• Welcome to TechPowerUp Forums, Guest! Please check out our forum guidelines for info related to our community.
  • The forums have been upgraded with support for dark mode. By default it will follow the setting on your system/browser. You may override it by scrolling to the end of the page and clicking the gears icon.

TPU's Nostalgic Hardware Club

Got the sims fired up today on my 2 daily driver retro rigs

20231030_112914.jpg
 
92 days, as lifetime should be 3000 days...interesting, as health is OK.

Maybe you should make a back-up of the drive - just in case it has "software failure built in". :cool:
There's pretty much nothing to backup... drive came from a SUN machine as it seems, and had a unknown format all around (would show as RAW in Windows, haven't checked Linux as likely nothing of interest was there.)

I formatted it into NTFS and it will serve as a RAID0 or RAID1 storage drive with my Soltek SL-75FRN2-RL. It's either that and a 500GB Seagate or simply two Barracuda ST1000DM010. I wanna know the limits of that PDC20376 controller, as well as how long will that terrabyte rust spinner will troop on :laugh: . It clearly had a rough life given the sibling drive that is similar in every aspect had finally killed itself by scratching its platters (I did nothing to cause that other than apply power.), as evidenced by slight hiccups in the spinup process.
 
Last edited:
Digging through some of my CPU collection. Need to switch things up in my retro rigs. Next on my list is a 486 or 386 build.
Also - part of a wafer my dad gave me from Intel about 25 years ago, along with a coppermine celeron ES. He has been inside many fabs over the years, his company sells equipment that can accuratly cut a GPU die/grind it, etc so it can be tested/viewed under microscope, etc.


Resized_20240404_161052_1712261677398.jpeg



Resized_20240404_161122_1712261688346.jpeg
Resized_20240404_161248_1712261698180.jpeg
 
Today's additions from affordable marketplace trawling.

Sapphire ATi Radeon HD4870 512M and;
Leadtek NVIDIA GeForce GTX 285 1G

20240406_184247.jpg
 
To Be Continued (soon enough)
:D

lotpic5.png


lotpic_1.png

lotpic_2.png

lotpic3.png

lotpic4.png


Y'all with the eagle eyes should figure where the gems are :laugh:
 
Y'all with the eagle eyes should figure where the gems are :laugh:
Do ym eyes spy an AGP 7800GS? finding higher end/later model AGP cards is getting harder and more expensive, that's a keeper right there!
 
Indeed, it's a 7800GS. Surprised you didn't mention the M-Audio Audiophile 192 card besides it tho :laugh:
 
Indeed, it's a 7800GS. Surprised you didn't mention the M-Audio Audiophile 192 card besides it tho :laugh:
Video cards are by far my biggest jam :) I consider myself an audiophile to some degree, and have some decent current gear but retro doesn't interest me in that regard too much. I have two or three Creative Audigy cards of varying model and spec around for my retro builds tho :)
 
I'm at it again :laugh:

20240406_135105.jpg


Remember when I said I got another P4Dual-915GL? Well, this is what came out of it. An HD4870, the Hitachi Ultrastar 1TB drive seen earlier, a few bits here and there, a Northwood HT 2.8GHz, to power whatever insanity I could come up with:

p4dual_915gl.PNG

3dm2k1se_p4dual.PNG

3dm2k3_p4dual.PNG

3dm2k5_p4dual.PNG
 
Thinking of playing with HD 4890 CF for upcoming GPUjune :)
 
Have any of you ever heard of this motherboard? AOpen AX4B-533 Tube socket 478 board with an onboard VACUUM TUBE! probably the wildest motherboard I've ever seen.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/285756636378


Yeap , known board the Aopen AX4B-533 tube

And here is his lost brother ... Aopen AX4GE-Tube G

Quick nForce "meeting" :D

Left to find:

- Soltek SL-75FRN2-L/RL

Aahhh
The famous "Golden Flame" !!!

Add the AM2NF3-VSTA (which I happen to own) and you'll have practically the 3 best retro boards. ;)

... make a place on your top 3

You forgot the Asrock ALiveDual-eSATA2
:)

Huh. So all it took to get a upgrade on this Soltek was... just a mobile 2600+, a bit of FSB/multi fiddling... and 'ere we are :laugh:
View attachment 341032

Still got no idea how to get past the "Unknown CPU Type" as the CPU string though. Anyone have any ideas?

Clearly a bios issue
I cant remember if it was fixed back then with somekind of modded bios.

You are running the latest available bios ?
 
Yes, it runs the latest 2.20 BIOS.
 
Yes, it runs the latest 2.20 BIOS.
I'd just ignore it, it's probably just because it's an XP-M. (Unfortunately I don't have any XP-M's to test).
I mean on mine when I OC my Barton 2500+ it just says it's a 3200+.
 
