TPU's Nostalgic Hardware Club

[Trekkie4]

Nice repair! I would look into a retro-brite job that case and the face-plates for those floppy drives to restore the color back to the original and follow up with a gloss coat of UV resistant paint if you intend to preserve them long term.

I would love the idea of restoring SOME of my systems (that 5x86 in particular), but since I don't have any experience in that field, I'm not sure if I'd be up for the task. Then there's also the issue of cost & storage of all these chemicals, it would require a dedicated workshop or working area, sooo I'm just going to leave them in original state for now.

Then one day, some day I might retro brite several cases & peripheral components. But this would (and will) be a separate project of its own.

 

[lexluthermiester]

I would love the idea of restoring SOME of my systems (that 5x86 in particular), but since I don't have any experience in that field, I'm not sure if I'd be up for the task. Then there's also the issue of cost & storage of all these chemicals, it would require a dedicated workshop or working area, sooo I'm just going to leave them in original state for now.

Then one day, some day I might retro brite several cases & peripheral components. But this would (and will) be a separate project of its own.

Look up " The 8bit Guy " on Youtube. He has a bunch of video's the show the retro-brite process. It's really very simple. There are many schools of thought on the process, but I like David's the best.
This is his restoration playlist and in many of them he goes into good detail on the process;

That would destroy the patina!

 

[Trekkie4]

Look up " The 8bit Guy " on Youtube. He has a bunch of video's the show the retro-brite process. It's really very simple. There are many schools of thought on the process, but I like David's the best.
This is his restoration playlist and in many of them he goes into good detail on the process;

Already know the guy (and watched quite a few of his videos, including the one you shared), but thanks anyway Also love Techmoan, although he's the HiFi kind of guy, not really into old computers. Anyway, I still think it would be too much for me to handle. You need to understand that I own approx. 43 computers. Of which approx. half (21, 22) would need to be brightened up. So you can imagine the amount of hydrogen peroxide I would need, and/or the working space to soak all those panels... And that is without peripheral components, such as my trusty Logitech QuickCam, and/or even every individual CD-ROM & floppy drive. It would take a loong time & money to make it happen.

Again, not saying I'm not interested. Some day maybe, I like the idea of having "patina" on SOME of my systems, but that recent 5x86 is a perfect example of having too much. At this point it looks more like dark orange than beige and (especially) white!

 

[Robert B]

https://www.techpowerup.com/forums/attachments/prw-386-cpus-jpg.99771/
https://www.techpowerup.com/forums/attachments/prw-386-cpus-02-jpg.99772/

The 80386DX 40MHz is running well light corrosion from the barrel battery. Nothing that a little vinegar can't handle To date, this is my oldest PC combo The price was extremely low and I just couldnt let it go to waste.

The CPU without a heatsink that I bought last weekend is indeed an Intel 80486 overdrive / SZ959 / DX4ODPR100 just as I suspected I had to remove a lot of thermal glue, resolder the MOSFET, straighten the pins and find a suitable heatsink

Took me about 4 hours to straighten the pins for 8 out of the 9 CPUs I bought The Celeron 1.1 SL5XU lost some pins and I'm sure it was stepped on. The other CPUs are in great shape - NO LOST PINS

Even with the missing pins I'll test the "crippled" Celeron.

 

[Trekkie4]

Wow, nice work!! The board is quite similar, almost identical to the one I got recently. even the same BIOS. Now if only I can get it working & (hopefully) build rest of the system around it

 

[Robert B]

I had my share of problems with my P66 like is the case with your 386

At first the P66 wouldnt do anything, no PC speaker codes, no beeps, no keyboard led activity, nothing. I could feel the chips and the CPU getting warm but that was about it. I had to rewrite de BIOS with a USB BIOS programmer and that fixed it.

After this the P66 refused to get past the boot screen no matter what I tried until I looked at older pictures and I saw the jumper setup with which the motherboard came from the seller. After I set them as required the socket 4 motherboard did everything I wanted. The manual/jumper setup diagram of the motherboard wasnt very clear.

