TPU's Nostalgic Hardware Club

[dorsetknob]

Brown Board on Brown Background i see it now (doh)

 

[Trekkie4]

Well, things certainly became VERY interesting... If everything works out, I'll be getting another "surprise" project, some time afternoon tomorrow. I won't share any news with you guys just yet (just in case deal flops), but it's most certainly nostalgic & old! Stay tuned!

 

[Red_Machine]

The Sound Blaster AWE64 I ordered for my retro rig FINALLY arrived. Took me a while to get it properly set up, though. The boot process threw up a lot of errors, and upon investigation it turned out I had to manually install a PnP manager and set it to load before anything else audio-related in autoexec.bat. Now it all works nicely, but the MIDI is a little quiet, despite me setting the volume to max in the DOS mixer.

 

[stinger608]

but it's most certainly nostalgic & old! Stay tuned!

Can't wait...............Waiting, waiting...............

 

[Trekkie4]

Can't wait...............Waiting, waiting...............

Some time today, be patient All I can say is that it's old - older than all my recent projects, including Slot-1.

Update
Well guys, there you have it! A fine (beautiful) example of some of the finest PC retro platform ever created, at least in my personal opinion! Hopefully this will calm your nerves @stinger608

According to the previous owner there's a 4x86 somewhere inside that cable mess, but I still have to find it Came with genuine Creative SB16 ISA card & more modern S3 PCI graphics, since the board seems to be newer gen, one of those hybrids between early "x86s" & Pentium era. In fact, I invited her to join our ongoing discussion, maybe even exchange some of the retro & nostalgic experience. Either way, this one is going to be rebuilt from scratch, the way it deserves to be! It's missing a hard drive, but I'm also going to add a retro CD-ROM unit, just to make things somewhat easier. Also, I still need to give it a proper test, to power it up & see if it works. Of course, one huge advantage of having a "modern" board is that it uses standard CR2032 lithium battery over the older Ni-Cd ones which were prone to leaking & destroying everything around them...

More updates coming up soon

 

[Trekkie4]

What, no comments? Well, ookay then - this new update is way too big to edit my previous post, so I'll once again have to double post...

At first, I gave it a quick test - just to see if it's going to boot or not. I powered it up aaand - nothing! No fans, no feedback from the motherboard, no video signal, nothing except for power LED lighting up! But then it had me thinking, this system obviously sat for a looong time, it hasn't been used in ages. To make things even worse, it was stored in damp environment, and we know what that means, right? In fact, I was recently telling @Doc41 here about the symptoms of RAM contamination & typical signs of this problem. So once I removed all non-essential components, removed unnecessary cables, drives & RAM modules, system finally booted up to reveal - 5x86! Deja vu, isn't it?


The reason I didn't get any activity from the fan(s), either the PSU and/or CPU one was because both were seized up. And trust me, they were both stuck & not going anywhere! So now that I knew motherboard was OK, I started pulling things apart, piece by piece. I'm also not getting any feedback from the CPU frequency display, including the turbo button itself. This is something I'll have to look into, down the road.


So, the next course of action was to take the PSU apart & see what's going on inside. My first assumption (when the system didn't boot) was that I'm missing +5V or +12V rail(s), due to the age & overall condition of PSU. But even with all the voltages up & running, I still had to take care of the cooling fan, so I removed it from the case entirely & opened it up, only to reveal 25yrs of dust Which is to be expected, even (especially) on modern power supplies with 12cm intake fans! Now, I'll be honest, I didn't completely clean the inside, but still I removed a LOT of dust, especially around the cables, exhaust fan, and under the PCB board ... yes, I literally took the entire unit apart! Including the 80mm fan itself obviously, which (even though I haven't been able to remove the rotor & properly wash it under water due to unusually shaped locking nut) received a complete overhaul & lubrication, so now it spins without any resistance, just like you would expect to see on a computer fan.


The next step was obviously going to be yet another fan - this time CPU cooler. Removing it from the CPU was easy enough, but cleaning it properly & then restoring it back to working condition was tricky enough. Especially if you consider the fact that 4x86 & 5x86 CPU coolers are VERY rare & (from what I know) impossible to find nowdays. In fact, it's pretty much the ONLY reason why I couldn't build my own 4x86 DX2 system, mainly because it's missing "AT" PSU, case & Socket 3 CPU cooler. So with that being said, this one had to go back one way or another, I'm just glad things turned out OK


OK, so now we have working fans... What about the motherboard? Well, except for minor issue with the mounting brackets (mobo somehow got derailed, so it had to be removed from the tray & reset back to original position), everything's mostly OK. According to the specs, this is a Lucky (Gold) Star board, LG nowdays The only issue was the mosfet heatsink, I'm guessing it's the CPU voltage regulator. Someone either unscrewed the block, or it simply fell off throughout the years, doesn't matter really. One way or another it has been put back in place & properly secured to mosfet. I didn't use any TIM, since there doesn't appear to be any from before, I'm sure there would have been traces of thermal compound across either mosfet's surface or the heatsink itself.


