PcBytes wrote on 2024-06-02, 17:04:

It NEEDS some ramsinks to prevent them from dying... unfortunately I have no idea where can I find some. I can tell RAMsinks would prevent its death again - my Hercules 3D Prophet 9700 Pro uses the same RAM roughly, and high chances that it'd meet the same fate as the 9800 without 'em.

I bought that from Amazon last week for a Quadro Fx 1000 (that i want to mod into a GeForce fx 5800 (ultra ?))

I ordered thermal glu as well because I don't trust the tape attached to the heatsinks. I will peel it and glue the heatsink directly on the RAM.

Not installed yet but they are of the perfect size for the RAM chips.

PcBytes wrote on 2024-06-02, 17:04:

Bought this Sapphire 9800SE AIW for $2 at the car boot sale today. […]
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Bought this Sapphire 9800SE AIW for $2 at the car boot sale today.

You can prolly guess why the low price - RAM chips had to be reflowed.

It NEEDS some ramsinks to prevent them from dying... unfortunately I have no idea where can I find some. I can tell RAMsinks would prevent its death again - my Hercules 3D Prophet 9700 Pro uses the same RAM roughly, and high chances that it'd meet the same fate as the 9800 without 'em.

Once that's taken care of, I can pair it with my XP-M 2600+ over the Soltek 75FRN2-RL I have for maximum "braggin' rightz" 🤣 🤣

Nice bargain if it works. 99% chance that AIW mods to 9800 pro with omega drivers. Aliexpress has cheap aluminum heatsinks that fit the looks of the card. Copper ones tend to fall of easier because extra weight imo.

Yeah, I think I found some black ones that moght be adhesive as well. I'll order 2 lots of 5 heatsinks each so I can cover the backside too.

So far it's surprisingly still running with no crashing and burning - my previous 9800AIW (ATI reference card, no OEM) would artefact in not even a minute of powering on, so chances are I had caught this Sapphire in early stages of "BGA failure" where it could very well survive w/ RAMsinks.

timsdf wrote on 2024-06-02, 18:39:

Nice bargain if it works. 99% chance that AIW mods to 9800 pro with omega drivers. Aliexpress has cheap aluminum heatsinks that fit the looks of the card. Copper ones tend to fall of easier because extra weight imo.

I did a quick reflow on the RAM chips and so far it sprung to life with a clean picture over a DVI-HDMI adapter. I'm definitely ordering 2 sets of RAMsinks, and I think I have a Club 3D 9600Pro that someone stuck a ridicoulsly HUEG copper cooler (looks like sth you'd find on a HD3600/4600 AGP card, not a 9600/9700/9800 series card). Not sure if the 9800SE has the clearance for it tho. At least I know what can be done to "prolong" the repair as much as possible. And for $2, that's pretty much a steal if it doesn't crash and burn later down the line.

I tried to reflow a BGA package once on an ATI card from around this era, or maybe a little older, with hot air and couldn't get it to melt. What did you use for your reflow work? I wonder if your card predates ROHS solder or if my hot air station is just very cheap (which it is).

Solder paste called "Pasta do lutowania", made by AG Termopasty, and recommended for reflows by a lot of people I know. As for the tool used during the reflow, 350*C paint stripping heatgun.

As for RoHS solder, I kinda dunno. All I remember is 9700s and 9800s having BGA issues with the Samsung RAM they use.

to3cutter wrote on 2024-05-22, 08:29:

Trashbytes wrote on 2024-05-22, 07:08:

to3cutter wrote on 2024-05-22, 06:58:

How much you pay for it? If it's not a secret...

You know what they say right, if you have to ask the price then you cant afford it .. hell not many could.

Still .. I want one.

Question is "do I want to buy it?" and answer is no. I paid much more for a bicycle then many could or would.
Everyone has their own illness. Stupid discussion.

Yeah, it's nothing exciting regarding performance.

I wanted a King Shaman 2, and a 4x VSA card since I saw them not too long ago. Health allowing, I hope to be able to use my retro gear for some 30+ years in retirement, and I don't expect such pieces to be available then, so I'm purchasing them now (along with other equipment while much out there continues to go to scrappers). I had also purchased a couple Orpheus 2 cards about 6 months ago, for the same reasons. I do have some legitimate, original cards already, but getting a NEW retro product today is worth owning, and supporting the people building such limited pieces. If I could, I'd also buy a new CRT monitor.