My 386, a Pine Technology PT-321, worked from the start. It is so small and it reminds me of my ZIDA 4DPS.

So, your 386 might suffer from a corrupt BIOS or an obscure jumper setting. My bet is the corrupt BIOS if all else is good. You're lucky if the BIOS chip is socketed on your 386 board. On mine it's soldered so it was a good thing it worked from the start

 

[Trekkie4]

I had my share of problems with my P66 like is the case with your 386

At first the P66 wouldnt do anything, no PC speaker codes, no beeps, no keyboard led activity, nothing. I could feel the chips and the CPU getting warm but that was about it. I had to rewrite de BIOS with a USB BIOS programmer and that fixed it.

After this the P66 refused to get past the boot screen no matter what I tried until I looked at older pictures and I saw the jumper setup with which the motherboard came from the seller. After I set them as required the socket 4 motherboard did everything I wanted. The manual/jumper setup diagram of the motherboard wasnt very clear.

My 386, a Pine Technology PT-321, worked from the start. It is so small and it reminds me of my ZIDA 4DPS.

So, your 386 might suffer from a corrupt BIOS or an obscure jumper setting. My bet is the corrupt BIOS if all else is good. You're lucky if the BIOS chip is socketed on your 386 board. On mine it's soldered so it was a good thing it worked from the start

Pretty sure I tried all jumper configs, both CPU & battery-related, nothing worked. Of course, there's also that chipped off capacitor, which @lexluthermiester pointed out. It's a good place to start, but if it really IS a BIOS-related issue, then I'm screwed since I don't have programming tool. I know someone who could do it for me, but with that being said it wouldn't be cheap!

And the pic of both mobo itself & the BIOS chip was already uploaded on the previous page, it appears to have a standard socket, therefore it's easily removable. Now I feel like an idiot for not removing the BIOS chip off my old 3x86 board, which I had to throw away only couple of months ago since the battery leaked to the point where the acid ate through all the traces around the PSU connectors. Pretty certain it had EXACTLY the same, AMI BIOS as this one here.

 

[Doc41]

i believe this collected enough dust and its time to "work" on it

http://imgur.com/a/MD5HX

Pentium 4 651 and 2gigs of "fasttech" ram
when it was in a system we couldn't get it to install an OS, it would just crash during installation no matter what i tried (even with different RAM) so i guess its time to do some more testing on it

welp, i got somewhat busy with other stuff and didnt get a chance to look at this one but when i did it outright refused to even POST.. no video no beeps nothing, BIOS reset didnt work as well.. time for round 2 i guess

https://www.techpowerup.com/forums/attachments/prw-386-cpus-jpg.99771/
https://www.techpowerup.com/forums/attachments/prw-386-cpus-02-jpg.99772/

The 80386DX 40MHz is running well light corrosion from the barrel battery. Nothing that a little vinegar can't handle To date, this is my oldest PC combo The price was extremely low and I just couldnt let it go to waste.

The CPU without a heatsink that I bought last weekend is indeed an Intel 80486 overdrive / SZ959 / DX4ODPR100 just as I suspected I had to remove a lot of thermal glue, resolder the MOSFET, straighten the pins and find a suitable heatsink

Took me about 4 hours to straighten the pins for 8 out of the 9 CPUs I bought The Celeron 1.1 SL5XU lost some pins and I'm sure it was stepped on. The other CPUs are in great shape - NO LOST PINS

Even with the missing pins I'll test the "crippled" Celeron.

sweet, i recall "fixing" an old 939 athlon with a broken pin by cutting one of the wires in a LAN cable and soldering it on xD (lucky for me it was outside on the edge) hey it worked after that at least.

 

[Trekkie4]

So, I've been booting up that 5x86 system, figured it would be easier (and faster) to set up than 4x86 & DOS, but things turned other way around...

