Re: What retro activity did you get up to today?

Posted on Today, 13:34

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by NHVintage

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Holy cow, I thought when I bought a Zenith Z-150 Series PC this week I'd have no problem finding documentation for it, I find ZDS documents everywhere I turn... and boy was I wrong! Upon arrival, I opened the case and was presented with... a standard CPU on the motherboard configuration! With a …

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Re: What retro activity did you get up to today?

Posted on Yesterday, 21:56

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by NHVintage

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

While I wait for EEPROM chips to show up for the 286 board from the CNC machine so I can try a standard bios on it, a new PC arrived on my doorstep: A Zenith ZDH-1111 system. And it's a mystery because I can't find docs on it or it's mobo anywhere! It LOOKS like a Z-150 on the outside, and its an …

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Re: Advice and suggestions for resources to learn more detailed troubleshooting and repair steps for motherboards

Posted on 2024-06-02, 21:48

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by NHVintage

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Pretty sure the errors are due to old chips or that these are single use, so I ordered some fresh chips that'll get here in a week or so. always something 🤣.

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Re: Advice and suggestions for resources to learn more detailed troubleshooting and repair steps for motherboards

Posted on 2024-06-02, 20:32

by

by NHVintage

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

The programmer arrived and after choosing the right chip I try to program the new bios and get : ERROR! Address:0x000000 Buffer Data:0xAA Verify:0xA0 Programming ...Failed I pulled the old bios before it but didn't erase; blank check is disabled. The old bios (and new) seemed to be a bit gibberish …

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Re: Advice and suggestions for resources to learn more detailed troubleshooting and repair steps for motherboards

Posted on 2024-06-02, 19:35

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by NHVintage

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Highly recommend this youtube channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCFX1Z9N6aPWuCN_KR8UZ2vg/videos Rich does great videos on how to repair ATX Power supplies, motherboards, graphics cards. And he does real troubleshooting but teaches fast and simple methods for doing so. So many channels that …

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Re: Advice and suggestions for resources to learn more detailed troubleshooting and repair steps for motherboards

Posted on 2024-06-02, 19:33

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by NHVintage

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Back pre internet we learned from 'Upgrading and repairing PCs' by Mueller, Scott https://archive.org/details/upgradingrepairi0000muel_2ndedition https://archive.org/details/upgradingrepairi0000muel_d4h1 https://archive.org/details/upgradingrepairi0000muel_17thedition older editions have more info …

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Re: Advice and suggestions for resources to learn more detailed troubleshooting and repair steps for motherboards

Posted on 2024-06-02, 19:30

by

by NHVintage

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Yes the Xgecu T48 TL866ii Plus is a good programmer. That one is a clone, some brand Vikye, the real Xgecu have their logo in the plastic on top. added: Try to find the "Vikye" website for an update LOL I own a older Xgecu TL866ii Pro and it has worked great, the kit I chose has 13 adapters. Some …

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Re: Advice and suggestions for resources to learn more detailed troubleshooting and repair steps for motherboards

Posted on 2024-06-01, 17:41

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by NHVintage

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Wow cool! So I guess I'd need to flash the high and low onto the paired chips with the ATLO and ATHi labels right? Seems a dumb question but I want to be sure. I'll have to get a chip programmer first. EDIT - almost forgot - tried the xt-ide on slot 1. no joy. but my floppy/parallel card did work on …

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Re: Advice and suggestions for resources to learn more detailed troubleshooting and repair steps for motherboards

Posted on 2024-06-01, 16:54

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by NHVintage

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

so, this board is from a CNC machine. I am guessing that it has a custom bios. there is no disk drive. I tried putting my XT IDE card in and it won't boot with it installed. but it's alive...

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Re: Advice and suggestions for resources to learn more detailed troubleshooting and repair steps for motherboards

Posted on 2024-06-01, 16:42

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by NHVintage

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Filename 20240601_124027.jpg File size 1.42 MiB Views 314 views Omg I got a response from the 286! Lol. Perhaps it needed paired memory simms or it disliked the other keyboard. . Hmm.

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Advice and suggestions for resources to learn more detailed troubleshooting and repair steps for motherboards

Posted on 2024-06-01, 16:09

by

by NHVintage

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Hi all - So as I posted on another thread I am currently working on three different older motherboards, all of which have the same behavior - turning on the power, my boot diagnostic card in the ISA slot (trying all of the slots) produces the 4 power indicators steady, and the frame and other lights …

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Re: What retro activity did you get up to today?

Posted on 2024-06-01, 02:36

by

by NHVintage

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

So this is what's on the 286 board... 20240531_223225.jpg It took a bit to spot that this is AMI Bios. The 486 I picked up today is AMI as well.. Not sure what that means, I'm not sure about the port information either, as I don't see anything labelled to that effect. But as it's a mainstream BIOS, …

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Re: What retro activity did you get up to today?

Posted on 2024-06-01, 00:48

by

by NHVintage

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Today, I decided I haven't had enough punishment from the PC Chips board I haven't solved yet and got two others from a local recycler that were posted as taken from working units. A 286 board: https://theretroweb.com/motherboards/s/trang-bow-trangg-bow-headland-ht12a .. and another 486 board (lower …

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Re: What retro activity did you get up to today?

Posted on 2024-05-29, 12:10

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by NHVintage

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

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 …

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Re: What retro activity did you get up to today?

Posted on 2024-05-28, 19:57

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by NHVintage

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Today I've been working on trying to get a PCChips M912 v1.7 motherboard to work, without success. My ISA slot diagnostic board sees the all the 12V and 5V + and -, and I see it turn off the RST and remain with frame and clock, but that's all - never get any POST diagnostic codes/boot codes numbers. …

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Re: Amibios socket 3 486 broken cmos battery blues

Posted on 2023-12-09, 15:55

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by NHVintage

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I AM curious but not enough to play with it more now that it's working 😁 .. I've secured the wiring and called it solved. Thanks for your help.

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Re: Short on ISA slots? Try this.

Posted on 2023-12-09, 03:17

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by NHVintage

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

So I tried this, and first attempts didn't work - though to be fair I'm only trying this on an 8-bit ISA extension. I moved the ISA USB card from the XT to the expansion chassis, and put together the bridge of cables and cards. I get power as the usb stick lights up, but no data. continuity seems …

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Re: Gotek woes (32KB) - anyone else?

Posted on 2023-12-05, 03:26

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by NHVintage

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I've bought 3 flashfloppy gotek drives from a seller on ebay in the last couple months and all three are running just fine - 1 on an 8088, 1 on a 486, and 1 on a pentium II. I also before that bought an artery model on amazon and wound up coastering it trying to upgrade it to flashfloppy. So my …

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Re: Ask for help, AMI BIOS strange beep code

Posted on 2023-12-05, 03:11

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by NHVintage

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I don't suppose your cmos battery is dying? If you unplug it from power for a little while do you lose your bios settings?

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Re: Amibios socket 3 486 broken cmos battery blues

Posted on 2023-12-04, 15:18

by

by NHVintage

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

So a followup, and good news. I wasn't satisfied with the CMOS jumper connection being unknown so I tested continuity between each of its two pins and the positive pads of the onboard battery, and got a positive from one of them. So, I hooked the external battery + to that pin, and the external …

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