Yes, it runs the latest 2.20 BIOS.

Bios modders back then were doing a simple bios patch and instead of "unknown cpu typ" it reported "Athlon Mobile" or "Mobile cpu"

If it bothers you that much,you could try to contact someone from this forum thread (dont write in the thread,just pm them).


I'd just ignore it, it's probably just because it's an XP-M. (Unfortunately I don't have any XP-M's to test).
I mean on mine when I OC my Barton 2500+ it just says it's a 3200+.

Yes , that's correct
Most of the boards of that era , did not have official support for the mobile chips.
Typical minor problem with no impact in anything.
 
Last edited:
Big haul today, I'm beside myself with multiple amazing additions to the collection, truly this seller didn't grasp what at least one of these cards was, if not multiple.

If anyone here is a soundcard buff and wants to tell me how good/useable/desirable any of these are, especially the older ones as I'm familair with Live! and Audigy, I'm happy to hear your insights.

Whole lot snagged for $50 AUD ($33 USD).

Pick of the litter for me is the Asus AGP-V6800 DDR - aka the GeForce 256 DDR, these alone seem to go for hundreds in working condition. Many other decent cards too like the Voodoo banshee and GeFCorce 2 MX .....Video cards, sound cards, modems, network cards, AM3 Mobo+Phenom 2 945.

1712664910246.png


1712664928406.png


1712664938959.png


1712664952235.png


1712664970785.png


1712664984024.png


1712664996589.png


1712665010061.png


1712665024773.png
 
Well, my Sunday's haul wasn't really anything to write home about... except for these two. ASUS CUSL2 kit (MB + SL52R CPU OC'd to 1200 + 512MB worth of SDR + cooler) and a XFX Geforce II MX400, under their former "Pine Tech" branding. MB originally came from a Maxdata OEM PC (it had a big Maxdata splashscreen), flashed to latest 1014.001 retail BIOS.

20240409_130546.jpg

20240409_130552.jpg

160FSB without me doing anything. I'm surprised it runs although it occasionally either crashes 98 with a HIMEM missing error or just freezes. I'll have to look onto where can I adjust the FSB.

Other stuff in the haul:

- ASUS K53SV and K53SD - former has i5-2410M+GT540M 2GB, latter has a i7-2670QM + GT610M 2GB. Both need some case elements, both have had their LCDs replaced by me as the old ones were shattered. K53SV needs a LCD bezel, keyboard and a HDD cover, K53SD just needs the HDD cover.
- PS3 phat CECHL03
- Xbox 360 Falcon w/ X810480-002 GPU (original Rhea revision, before the underfill fix)
- nJoy Agon 600 PSU - needs further troubleshooting - has had burnt BJTs in the primary side plus 2x burnt resistors. I get 5vSB out of it (and stable one at that because it uses a IC for 5vSB, not transistors)
- PS2 SCPH-50004a v10 - Papa Roach's roachfest inside, managed to salvage the mobo, its Sony KHS-400C laser and MC/controller ports. The rest went to trash, and the salvaged parts have been installed in place of a failed v9 (50004 without "a") mainboard.
 
I mean on mine when I OC my Barton 2500+ it just says it's a 3200+.

I have a 2500+ mobile chip, that no matter what board I've installed it in, it always shows as a 3200+ chip.
 
Digging through some of my CPU collection. Need to switch things up in my retro rigs. Next on my list is a 486 or 386 build.
Also - part of a wafer my dad gave me from Intel about 25 years ago, along with a coppermine celeron ES. He has been inside many fabs over the years, his company sells equipment that can accuratly cut a GPU die/grind it, etc so it can be tested/viewed under microscope, etc.


View attachment 342177


View attachment 342178View attachment 342179
Neat! Water jet cutting technology?
 
Accidentally obtained this bad boy. No idea if it's in working condition, no AGP motherboards to test it.

1712753048492.png
 
Neat! Water jet cutting technology?
Not water jet, but specialized cutting wheels. Cutting machines to get approximation, then polishing machines to fine tune where in the sample they need to see with SEM
Danish company
 
I bought an XFX 6800XT AGP with a sticking fan for a decent price. I didn't Youtube how to take a fan apart to lubricate it and ended up breaking it. I can't seem to find a suitable replacement for it, and the fan is integral to the plastic shroud ducting the airflow to the heatsink. What are my options without fabbing up something custom?
 
Full piece of plastic shroud... this guy as done a "radical" mod to it...lol
 
DFI LANparty NF4 SLI-DR collectors with my Opteron 170 golden sample god I miss that rig. Had it with a sick Koolance external AIO and gold plated Koolance CPU, GPU and Northbridge blocks.
 
Back
Top