Thanks for the PCChips suggestions, all. I tried the chip press and no dice on any of them (or any combo of chips being pressed). I don't have an EEPROM reader or an oscilloscope, so I can't check with those. I was going to try swapping BIOS chips with another board (it wouldn't boot but it would do SOMETHING I figure, letting me know that's the problem) but sadly, I don't have another board with that same chip type. Naturally.

I decided to pull the BIOS chip and reseat it to see if there was an issue there (the contacts are pretty clean both on the socket and the chip) and while I had the chip out I powered up and noted the activity (such as it was) on my diag card was unchanged, so that suggests to me a bios issue. I noticed it was easier than expected to take the chip from the socket, suggesting someone maybe swapped chips or otherwise played with it, possibly. So, I guess its time to get an EEPROM reader. 😀

EDIT: Anyone got a suggestion for a good EEPROM reader for a windows 10-11 machine? They ain't cheap and would prefer to get one that someone's actually used. Thanks!

PcBytes wrote on 2024-05-29, 09:21:

These were the values off my 6VX7B-4X. Mine was literally the same board as yours except no PPGA support. […]
Show full quote

Teodor wrote on 2024-05-29, 05:20:

Last Saturday I became the proud owner of this GA-6VX7-4X rev. 1.2, it was a flea market find. See something missing? Yup, almost all the caps and the chipset heatsink were ripped off the board. Man, someone must have been in bad need of Aluminum. Anyway, I would very much want to revive the motherboard, but I don't know the caps values. I found the board on Retro Web, but from the pictures I can't distinguish anything. I watched some YouTube videos but without much luck. I guess the big green capacitors are 1200uF/6.3V but the rest remain a mystery to me. Can anybody be of help? I mean, maybe you know where I can find the capacitor list, or you have the same board, and you are able to see the values on the caps. It would be greatly appreciated.

These were the values off my 6VX7B-4X. Mine was literally the same board as yours except no PPGA support.

CPU caps - 1200uF 6.3v
everything else is 330uF 25v for whatever reason - you can use 1000uF 6.3v or 10v.

Thank you kindly for your answer. Now I must check in my capacitors stash if I have these values, or else I will place an order online. Many thanks!

Thermalwrong wrote on 2024-05-28, 22:20:

PD2JK wrote on 2024-05-28, 16:21:

Fiddling with some LMSI stuff, got it working. It reads burned stuff as well.

DSC_9188.JPG

So cool 😀 Is that the one with the non motorised pull out tray or is it the later one, which I think might be 2x speed? Here's mine when it was set up, it should really go in a case sometime: Re: Where do you attach your CD-ROM?

Yeah great hardware to play with, it's the later one. CM 260 controller with Philips CM 206 motorized drive. I got a PAS16 with LMSI on board on the way, because I don't have any digital sound yet.

You got a nice collection there. 😀

NHVintage wrote on 2024-05-29, 12:10:

Thanks for the PCChips suggestions, all. I tried the chip press and no dice on any of them (or any combo of chips being pressed). I don't have an EEPROM reader or an oscilloscope, so I can't check with those. I was going to try swapping BIOS chips with another board (it wouldn't boot but it would do SOMETHING I figure, letting me know that's the problem) but sadly, I don't have another board with that same chip type. Naturally.

I decided to pull the BIOS chip and reseat it to see if there was an issue there (the contacts are pretty clean both on the socket and the chip) and while I had the chip out I powered up and noted the activity (such as it was) on my diag card was unchanged, so that suggests to me a bios issue. I noticed it was easier than expected to take the chip from the socket, suggesting someone maybe swapped chips or otherwise played with it, possibly. So, I guess its time to get an EEPROM reader. 😀

EDIT: Anyone got a suggestion for a good EEPROM reader for a windows 10-11 machine? They ain't cheap and would prefer to get one that someone's actually used. Thanks!

