TPU's Nostalgic Hardware Club

[Trekkie4]

You're right... After fiddling with Asus board for the entire afternoon I can indeed confirm that something's not OK with it. This is what the system looked like when I started, with the Asus board running Athlon XP 1700+ and MX200 card.


This here was the 3DMark benchmark score, which I got under MX200/1700+ combo and 256MB of DDR 266 RAM


I figured all the problems would be associated, related to the same cause but apparently that's not the case, there was several issues going on, all at the same time. The most obvious (and important) one would probably be the keyboard error, where the system either completely "locks" & keyboard no longer responds to any command, followed by video card thing, where only selected few video cards seemed to work OK, while the rest of them did not. Savage4 was obviously one of those cards, and even though it would always hang & crash on Asus board, it seems to be working perfectly fine on Gigabyte GA-7XE. So anyway, I swapped the mobo (and the CPU) and this is what I got:


System specs are whole lot different now, it's running Duron 950 with 256MB of SD-RAM and previously mentioned Savage4 Pro card which passed 3DMark benchmark with flying colors. Let's be honest, 1700+ would be overkill for a Savage4 machine, especially in combination with SD PC133 RAM. Gigabyte board is apparently capable of running 1700+, but I just don't see the point since it would be limited by the rest of the system.

Now, here's a million dollar question ... what to do with that Asus A7M266 board, shall I keep it as it is & use it in combo with USB keyboard (since the USB keyboard doesn't seem to cut off, stop responding) or shall I just scrap it as e-waste?

 

[Mr.Scott]

My personal opinion, while the A7M266 dual CPU board is the best dual socket 462 board ever made, it's little brother the A7M266 is a cheap entry board. I'd scrap it. It's only going to get worse.
I see at least one bad cap in your pic already.

 

[Trekkie4]

My personal opinion, while the A7M266 dual CPU board is the best dual socket 462 board ever made, it's little brother the A7M266 is a cheap entry board. I'd scrap it. It's only going to get worse.
I see at least one bad cap in your pic already.

Seriously? Which one? (didn't really see anything obvious or bulging...) Depending on the amount of caps & how easy it is to pull them out, I might recap the board... Otherwise I'll just scrap it.

 

[Mr.Scott]

Circled. Top is bulged.
I'd probably do all of them in that area.

 

[Trekkie4]

Really... Wow, thanks bunches! I went to check the actual board & again couldn't see anything obvious, until I used the flashlight. It's indeed bulging but just barely, so it only shows up when magnified or when you cast light over the area. I might swap the caps for new ones, to see if it'll make any difference. But then again, I can get another board, A7A266 for the same price if not less! ($1,50)

 

[Bones]

Speaking of fixing boards I've had some good fortune over the last 24 hours - Went from 0 to 2 working AN7's after doing some work with them including a semi-overhaul of one that up until now had always been in question.
That board was bought on fleabay over 5 years ago for parts and while it did show signs of life when I tested it at that time it never really did anything so I began robbing parts from it, then set it aside. Yesterday after reviving one AN7 I for some reason got the idea of tinkering with it "Just to see" if I really coudn't do anything to get it going - It did show a sign of life back then and I was like "Why not?"
So...... Looked it over and saw I had removed most of the board's caps for others over time but luckily I had another complete AN7 that was truly dead along with other dead boards so I went for it.

After working with it for about 4 hours worth of soldering including replacing 3 of those little brown transistors on it's back I set it up and tested - The board booted right up as if nothing had ever been wrong with it. I do have a third I need to check and will work on that later today but for now I'm happy my work paid off.

EDIT:
Make that three AN7's now - Fixed another one that wasn't responding to the header pins, the NB fan woudn't come on and was showing the intital POST code 00 the entire time when I powered it up via the PSU manually with a jumper wire/switch setup I made.
Checked the board over and when I looked it over on it's back I noted location R411 didn't look right - Seemed like something may have been there before but the solder in that location looked rough compared to other marked locations that had smooth-looking dots of solder. Looked at a working AN7 and saw it did have one in that location so desoldered the resistor from the parts board and soldered it in place, set it up and tested - It powered up, went through the POST codes and everything, got it into the OS and all was working just fine. Blessed to have the good fortune of today and maybe it will continue, I do have other projects I need to do but this series of repairs went super smooth.

