Ensign Nemo wrote on 2023-08-05, 03:41:

That's good. Would you buy something untested if you'd have no use for it being broken or would you stick to stuff that could at least be used for parts?

I always buy stuff I intend to use. If something isn't working, I would first try to repair it. If it couldn't be repaired, then I'd salvage it for parts.

Shponglefan wrote on 2023-08-05, 03:15:

I've had great success buying untested hardware. I find it works more often than not.

Do you have any particular way of vetting sellers (beyond checking feedbacks) or it just comes down to luck? My experience is the opposite. Untested hardware if it's not bottom of the barrel almost always faulty with a cheap and easy fix or dead beyond saving.

RandomStranger wrote on 2023-08-05, 15:12:

Shponglefan wrote on 2023-08-05, 03:15:

I've had great success buying untested hardware. I find it works more often than not.

Do you have any particular way of vetting sellers (beyond checking feedbacks) or it just comes down to luck? My experience is the opposite. Untested hardware if it's not bottom of the barrel almost always faulty with a cheap and easy fix or dead beyond saving.

My primary information is based on what other things they sell.

If a seller specializes in older hardware and is selling other items marked as "tested", but also has a bunch of untested items then that raises my suspicions.

If a seller is selling various random items and happens to have a few pieces of older hardware that they aren't able to test then I might take a gamble on those.

RandomStranger wrote on 2023-08-05, 11:39:

Today I tried to make the chaos a bit more manageable and got the Ti4200 I got last month in my hand. Before dropping it into my […]
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Today I tried to make the chaos a bit more manageable and got the Ti4200 I got last month in my hand. Before dropping it into my "repair later... maybe" bin, I took a closer look and noticed something that confirmed my suspicion about a RAM related issue.
IMG_20230805_132409.jpgIMG_20230805_132409b.jpg

I'll take it to work because there is better equipment there than what I have at home.

Any idea about the values of the missing components?

These component are the same around each ram chip, for example the missing R305 is the same as R308 on the next ram chip
the 100 ohms R352 needs to be soldered again. caps usually are 100nf.
if adding the missing resistors didn't fix the issue, you need to start measuring all of those 15 ohms resistor arrays and single resistors without marking around the ram chips.

appiah4 wrote on 2023-08-05, 13:12:

Today is a good day to sunbright my 286..

Nice box. Never understood people who'd place the optical drive in the lower drive bay. 😀 You just let it sit out there? Maybe post results?

Desktop cases, in top bay you'd have to take it out if you want to put something in another bay, so makes for ease of installing additional stuff later.... also some of them didn't really have stops in the drive cage or use rails so trying to hold it in place and get the screws through can be a pain in the butt, at least at the bottom it sits there while you get them in.

TheAbandonwareGuy wrote on 2023-08-03, 22:09:

So serious question, who owns the most GPUs on VOGONs? Im up to around 140 working units.

I have well over 500. Maybe even 800. Going to better organise and count them when I build shelving later this year.

Been screwing around with a crappy socket A board, KM133 MSI OEM maybe was in a Packard Hell. Got to where it starts "picking me lottery numbers" on the POST card, i.e. different error every boot. I wasted an hour and a half digging out my old posts here to see if I mentioned how I cured similar symptom on a CUV4X the other year.... and I guess I didn't, thought that one might have been a scrambled/bad BIOS. It might have to go on the pile of "When I get chips and/or a programmer" for now. Could need caps but they look great, any other MSI I pulled the KZEs on of same age, they checked out fine.

Today i took apart 3 super heavy servers i had for some years hidden in a corner.
I will give away the cases and the hardware will join my collection.
Because i can only upload 5 pictures you have to imagine the third case and only see its hardware...

Nice server Mainboards and super solid HDD frames. The Redundant power supplies are also interesting but will probably not fit ATX cases...

Can you play Plants Vs. Zombies on a 1998 Latitude CPi with NeoMagic graphics? Yes!

Should you? Now that’s up for debate.

Making it do this was also the first time I've gotten one of these to spin up their fan haha.

Shponglefan wrote on 2023-08-05, 15:42:

My primary information is based on what other things they sell. […]
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RandomStranger wrote on 2023-08-05, 15:12:

Shponglefan wrote on 2023-08-05, 03:15:

I've had great success buying untested hardware. I find it works more often than not.

Do you have any particular way of vetting sellers (beyond checking feedbacks) or it just comes down to luck? My experience is the opposite. Untested hardware if it's not bottom of the barrel almost always faulty with a cheap and easy fix or dead beyond saving.