Seems the mobo on 5x86 is shot. Or at least part of it anyway, as it's not capable of giving out resources to expansion cards. At first I thought it was just the standard IRQ conflict, between two (or more) components, but no - I've been seeing whole bunch of nonsense. For example, you (manually) set up ethernet card, using the free address & IRQ, but it doesn't work. Instead it freezes the entire system on log-on & reboots automatically. Then you remove the component from Device Manager, refresh (and have the same component re-appear, with the same values) and voila - it's working! Up until the next reboot that is. Or randomly - sometimes it works for half an hour or more & then randomly reverts back or simply ignores the component altogether. Getting the same (similar) issue with the sound card, as well. Both are ISA, but both of them are PnP compatible. And I got both to work, but they all revert back to old values on reboot, or simply stop working, responding. Any ideas?

 

[stinger608]

Damn, that sucks @Trekkie4

 

[Trekkie4]

Yeah, very much I'm afraid Will think of something eventually... But for now I'm considering options. One of them was flashing the BIOS, but I seem to be getting the same problem over & over, not being able to erase the BIOS chip (according to AWDFlash)

 

[jboydgolfer]

 

[lexluthermiester]

I had that XFX 8800GT. Such a golden performer and over-clocker. Oh yeah!

 

[Trekkie4]

Well, it's official... Either the mobo on that 5x86 is completely shot, or I'm just having a bad luck with two of the ISA cards. Certainly worth investigating, but I'll be needing replacement sound & ethernet card(s) in order to do so.

Meanwhile, I've decided to move on with 4x86... Funny how things always end up opposite of what you expect. What I expected was a slow & painful process of booting up both DOS & Win 3.11, not to mention finding the appropriate drivers, especially for ethernet card. But nope, just the opposite really. It all worked out perfectly fine, and I finished the entire software build within couple of hrs! Obviously, I still got to tweak few more bits & pieces, but everything's here & fully operational - sound, video driver (for Win 3.11), even ethernet, CD-ROM & mouse support for DOS


Almost finished with 4x86, still have to address the issue of Memory allocation, for DOS gaming. Until then, enjoy



The sound card was too big & was somewhat flexing, leaning downwards. So I made a simple DIY support (since I didn't have a plastic one) using the standard M3 screw, couple of nuts & one of those motherboard washers.


Side by side comparison... I really do feel bad because of Am5x86, but there's still hope, who knows...? From what I learned so far is that the system boots (and works) perfectly fine up until I load & start the ethernet card. No matter which address I pick (either through jumpers or software), it ALWAYS ends up interfering with the serial mouse. This is the cause of system crashes & hangs, as I only just found out earlier today. But it DOESN'T explain the sound card issue, as I'm still getting the problem regardless of the ethernet adapter, I even tried removing it to see if it would do the trick!


Half way during the build, I've decided to swap out "modern" ISA ethernet card for this 3com adapter from around 1992. Turns out it was a good choice, and (to my surprise) it was automatically detected & configured by both DOS & Win 3.11. Ironically, much, MUCH easier to set up than 5x86 without any problems, whatsoever! IRQ, resources and/or anything else. And being the older build (with even more complicated layout, separate ATA controller & CD ROM drive interface from the sound card), it should have been more difficult than PnP, ISA/PCI system such as the one in 5x86. At least in theory *shrug*


You know, there's a reason why I always put 5.25 floppy drive on top of CD-ROM units. Mainly because floppies are exposed & look so good inside that frame, case support structure. If I'd have more time, money & patience, I would probably put a small glass window, on top of the floppy drive just to see this thing in action

And FINALLY, the games... Still have to sort out Autoexec.BAT & Config.SYS for HIMEM suport (since most of the games that I've tried doesn't work), but this shouldn't be too difficult - uhh, right? But these simple ones seem to be running OK. Even Doom, and I'm even getting the sound through my SoundBlaster 16!

 

[lexluthermiester]

So I made a simple DIY support

I've done that a few times. If it works it works!