At this stage, it was time for me to put this thing back together again. I'm going to try with an old Maxtor drive & see if it boots or not. IDK, to be honest I never tested it before, so there's a good chance that it won't work at all. If that's the case, I'll probably end up using 3.2GB Seagate drive intead. Talk about capacity, huh? I'm also going to add a proper CD-ROM, but the color difference really annoys me. To the point where I'm honestly considering to use more modern LiteOn CD-RW drive, that has more "friendly" yellowish color. IDK, this is something I'll need to think about (I'm open to suggestions!)


I also ran into some issues while setting up 5.25" floppy drive. It seems that the EM protection plate, that's mounted on top of the magnetic head fell off & had to be glued back again. It had some foam, sponge-like material underneath which deteriorated over time to the point where the entire thing just fell off, when I ejected the disk. The ONLY working solution that I could think of was getting a small piece of rubber, and then putting it between the plate & head assembly. I also used a drop or two of super glue to hold it in place, something I really, REALLY didn't want to do on a floppy drive but I'm guessing it was necessary. This thing seems to be EM radiation shield, to block interference from the nearby components. Or to prevent dust from falling into the head assembly, but one way or another I just didn't want to leave it off.


And that's about it for now... Obviously, I'm going to re-use the original SoundBlaster 16, might even use the original video card, although I'm considering to go with Matrox Mystique instead. Mainly because it would give much better performance in games like Duke3D.


Still to do - finish off the component layout, cable management, get a new CMOS battery, boot up Win95 (or should I go with DOS 6.22/Win 3.11?) In the words of Star Trek, "To be continued..."

 

[Doc41]

Great find @Trekkie4
man i wish i could find another case like this with the display and turbo button, i might have had one when i was younger because i somewhat recall having the display board but alas no such case in my inventory... would be nice to work on one again

 

[stinger608]

Wow!!!!!!! That is frigging awesome @Trekkie4

 

[Trekkie4]

Great find @Trekkie4
man i wish i could find another case like this with the display and turbo button, i might have had one when i was younger because i somewhat recall having the display board but alas no such case in my inventory... would be nice to work on one again

Right, exactly! From all the parts inside (except for maybe 5x86 CPU itself), I'd say the AT case, PSU & Socket 3 CPU cooler are among the rarest parts currently out there, on the market

Ironically though, this here is a 2nd AT case that I've recently came across. The other one was also said to be 4x86, except this other one was in non-working condition. Obviously, I tried to work out something with the owner, but he just didn't want to offer me a better deal. Instead, he insisted on 16,50USD regardless of the condition & overall state, so I figured it would be way too much of a gamble. Because I already knew the mobo was shot, PSU might had been toasted as well. Therefore this could have been a total disaster so I gave it up entirely.

 

[Trekkie4]

Not much to report with 5x86, I gave it a replacement S3 video card (with 2MB of VRAM over the old one, with 1MB), ethernet ISA card and a new CMOS battery


I also tried to resolve the issue with frequency (speed) indicator, in the front - it wasn't lighting up, at all. Turns out someone permanently jumped the board to "turbo" mode, entirely disconnecting all the 3 components of the Turbo feature (screen, button & LED). Unfortunately, it also seems that the PCB is badly damaged, so I couldn't get the screen to light up in non-turbo mode (there's also an issue of cracked solder joints, take a closer look), not to mention I was missing the cable to bridge the actual display unit & motherboard. So really, there wasn't much of a point to repair/reflow PCB display unit in the first place. Instead, I wired the button & LED directly onto the motherboard & set the screen to permanently indicate "HI", instead of "13" which was obviously referring to "133", as in the actual Am5x86 speed. So now the final result is almost perfect - Turbo function works the way it SHOULD, except for when you turn it off. So instead of seeing "LO", the screen still indicates "HI".


I used THIS website as a reference to LED Speed displays & jumper configuration

 

[DR4G00N]

Spent yesterday putting together a new retro gaming rig. In hindsight using the SLI-DR Expert probably wasn't the best choice due to it being a HUGE pain about ram. Having nothing but trouble trying to get it to actually run. Might end up swapping the board out for one of my spare DFI nF4 Ultra-D's since they seem to be better with ram compatibility.

Athlon 64 X2 4800+ Toledo w/ Thermalright XP-120
DFI nF4 SLI-DR Expert
4x1GB Kingston DDR400 CL3
nVidia 7900 GTX - Want to grab another for SLI
Enermax EG651P-V(E)
NZXT Lexa case

The only other thing I have to figure out is the front panel temp display, it works but is very dim.





I also have something coming in the mail. Hint: Dual LGA 771 & FB-DIMM...

 

[Trekkie4]

So, I just spent the entire afternoon messing around with 5.25" floppy drive, trying to get it working. While the entire system is still in the process of cable management (and final repairs), figured I'd give it a test run, just to see if it works. And no, it doesn't. Or rather, it did not but now it does Seems to be several issues going on, mainly the optical (IR?) sensors that are coated in dust, along with contaminated heads. So after dusting it off & wiping the heads with alcohol it kinda worked...