My primary information is based on what other things they sell.

If a seller specializes in older hardware and is selling other items marked as "tested", but also has a bunch of untested items then that raises my suspicions.

If a seller is selling various random items and happens to have a few pieces of older hardware that they aren't able to test then I might take a gamble on those.

Usually you get what you pay for with untested stuff, if its a bit higher in price in my experience it usually means the seller has done some minor testing on the item but not enough to sell it as tested and working or they dont want to take the risk of a return/refund. Bottom of the barrel prices normally gets you ... uhh trash parts that the seller is pretty dang sure dont work, but hey its a gamble and you wouldn't be buying untested parts unless you were willing to accept the gamble.

I haven't had many bad experiences with untested stuff, about 90% of the parts work right away or work with easy repairs. For example I recently bought a NIB Untested Gigabyte GA-K8NXP-9 Motherboard with all its accessories including the DPS and network card. All the board needed was 7 new caps in the VRM and it roared into life, its a lovely 939 board, all it needed was someone to take the gamble on buying it.

Dont be afraid of the untested label, not all sellers have the time, skills or spare components to repair parts so a few untested items isn't a huge cause for concern.

What causes concern for me is nothing but untested parts with a few tested parts ....pretty sure the tested parts are not tested.

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appiah4 wrote on 2023-08-05, 13:12:

Today is a good day to sunbright my 286..

sunbright for yellowed plastics is a myth /joke spread by some idiots, it does not work

what really works is Hydrogen peroxide , both in cream, or liquid

GigAHerZ wrote on 2023-08-03, 18:08:

First time converted 4x1MB 30pin SIMMs into SIPPs. […]
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First time converted 4x1MB 30pin SIMMs into SIPPs.

I have this beautiful 286 board: https://theretroweb.com/motherboards/s/cdtek-286-turbo
And it requires either chips or SIPPs. It did have 1MB in chips. But now, it is upgraded into 4MB. Crazy amount for 286!

I also have 287 @ 6MHz with it.

There's something weird going on with this board. FDD and everything else works, but it is unable to boot from my 512MB CF card. With floppy boot, i can browse through directories, but if i try to execute any program from "HDD", it's going to fail.
I wonder, if the CF card is somehow incompatible with this board? (Would be first time for this solution)
I tried multiple Super-IO controllers, i tried even XT-IDE - nothing is capable of booting from HDD. 🙁

Isn't it a beauty? A working 286-12MHz with 4MB of SIMM-to-SIPP converted memory.

Another fine day for more sunbrighting..

Laser wrote on 2023-08-06, 11:52:

sunbright for yellowed plastics is a myth /joke spread by some idiots, it does not work

what really works is Hydrogen peroxide , both in cream, or liquid

Both involve bleaching via solar radiation, so it does work. It's just a question of whether it's a good idea insofar as yellowing returning over time and potentially degrading the plastic.

Reinstalled Win 98 SE on the P3-733 yet again, this time for the sake of finally trying those much praised VXD drivers for the SB Live! instead of the WDM ones off the CD... And it was worth the hassle, I'd say, as finally I can hear the Win 98 startup sound without choppiness! Also this finally got me the SB16 emulation to show in Device manager and now I can enjoy Duke 3D both in Windows and in pure DOS with the same sound settings. Awesome!

I also took the opportunity to fix a few other mistakes in the old installation, e.g. using a too new version of Notepad++; I downgraded a bit and now the file selection dialog finally works.

EDIT: Running 3DMark 2001 now. Man, these graphics look genuinely GOOD! Makes me wonder what I need the RX 5700 XT in my daily driver for. For whatever reason this old stuff is much more pleasing to my eye.

Shponglefan wrote on 2023-08-06, 18:37:

Both involve bleaching via solar radiation, so it does work. It's just a question of whether it's a good idea insofar as yellowing returning over time and potentially degrading the plastic.

sunbright alone does not bleach nothing, it does not work, it was a joke done by some youtuber which lot of them spread such crap without testing
this crap end up in an urban myth
fact is if you expose any yellowed plastic to the sun it will end up more yellowed and damaged by the heat if you expose it in a hot summer day

just expose any useless yellowed mouse to the sunbright then you will see

Laser wrote on 2023-08-06, 21:44:

it does not work

Have you tried it?

I´m not sure... the 2 pictures look quite different of the sunbrighted case... or the whitebalance is different.