 

[Recon-UK]

 

[Bones]

Well, I"m out of parts boards..... Because the one being used for parts with the other 2 boards is no longer dead.
All I did was reinstall what I had robbed from it, did a few repairs to it with parts from other truly dead boards and tested - Powered right on and got the POST screen from it. Now I have all 4 of my AN7's in working order, can't ask for much more considering as of this past Friday morning all 4 were not working, three actually being dead.

It's starting to look like a silicon-zombie apocalypse over here..... and I'm not complaining one bit.

 

[Ahhzz]

Working on an old server this morn, trying to convert some files.... had to look for these....

 

[AsRock]

THat all so have no user interface ?, I remember UNIX being totally DOS like in the early days.

And when a floppy disk was truly floppy .

 

[Trekkie4]

Sorry to say, but unlike @Bones I didn't have much luck fixing up the boards... The Asus board is shot - I managed to replace voltage-regulating caps, I even took some pics & was going to upload them here, but since it didn't resolve the keyboard problem, I've decided against it. So instead of wasting my time (and money) on replacement caps & damaging one board after another, I should have just bought the "new" board instead, A7A266, which I eventually did...

I still don't have it yet here with me, but it'll be delivered some time soon, I hope. Meanwhile I completely took the Savage system apart, and am going to build it from scratch. New case (since I'm thinking that the case MAY had something to do with mobo damage), new Asus A7A board, new RAM, everything is going to get replaced apart from optical & hard drives, along with Savage card. The only problem is that I don't have a better case at the moment, so until I find something more decent that hadn't been bent and/or distorted (at least the inner motherboard tray) this project will be on hold.

Oh well, maybe now I'll finally take my time to upgrade RetroMaster 2000 system...

 

[Bones]

Sorry to hear you didn't have much luck with your work. I'd keep the old board around for parts, like it was for me the ones I had for such came in handy and was the big reason I was able to do the repairs - No parts, no repair. I got lucky with the AN7s in that all these turned out to be fixable and so far they have been working fine after my work was done but now I need to get myself some replacement caps since these ate up my entire stash - At least I had enough to get it done.

I'm currently trying to find a complete electrical circuit diagram for a DFI LanParty Ultra B board so I can fix the one I've been working on, it's not the one I have pics of earlier in this thread but another I bought before that one to repair. No luck looking around and it's probrably one of those things this info won't be easy to find if at all but I'll keep looking anyway.

 

[Trekkie4]

Sounds like a great plan, wishing you good luck! I've had my share of mobo repairs over the last couple of years, and while I managed to save some of them, I had to scrap the rest of them...

Thing about damaged motherboards is that most of my stuff, collection was all in working order. In fact, I've had loads of good luck in finding parts that's in great (and working) condition, so I didn't really have to do any repairs, in order to make it work. With that being said, I DID get to fry at least 4 or 5 Socket A motherboards, over the last 6 months or so IDK, call it a bad luck if you wish, but it just happened! First 2 or 3 boards were damaged by installing (and running) the board with damaged CPUs. Obviously, I didn't realize they were damaged, otherwise I wouldn't use them to begin with. By the time I realized what's going on, I already went through 3 motherboards and 6 AMD CPUs heh. I really feel bad for those, but at least I realized what's going on, before I destroyed my entire collection of S462 motherboards & CPUs

Speaking of which, I also scrapped 3 more boards within the last couple of days. 1st one, Epox was DOA, it was already completely shot when I got it so it wasn't technically my fault... 2nd one was previously mentioned Asus A7M266, which seemed to worked at first but then started acting up & seized the keyboard to the point where I decided to change the caps (didn't help) & eventually had to give up. There are two possible reasons to why this happened, either the case itself shorted the board (which is possible, since it was kinda bent & out of proportions), OR it was a dial-up modem, which I plugged into both Asus and Gigabyte boards, both mentioned in one of my previous posts. Because the Gigabyte board definitely worked at first but then seized up & "exploded" around PS/2 keyboard port. So yeah, this last one is definitely my fault, but it's too late to save it now... The best you can do is learn from your mistakes & take it from the beginning!

 

[Trekkie4]

Speaking of old hardware, just thought I'd mention this here...

As of recently, Futuremark company which developed (and released) the famous 3DMark benchmarks is now offering legacy products for free. Meaning, all the "older" benchmarks such as 99, 2000, 2001, etc are now completely free & available for download HERE.

Have fun!

 

[GreiverBlade]

Speaking of old hardware, just thought I'd mention this here...

