TPU's Nostalgic Hardware Club

[dorsetknob]

People report favorably on 48 gig installed ( cannot personalty vouch on this )

 

[Ruru]

That "ASYNC" power supply is actually a re-branded "Codegen". I used to have those in my old rigs, including previously-mentioned PII Adison. Some folks would probably say that it's cheap, low-budget PSU that's better to avoid in the long run, but I honestly can't say anything bad. It's not great, there's a ton of room for improvement but I've seen worse ... MUCH worse!

Edit

I still remember how a Codegen 350W murdered my 6600 GT almost 15 years ago

 

[stinger608]

People report favorably on 48 gig installed ( cannot personalty vouch on this )

As noted above @Mr Bill , I would guess either 32 gigs or 48 gigs. Probably since a newer BIOS. Did you read what changes were made in the latest BIOS?

 

[Jism]

I still remember how a Codegen 350W murdered my 6600 GT almost 15 years ago

Problem with those PSU's, is that they often came with ATX cases as a sollution all in one. You simply buy a case and have a suitable PSU for usually office or internet work, but when you'd apply some load esp on the 12V lines, things drop badly. HDD"s suffered from that, but also cheap board with a not so good designed VRM setup would flutuate like crazy in relation of voltages supplied to the CPU.

When i worked at a webshop many many years ago, we often saw people build systems of up to 2500 euro, to finally get a ATX case with a no-name "300W" build-in PSU, and have it returned in usually less then 3 months with a blown PSU. We at some point advised clients to not to buy these no-name cheap PSU's that come with a case.

I had a Q-tec 650W for years as well; i'm guilty too; Q-tec was a cheap knockoff brand that always released PSU's that advertised with a peak power rather then sustained one.

It had 3 fans, lol. And it could take a beating as well; but the efficiency was so terrible; it woud'nt be an exception pulling a 1000W from the wall alone just to power a 400W system. It's design was terrible, when you applied load the 12V rail would drop back to 11.2V and even 5V rail was like jumping back and forward to 4.4V > 5V.

For sensitive components like HDD's this was a terrible sollution. But somehow it managed to run 2 of my builds for years, lol. Ive never encountered the thing to explode or fire up tho.

 

[Ruru]

I remember those infamous Q-Tecs as well as some bought those here in Finland... damn it was a too common mistake to get a crap PSU 15 years ago.

 

[Dinnercore]

17 of them?

Not bad, its 20. I would assume you missed the one top right, left of the upper cap and the one partly hidden by the heatpipe beneath 3 caps left of the NB. The last one clings to a 5V linear regulator above the ITE super I/O chip.

The whole system I build with this is.... interesting. I packed this poor midi-tower with 5 case fans (one being a 200mm that acts as a support structure to dampen any potential movement from the CPU heatsink) and a GTX280 bundled with a 9600GT as dedicated physX unit.
Its one big ghetto mod, held together by cable ties, velcro tape, tight fits and willpower.

Going to try and beat the OC on my other rig.

 

[dorsetknob]

I remember those infamous Q-Tecs as well

Still got same one as above apart from cooling fan crapping out and replacing >>> mine still works ( only use it as )a testing PSU

 

[Jism]

Still got same one as above apart from cooling fan crapping out and replacing >>> mine still works ( only use it as )a testing PSU

Yep. The fans where terrible. They made alot of noise, they where from a certain pink plastic and their airflow was ridiculous and had nothing much todo with the cooling of the PSU itself. It was more like for ATX cases that back then, often did'nt had room nor space for "exhaust" fans. We used to dremel our in and outtake fans into the ATX panel(s) back then.

Today's ATX case has all these features and room for even 3 watercooling setups.

 

[lexluthermiester]

17 of them?

I counted 19...

That "ASYNC" power supply is actually a re-branded "Codegen". I used to have those in my old rigs, including previously-mentioned PII Adison. Some folks would probably say that it's cheap, low-budget PSU that's better to avoid in the long run, but I honestly can't say anything bad. It's not great, there's a ton of room for improvement but I've seen worse ... MUCH worse!

Those things were pretty generic BITD, but they were solid none the less. You've already taken it apart to inspect and it looks good. I say rock-on!

and the one partly hidden by the heatpipe

I think that's the one I missed. Still can't see it, unless it's the silver thing touching the three caps. Lighting in the pic isn't great.

 

[QuietBob]

Its one big ghetto mod, held together by cable ties, velcro tape, tight fits and willpower.

Will you post the pictures here or in the ghetto thread?

We used to dremel our in and outtake fans into the ATX panel(s) back then.

