What retro things have you done today?

almoststew1990 · 26 Jun 2022 at 23:17

I think it was the CMOS battery being dead because when I swapped that out the PCI video card worked fine.

Sadly the weird soundcard (QuickShot Pro16 Plus) doesn't work at all, isn't detected in a few systems

LewisRaz · 27 Jun 2022 at 09:38

Thats a shame because it looks really really rare! Perhaps its repairable

LewisRaz · 27 Jun 2022 at 17:27

Really happy I managed to debug the fault with my windows 95 system. Its got a cold solder/poor join somewhere in the ram slot. Giving it a wiggle sorted it out and I finished the first 3 levels of quake.
The motherboard also has headers for a toggle switch or momentary and somehow it was in the wrong one but still worked previously.
Glad to have it running again. Thinking of making it my main machine as the win98 one is constantly crashing and I am not running anything on it that a P166 MMX cannot run anyway.

LewisRaz · 28 Jun 2022 at 18:43

The 486 tower in the timelapse video has been in several piles of parts for quite a fewmonths now with me constantly putting it off as it needs a reflow on the chipset. Having that AM5x86 P75 sitting on my desk gave me the kick I needed to gather all of the bits together and crack on with it. Put it all together and its working great!

(Still with the DX4). I am about to try the new cpu in it after dinner which I think is a drop in replacement with the same jumper settings as the dx4. My board does not officially support 3.45v only 3.3v/4v/5v. Hoping 3.3v is enough.

almoststew1990 · 28 Jun 2022 at 20:03

quick sanity check... I'm trying to install my 486 DX-2 into my Socket 3 motherboard that it usually lives in. I'm trying to orient the CPU into the socket the correct way but the heatsink is very stuck to the top of the CPU so I can't see the little triangle marking which way I should orient the CPU! On the bottom, centre of the CPU is a gold square with a little 'offshoot' to one corner. I'm pretty sure that this corner is the one that is slightly sliced off edge to indicate that that is the corner for orientation but it's kind of hard to tell from the bottom. Can anyone confirm that the gold leg thing on the bottom of the CPU points towards the corner?

And that this should line up to the corner of the socket with the extra pin hole?

LewisRaz · 28 Jun 2022 at 22:06

almoststew1990 said:
quick sanity check... I'm trying to install my 486 DX-2 into my Socket 3 motherboard that it usually lives in. I'm trying to orient the CPU into the socket the correct way but the heatsink is very stuck to the top of the CPU so I can't see the little triangle marking which way I should orient the CPU! On the bottom, centre of the CPU is a gold square with a little 'offshoot' to one corner. I'm pretty sure that this corner is the one that is slightly sliced off edge to indicate that that is the corner for orientation but it's kind of hard to tell from the bottom. Can anyone confirm that the gold leg thing on the bottom of the CPU points towards the corner?

And that this should line up to the corner of the socket with the extra pin hole?

Yes the corner with the extra pin is where the pin1 corner goes. Its also the corner where the hinge for the lever is. The cpu should have 1 corner slightly angled on the ceramic too so you can see it even with a heatsink on.

Got my new CPU in

. Recognised correctly too which is a bonus.
Will have to wait until tomorrow to test it as I cant find my boot floppy anywhere.

dcsarge · 29 Jun 2022 at 09:42

NinjaCool said:
I was looking through some of my old PC games so took some pictures

That bottom row is a golden age of PC gaming that lost PC serious hours of my life but I enjoyed every second of playing them

.

I actually a copy of Shogo in a weird double fold out cardboard outer cover with Septerra Core. Both are in their own jewel cases inside. I don't remember where I got it, as it isn't my original copy of Shogo.

It is sat under my TV after my daughter found looking through some of my old stuff and then just left it out last year, so there it sits with the PlayStation.

The only game I still have completely original is my tin version of S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Shadow of Chernobyl. Amazed to find that still has the map and manual still in it. Gutted I won't be able to play the sequel.