Hi! Maybe the "CH341a Mini Programmer" would be a cheap alternative. You can order it online with lots of adapters. There are many clips on YouTube and may require a Volt-mod for 3.3V. Adamant IT showed how to do this Volt-mod on his YouTube channel. Some soldering skills are necessary for the mod. I used it a few years ago to read a BIOS chip from a GA-H61MA-D3V. I remember I successfully read the BIOS, but I had to desolder the chip from the board and solder it on some adapter to do the read. On some motherboards I guess there may be a pin header allowing to read and write the memory chip in-circuit.

My PS4 Pro was getting loud in some demanding games like Shadow of the Tomb Raider, so I opened it up and cleaned the fan. I do this about once a year anyway, and it did slightly reduce the noise.

What helped more, in my particular case, was raising the PS4 Pro slightly from the table that it's resting on. To do that, I used four rubber erasers (around 2 centimeters thick) and placed them below the console, one under each corner. It seems like the bottom of my PS4 Pro gets pretty hot, so any extra airflow there helps with reducing the fan noise. The rubber erasers also dampen the vibrations a bit, which is an extra bonus. I'm pretty happy with the end result.

Teodor wrote on 2024-05-29, 18:48:

NHVintage wrote on 2024-05-29, 12:10:

Thanks for the PCChips suggestions, all. I tried the chip press and no dice on any of them (or any combo of chips being pressed). I don't have an EEPROM reader or an oscilloscope, so I can't check with those. I was going to try swapping BIOS chips with another board (it wouldn't boot but it would do SOMETHING I figure, letting me know that's the problem) but sadly, I don't have another board with that same chip type. Naturally.

I decided to pull the BIOS chip and reseat it to see if there was an issue there (the contacts are pretty clean both on the socket and the chip) and while I had the chip out I powered up and noted the activity (such as it was) on my diag card was unchanged, so that suggests to me a bios issue. I noticed it was easier than expected to take the chip from the socket, suggesting someone maybe swapped chips or otherwise played with it, possibly. So, I guess its time to get an EEPROM reader. 😀

EDIT: Anyone got a suggestion for a good EEPROM reader for a windows 10-11 machine? They ain't cheap and would prefer to get one that someone's actually used. Thanks!

Hi! Maybe the "CH341a Mini Programmer" would be a cheap alternative. You can order it online with lots of adapters. There are many clips on YouTube and may require a Volt-mod for 3.3V. Adamant IT showed how to do this Volt-mod on his YouTube channel. Some soldering skills are necessary for the mod. I used it a few years ago to read a BIOS chip from a GA-H61MA-D3V. I remember I successfully read the BIOS, but I had to desolder the chip from the board and solder it on some adapter to do the read. On some motherboards I guess there may be a pin header allowing to read and write the memory chip in-circuit.

For those older mainboards a TL866 is required - CH341A can't handle any other chips than 24, 25 and 93 series chips.

It's 1998, and just finished setting up my new Packard Bell Club 40 from Dixons, and exploring all the delights of the pre-installed 'Club College' software pack, before setting up a NetP@ss account for free 56k dial up internet access.

OK, well it's all part of the Packard Bell experience I never had, and now in my 50s, and after 15 months trying to restore to as near complete and original, I finally get to enjoy it, thanks to a lot of help from you guys!

I posted everything in the Post Your Packard Bell Computers Here! thread.
Re: Post your Packard Bell computers here!

PcBytes wrote on 2024-05-30, 08:26:

Teodor wrote on 2024-05-29, 18:48:

NHVintage wrote on 2024-05-29, 12:10:

Thanks for the PCChips suggestions, all. I tried the chip press and no dice on any of them (or any combo of chips being pressed). I don't have an EEPROM reader or an oscilloscope, so I can't check with those. I was going to try swapping BIOS chips with another board (it wouldn't boot but it would do SOMETHING I figure, letting me know that's the problem) but sadly, I don't have another board with that same chip type. Naturally.