The King Shaman 2 I also purchased should be getting delivered tomorrow. This was all a final splurge, versus previous penny pinching for years to find components for cheap. Just a couple specific motherboards to go (MSI KT3 Ultra2, EPoX MVP3G5), and I'll be set. I don't have space to obtain more, but wish I did for preservation sake.

Masejoer wrote on 2024-06-03, 06:45:

Yeah, it's nothing exciting regarding performance. […]
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to3cutter wrote on 2024-05-22, 08:29:

Trashbytes wrote on 2024-05-22, 07:08:

You know what they say right, if you have to ask the price then you cant afford it .. hell not many could.

Still .. I want one.

Question is "do I want to buy it?" and answer is no. I paid much more for a bicycle then many could or would.
Everyone has their own illness. Stupid discussion.

Yeah, it's nothing exciting regarding performance.

I wanted a King Shaman 2, and a 4x VSA card since I saw them not too long ago. Health allowing, I hope to be able to use my retro gear for some 30+ years in retirement, and I don't expect such pieces to be available then, so I'm purchasing them now (along with other equipment while much out there continues to go to scrappers). I had also purchased a couple Orpheus 2 cards about 6 months ago, for the same reasons. I do have some legitimate, original cards already, but getting a NEW retro product today is worth owning, and supporting the people building such limited pieces. If I could, I'd also buy a new CRT monitor.

The King Shaman 2 I also purchased should be getting delivered tomorrow. This was all a final splurge, versus previous penny pinching for years to find components for cheap. Just a couple specific motherboards to go (MSI KT3 Ultra2, EPoX MVP3G5), and I'll be set. I don't have space to obtain more, but wish I did for preservation sake.

I got a Epox MP3G5 recently from Ebay, cost more than the Voodoo5 I bought last year but it was one of the few Halo parts I wanted, should make for a killer socket 7 setup with the Voodoo5 or a Voodoo4

Trashbytes wrote on 2024-06-03, 07:08:

I got a Epox MP3G5 recently from Ebay, cost more than the Voodoo5 I bought last year but it was one of the few Halo parts I wanted, should make for a killer socket 7 setup with the Voodoo5 or a Voodoo4

Yeah, great board. I had one with a K6-2 400 and Viper V550 videocard back in the 90s. I think that's also the system I had where I added the original SB Live, and my first 4.1 speakers - Cambridge FPS 1000s. I added a PCI Voodoo 3 2000 later for Ultra HLE emulation. It was the first computer where I started to pay attention to hardware component models, and product reviews! Follow up was dual Celeron 366 on the BP6 😉

Masejoer wrote on 2024-06-03, 08:04:

Trashbytes wrote on 2024-06-03, 07:08:

I got a Epox MP3G5 recently from Ebay, cost more than the Voodoo5 I bought last year but it was one of the few Halo parts I wanted, should make for a killer socket 7 setup with the Voodoo5 or a Voodoo4

Yeah, great board. I had one with a K6-2 400 and Viper V550 videocard back in the 90s. I think that's also the system I had where I added the original SB Live, and my first 4.1 speakers - Cambridge FPS 1000s. I added a PCI Voodoo 3 2000 later for Ultra HLE emulation. It was the first computer where I started to pay attention to hardware component models, and product reviews! Follow up was dual Celeron 366 on the BP6 😉

Heh, Socket 7 was great back in the day but like a lot of people who wanted to upgrade I ended up using my SS7 AMD K6-2 300 setup till the Celeron 300A + Abit AB-BH6 combo hit the streets at a price that was manageable for the normal(Budget) gamers. That setup was amazing, that little 300A could overclock like a demon and was amazing good for a budget gaming setup, moved my TnT2 and Voodoo2 over to it and used that setup till I moved to an Athlon XP Barton XP rig.

Now though I can afford to go build that overkill SS7 setup even if its not at all practical or cost worthy 🤣

Mail call! Got this in the mail today from the UK. Let's just say.. it wasn't cheap... But I'm freaking excited! sooo hard to find. I swear it rarer than a 5800 ultra. I don't know if I'm gonna open it and plug it in for some benchmarks or just put it on the book self 🤣.