As for recently, Futuremark company which developed (and released) the famous 3DMark benchmarks is now offering legacy products for free. Meaning, all the "older" benchmarks such as 99, 2000, 2001, etc are now completely free & available for download HERE.

Have fun!

-HELL YEAH! THANKS BUDDY!

 

[Trekkie4]

-HELL YEAH! THANKS BUDDY!

No prob, any time!

 

[stinger608]

Speaking of old hardware, just thought I'd mention this here...

As of recently, Futuremark company which developed (and released) the famous 3DMark benchmarks is now offering legacy products for free. Meaning, all the "older" benchmarks such as 99, 2000, 2001, etc are now completely free & available for download HERE.

Have fun!

That is great bro! I included a link on the first original post.

 

[Trekkie4]

Cool, thanks! To tell you the truth, I was going to ask you to do the same thing, since 3DMark is so commonly used among retro PC enthusiasts... Therefore publishing it for free (and making it easier to find & download) will make benchmarking & testing process a whole lot easier and more enjoyable

 

[buzzi]

Sunday Stack! my friend has not pick 'em up yet

I was excited when I noticed 74HTC00 on board (actually only their pcb allocations above floopy connector, maybe for higher level motherboards), same we used to work with in high-school

This is what is inside the first case:

5.25" floppy drive

 

[serpico]

Hi from 1997 and 2000

There is a Celeron 566(cropped from pentium III coppermine) on the left. And a Pentium 150(the ceramic one) on the right hand side. "KARMA" was a Turkish retailer at that time. Oldies but goldies...

 

[debs3759]

Hi from 1995 and 1999

There is a Celeron 566(cropped from pentium III coppermine) on the left. And a Pentium 150(the ceramic one) on the right hand side. "KARMA" was a Turkish retailer at that time. Oldies but goldies...

Not sure how you worked out the production dates. The Pentium 150 was launched in Jan 1996. Yours was made in week 5 of 1997. Celeron 566 was launched in March 2000, yours was made in week 37 of that year. Love the old Pentium chips, but the Celeron, especially that low end, never really did it for me.

 

[AsRock]

Sunday Stack! my friend has not pick 'em up yet
View attachment 78945View attachment 78963 View attachment 78946 View attachment 78947 View attachment 78948
I was excited when I noticed 74HTC00 on board (actually only their pcb allocations above floopy connector, maybe for higher level motherboards), same we used to work with in high-school
View attachment 78949 View attachment 78950 View attachment 78951 View attachment 78952
This is what is inside the first case:
View attachment 78964

5.25" floppy drive

OOh those were the days when you could plug the monitor in to the PSU .

 

[serpico]

Not sure how you worked out the production dates. The Pentium 150 was launched in Jan 1996. Yours was made in week 5 of 1997. Celeron 566 was launched in March 2000, yours was made in week 37 of that year. Love the old Pentium chips, but the Celeron, especially that low end, never really did it for me.

That's my bad. Actually these are secondhand cpu's and received about 2003 by myself. My Turkish sources probably mistaken. I will correct the dates, thanks

 

[buzzi]

@AsRock oh yes, those PSUs are so sweet

 

[Trekkie4]

OOh those were the days when you could plug the monitor in to the PSU .

@AsRock oh yes, those PSUs are so sweet

I should be able to find one of those power pass-through cables laying around, as I clearly remember buying one couple of years ago. Wanted to chop off the female plug, so that I could hook it up to (standard) extension cord outlets & plug it into the UPS unit. But that didn't quite work out, so (unless I gave it so someone) it's just laying around & collecting dust.

I also remember my 1st experience with these things & hooking the monitor directly into the mains... Every system back then used to have pass-through cable, rather than having a separate cable for the monitor, so I came back from school one day & boldly decided to see what's going to happen if I take the power cord & plug it directly into the mains lol. Obviously, nothing happened, and I've been using separate cable for the monitor ever since ... IDK, it just seems much better & more reliable that way.

Edit
Ona a side note, I've been pretty busy yesterday & today, working on the new version of "DriverCD", a personal tool which I use to boot up & expand all my retro systems. 699MB of drivers, various DirectX versions, PDF manuals, benchmarks & other useful tools. And since I was already upgrading my existing 3DMark database with the ones released for free (on the official website), I took the liberty of downloading & backing-up all the legacy 3DMark benchmarks I could find. Mainly because companies tend to change their mind (especially regarding free products) every now & then, or simply go bankrupt so their software disappears & can no longer be found anywhere... Believe it or not I've encountered situations like those way too many times, to simply ignore!