I've been thinking about that really yellowed case, instead of retro-briting it, you could just paint it. Custom paint jobs can be a ton of fun. And that case would look good with a silver and brass metalic paint finish.

 

[Ruru]

Oh damn, getting an Athlon Thunderbird 1000MHz!

That with my Radeon 9700 Pro and some good NF2 Ultra 400 MB will be the retro rig of my dreams.

 

[Trekkie4]

I've done that a few times. If it works it works!

I've been thinking about that really yellowed case, instead of retro-briting it, you could just paint it. Custom paint jobs can be a ton of fun. And that case would look good with a silver and brass metalic paint finish.

Good idea, but as much as I hate to point this out, I got more serious priorities at the moment... That 5x86 has been confirmed to be damaged. Plot twist - so is Creative Sound Blaster 16 which came with this particular system in the first place Board itself is working fine, SFX (Wave) is going through without any problems, but the MIDI output is completely silent, except for background static, hiss. I won't be throwing away the card just yet, in case I ever find another WaveBlaster daughter card expansion, but as it is (right now), the card doesn't work.

I'm inclined to say that at this point I got TWO defective ISA sound cards, however ... As it turns out, that other card, ESS seems to be working just fine in DOS... Go figure! I still have to confirm this with other OSes & systems, but one way or another, it seems that I won't be finishing either of the two AT builds any time soon. Not until I can source one, or even two replacement ISA cards which, obviously could take a while I'm afraid As for 5x86 system, I'll probably end up swapping out the entire mobo at some point for a Pentium class processor. Perhaps a non MMX, 133 model? It would still outperform 5x86 at the same clock speed, but it's similar, as close as I can be to having a genuine 5x86 chip *shrug*

 

[Fouquin]

I *finally* found a reasonable price on a single-socket VS440FX board for the plethora of P-Pros I've had sitting around the past few years.



Specs say it maxes out at 256MB, but I've got prior memory of these boards taking 512MB without any issues.

 

[Red_Machine]

Specs say it maxes out at 256MB, but I've got prior memory of these boards taking 512MB without any issues.

If it's any help, my 440BX board currently has 512MB in it.

 

[lexluthermiester]

I *finally* found a reasonable price on a single-socket VS440FX board for the plethora of P-Pros I've had sitting around the past few years.

View attachment 100223

Specs say it maxes out at 256MB, but I've got prior memory of these boards taking 512MB without any issues.

Very nice! I can confirm those boards will take upto 512mb of ram(4x128mb simms). Word of advice, make sure you get a quality heatsink and fan combo and use a good TIM(Arctic Silver 5) would work great. Those P-Pro's get HOT, even when not OC'd. And they can be OC'd a little.

 

[Fouquin]

Very nice! I can confirm those boards will take upto 512mb of ram(4x128mb simms). Word of advice, make sure you get a quality heatsink and fan combo and use a good TIM(Arctic Silver 5) would work great. Those P-Pro's get HOT, even when not OC'd. And they can be OC'd a little.

Alright cool, that's what I was thinking. Still working on finding a heatsink for the goldtop and fiber Pros, but the PII Overdrive has its own. Every document I've read says the board is compatible with the Overdrive, so once I get that out of storage I'm hoping it'll just drop in and be good to go.

 

[BiggieShady]

I was looking where to post this, somehow this thread seems appropriate because here we regularly see chips made in 10micrometer process or higher ...

... this dude got close to that level in his garage, he's making integrated circuits in his freaking garage: http://sam.zeloof.xyz/category/semiconductor/
His litography machine is made out of digital projector, microscope and surprisingly no duct tape

 

[Trekkie4]

Finally got some progress to share... While I'm still in the process of fine-tuning Autoexec.BAT & Config.SYS (I asked for help with this particular issue on Vogons forums), 4x86 is pretty much done & fully working

