TPU's Nostalgic Hardware Club

[Susquehannock]

So, I finally booted up that Bigfoot drive aaaand .... nothing! It's obviously getting voltage, I can see the green LED lighting up, but I'm not hearing or feeling any movement from the inside the drive. Also, the system hanged up during the boot, waiting for drive to respond, so it's only safe to assume this one is toasted.

And I even tried removing & cleaning up the PCB contacts, just in case there's a bad contact somewhere but still not getting anything. So, there you have it guys, think I'm going to throw this one into the bin.

Sorry to hear it turned out dead. Don't bin it. Rip that puppy open for some magnet & big platter goodness. Wanted to do that to my Bigfoot, but could not bring myself to destroy a working drive.

 

[phill]

@Robert B - another post of just pure awesome!!
Do you keep the damaged parts for just in case or do you use them for show?

 

[Robert B]

For ex the newer damaged PCI-E stuff helped me to repair the 3870X2.

Some of the damaged/incomplete components are beyond repair. These are the organ donors

The complete stuff is just kept as is. They might be repaired at some point for ex. a few motherboards. The graphic cards that would need BGA repair are just for show. Those wont be repaired at all.

 

[Fouquin]

@Robert B
Also, updated picture of my PCI cards collection :

I actually envy your collection there. I never gave PCI cards the attention they deserved, and am now paying for my ignorance. The Pentium Pro PC only has PCI, and I'm left wanting for a reasonably modern option to enable gaming beyond 2001.

 

[Ruru]

Look what the mailman brought today!

 

[lexluthermiester]

Sorry to hear it turned out dead. Don't bin it. Rip that puppy open for some magnet & big platter goodness. Wanted to do that to my Bigfoot, but could not bring myself to destroy a working drive.

Or mount it on a wall for decor. Clean & polish it up first, but it will make a great conversation piece.

 

[Ruru]

I actually envy your collection there. I never gave PCI cards the attention they deserved, and am now paying for my ignorance. The Pentium Pro PC only has PCI, and I'm left wanting for a reasonably modern option to enable gaming beyond 2001.

I had a FX 5200 PCI back in the day and oh boy it was slow. I just couldn't play games with it, since I didn't even know that it could be so slow card. But I got it with a cheap price, so that wasn't SO bad.

Traded it to a Radeon 9500 Pro and then I could play games.

 

[agent_x007]

@Fouquin I always wanted a good PCI card, because it's VERY useful to have.
P: PCI-e/AGP GPU damaged and you got only one PCI-e or AGP slot on MB ?
A: PCI GPU will save your neck.
P: Got MB board that overclocks great but needs high AGP port frequency ?
A: PCI GPUs don't need AGP
Q: You need a low power card for you rig, but you don't have PCI-e slots ?
A: PCI port can do 25W max. (3,3V + 5V + [12V]).
Q: Board doesn't POSTs (damaged GPU/slot or simply BIOS being stupid and doing "PCI init" first)
A: Working PCI card should bypass any PCI-e or BIOS problems with video you might have.
You can always easily bridge PCI to PCI-e if you want (change PCI into PCI-e "x1", with 133MB/s max. speed).

 

[Trekkie4]

Sorry to hear it turned out dead. Don't bin it. Rip that puppy open for some magnet & big platter goodness. Wanted to do that to my Bigfoot, but could not bring myself to destroy a working drive.

Even better, I've passed it on to someone else & told them to either keep it as display piece, or to sell the drive to someone who wants it for parts. Or maybe just to frame it & mount it on a wall lol, whatever works I suppose I just couldn't force myself to bin the Bigfoot either (knowing how rare these things are), but at this point & stage, it's pretty much next to useless I'm afraid

@lexluthermiester Normally I would even do something like that, without any hesitation but not any longer. To tell you the truth, I've been cleaning out loads of computer stuff recently, mostly giving it away for free to anyone who needs or just wants something, for whatever the reason. The idea is to clean up all the clutter (as much as I can) & end up with fully assembled & working units alone. Because I reached the point where I had motherboards, hard drives & other stuff laying all over the floor in my bedroom It would also be nice if I could maybe sell couple of 3dfx machines, in order to make even more space. Because I still got over 40 systems all over the place & ran out of room to keep them all, so I even ended up stacking them in the wardrobe closet

 

[Retrorockit]

I haven't tried this yet but it might make something possible for someone. There is a known issue with Dell BIOS from the BTX era not working with AMD GCN2 and up GPUs.
The GPUs can't display the required BIOS video resolution. Sometimes an error message, sometimes won't boot. I heard that if there is a PCI video card installed the BIOS is happy and allows things to proceed. So I need to get a PCIe 1x card or a PCI card to try this.

 

[agent_x007]

And 51k barier in 3DMark 01SE broke :

A picture of home made VRM cooling (which makes this possible, yes - I used Intel BOX cooler) :

 

[jlewis02]

 

[phill]

@agent_x007 - that's impressive and very cool at the same time!! What's the board you use for your AGP testing?? The Asrock special??

@jlewis02 - Is that the legenary Abit NF7-S Rev 2??

 

[Ruru]

Got some Socket A CPUs today.

That's my "huge" collection of old hardware what I have right now. I'll be benchmarking all the AMD CPUs, tho I need a Socket A motherboard first. I got also some DDR1 memory, other stick is HyperX PC3200 1GB, don't know about the another since it has a Nexus heatspreader on it. PCB looks similar tho.