Oh yes... Haven't we all tried this? Not owning a dremel myself, I resorted to using a jigsaw and a drill on my cases

 

[Athlonite]

I have a question I've been wanting to ask, hopefully I'm in the correct zone. I have the Asus P6T Deluxe V2 board, it only suppose to be able to use 24 gig of ram, of course I did update the bios due to wanting to use the 5670 Xeon, not sure I had to, but I did. Question is, I now have 28 gig of ram installed, and it see's it in the bios and in the OS, and seems to be working fine. I never tried using the 28 gig with the older bios version, so I'm not sure the bios update had anything to do with it or not, I'm wondering what the ram limit is now? Ok, I just looked, it appears this is a picture forum, I can delete this post, where do I need to post this question? Thanks Bill

Most likely when the spec was written for this mobo the largest dimm size in GB was 4GB so 6x4GB=24GB

I counted 19...

count red dots

 

[lexluthermiester]

count red dots

Yup, that's the one I missed. LOL! The one under the heatpipe next to the three CAPs.

 

[stinger608]

I had an old Enermax PSU that looked exactly like that Q-Tec. It even had the gold color and the dual fans. Only thing it did have is the on/off button by the power port.

 

[Trekkie4]

With the Chaintech board recapped, Pentium II dusted, CRT monitor taken to the electronics shop for repairs & Adison case being painted & repaired, I'm pretty much done on my end & can't do anything but to wait.

So, as I was thinking about the overall cost of all these repairs (especially the case), I came up with crazy idea. No, obviously I'm not going to do it at this stage, but I'm wondering ... just how difficult would it be to make a whole NEW case from scratch, using the old one as a template? Because the actual chassis could be laser cut in size, and then riveted into shape of just about any computer case - especially Adison. I've seen people doing much more complicated things when restoring old timers & other heavy machinery, so I can't think of the reason why it wouldn't work on something as simple as computer case.

Furthermore, all the plastic parts could be 3D printed & again, shaped into any form & size. Therefore, it would theoretically be possible to replicate the Adison case entirely! The only problem that I could think of would be the power button spring and/or power & HDD LEDs since they're not "standard" & both appear to be uniquely shaped.

Did anyone ever attempted something like this before? Any idea how much would it cost? Essentially, we are talking about sheets of metal (steel?, about 1, 1.5mm thick) And loads of 3D printing!

 

[lexluthermiester]

I'm pretty much done on my end & can't do anything but to wait.

Cool! Post pics when everything is all assembled.

 

[Trekkie4]

Cool! Post pics when everything is all assembled.

Will do, of course. But keep in mind, this could take a while before I have all the components ready for installation.

 

[Dinnercore]

Will you post the pictures here or in the ghetto thread?

Going to post them here. Will take some later today.

These DFI boards... Just when you thought you knew about all their quirks they suddenly come up with something new to bother you.

I was getting close to an OC I was happy with when I decided to use SetFSB to feel my way forward instead of going into bios each time. I felt this was the safest move to boot up on stable settings and test things out in OS far away from the bios, since IF I somehow corrupt this bios chip it will be a huge pain to fix. It is wedged underneath the top PCIe slot, I would have to unsolder it in order to attach my flasher.

Anyway, never use SetFSB on this board. It messes up with something, might have to do with the cached bios I don't know. First sign of trouble was, that the clock I set in software somehow retained after reboot. It should not do that, I went into bios and there it was still set to 4.2GHz while in fact it was now booting with 4.3GHz all the time. Next thing I knew it stopped posting for a while. Then I got it back to boot but now it was stuck to default FSB clocks. I could no longer change the FSB, not in software and not in bios. Each value I set it just ignored.

Had this happen just recently on a Gigabyte P45 board and there it had a corrupted SMbus driver showing in device manager. To fix that I just had to re-assign the chipset driver.

Well now this did not work for the DFI JR. There was no error showing up, reassigning or installing the drivers did nothing. I tried the usual, cut power and reset RTC + CMOS. Still, no control over FSB. Any other value I could change but FSB stays the same.

I left it without power over night and this did fix it... No idea what it is with these boards, but some EEPROM or whatever on these boards does not reset when you cut power, take out the battery and bridge all reset jumpers. You need to leave it for a few hours without anything plugged in and battery removed.

Lesson learned, NO software OC on DFI P45 boards if you want to keep your sanity.

 

[biffzinker]

Did anyone ever attempted something like this before? Any idea how much would it cost? Essentially, we are talking about sheets of metal (steel?, about 1, 1.5mm thick) And loads of 3D printing!

Found a company that will build a fully custom PC enclosure. I'd be curious of the price that want for a custom ATX enclosure because they advertise in images small form-factor cases on the website.

Fully Custom Enclosures for Computer Applications, built in 2-3 days

Protocase custom builds fully custom enclosures for computer applications from your design in 2-3 days. Protocase's approach saves time and money and yields better results than can be obtained when buying and modifying off-the-shelf enclosures.

www.protocase.com

 

[Mr Bill]

Found a company that will build a fully custom PC enclosure. I'd be curious of the price that want for a custom ATX enclosure because they advertise in images small form-factor cases on the website.