NinjaCool · 29 Jun 2022 at 17:52

Thief and System Shock 2 was also my favored of the 9 games. I must have completed them both multiple times and the later Thief 2 I also enjoyed immensely.
I am pretty sure I completed all these 9 games since they were all worth it!

Here is another 6 PC games from my old collection

almoststew1990 · 30 Jun 2022 at 20:59

I've decided to migrate my DOS PC to that socket 7 board. I've moved it into my purple case for it's modern/ safe and Silent power supply, downgraded it to a Pentium 90 (not sure why I did this) and put a larger heatsink and large slow quiet fan on it. Upped the RAM to 16MB (my 32mb stick doesn't work in this board or it will only post with two sticks in). I haven't bothered hooking up a CD drive because I don't have any CD-ROM DOS games! Fortunately the purple case is old enough to have mounts for BabyAT as well as a place on the back panel for a couple of serial ports.

It's better than my 486 board because it doesn't need a controller card and actually posts all the time. I might try to find a bit more RAM or pair a 16MB with an 8MB pairs for 24MB. Although I've been meaning to play Aladdin and that's limited to 16...

I got this system on Gumtree as I was getting a bit fed up with PCI sound cards (even if the ESS Solo 1 is pretty good) so I've put my only ISA sound card in. Video is an ATI Mach64 of some kind.

LewisRaz · 30 Jun 2022 at 21:46

Perfect system that for DOS/early windows games. If its a permanent thing you could get a 3dprinted IO shield too to tidy up the rear.

manisses · 30 Jun 2022 at 22:27

Man, it's so frustrating troubleshooting old motherboards. I got this beautiful case with LED frequency display and I wanted to build my first PC with Pentium 133. I won an ABIT PH5 at auction for 15£ and it arrived after 2 weeks..and it doesn't work, I tried everything, cache, no cache, checked all jumpers, tried 8 pairs of ram, nothing... The other board (AVX55C) works fine, but the screws don't align with the case and it shows a max of 32 MB of ram, no matter what kind or size of RAM I use...
I'm trying now to replace the AVX55C with another board I saw on the ebay sellers page, hopefully I can pick it up on Sunday.
And I need to figure out how to manage the case to display 133, this will be fun too. As far as I know is through trial and error, just move the jumpers until I get the 133...

Armageus · 30 Jun 2022 at 22:38

@manisses have a look here for the case speed display

minuszerodegrees.net

www.minuszerodegrees.net

Firestar_3x · 1 Jul 2022 at 00:37

Got an Abit BP6 on the way, very fond memories of this board from 1999.

manisses · 1 Jul 2022 at 09:09

Armageus said:
@manisses have a look here for the case speed display

minuszerodegrees.net

www.minuszerodegrees.net

Thanks!! I'm yet to open the case, I need to check the model nr, I hope it's one from the list to make it easier.

Firestar_3x said:
Got an Abit BP6 on the way, very fond memories of this board from 1999.

I got one too with dual Celeron, I think this board supports only Celeron and up to 600 Mhz if I remember correctly. I believe it was the first motherboard to support dual Celeron CPUs

almoststew1990 · 1 Jul 2022 at 11:08

Well I got that QuickShot Pro16 Plus working after manually installing a driver. It sounds alright with it's real OPL3 and SB16 support.

It has jumpers for using either OPL3 or OPL4/ Wavetable. What is OPL4 and do you think this card has that 'built in'?

Bubo · 1 Jul 2022 at 15:25

This won't mean anything to anybody here really since it is kind of a personal thing, but I am restoring an Acer Aspire 5739G Core2Duo laptop back to health after repossessing it from my nephews, who I had given it to many many years ago as an Xmas present. This laptop was my first proper laptop which had dedicated graphics, in the form of Nvidia 240M chip. I had another terrible laptop before this, but this was my first laptop I could lay on my couch and proper game on. I was very attached to it because of this. Anyway, after I gave it to my nephews they then proceeded to treat it like dog ****. Pulled keys off, scuffed it, split stuff in it etc etc, even pulled out the rubber screw concealing grommets in the bezel for flips sake, I mean what? Why? I was pretty mad about this to be honest. I kind of forgot about it, then found it abandoned in my parents house just recently, and nicked it back. Looks like it was abandoned because whatever they had spilt on it had knackered the keyboard. It must have been put there and forgotten about for at least 7 years.