Autoexec.BAT

@ECHO OFF
C:\DOS\MODE CON RATE=32 DELAY=2
C:\DOS\MODE CON CP PREP=((852) C:\DOS\EGA.CPI)
C:\DOS\MODE CON CP SEL=852
LH /L:2 C:\DOS\KEYB YU,852,C:\DOS\KEYBOARD.SYS
ECHO.
LH /L:2 C:\DOS\MOUSE
ECHO.
PROMPT $p$g
PATH C:\DOS;C:\WINDOWS;C:\SB16
SET TEMP=C:\TEMP
SET TMP=C:\TEMP
SET TZ=CET-1CDT,3,-1,0,7200,10,-1,0,10800,3600
SET SOUND=C:\SB16
SET BLASTER=A220 I5 D1 H5 P330 T6
SET MIDI=SYNTH:1 MAP:E
C:\SB16\DIAGNOSE /S
C:\SB16\MIXERSET /P /Q
C:\WINDOWS\net start
GOTO %CONFIG%

:EMSBOOT
LH /L:2 C:\DOS\MSCDEX /D:CD-524E /M:15 /E /S /L:D /V
ECHO.
LH /L:0;2 /S C:\DOS\SMARTDRV 2048 128 /V
GOTO END

:NOEBOOT
LH /L:2 C:\DOS\MSCDEX /D:CD-524E /M:15 /S /L:D /V
ECHO.
LH /L:0;2 /S C:\DOS\SMARTDRV 2048 /V
GOTO END

:MINBOOT
LH /L:0;2 /S C:\DOS\SMARTDRV 2048 /V
GOTO END

:WINBOOT
LH /L:2 C:\DOS\MSCDEX /D:CD-524E /M:15 /E /S /L:D /V
ECHO.
LH /L:0;2 /S C:\DOS\SMARTDRV 2048 128 /V
WIN
GOTO END

:END

Config.SYS

[MENU]
MENUITEM=EMSBOOT, Start with EMS support.
MENUITEM=NOEBOOT, Start without EMS support.
MENUITEM=MINBOOT, Minimal Boot
MENUITEM=WINBOOT, Windows 3.11
MENUDEFAULT=EMSBOOT,30

[COMMON]
BREAK=ON
DOS=HIGH,UMB
FILES=40
REM FCBS=1,0
BUFFERS=10,0
LASTDRIVE=J
STACKS=9,256
COUNTRY=038,,C:\DOS\COUNTRY.SYS
REM ** DEVICE=C:\DOS\SETVER.EXE
DEVICE=C:\DOS\HIMEM.SYS /V
DEVICEHIGH /L:1 =C:\DOS\DISPLAY.SYS CON=(EGA,,1)
SHELL=C:\DOS\COMMAND.COM C:\DOS\ /E:1024 /P

[EMSBOOT]
DEVICE=C:\DOS\EMM386.EXE RAM /MIN=0 /V
DEVICEHIGH /L:1 =C:\WINDOWS\IFSHLP.SYS
DEVICEHIGH /L:2 =C:\CDROM\GSCDROM.SYS /D:CD-524E
DEVICEHIGH /L:2 =C:\SB16\DRV\CSP.SYS /UNIT=0 /BLASTER=A:220

[NOEBOOT]
DEVICE=C:\DOS\EMM386.EXE NOEMS /V
DEVICEHIGH /L:2 =C:\CDROM\GSCDROM.SYS /D:CD-524E
DEVICEHIGH /L:2 =C:\SB16\DRV\CSP.SYS /UNIT=0 /BLASTER=A:220

[MINBOOT]
DEVICE=C:\DOS\EMM386.EXE NOEMS /V

[WINBOOT]
DEVICE=C:\DOS\EMM386.EXE RAM /V
DEVICEHIGH /L:1 =C:\DOS\ANSI.SYS
DEVICEHIGH /L:1 =C:\WINDOWS\IFSHLP.SYS
DEVICEHIGH /L:2 =C:\CDROM\GSCDROM.SYS /D:CD-524E
DEVICEHIGH /L:2 =C:\SB16\DRV\CSP.SYS /UNIT=0 /BLASTER=A:220

As I already explained, I couldn't get SB16 to work. Actually, JUST the MIDI alone, everything else seems to be working OK. So I tried hooking my WaveBlaster card, I removed it from RetroMaster 2500 signature rig & paired up with SB16, but alas STILL nothing. Faint sound seems to be coming through, but it's just barely there. Something is obviously messed up, with either the chip itself or caps.


