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TPU's Nostalgic Hardware Club

Back with updates.

Not so good news - the original case got damaged in shipping... more specifically, the bottom side of it.

The better news - I have a whole CECHB00 (NTSC-J) casing that looks much better.



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Here it is, case swapped with the B00 I had (which had a failed mainboard, unfortunately).

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And temps. The CELL is kinda expected to run hot (my other C04 you're seeing in the first photo runs roughly the same on the CELL), but I'll be damned if that RSX temp isn't a complete miracle. Even my own repasted C04 doesn't run that cool on the XMB, and that's with fresh MX6. My best guess is this one uses something along Thermal Grizzly Kryonaut, because I otherwise cannot explain these temps.
 
New video from Phil. Let's crack a beer and watch this.


Back with updates.

Not so good news - the original case got damaged in shipping... more specifically, the bottom side of it.

The better news - I have a whole CECHB00 (NTSC-J) casing that looks much better.



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Here it is, case swapped with the B00 I had (which had a failed mainboard, unfortunately).

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And temps. The CELL is kinda expected to run hot (my other C04 you're seeing in the first photo runs roughly the same on the CELL), but I'll be damned if that RSX temp isn't a complete miracle. Even my own repasted C04 doesn't run that cool on the XMB, and that's with fresh MX6. My best guess is this one uses something along Thermal Grizzly Kryonaut, because I otherwise cannot explain these temps.
PS2 compatible one?
 
Yes, SW though as the original board (with full HW) was dead.
Noice, my fat PS3 isn't (second gen fat PAL 80GB model). I use it to play PS1 ISOs and I use my PS3 slim to play genuine games. :)

doesn't matter though as I have a softmod PS2 with a HDD AND a library of genuine games too :)
 
I have a couple PS3's also from way back, when they were new and the best Blu Ray player on the market. A backwards compatible 60 or 80GB unit, and a slim 250GB. Tore down both a year or so ago to replace the TIM and clean thoroughly. Used to run Folding on both when it was still a thing. The full fat PS3 bricked it's original Blu Ray drive thanks to a Sony firmware update long ago, but I got it replaced. Non-warranty fix, the jerks.....

Never really played games on them, just movies and SACDs. I need to sell them since they just sit around looking pretty.
 
I have a couple PS3's also from way back, when they were new and the best Blu Ray player on the market. A backwards compatible 60 or 80GB unit, and a slim 250GB. Tore down both a year or so ago to replace the TIM and clean thoroughly. Used to run Folding on both when it was still a thing. The full fat PS3 bricked it's original Blu Ray drive thanks to a Sony firmware update long ago, but I got it replaced. Non-warranty fix, the jerks.....

Never really played games on them, just movies and SACDs. I need to sell them since they just sit around looking pretty.
I'd keep one of the BCs - there's currently the Frankie mod (40nm RSX+syscon transplant) but at the moment it's quite expensive. Hold onto it, maybe the prices will come down. They're considered the best PS3s to have nowadays, mainly for the backwards compatibility completeness when paired with a PS5 along them.

I hope to learn some serious BGA work next year so hopefully I might be able to dwelve into doing Frankie PS3s on the cheap (since I really don't care how much work it takes me to do it - it's all just fun in the end), assuming I can get a few of my own units right (my specific targets would be 40nm CECHC04, 65nm CECHG04, 40nm CECHH/CECHM, and a few other models that use the defective 90nm RSX) and in working shape.


Anyways, another one landed on me today. Another 40GB CECHG04, dusty to all hell, with a dead APS-231 PSU (good riddance, the 231 is the 2nd worst unit besides the well known ZSSR units). Took me a good 2 hours to fully clean it, and about 30 more minutes or so to upgrade the HDD, slap a CFW in there and a custom theme to boot.

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Have any of you ever installed an NT-based version of windows on a 440BX system? I can only install DOS-based windows on this computer with an AOpen AX6BC board. It has a Pentium II @ 350MHz and 768MB of RAM.
I’ve tried many different versions (XP, 4.0, 2000, etc.) and every time the installer is done and the system reboots, it says something like “FAILED TO LOAD: NTOS.KERNEL”. Something like that… I haven’t tried in a while. I don’t see why this shouldn’t work, given the release notes of some BIOS versions even mention XP bug fixes.
 
@Canned Noodles Yes, I've had (and heavily used) WinXP SP2 on 440BX system for years. Pentium II 350, just like yours on Chaintech 6BTM board & 256MB of memory. In my case, everything worked straight out of the box, no problems whatsoever.

Double-check your BIOS settings & try performing RAM memory test.
 
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Have any of you ever installed an NT-based version of windows on a 440BX system?
Yes. Windows NT3.5, Windows 4.0 and Windows 2000 all should work fine.

I’ve tried many different versions (XP, 4.0, 2000, etc.) and every time the installer is done and the system reboots, it says something like “FAILED TO LOAD: NTOS.KERNEL”. Something like that… I haven’t tried in a while. I don’t see why this shouldn’t work, given the release notes of some BIOS versions even mention XP bug fixes.
To help you let's ask a few questions.
Are you booting from the Setup Floppy or the CD?
Are you partitioning your storage with the Windows built in setup or with a third party utility?
Do you have more than one HDD/SSD installed?
 