Anyway, I took this as a sign to embark on a personal mission to restore this laptop to its former glory. New keyboard and a power supply got it working again. Now looking at upgrading the cpu to the maximum the bios can support, as well as new ram, probable SSD swap, and even looking at replacing the screen. Windows 10 has even installed itself on it, since it came with Vista. They must have done this before it was abandoned. There is absolutely no point whatsoever to doing this as it will never be powerful enough to be particularly useful, and I already have a modern gaming laptop, but there is something about this particular laptop which compels me to just have it there and working, if you get me. This is just a bit of a story about a personal quest. And the moral of the story is nostalgia can a very powerful urge, and also never ever give kids anything ever.

LewisRaz · 1 Jul 2022 at 17:31

manisses said:
Man, it's so frustrating troubleshooting old motherboards. I got this beautiful case with LED frequency display and I wanted to build my first PC with Pentium 133. I won an ABIT PH5 at auction for 15£ and it arrived after 2 weeks..and it doesn't work, I tried everything, cache, no cache, checked all jumpers, tried 8 pairs of ram, nothing... The other board (AVX55C) works fine, but the screws don't align with the case and it shows a max of 32 MB of ram, no matter what kind or size of RAM I use...
I'm trying now to replace the AVX55C with another board I saw on the ebay sellers page, hopefully I can pick it up on Sunday.
And I need to figure out how to manage the case to display 133, this will be fun too. As far as I know is through trial and error, just move the jumpers until I get the 133...

Do you have a post card to try and diagnose it?

Those LED displays are usually easy to figure out especially with the site posted above. Its one of the last things I need to do to finish my 486 tower.

I won a sound blaster vibra 16 for £9.10 today for no reason other than it was cheap and nice to have a real opl3 card around for that price.

manisses · 1 Jul 2022 at 21:21

LewisRaz said:
Do you have a post card to try and diagnose it?

Those LED displays are usually easy to figure out especially with the site posted above. Its one of the last things I need to do to finish my 486 tower.

I won a sound blaster vibra 16 for £9.10 today for no reason other than it was cheap and nice to have a real opl3 card around for that price.

Thanks for the idea, I never had a post card, I ordered one now and will try it on the board when it arrives.
I was watching that SB16 too, but I got the Mach64 card instead. You got a good deal there

LewisRaz · 1 Jul 2022 at 22:20

manisses said:
Thanks for the idea, I never had a post card, I ordered one now and will try it on the board when it arrives.
I was watching that SB16 too, but I got the Mach64 card instead. You got a good deal there

Im quite pleased with it. I did get outbid but flipped a coin on wether or not to go higher... Glad I did

Post cards have saved me so many hours over the years of messing with the older PCs. Couldnt be without it now.

Ninco! · 4 Jul 2022 at 19:41

Apologies if I am pushing the boundaries of retro gaming.

Yesterday I set up my XP rig! It must have been a good couple of years since I last tried! I am well happy it worked and had an enjoyable afternoon spent playing Papyrus Nascar 3, No One Lives Forever and Digital Integration Tornado. So nice to be able to install a game from a disk and it just works.

Please ignore the go-faster turbo fans on top of the Chillblast case, I just plonk these on top to act as temporary dust filters.

The only minor irritation is my bodge fitting of the SoundBlaster X-fi Fatal1ty. A couple of bugs, whilst its working brilliantly, almost too good, the funky soundtrack in NOLF drowned out the speech, and I could not for the life of me get it to fit in the case!