What retro things have you done today?

paradigm · 31 Jul 2020 at 12:41

Tried to fire up my dual S604 board today (wanted to see if it would boot with the dual-core Xeon in it rather than just a single-core HT one), but it turns out I don't appear to have any compatible memory (or the board is dead).

I (possibly wrongly) assumed that although the board wants PC2-3200 Registered ECC RAM, it would likely boot with PC2-5300 Registered ECC RAM, but it doesn't. 4E E1 error code on the POST diag card, and 5 beeps repeating endlessly. 5 beeps in the service manual is all about memory troubleshooting, and 4E codes all related to memory in AMI BIOSes (no idea if the HP uses an AMI BIOS, but I'm going to assume it does).

So, ordering some PC2-3200R today. Oh well, at least it's cheap! Shame, I've got bucket loads of PC2-5300R and loads of DDR1 PC3200R.

On the flip-side, I don't need to find a PSU as I found a Lenovo (Delta manufactured) 1060W PSU in the loft.

LewisRaz · 31 Jul 2020 at 16:59

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Vintage-...638395?hash=item28996b4ebb:g:ZqcAAOSwrjBfJB5i

This has potential to get expensive!

paradigm · 31 Jul 2020 at 17:10

LewisRaz said:
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Vintage-...638395?hash=item28996b4ebb:g:ZqcAAOSwrjBfJB5i

This has potential to get expensive!

That’ll go for nearer £200 I’d imagine! Looks lovely though!

LewisRaz · 31 Jul 2020 at 17:17

Yea Im guessing 200+

The fact they are willing to post really opens this one up. Dont see many Mint/Complete IBM setups like this.

paradigm · 31 Jul 2020 at 17:23

LewisRaz said:
Yea Im guessing 200+

The fact they are willing to post really opens this one up. Dont see many Mint/Complete IBM setups like this.

Would you rather have 1500 nappies, or the IBM for £200 though

LewisRaz · 31 Jul 2020 at 17:54

paradigm said:
Would you rather have 1500 nappies, or the IBM for £200 though

Haha Ive managed to shift 2 systems this week and most of the stuff I listed on ebay too!

That means more room!

For nappies.

Being induced monday so have managed to get everything except my dx4 and p3 sold or packed away.
Still cant keep myself away from ebay tho. Going to be even worse sat around in hospital with nothing better to do.
Managed to do more testing on that new VLB board today and it was even worse with my known good I/O card. So that one has been put away to worry about another time.
Rebuilt my P3 BACK into the desktop case as they take up less room and it can sit with the dx4. Bit of a worrying moment when I plugged the power cable in there was a flash and the system would not power on. Checked all the cables over and its been fine since.

almoststew1990 · 1 Aug 2020 at 09:38

I had two motherboards arrive within about 10 minutes of each other today and annoyingly my partner opened the door do I'm under increased suspicion of "buying more crap"

Very quick delivery on that Intel xfire board though I think I bought that yesterday!

paradigm · 1 Aug 2020 at 10:19

almoststew1990 said:
I had two motherboards arrive within about 10 minutes of each other today and annoyingly my partner opened the door do I'm under increased suspicion of "buying more crap"

Very quick delivery on that Intel xfire board though I think I bought that yesterday!

Nice! Can’t wait to see that one built up, will bring back a lot of good memories!

What’s the other board?

almoststew1990 · 1 Aug 2020 at 11:04

The other board is a modern A320 AM4 board that I am planning on putting either a 3400G or 3100 in, to go in that Tiny PC case. Along with my R7(?) 570 and a 512GB m.2 ssd. It will be an interesting sleeper build!

almoststew1990 · 1 Aug 2020 at 13:11

I got the intel bored up and running. Works fine, so the Untested gamble paid off. The guy / shop has loads for sale so I assume they're decommissioned from... Somewhere.

LewisRaz · 1 Aug 2020 at 14:10

It looked to me like they did mass upgrades for offices or something. So probably do all work they just dont want the fallout of any issues.
At my work they just throw them all in a scrap pile. Quite a shame really seen a few boxes with i7 badges on.