I'm getting 2x 200GB PATA HDDs and 6600 GT & 7600 GS AGP graphics cards later today. I guess my tests will be:

Each CPU tested with each card
Each CPU tested overclocked with each card
Each CPU tested with each card overclocked
Each CPU tested overclocked with each card overclocked

So, the tested CPUs would be Athlon 1000MHz, Athlon XP 2100+, Athlon XP 2400+, Athlon XP 2700+, Athlon 64 X2 4200+ and Phenom II X4 955BE. Cards (at this moment) will be Radeon 9700 Pro, GeForce 6600 GT and 7600 GS. I bet that it's going to be an interesting test.

 

[Caring1]

So, I finally booted up that Bigfoot drive aaaand .... nothing! It's obviously getting voltage, I can see the green LED lighting up, but I'm not hearing or feeling any movement from the inside the drive. Also, the system hanged up during the boot, waiting for drive to respond, so it's only safe to assume this one is toasted.

And I even tried removing & cleaning up the PCB contacts, just in case there's a bad contact somewhere but still not getting anything. So, there you have it guys, think I'm going to throw this one into the bin.

I know it's probably way too late, but did you check the jumpers were positioned correctly?

 

[Trekkie4]

I know it's probably way too late, but did you check the jumpers were positioned correctly?

AFAIK, there was only one jumper, for Master/Slave IDE configuration. And regardless of the setting, the platter was supposed to spin up the moment system was powered on - which it never did. But yes, I did try removing the jumper & setting it to Slave mode, didn't do any difference whatsoever.

My guess is that either the motor itself was shot, bearings fused together and/or the motor wasn't receiving power. Most likely this last one, since the entire PCB board had been contaminated with rust & oxidation, some of the screws holding it in place have been entirely brown.

 

[Robert B]

FRESH MEAT!!! - I managed to clean them a little. I removed all the labels. They must be cleaned further and some pins need straightening

CELERON PPGA BONANZA!!!

 

[jlewis02]

@agent_x007 - that's impressive and very cool at the same time!! What's the board you use for your AGP testing?? The Asrock special??

@jlewis02 - Is that the legenary Abit NF7-S Rev 2??

Yes sir thinking about selling it all

 

[agent_x007]

@agent_x007 - that's impressive and very cool at the same time!! What's the board you use for your AGP testing?? The Asrock special??

@phill l I used 4CoreDual-SATA2 R2.0 for my AGP testing (because QX9770 support) : LINK.
Some say 775i65G/Conroe865PE are better because Intel vs. VIA chipset, I say - I like my 45nm Quad Core more than a bit better chipset
I do however own ALiveDual-eSATA2 (with Phenom II 965 x4 BE), so... not sure which combo I would use if I did AGP testing again.

 

[agent_x007]

Taking rarest card I own for a spin

Credentials (since I had to mod NV driver) :

 

[Trekkie4]

Nice rig, but I do have to point something out - running a 3rd fan, right behind the CPU heatsink (with so called push-pull configuration) will eventually destroy the red fan behind.

I'm speaking from personal experience here, the amount of air resistance, continuous pressure on the fan blades from the exhaust fan (the one facing back) on the CPU heatsink will either destroy the bearings or most likely the motor itself, which was the case in my situation. Especially due to the offset, fans not lining up perfectly

 

[Bones]

Got some Socket A CPUs today.

So, the tested CPUs would be Athlon 1000MHz, Athlon XP 2100+, Athlon XP 2400+, Athlon XP 2700+, Athlon 64 X2 4200+ and Phenom II X4 955BE. Cards (at this moment) will be Radeon 9700 Pro, GeForce 6600 GT and 7600 GS. I bet that it's going to be an interesting test.

The Athlon XP 2400 and 2700 chips are good, they have a decent stepping (AIUHB) and both dates are before the superlock date (0339), yours are dated 0328 and 0305 respectively.

You probrably know this but I believe the 2400 is a Thoroughbred core and I do know the 2700 is a Thoroughbred core chip too, both being desktop chips indicated by the third character "D" in the model name string.
The core size is the tip-off to me since they are the same and the stepping is a T-Bred stepping with both chips. You'll find the 2400 is probrably the better of the two if you decide to see how high they can go, the 2700's tend to run hot making them not want to go as high.

 

[Ruru]

The Athlon XP 2400 and 2700 chips are good, they have a decent stepping (AIUHB) and both dates are before the superlock date (0339), yours are dated 0328 and 0305 respectively.

You probrably know this but I believe the 2400 is a Thoroughbred core and I do know the 2700 is a Thoroughbred core chip too, both being desktop chips indicated by the third character "D" in the model name string.
The core size is the tip-off to me since they are the same and the stepping is a T-Bred stepping with both chips. You'll find the 2400 is probrably the better of the two if you decide to see how high they can go, the 2700's tend to run hot making them not want to go as high.

Yea, I'm pretty familiar with Socket A hardware.

Something for this rig in my bag, pics soon.

 

[agent_x007]

Nice rig, but I do have to point something out - running a 3rd fan, right behind the CPU heatsink (with so called push-pull configuration) will eventually destroy the red fan behind.

All case fans I use have magnetic bearings (five "nanoflux" type + one "twister" type).
Q: Does this apply to them as well ?

Just so you know :
1) All fans I use are PWM (including both Deltas). Most of the time, all fans work between 25-60% speed range (controlled by MB temp. sensors).
2) Red fan is Phobya Nano-G 12 Silent PWM Red LED.
It's six years old now (bought it new in May 2012), and it works in push-pull since 2015 (but always with at least one Delta 120x38mm fan on CPU).

 

[Ruru]

Pics of the hardware I got today, like I promised.

2x 200GB PATA hard drives

XFX 6600 GT with a Zalman VF700-Cu cooler

Gainward 7600 GS, these last AGP cards usually had a PCI-E power connector