I decided to pull the BIOS chip and reseat it to see if there was an issue there (the contacts are pretty clean both on the socket and the chip) and while I had the chip out I powered up and noted the activity (such as it was) on my diag card was unchanged, so that suggests to me a bios issue. I noticed it was easier than expected to take the chip from the socket, suggesting someone maybe swapped chips or otherwise played with it, possibly. So, I guess its time to get an EEPROM reader. 😀

EDIT: Anyone got a suggestion for a good EEPROM reader for a windows 10-11 machine? They ain't cheap and would prefer to get one that someone's actually used. Thanks!

Hi! Maybe the "CH341a Mini Programmer" would be a cheap alternative. You can order it online with lots of adapters. There are many clips on YouTube and may require a Volt-mod for 3.3V. Adamant IT showed how to do this Volt-mod on his YouTube channel. Some soldering skills are necessary for the mod. I used it a few years ago to read a BIOS chip from a GA-H61MA-D3V. I remember I successfully read the BIOS, but I had to desolder the chip from the board and solder it on some adapter to do the read. On some motherboards I guess there may be a pin header allowing to read and write the memory chip in-circuit.

For those older mainboards a TL866 is required - CH341A can't handle any other chips than 24, 25 and 93 series chips.

Sorry for the confusion. I was under the impression that is a motherboard for a Windows 10 system, now I realize that the programmer must run on the said system. My mistake. Sorry!

BigDave wrote on 2024-05-30, 09:08:

I finally get to enjoy it

It looks fantastic! And Rally Championship, what a great game 👍

Repo Man11 wrote on 2024-05-23, 19:46:

Minutemanqvs wrote on 2024-05-23, 19:24:

Repo Man11 wrote on 2024-05-23, 18:59:

I like it. I do have a question: is the printer port disabled in the CMOS settings? I recently had an issue installing Windows 2000 on a board with a BIOS from 2002 and it blue screened because the BIOS wasn't ACPI compliant. I did a search, and it turned out that disabling the printer port caused this error during setup, and enabling it solved the problem.

Ah yes, I disabled printer and serial port in the BIOS! I will try to re-enable it. Now the BIOS only reports "APM" support, and not ACPI.

I had never heard of this issue until a little over a week ago.

A late reply...

So I tried to switch the LPT port on with BIOS F7 (the latest listed on Gigabyte's website) and FAa (the latest beta bios from TRW) but the BIOS summary screen still shows "APM, SMI" instead of the expected ACPI. And I don't dare to change the computer type from "Standard PC" to ACPI computer in my device manager as I'm pretty much sure it will fail and I'll need to reinstall everything. So I'll just live with it, it's perfectly fine. But thanks for the tip!

I just installed a ps2x2pico firmware update that has fixed all the Win98SE/t5530+USB KVM compatibility bugs I discovered and finished resolving the two big Fatal Error 0E blue screens for the HP t5530 I repurposed as a Win98SE PC and KVMed onto my triple-head daily driver's left monitor for leisure breaks. 😀

They were "Use the VIA USB 2.0 drivers, not NUSB... or at least downgrade USBHUB20.SYS" and "Uncheck Automount in DAEMON Tools if you're mounting ISOs off a network share or you risk having something try to read the virtual CD's icon from autorun.inf on boot before VREDIR.VXD has finished initializing".

(Yes, WinZip Self-Extractor non-personal-edition is in the screenshot because Corel getting back to me and agreeing to downgrade a freshly purchased WinZip Self-Extractor 4 license to a key for the 2.2 installer on their "no-longer-supported downloads" page is still the retro-hobby thing that makes me happiest. Eeeeeee! I'm actually licensed to distribute retro-authentic self-extractors! I wanted a copy of that thing (that I trusted to not embed signs of a keygen'd serial in the built self-extractors) so much as a kid!)

I also ordered a couple of other thin clients to experiment with. (An Igel 3/2 and a Wyse Cx0.)