My Chaintech board arrived today. Nothing outstanding but very easy to setup and possibly the quickest win98 install I have done. Will get to benching it later. My TNT2 Ultra from the "beast" had a dead fan but was the only AGP gpu not in the loft/storage so I currently have a fan taped to it for testing..

paradigm · 1 Aug 2020 at 14:23

Did some testing of the GeForce 256 DDR on the P4 Shuttle (the rig that I did all the previous GPU testing on).

It mainly sits as noticeably faster than the GeForce 2MX (original or 400) with the exception of 1280x1024 in Quake II and Quake 3 Arena, where the MX seems to edge ahead. “Proper” GeForce 2 is clearly a step up performance wise, but seems to have worse image quality (though that is usually down to the AIB partner cheaping out on high-pass filtering components, rather than the GPU itself).

Certainly happy to have added it to my collection, especially seeing as it ended up being free (along with my PCI Mach64 and yet another Rage Pro). I like hardware that I’ve rescued by repairing it!

LewisRaz · 1 Aug 2020 at 14:33

It really is nice seeing the hardware you have managed to save! Getting quite a nice collection there now.

I am a bit puzzled by this board. It has all the ports for sound but the cmedia chip is not present?

paradigm · 1 Aug 2020 at 14:52

LewisRaz said:
It really is nice seeing the hardware you have managed to save! Getting quite a nice collection there now.

I am a bit puzzled by this board. It has all the ports for sound but the cmedia chip is not present?

It seems to be turning into a new sub-hobby for me. I like the idea of buying faulty and fixing. Need to find some more interesting parts to fix!

Be interesting to see if the audio works on that board!

hohum · 1 Aug 2020 at 14:58

@LewisRaz There's a small chip next to the first PCI slot surrounded by caps - I can't zoom your image but that's probably the audio chip.

LewisRaz · 1 Aug 2020 at 15:03

paradigm said:
It seems to be turning into a new sub-hobby for me. I like the idea of buying faulty and fixing. Need to find some more interesting parts to fix!

Be interesting to see if the audio works on that board!

I have a socket 7 motherboard that could come your way. Light corrosion damage and a dead soldered dallas. Ive spent more time on that than anything and have managed to get it to a point of beeping about memory. Its not really worth much I dont think (A s7 mobo sold for £3.20 the other day..) But if you are bored and fancy a challenge...

I am struggling for audio on this board. Win98 detects a PCI sound device but I am stumped for drivers. I tried the cmedia ones out of desperation but obviously the chip is not there so it did not work.

@hohum wow good spot!! I was looking right at the board and overlooked that chip due to its size! Had to take a picture and zoom in on it. The chip is a Sigmatel STAC9721T... So likely I was better off without it

hohum · 1 Aug 2020 at 15:23

@LewisRaz You'll probably find you can get it working if you download the generic VIA AC97 driver from VIA's website. The Sigmatel chip is just a basic codec, I have a SIS-based board that uses the same chip and SIS's own audio driver works fine. Personally once I'd confirmed it was working I swapped to a SB Live instead though, the functionality/audio quality is pretty meh as expected.

LewisRaz · 1 Aug 2020 at 15:28

hohum said:
@LewisRaz You'll probably find you can get it working if you download the generic VIA AC97 driver from VIA's website. The Sigmatel chip is just a basic codec, I have a SIS-based board that uses the same chip and SIS's own audio driver works fine. Personally once I'd confirmed it was working I swapped to a SB Live instead though, the functionality/audio quality is pretty meh as expected.

Cheers mate. Managed to get some drivers from biostar for the same chip. As expected it is terrible! Just had to see if it works before I can move on

LewisRaz · 1 Aug 2020 at 15:49

It works in DOS games being run under windows.(using soundblaster). Didnt expect that. I thought AC97 meant dropping any sort of DOS love. Still learning about soundcard stuff! Even get the music working with the microsoft SW synth in DOOM

hohum · 1 Aug 2020 at 16:03

LewisRaz said:
It works in DOS games being run under windows.(using soundblaster). Didnt expect that. I thought AC97 meant dropping any sort of DOS love. Still learning about soundcard stuff! Even get the music working with the microsoft SW synth in DOOM

I have very little experience with DOS but see here for reference: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AC'97

AC'97 is supported by most operating systems, such as Windows and Linux. Under DOS, applications access the sound hardware directly instead of through the operating system, and most DOS applications do not support AC'97.