So, instead of wasting my time with SB16, I "borrowed" AWE32 from one of my WIn98 rigs & put it inside 4x86 - a perfect match! Well, almost ... AWE card is PnP, so I couldn't get the system to recognize the card in DOS 6.22, but once I loaded all the drivers & apps, AWE32 booted up perfectly fine & fully working On the other hand, Win98 rig now has SB Live! card, which is (let's be honest) far more better choice for audio than AWE32, since Win98 rig also has Voodoo2 SLI & runs all (most) of the games supporting 3D sound acceleration (EAX, A3D)


Now I can actually play some of the games I have... Most of them (all, so far) are working just fine & without any problems whatsoever!


The joke's on you pal, I don't even have one!

 

[dorsetknob]

Reading the confiig sys and autoexec.bat files
Noticed you load autoexec.bat first so it calls Config.sys

GOTO %CONFIG%

that seems ass about face ( long time since i played with dos hardware).

I used to load config sys first then autoexec.bat

 

[Trekkie4]

Reading the confiig sys and autoexec.bat files
Noticed you load autoexec.bat first so it calls Config.sys


that seems ass about face ( long time since i played with dos hardware).

I used to load config sys first then autoexec.bat

Sorry, I was in the rush & apparently copied the wrong autoexec/config ... this one here is the latest (and most efficient)

Autoexec.BAT

SET CTCM=C:\CTCM

LH /L:2 C:\DOS\MSCDEX /D:MSCD000 /M:15 /E /S /L:D /V

ECHO.

LH /L:0;2 /S C:\DOS\SMARTDRV 2048 128 /V

C:\DOS\MODE CON RATE=32 DELAY=2

C:\DOS\MODE CON CP PREP=((852) C:\DOS\EGA.CPI)

C:\DOS\MODE CON CP SEL=852

LH /L:2 C:\DOS\KEYB YU,852,C:\DOS\KEYBOARD.SYS

ECHO.

LH /L:2 C:\DOS\MOUSE

ECHO.

LH /L:2 C:\DOS\NLSFUNC C:\DOS\COUNTRY.SYS

PROMPT $p$g

PATH C:\DOS;C:\WINDOWS;C:\CTCM;C:\SB16

SET TEMP=C:\TEMP

SET TMP=C:\TEMP

SET SOUND=C:\SB16

SET BLASTER=A220 I5 D1 H5 P330 E620 T6

SET MIDI=SYNTH:1 MAP:E MODE:0

C:\CTCM\CTCU /S

C:\SB16\DIAGNOSE /S /W=C:\WINDOWS

C:\SB16\AWEUTIL /S

C:\SB16\MIXERSET /P /Q

C:\WINDOWS\net start

Config.SYS

BREAK=ON

DOS=HIGH,UMB

FILES=40

BUFFERS=10,0

LASTDRIVE=Z

STACKS=9,256

COUNTRY=038,,C:\DOS\COUNTRY.SYS

DEVICE=C:\CTCM\CTCM.EXE /V

DEVICE=C:\DOS\HIMEM.SYS /V

DEVICE=C:\DOS\EMM386.EXE RAM /MIN=0 I=B000-B7FF /V

DEVICE=C:\DOS\SETVER.EXE /V

DEVICEHIGH /L:1 =C:\DOS\DISPLAY.SYS CON=(EGA,,2)

DEVICEHIGH /L:1 =C:\WINDOWS\IFSHLP.SYS

DEVICEHIGH /L:2 =C:\CDROM\gscdrom.sys /D:MSCD000

SHELL=C:\DOS\COMMAND.COM C:\DOS\ /E:1024 /P