Now I just need to...

• figure out why Timon & Pumbaa's Jungle Games triggers a blue screen that silences the audio at the start of a game when using the DirectX-compatible v650 WDM drivers
• Remember which video codecs I installed beyond the Combined Community Codec Pack last time I installed this thing
• Install my copies of Borland Delphi 1 and 2 and Open Watcom C/C++ 1.9
• Image or dig up my backups of my 3D Ultra Pinball CDs, put them on \\monolith-tng\retro\CDs, and install them.
• Set up WinSCP for backing up save files
• Take more rsync backups using Damn Small Linux along the way to serve as system restore points

EDIT: Dammit. I just realized I should have had that screenshot playing the 3x3 Eyes AMV in my WinAMP plugin test playlist. Even more Win98 nostalgic... oh well. I'm not going to change it now.

badmojo wrote on 2024-05-30, 11:52:

BigDave wrote on 2024-05-30, 09:08:

I finally get to enjoy it

It looks fantastic! And Rally Championship, what a great game 👍

Thank you.
Rally Championship is a great game, and very nostalgic, as it's the first PC game I ever bought (actually, I think it was a present) way back in about 1997. Works a treat.

Teodor wrote on 2024-05-29, 05:20:

Last Saturday I became the proud owner of this GA-6VX7-4X rev. 1.2, it was a flea market find. See something missing? Yup, almost all the caps and the chipset heatsink were ripped off the board. Man, someone must have been in bad need of Aluminum. Anyway, I would very much want to revive the motherboard, but I don't know the caps values. I found the board on Retro Web, but from the pictures I can't distinguish anything. I watched some YouTube videos but without much luck. I guess the big green capacitors are 1200uF/6.3V but the rest remain a mystery to me. Can anybody be of help? I mean, maybe you know where I can find the capacitor list, or you have the same board, and you are able to see the values on the caps. It would be greatly appreciated.

Thought i could help you so I dug out the system with my P3 Gigabyte board.
Turns out it has a GA-6VXC7-4X, which is at the same time very similar spec-wise, but also completely different -.-

Put a K6-2 400MHz in my Socket 7 AOpen AX5T-2. 400MHz with 66MHz bus and 2x multiplier, thank you! 😎 It worked just fine, except the AX5T-2's rudimentary voltage regulation was totally not up to the task, and the single mosfet immediately started cooking itself.

I'd recently built a couple Necroware VRMs and thought hmm... is there anyway I can use one here? And so:

Since I'm a dummy who barely knows what he's doing, I spent a lot of time with my multimeter checking voltages and pathing things out before doing this, but anyway:

I desoldered the mosfet, and jammed the necroware VRM output voltage down a couple specific jumper headers.

It works! 👍

Edit - decided it was good enough for me and put it in the case:

My Yamaha MU80 arrived today. Not happy with the eBay seller. They cut the metal leg holding the old battery to the PCB then wrapped some electrical tape around it. They then soldered some wires to the PCB and a CR2032 battery holder (wrong vertical one) and used electrical tape to hold that against the side of the case. The battery they installed was old, running at 2.9v. So now they left 2x CR2032 batteries in there to leak overtime 🤣.

Luckily no damage was done. I desoldered everything and installed the correct CR2032 holder. She's working perfectly!

bofh.fromhell wrote on 2024-05-30, 16:23:

Teodor wrote on 2024-05-29, 05:20:

Last Saturday I became the proud owner of this GA-6VX7-4X rev. 1.2, it was a flea market find. See something missing? Yup, almost all the caps and the chipset heatsink were ripped off the board. Man, someone must have been in bad need of Aluminum. Anyway, I would very much want to revive the motherboard, but I don't know the caps values. I found the board on Retro Web, but from the pictures I can't distinguish anything. I watched some YouTube videos but without much luck. I guess the big green capacitors are 1200uF/6.3V but the rest remain a mystery to me. Can anybody be of help? I mean, maybe you know where I can find the capacitor list, or you have the same board, and you are able to see the values on the caps. It would be greatly appreciated.

