Bought this nice 386DX33, mostly because i really liked this cool case:

Unfortunately on mainboard the Varta bomb and one tantalum capacitor has been exploded. Nothing too serious but still, it needs some work.

Cant find any information on this board, it has only one writing betveen slots ELT-386.

Closest thing i found is this board:
https://stason.org/TULARC/pc/motherboards/U/U … 386SX-160D.html
but the layoud is still bit different on mine.
And what is this extra slot near ram, never seen anything like this? Edit: just found, that it seems to be a slot for some external memory card.

I picked up a new old stock "U-Match BioLink" mouse for $5 at a thrift store. I didn't know anything about it, but grabbed it as it has a serial port connection. I have a few old laptops that have a single ps/2 port, so this should allow me to use it for an external keyboard. It's a bit of an odd-ball device, as it has a fingerprint sensor built into it. It's also the heaviest mouse that I have ever used, but moves on my desk quite smoothly. Unfortunately, it wasn't picked up by my old Toshiba laptop in Windows 98 using the serial or ps/2 ports. I still need to do some reading on drivers and serial mice before I give up on it or try a different computer. I've just used regular ps/2 mice in the past, which have just been picked up fine in Windows 98 without any extra work.

The mouse action is over PS/2 connector, and the serial port is for the fingerprint sensor so you are not going to be able to use it the way you thought you can.

Tiido wrote on 2023-08-17, 03:38:

The mouse action is over PS/2 connector, and the serial port is for the fingerprint sensor so you are not going to be able to use it the way you thought you can.

Oh, damn. Thanks for the info. Know anyone looking to buy a $5 mouse? Lol.

Grabbed this T40 locally (Pentium M 705, 768MB Ram, 40GB 5400 clunky sounding Hitachi hdd, Radeon 7500).

Cleaned the Keyboard and the fan, upgraded to 1GB Ram, ordered a replacement Pentium M 735 (same speed 1.5GHz, but cooler and with 2MB L2 cache), a 120GB ssd and a sata->44pinATA adapter, a mini PCI Broadcom wifi card (was missing) and 2x 1GB sticks. Sorted the Bios update and the Windows XP for now (including drivers, software and games), however there's no sound coming out from the speakers. Headphones work ok so it looks like there might be a pinched cable or even faulty speakers.

I also get random stuck key error messages in POST, might be battery related. It's fun though.

Any suggestions, much appreciated!

I recently bought a Socket A motherboard. The seller said it comes with an "AMD Athlon 1000 MHz", he even wrote "Athlon 1 GHz" on the motherboard box. Turns out it was an Athlon 1400, but the board was set to run at FSB 100 instead of 133. And the CPU and chipset fans were both mounted upside down so they were sucking air instead of blowing. That really made me laugh because I was similarly clueless at that time.

stege wrote on 2023-08-17, 06:23:

Grabbed this T40 locally (Pentium M 705, 768MB Ram, 40GB 5400 clunky sounding Hitachi hdd, Radeon 7500). […]
Show full quote

Grabbed this T40 locally (Pentium M 705, 768MB Ram, 40GB 5400 clunky sounding Hitachi hdd, Radeon 7500).

Cleaned the Keyboard and the fan, upgraded to 1GB Ram, ordered a replacement Pentium M 735 (same speed 1.5GHz, but cooler and with 2MB L2 cache), a 120GB ssd and a sata->44pinATA adapter, a mini PCI Broadcom wifi card (was missing) and 2x 1GB sticks. Sorted the Bios update and the Windows XP for now (including drivers, software and games), however there's no sound coming out from the speakers. Headphones work ok so it looks like there might be a pinched cable or even faulty speakers.

I also get random stuck key error messages in POST, might be battery related. It's fun though.

Any suggestions, much appreciated!

I really like this wallpaper you have on that XP laptop! What is it? If you don't mind sharing it I'd love to get it 😁

Here you go.

stege wrote on 2023-08-17, 09:10:

Here you go.

Comfy spot for unwinding and reflecting about life for a while. I've been recently into retro hifi as well, got myself a minidisc deck.

The tiny cassette deck is especially cute.

asdf53 wrote on 2023-08-17, 06:43:

I recently bought a Socket A motherboard. The seller said it comes with an "AMD Athlon 1000 MHz", he even wrote "Athlon 1 GHz" on the motherboard box. Turns out it was an Athlon 1400, but the board was set to run at FSB 100 instead of 133. And the CPU and chipset fans were both mounted upside down so they were sucking air instead of blowing. That really made me laugh because I was similarly clueless at that time.

Actually, depending on your case openings and fans etc., it might be advantageous to such warm air away from the heatsink, if you have a means of discharging it directly out of the case ...

stege wrote on 2023-08-17, 09:10:

Here you go.

why you have so much italian language book?

It's a picture "with our living rooms" taken from the Naim Audio Forum. My living room is, sadly to say, not this chic.

Kahenraz wrote on 2023-08-17, 11:37:

The tiny cassette deck is especially cute.

You know that's full size right
https://www.hifiengine.com/manual_library/pio … r/ct-f850.shtml

Got another Socket 3 board (ECS UM486V) and an Intel DX4-100 overdrive chip.

Probably going to use this for another multi-sound card experimental build. Given the generally unobstructed slots on this board, hoping I can cram 6 sound cards into it.

Shponglefan wrote on 2023-08-18, 20:27:

Got another Socket 3 board (ECS UM486V) and an Intel DX4-100 overdrive chip.

Probably going to use this for another multi-sound card experimental build. Given the generally unobstructed slots on this board, hoping I can cram 6 sound cards into it.

Do you tend to use each sound card or do you just enjoy doing this as a project? I've never had multiple cards in any single system, but that sounds like it could be fun to set up some day. I'm not sure how practical it would be though.

Ensign Nemo wrote on 2023-08-18, 21:38:

Do you tend to use each sound card or do you just enjoy doing this as a project? I've never had multiple cards in any single system, but that sounds like it could be fun to set up some day. I'm not sure how practical it would be though.

For the 6-card build, it's mostly going to be a project. But it's also to have a system where I can record specific sound cards I don't currently have otherwise setup.

All my builds are multi-sound card setups. While it is partially just because it's fun to have different sound cards in one system, there is a practical side to it.

I do a lot of late 80s and early 90s gaming when there were a lot of different sound standards. So I tend to build computers to accommodate those different standards. For example, my current in-progress 486 DX-33 build has 5 sound cards in it.

What I find especially fun is getting all these different options to work together in a seamless setup. 😁

psychofox wrote on 2023-08-16, 08:23:

Bought this nice 386DX33, mostly because i really liked this cool case: https://www.vogons.org/download/file.php?mode=view&id=17 […]
Show full quote

Bought this nice 386DX33, mostly because i really liked this cool case:

Unfortunately on mainboard the Varta bomb and one tantalum capacitor has been exploded. Nothing too serious but still, it needs some work.

Cant find any information on this board, it has only one writing betveen slots ELT-386.

Closest thing i found is this board:
https://stason.org/TULARC/pc/motherboards/U/U … 386SX-160D.html
but the layoud is still bit different on mine.
And what is this extra slot near ram, never seen anything like this? Edit: just found, that it seems to be a slot for some external memory card.

There is also an ELT 286 motherboard. And i know that is made by Chaintech.. So iam guessing your board is made by Chaintech as well..

stege wrote on 2023-08-17, 09:10:

Here you go.

Thanks for sharing! 👍

Just took a gamble on 10 2GB and 1 8GB CF cards for 32 Euro shipped... I really hope they like to boot from IDE.

2GB should be a nice size to work in most of my systems.