Finally got one of my Asus CUR-DLS boards to post. 2x 933mhz 133fsb P3's with 2x 512mb ECC REG PC133 ram. thinking of doing a water cooling setup on it.

Started building myself a test bench platform out of some plywood. Trying to better optimize space and cable management on my workbench.

I'm going to add some edgebanding and glue down some anti-static mats on it.

That looks very nice ! This is something I should try to do also ~

Was bored... and thus this "abomination" was born.

AMD K6-2+ 500MHz, TNT2 M64, 160GB on Promise Ultra100 TX2, 36GB on Adaptec SCSI, 256MB RAM, Luckytech P5MVP3 mobo.

I decided to give my 'daily driver / workhorse' HP Elite 8100 i5 SFF PC a late spring clean inside and out, and replaced the back up slave drive with a newer WD 500GB Sata HDD. It's getting on a bit now, I think this is from 2011, but I do this every year, to keep everything in tip top condition, and works as good as new. We service our cars each year, why not our PCs? afterall the fans and cooling system are not going to be very effective if they're covered in dust. This is mostly my business PC, so setup with office and image stuff, but also has my DAW setup which I haven't used since moving. With all the recent sunshine, I'm also getting on with some retrobrighting. Besides the UV rays from the sun, I use a paint brush to apply an even coat of Jerome Russell peroxide hair cream, wrap in cling film, and put out in the sun for the day! rinse everything, and buff.

PC Hoarder Patrol wrote on 2024-05-20, 08:16:

BigDave wrote on 2024-05-20, 07:33:

gerry wrote on 2024-05-14, 20:02:

they are the best plugs it seems
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UEfP1OKKz_Q
😀

...OK, I'm done with plugs, promise.... unless anyone remembers those 80's mini 3 pin plug systems made by Masterplug?

You mean the rubber PermaPlug inline connectors 😀 ...if so I certainly do, and still have a few in use scattered around the house - even used them outside on occasions and never had a problem (yet!). Then again, as I displayed an interest from an early age, my late father showed me the proper basics of wiring and all things electrical around the house.

Not quite, although I do remember using those, but so nice to hear about how your father taught you all about the basics of the home electrical system, and passed on his practical skills, which I bet has proved invaluable.

I found a picture of what I was thinking of in a trusty 1988 - 89 Argos catalogue (PDF collection) and it's items 10 and 11 on this page, although I think the design varied over the years.

My CH F-16 Fighterstick for Macintosh arrived yesterday. Got it configured and working nicely with Super Wing Commander!

Shponglefan wrote on 2024-05-20, 16:50:

Started building myself a test bench platform out of some plywood. Trying to better optimize space and cable management on my workbench.

I'm going to add some edgebanding and glue down some anti-static mats on it.

Oh wow. This.. I need this!

PcBytes wrote on 2024-05-20, 19:53:

Was bored... and thus this "abomination" was born.

AMD K6-2+ 500MHz, TNT2 M64, 160GB on Promise Ultra100 TX2, 36GB on Adaptec SCSI, 256MB RAM, Luckytech P5MVP3 mobo.

Nice couchputer! I especially love the bluetooth soundcard.

(seriously though, that's an interesting combination of parts... that would have been an absolutely ridiculous amount of high speed storage for a K6-2 system back in the day! 😁 )

Ozzuneoj wrote on 2024-05-21, 07:14:

Nice couchputer! I especially love the bluetooth soundcard.

I admit going back to the photo to look for the "bluetooth soundcard"...

ChrisK wrote on 2024-05-18, 20:38:

PD2JK wrote on 2024-05-17, 14:26:

ChrisK wrote on 2024-05-17, 06:06:

Could have been a small inductor. Peel of some of the black case material and there should be some wound wires visible ("wire wo […]
Show full quote

Could have been a small inductor. Peel of some of the black case material and there should be some wound wires visible ("wire wound chip inductor"). You'll likely need some good magnification.
Looking at the datasheet of the spindle driver there's no other component beween Pin 12 and Cp, but according the packaging / footprint I'd strongly suspect it to be an inductor .
Try measuring the resistance above it. If it's open/high resistive remove and bridge it. That should make it work again if there's no other problem.

That circuit is a charge pump for generating a higher-than-Vcc voltage to drive the high side switches of the motor drivers.

I will look into it if I have the time. Thanks!

You're welcome. Let us know how it goes.

Alright, so I simply bridged the soldering pads, but the drive won't spin. Then I soldered a 4.7uF cap in its place and the drive slowly spins up.
After a few seconds you'd expect a moving actuator for initialization of the heads and so on, but the drive spins down a bit and tries two more times. Maybe the heads/actuator is stuck in its position.
Not sure if the drive motor reaches full speed either.
I looked up some YouTube videos of the WDAC280 drive, and those are spinning up a quite faster.

And a picture of the burned component: (now replaced with a 4.7uF capacitor)

Just trying to build a P233MMX for some kicks and giggles as a Voodoo rig for a retro party.

Still not sure if 95OSR2.1 is the right choice over W98SE, albeit probably more period correct?

20gig Deathstar, with 2 2gig partitions for cd copies, I can't handle installing from a dodgy disk in an old dodgy drive 🤣

And just because I've had tons of problems with old dodgy spinning rust as well, I'm giving the old Deathstar the full treatment first

I recently found a couple of NOS 486 cpu coolers with screw on fan (instead of clipped-on/moulded fans). I found one of these a few years ago and they are very moddable with Nocuta fans.

pan069 wrote on 2024-05-21, 21:52:

I recently found a couple of NOS 486 cpu coolers with screw on fan (instead of clipped-on/moulded fans). I found one of these a few years ago and they are very moddable with Nocuta fans.