Thought i could help you so I dug out the system with my P3 Gigabyte board.
Turns out it has a GA-6VXC7-4X, which is at the same time very similar spec-wise, but also completely different -.-

Could you, please, tell me the values and the voltage of the caps between the PCI slots (the ones between the PCI and AGP slots I know they are 1000uF/10V). I guess at least this portion of the board is the same. Thanks!
By comparing the images of your board and my board (the picture found on The Retro Web) I believe that the two capacitors between the memory slots and floppy disc connector are the same (but I don't know the values). TC16 and TC17 between the Northbridge and SW2 DIP switch look to be the same too. The last ones I suspect they are 1000uF/10V, but a confirmation would be good. TC12 and TC8 look similar too, could you tell me their values? They are situated next to the AGP slot.

ubiq wrote on 2024-05-30, 18:20:

I desoldered the mosfet, and jammed the necroware VRM output voltage down a couple specific jumper headers.

It works! 👍

Very impressive. Well done!

zuldan wrote on 2024-05-31, 04:37:

My Yamaha MU80 arrived today. Not happy with the eBay seller. They cut the metal leg holding the old battery to the PCB then wra […]
Show full quote

My Yamaha MU80 arrived today. Not happy with the eBay seller. They cut the metal leg holding the old battery to the PCB then wrapped some electrical tape around it. They then soldered some wires to the PCB and a CR2032 battery holder (wrong vertical one) and used electrical tape to hold that against the side of the case. The battery they installed was old, running at 2.9v. So now they left 2x CR2032 batteries in there to leak overtime 🤣.

IMG_5303.JPG

IMG_5302.JPG

IMG_5304.JPG

IMG_5306.JPG

Luckily no damage was done. I desoldered everything and installed the correct CR2032 holder. She's working perfectly!

IMG_20240531_102217.jpg

Never saw a cr2032 leak. Like, ever. Aside from looking ugly that seems like a reasonable mod to me..

appiah4 wrote on 2024-05-31, 05:35:

Never saw a cr2032 leak. Like, ever. Aside from looking ugly that seems like a reasonable mod to me..

Very very old ones can. They can become nasty Have you opened your SC-55 to check the battery inside?. I got rid of them on all my Roland devices. One had started leaking but hadn't done any damage yet.

On another note, I ordered two X2GS 's yesterday. Both with your preset installed. You did a fantastic job with it!

zuldan wrote on 2024-05-31, 06:56:

appiah4 wrote on 2024-05-31, 05:35:

Never saw a cr2032 leak. Like, ever. Aside from looking ugly that seems like a reasonable mod to me..

Very very old ones can. They can become nasty Have you opened your SC-55 to check the battery inside?. I got rid of them on all my Roland devices. One had started leaking but hadn't done any damage yet.

On another note, I ordered two X2GS 's yesterday. Both with your preset installed. You did a fantastic job with it!

Thank you. Looking back at that preset, I think I could have gotten it to better match the real SC-55, but that would involve increasing the bass and reverb at the expense of making the overall sound significantly muddier. And that is what the SC-55 sounds like to me, muddy. I honestly don't appreciate that. Modules like the Yamaha MU50XG and SC-88 are a clear step above the SC-55 in my book.

Regardless, I don't actually own an SC-55. I only own an SD-35, which this preset is actually based on. It uses the same instrument rom, but sounds significantly cleaner than the SC-55:

https://soundcloud.com/user-470084971/sets/ro … nvas-sd-35-midi

It is probably a newer design and maybe it has different filtering or a different reverb. The same is true for the SC-88 as well for example - that module also sounds a lot cleaner to my ears (How I would love to own one..) Anyway, to my ears it sounds nearly spot on for the SD-35 and I am told that also holds for the SCC-1. I'm glad you appreciate it.