.0. Everyone simultaneously opening their documents was enough to saturate the Token Ring LAN in that area of the building so it would take like 2 minutes for a simple text document to open. Good times! …

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Re: Problems with the L2 cache on my new PC Chips M919

Posted on 2017-11-30, 22:34

by

by FesterBlatz

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Yes that slot does look pretty sketchy. Also, could you post a picture of the bottom of the motherboard? From only the one angle that's visible in the pictures above, I noticed there isn't a single trace connected to the pins on visible side of the slot. While its possible they're ALL routed on the …

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Re: LPX Platform Search

Posted on 2017-11-30, 21:00

by

by FesterBlatz

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

But that's the thing. YOU are not participating in a heated discussion. You're clearly taking it personal and by preferring he "let it go", it's obviously a competition for you to prove who's right and who's wrong. If you re-read this thread, where did anyone ask what your opinion was? Since this is …

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Re: LPX Platform Search

Posted on 2017-11-30, 20:39

by

by FesterBlatz

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

emosun: Normally I try to avoid instigating your kind of irrational behavior, but after your last two posts did you go smile at yourself in the mirror because of how awesome you are? Seriously, get a grip and try not take a difference of opinion so personally.

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Re: Upgrading 286 CPU on ISA upgrade card?

Posted on 2017-11-30, 20:06

by

by FesterBlatz

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I used to have one of those. It uses a ribbon cable from the accelerator card that has an adapter on the end that plugs into the 8088 socket on the motherboard. If I recall you then take the removed 8088 and stick it in a socket on the accelerator board for backwards compatibility. Some boards had …

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Re: Bought these (retro) hardware today

Posted on 2017-11-30, 17:36

by

by FesterBlatz

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

That's certainly my plan! Whether or not it'll work reliably at that speed remains to be seen. brostenen wrote: Basically speaking. The 5x86-100gp x4 is running at 133mhz. Making it somewhat identical to a Cyrix 5x86-133 model??

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Re: Bought these (retro) hardware today

Posted on 2017-11-30, 15:25

by

by FesterBlatz

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

The motherboards both appear to be missing the BIOS EEPROMs unfortunately. Predator99 wrote: Hmmm I dont think so. They are looking intact however. If anybody is interested let me know... I will test the 2 Mainboards (Socket 7 + 462).

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Re: Bought these (retro) hardware today

Posted on 2017-11-30, 15:23

by

by FesterBlatz

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Nope, to the best of my knowledge the 100MHz parts are almost always 33MHz x3 and can't be set to x4. debs3759 wrote: Don't all 5x86 have default x4 multiplier?

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Re: Bought these (retro) hardware today

Posted on 2017-11-30, 13:48

by

by FesterBlatz

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Got this Cyrix 5x86 with x4 clock multiplier on eBay for $57 USD a few weeks ago, and it finally showed up yesterday. I've been wanting the 4x variant for quite a while, so I wasn't concerned about spending so much for it. The pins ended up being fairly straight and only needed a little nudging with …

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Re: Bought this (Modern) hardware today

Posted on 2017-11-29, 20:38

by

by FesterBlatz

in Milliways

in Milliways

A single raptor is capable of what...maybe 175-200 IOPS tops? Where any decent SSD is capable of at least 40,000+ IOPS, usually much more. Magnetic media is certainly becoming an endangered species, but it can be far more interesting than boring and silent solid state storage.

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