PXL_20240521_102351245.jpg

that's a nice find, especially being NOS - hopefully quiet and stable

PD2JK wrote on 2024-05-21, 13:03:

Alright, so I simply bridged the soldering pads, but the drive won't spin. Then I soldered a 4.7uF cap in its place and the driv […]
Show full quote

ChrisK wrote on 2024-05-18, 20:38:

PD2JK wrote on 2024-05-17, 14:26:

I will look into it if I have the time. Thanks!

You're welcome. Let us know how it goes.

Alright, so I simply bridged the soldering pads, but the drive won't spin. Then I soldered a 4.7uF cap in its place and the drive slowly spins up.
After a few seconds you'd expect a moving actuator for initialization of the heads and so on, but the drive spins down a bit and tries two more times. Maybe the heads/actuator is stuck in its position.
Not sure if the drive motor reaches full speed either.
I looked up some YouTube videos of the WDAC280 drive, and those are spinning up a quite faster.

And a picture of the burned component: (now replaced with a 4.7uF capacitor)
DSC_9143.JPG

OK, had a more detailed look into the datasheet and it seems you are right. The damaged part really could've been a cap (cap C3 in the datasheet p.7 Fig. 3, to be exact). The remains of the part in your newer picture also seems to confirm that. I previously identified the big yellow one as the bulk cap of the charge pump (Cp as shown in the datasheet's block diagramm).
So it seems there's more than just that blown cap. Did the drive work properly just before?

Been getting my gaming pc up, and I have to wonder if there's a way to increase the volume levels on old speakers. How would I go about doing this?

Mostly you'll just get distortion, the fist sized ones were only a real half to two watts in the first place. Maybe maladvertised at 10W PMPO. However, some of them do a bit better if you supply them with 9V instead of 6V or 12V instead of 9V, but it's a 50:50 shot whether it's magic fix or magic smoke.

ChrisK wrote on 2024-05-22, 14:26:

PD2JK wrote on 2024-05-21, 13:03:

Alright, so I simply bridged the soldering pads, but the drive won't spin. Then I soldered a 4.7uF cap in its place and the driv […]
Show full quote

ChrisK wrote on 2024-05-18, 20:38:

You're welcome. Let us know how it goes.

Alright, so I simply bridged the soldering pads, but the drive won't spin. Then I soldered a 4.7uF cap in its place and the drive slowly spins up.
After a few seconds you'd expect a moving actuator for initialization of the heads and so on, but the drive spins down a bit and tries two more times. Maybe the heads/actuator is stuck in its position.
Not sure if the drive motor reaches full speed either.
I looked up some YouTube videos of the WDAC280 drive, and those are spinning up a quite faster.

And a picture of the burned component: (now replaced with a 4.7uF capacitor)
DSC_9143.JPG

OK, had a more detailed look into the datasheet and it seems you are right. The damaged part really could've been a cap (cap C3 in the datasheet p.7 Fig. 3, to be exact). The remains of the part in your newer picture also seems to confirm that. I previously identified the big yellow one as the bulk cap of the charge pump (Cp as shown in the datasheet's block diagramm).
So it seems there's more than just that blown cap. Did the drive work properly just before?

Unfortunately that is unknown. The machine the disk was in was from some shed/storage, so I guess it wasn't powered on for ages.
Guess I'll have to power it on and off quite a few times and maybe then I'm lucky and gets unstuck.
Would the freezer help or is that an urban legend.

PD2JK wrote on 2024-05-22, 16:42:

Unfortunately that is unknown. The machine the disk was in was from some shed/storage, so I guess it wasn't powered on for ages. […]
Show full quote

ChrisK wrote on 2024-05-22, 14:26:

PD2JK wrote on 2024-05-21, 13:03:

Alright, so I simply bridged the soldering pads, but the drive won't spin. Then I soldered a 4.7uF cap in its place and the driv […]
Show full quote

Alright, so I simply bridged the soldering pads, but the drive won't spin. Then I soldered a 4.7uF cap in its place and the drive slowly spins up.
After a few seconds you'd expect a moving actuator for initialization of the heads and so on, but the drive spins down a bit and tries two more times. Maybe the heads/actuator is stuck in its position.
Not sure if the drive motor reaches full speed either.
I looked up some YouTube videos of the WDAC280 drive, and those are spinning up a quite faster.

And a picture of the burned component: (now replaced with a 4.7uF capacitor)
DSC_9143.JPG

OK, had a more detailed look into the datasheet and it seems you are right. The damaged part really could've been a cap (cap C3 in the datasheet p.7 Fig. 3, to be exact). The remains of the part in your newer picture also seems to confirm that. I previously identified the big yellow one as the bulk cap of the charge pump (Cp as shown in the datasheet's block diagramm).
So it seems there's more than just that blown cap. Did the drive work properly just before?

Unfortunately that is unknown. The machine the disk was in was from some shed/storage, so I guess it wasn't powered on for ages.
Guess I'll have to power it on and off quite a few times and maybe then I'm lucky and gets unstuck.
Would the freezer help or is that an urban legend.

The freezer thing was always a last resort thing, to get a drive going one last time and hope you can get some data back. But remember that you can have all sorts of issues with condensation if it spins up, and it will probably rust after that.
Maybe tap it lightly in the center with a rubber mallet?