APCI support ?
yes, the BIOS has it on by default. No difference when it's disabled.
Double-check your BIOS settings & try performing RAM memory test.
Is there anything I should look for in particular? I know you probably don't have this exact board in front of you, but I'm just curious.
Are you booting from the Setup Floppy or the CD?
CD - the floppy drive doesn't work... probably needs to be cleaned or something.
Are you partitioning your storage with the Windows built in setup or with a third party utility?
The Windows utility. Using a 3rd-party one didn't cross my mind.
Do you have more than one HDD/SSD installed?
Just the one, connected directly to the motherboard with its own IDE cable.
 
Is there anything I should look for in particular? I know you probably don't have this exact board in front of you, but I'm just curious.
When performing memory test, be on a lookout for error reports, which would suggest that you are having corrupt RAM module(s). Sometimes you can experience random issues & data "blackouts" (missing files, corrupt data) due to hardware malfunction and/or incompatible BIOS settings.

You could also try reducing the amount of RAM to 512 or even 256MB (try to keep & group the same RAM modules, without mixing the brands and CL values) ... Otherwise, try resetting the BIOS to default settings & try again. Something is obviously going on with your hardware, otherwise that 440BX system of yours wouldn't have any issues with WinXP.
 
CD - the floppy drive doesn't work... probably needs to be cleaned or something.
Ok, that removes one possible issue. Cleaning Floppy drives is not to difficult. Adrian's Digital Basement on Youtube regularly shows how easy it is to service a floppy drive. He' not the only one, but he does it a lot!

The Windows utility. Using a 3rd-party one didn't cross my mind.
You may wish to try one, just in case.

Just the one, connected directly to the motherboard with its own IDE cable.
Ok cool...
Make sure it's set to "master" and not "slave."
...make sure of this.

Also make sure you have set the partition as "active". Older versions of Windows will install to any partition you define but the "Boot" flag in the MBR partition table needs to be set or it will not boot.
 
Now we're talking, Phil uploaded a P4 vs Celeron video:

 
2012 isn't exactly "vintage"...but in the world of OLED you might call it that. Digging in boxes I came across my first "OG" OLED experience , Sony PSVita machines , the 2 on the right are the model 1101 OLED (built stout) , the one on the left is a model 2000 LED (thinner and lighter). There is now doubt that the OLED is a better look then the LED, although the LED doesn't look terrible by any means.
 

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A roundup of some recent GPU purchases and finds, very pleased to add these to the collection properly catalogued.

EVGA GeForce GTX 750Ti 2GB - bought, my first EVGA card ever, a cheap find for a cool GPU.

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Sapphire Radeon HD 6970 2GB - bought

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Asus GeForce 8800 GTS 640 - bought

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MSI GeForce 6600 256M - bought

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XGX GeForce 8800 GT Alpha Dog Edition 512M - Bought

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NVIDIA GeForce GTX 780 3G - bought

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AMD Radeon HD 6450 1G - found

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GeForce 8500 GT 512M DDR2

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NVIDIA GeForce4 MX 440 64M DDR - bought

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NVIDIA GeForce2 MX 400 64M - bought

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CROSSFIRE and SLi bridges

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That 8800GTS with Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter art on it, i so much wanted one when that game came out. I had a Radeon X1950 Pro iirc and the game did not run great on it, around 30 fps at 1280x1024.
 
Fresh save from the scrapper a few days ago, thanks to a friend whom I sold an modified ASUS A7N8X-VM/400 + CPU, RAM and HD combo to.
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Luckytech P6BX2 Rev 1.7 and an AA370TS Coppermine-ready slotket (don't mind the BIG CHUNGUS of a cooler on it), in which sat a free 700MHz Coppermine P3, SL3XX. Curently dropped a 1GHz 133FSB SL5DV P3 - just gotta recap the board, figure out the multiplier setting to get 1GHz @133FSB, and put it up against my BE6-II, 6BA +IV and P2B fellow BX warriors.

btw the SMD MOSFETs were personally installed, I opted to use these (2x NIKOS P0903BDG) instead of tracking down some traditional 60N03S FETs + respective heatsinks that would have been there. They now dissipate through the board.
 

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Yeah, I really enjoy his channel. His retro vibe fits in here perfectly!
And that guy has that great way to just to ramble some bullshit when he gets into the guts on a PC :D

Hella good dude.
 
That 8800GTS with Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter art on it, i so much wanted one when that game came out. I had a Radeon X1950 Pro iirc and the game did not run great on it, around 30 fps at 1280x1024.
I also had an x1950pro! It was the AGP model because I was a bit late on the transition, and remember at a point having a board that took a core 2 duo and had an AGP and PCIE slot!

I have the stock cooler off the 1950pro because at the time I upgraded it, but unfortunately no longer own the card.
 
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