I still think for the best unobstructed view of the inside of a PC is plexiglas, it's fairly cheap and easy to cut, minimal tools required, and many different YouTube videos for ideas.

 

[Trekkie4]

Found a company that will build a fully custom PC enclosure. I'd be curious of the price that want for a custom ATX enclosure because they advertise in images small form-factor cases on the website.

Fully Custom Enclosures for Computer Applications, built in 2-3 days

Protocase custom builds fully custom enclosures for computer applications from your design in 2-3 days. Protocase's approach saves time and money and yields better results than can be obtained when buying and modifying off-the-shelf enclosures.

www.protocase.com

Cool stuff!

You know, I always had this crazy idea inside my head, of building a sleeper PC out of my Adison system. I'm not going to do it with my one (and only) case, BUT if I'd ever find another one, I'd fill it up with all the latest hardware components & then finish it off from the outside to make it seem as if it's just another Pentium II or an old Celeron Heck, I would even put a floppy drive, just for that finishing touch!

The only problem would be the ventilation... This particular case is notorious for the airflow, since it doesn't have any side vents. There are couple of holes on the back panel, and it has the ability for optional front (intake) 80x80 fan, which is pretty much worthless for today's standards.

 

[lexluthermiester]

I still think for the best unobstructed view of the inside of a PC is plexiglas, it's fairly cheap and easy to cut, minimal tools required, and many different YouTube videos for ideas.

Plus if it gets scratched it's can be easily polished and buffed up.

 

[Ruru]

Personally I like acrylic/plexi more than glass.. easier to replace if something bad happens. Though acrylic can get scratched too easily.

 

[Trekkie4]

So, I just discovered a potential issue...

While going through all the parts (currently scattered across my entire room) I realized that the Adison case is missing a power switch... And I'm not talking about the plastic knob/button on the front panel, I'm talking about the actual, mechanical switch that goes behind the panel & gets mounted onto the chassis.

I have a theory on this, which could explain the missing switch, along with couple of other bits & pieces but I can't be sure about this (nor it doesn't really matter). I believe that the former owner used to have & run an old "AT" board inside this case - probably an old Pentium/Pentium MMX, so therefore the power switch would had been part of the PSU & it would be removed once he took it out. But if that's the case, I could easily find another mechanical switch & hook it up onto the metal frame, because it was obviously designed to be interchangeable between AT & ATX standards. In fact, I believe I got one of those in stock but I have to check it out. Again - I can't do anything or try anything until I get the case back!

 

[Jism]

Yep. Old AT cases (Not ATX) had their power switch coming directly from the PSU, and not the today's little wire you got in ATX boards.

Hmmmm, AT boards... I remember hooking up the PSU wires the wrong way instantly frying a Socket 7 board. It was that day that ive learned that AT PSU cable's needed to have the black sides in the middle, and not the outside.

 

[phill]

Problem with those PSU's, is that they often came with ATX cases as a sollution all in one. You simply buy a case and have a suitable PSU for usually office or internet work, but when you'd apply some load esp on the 12V lines, things drop badly. HDD"s suffered from that, but also cheap board with a not so good designed VRM setup would flutuate like crazy in relation of voltages supplied to the CPU.

When i worked at a webshop many many years ago, we often saw people build systems of up to 2500 euro, to finally get a ATX case with a no-name "300W" build-in PSU, and have it returned in usually less then 3 months with a blown PSU. We at some point advised clients to not to buy these no-name cheap PSU's that come with a case.

I had a Q-tec 650W for years as well; i'm guilty too; Q-tec was a cheap knockoff brand that always released PSU's that advertised with a peak power rather then sustained one.

It had 3 fans, lol. And it could take a beating as well; but the efficiency was so terrible; it woud'nt be an exception pulling a 1000W from the wall alone just to power a 400W system. It's design was terrible, when you applied load the 12V rail would drop back to 11.2V and even 5V rail was like jumping back and forward to 4.4V > 5V.

For sensitive components like HDD's this was a terrible sollution. But somehow it managed to run 2 of my builds for years, lol. Ive never encountered the thing to explode or fire up tho.

I remember those infamous Q-Tecs as well as some bought those here in Finland... damn it was a too common mistake to get a crap PSU 15 years ago.

God I remember those damn things as well.. Thankfully I never had any issues with mine but they where crap...

I remember I was having a bit of an overclock battle with one of the members from a forum called PC Stats and I had gone from one of those Q Tec things to an Enermax 480w unit... (I think the Q Tec was 550w??) and wow what a difference.. Higher overclock and more stable to boot.. Quality A tier PSUs from then on...

I can't find the photo of the result or the weblink for it since Futuremark have taken down support for 2001SE, PC Mark 2002 and 04... which is a darn shame! I'll see if I can get another one score and go from there

Loving this thread everyone!!