(Un)fortunately, as I was taking entire unit apart, the head piece clamped in together, slapping the heads against each other. I was absolutely sure that it wouldn't work any longer & was ready to scrap the drive lol, but nope! To my surprise that actually did the trick & is now reading disks. However, there still seems to be an issue with write protection mechanism, which (if I'm not mistaking) is done through optical sensor - all the disks, regardless of the notch are "write-protected" & can't seem to get them unlocked. Is that a common thing for 5.25" gear, or is it just me? I'm guessing it's the sensor, aka optical pickup because in order to register disk as "protected", it needs to see the light beam, lighting through the notch. So I don't think it's dust, but more likely sensor itself, or the controller. Either way not worth fixing, since the actual drive DOES appear to be working this point. So in the worst case scenario, I would only mess it up... Model number is Safronic DS-53A aka J.P.N. Corp DS-53A

 

[DR4G00N]

This arrived today.

Intel D5400XS Rev. D94664-402
2x Xeon E5420 Quad-core

Don't have the ram yet though so I can't play with it.

Need to look around for a pair of QX9775's to get it running to it's full potential.

 

[dorsetknob]

Almost a Skulltrail then

 

[_JP_]

If you managed to find the 1600MHz FSB Xeons, that build would be impressive!
EDIT: I mean, as it is, it's very impressive. Dual Xeons running 3GHz+ @ 400MHz base clock would render very interesting benchmark results

 

[Robert B]

3dfx! UUuuuuhhh SHINY!!!!

 

[Keullo-e]

Aaaand what do we have here?

Got this gem free. (my previous nick was 9700 Pro as you may know)

 

[lexluthermiester]

Need to look around for a pair of QX9775's to get it running to it's full potential.

Unless money is no object, you'd be better off with a pair of X5470's. However the pair you've got now are damn nice.

but the MIDI is a little quiet, despite me setting the volume to max in the DOS mixer.

The AWE64 was like that. What most people did was turn up the volume on the speakers/stereo system and turn down all of the other volumes in the settings except MIDI. Balances everything out.

 

[dorsetknob]

Unless money is no object, you'd be better off with a pair of X5670's. However the pair you've got now are damn nice.

Oh Dear some one is mixing their sockets and CPU'S AND INADVERTANLY GIVING incorect advice (it happens to us all usualy caused by lack of Coffee)
X5670 is 1366 and he has a 771 Board ( Hope your head slap don't hurt to Much)

Don't have the ram yet though so I can't play with it.

NOTE MUST USE FBDIMM 533/677/800

 

[lexluthermiester]

Oh Dear some one is mixing their sockets and CPU'S AND INADVERTENTLY GIVING incorrect advice (it happens to us all usually caused by lack of Coffee)
X5670 is 1366 and he has a 771 Board ( Hope your head slap don't hurt to Much)

Oops! Yeah, I was referring to the correct socket, just mis-typed it. I meant X5470's. My bad.. Corrected.
https://ark.intel.com/products/35430/Intel-Xeon-Processor-X5470-12M-Cache-3_33-GHz-1333-MHz-FSB

 

[DR4G00N]

NOTE MUST USE FBDIMM 533/677/800

Yes, that's why I said that. The seller did not ship the ram with the board but separately instead so I need to wait around for it.

Unless money is no object, you'd be better off with a pair of X5470's. However the pair you've got now are damn nice.

I mostly just want the QX9775's for completeness sake. It may happen or it may not, it all depends on if I can find them for a good price.

 

[Trekkie4]

I'm finally done with 5x86 & ready to move on with software. Might still tweak the current config with either new hardware or changes to the current layout, but more-less this is going to be the final design... Oh, and let me know which version of the cable management you like better

 

[lexluthermiester]

I'm finally done with 5x86 & ready to move on with software. Might still tweak the current config with either new hardware or changes to the current layout, but more-less this is going to be the final design... Oh, and let me know which version of the cable management you like better

The one on the right. So much better. Very nice! More or less how I do it.

 

[Trekkie4]

The one on the right. So much better. Very nice! More or less how I do it.

Thanks Would you believe I even reduced the amount of internal cables? Quite a lot actually, there was yet another ATA cable, for the 2nd channel I'm guessing. It didn't go anywhere, because the system was missing a hard drive when I got it, not to mention the CD-ROM drive. But I'm guessing it probably had one, at some point because the 5.25" face panel insert was removed, leaving a gaping hole. So instead of using separate cables for HDD & CD-ROM, I've decided to go with one in Master/Slave config.

I also removed one of those molex power loops, for the front panel LCD screen, I'm guessing? Thing is, there was yet another 2pin +5V supply going directly from the PSU itself, so I didn't see any reason to keep the old one inside... As for everything else, it's exactly the same except the cables had been hidden, overlapped and/or tucked underneath other components. Such as CD-ROM audio cable, that's completely hidden under the sound card

 

[phill]

I still have more parts to clean: three motherboards, two 3dfx V3 2000/3000 cards and the dead ATI 9800 PRO.

Preview:

* Celeron A 333MHz
* Gainward Dragon 4000 - 3dfx VooDoo Banshee
* 3dfx V3 2000

More later.

Where and how do you store all of this stuff??!!