Masejoer wrote on 2024-06-03, 06:45:

The King Shaman 2 I also purchased should be getting delivered tomorrow. This was all a final splurge, versus previous penny pinching for years to find components for cheap. Just a couple specific motherboards to go (MSI KT3 Ultra2, EPoX MVP3G5), and I'll be set. I don't have space to obtain more, but wish I did for preservation sake.

The King Shaman 2 arrived safely! I haven't tested the card yet, but it's also a beauty. Serial number 16.

Dual Voodoo2-12MB on a single board for those without knowledge of their existence. Both this and the Strange God Voodoo5-6000-based card are from https://www.zxc64.com.

AGP4LIfe? wrote on 2024-06-03, 15:03:

Mail call! Got this in the mail today from the UK. Let's just say.. it wasn't cheap... But I'm freaking excited! sooo hard to find. I swear it rarer than a 5800 ultra. I don't know if I'm gonna open it and plug it in for some benchmarks or just put it on the book self 🤣.
PXL_20240531_124414564.jpg

Is that like an opteron equivalent of one of the Athlon 64 FX cpus? I remember I set my brother's PC up with an opteron 144 for cheap long ago, it was pretty decent until dual core became necessary

Today I got someone's junky old work laptop that I found browsing around ebay's broken laptops looking for interesting things - I thought "doesn't this look just like the Toshiba Satellite 2800?"

Specifically that detail around the 'hinge bar' area - my guess is that Compal saw the hype and interest around the Satellite 2800 and made their own version. It's cheaper definitely but still has larger than average speakers and magnesium reinforcement bars inside the plastic along with good solid LCD hinges. So it's held up quite well apart from some small bits of cracked plastic.
And they copied the "cd player functionality when the laptop is turned off" for some reason / somehow.
Seeing it in person, I think it's like half Satellite 2800 and half Dell Latitude C600 with that front multibay type thing - though the thing that gets me is: Why did they have to copy Toshiba's keyboard layout right down to the Windows key placement??? Argh, I can forgive it on Toshibas but not so much on this.

Looking around online it looks like the Compal ACL10 / CL10 is the 2nd gen of a cheaper clone of the Toshiba Sat 2800 series, the ACL00 / CL00 which was P-III based. This "Multivision Visage" branded ACL10 laptop is a P4 1.8GHz and I even found specs for it on that company's website before they went bust: https://web.archive.org/web/20021229115016/ht … owdet.php?id=77
Checking google groups, it looks like it was popular in the UK as a cheap gaming laptop at the time: https://groups.google.com/search/conversation … tivision+visage
You'll find them rebranded all over the place though, in Germany it was the Gericom SilverSeraph CL10, in the UK they were also known as the Ergo Elite 3 and 4. There were probably other brands too.

When I got it, my suspicion was confirmed pretty quickly because the desktop picture is still the "Multivision Visage" logo they put together. So it's:
Mobile Intel Pentium 4 1.8GHz
256Mb DDR RAM
30Gb Ultra DMA Hard Drive
14.1inch LCD XGA TFT Colour Display (1024 x 768)
Audio Realtek ALC101
nVidia GeForce 4 MX420 Go 32Mb DDR RAM (200mhz core, 64bit 400MHz memory)
8x8x8x24x DVD/CD-RW Combo Drive
Microsoft Wndows XP Home (Recovery CD)

And since that's a discrete graphics card it's worth checking out 😀

Took it apart after it bluescreened trying to use the CPU and I found inside that the CPU had no thermal paste or pad????

Rectified that with some fresh paste and oiling the fan has made a big difference, now it's pretty stable. The screen is nice, bright & undamaged, the speakers are okay. I'm guessing the previous owner stopped using because the hard drive is failing or because it kept bluescreening? Oh well, it's better now 😀

I finally got one of my white whales today, even if it's on the more useless side of the line.

A fully working Newton 110, with a decent amount of the box contents still intact. I'll hook it up to my macs eventually, and figure something out to do with it.

I really liked the early PDA era. I wish that it had continued to flourish. Modern smartphones do not feel like the natural progression of that evolution, even with a stylus.

AGP4LIfe? wrote on 2024-06-03, 15:03:

Mail call! Got this in the mail today from the UK. Let's just say.. it wasn't cheap... But I'm freaking excited! sooo hard to find. I swear it rarer than a 5800 ultra. I don't know if I'm gonna open it and plug it in for some benchmarks or just put it on the book self 🤣.
PXL_20240531_124414564.jpg

Really nice.
It was only sold in OEM systems if I remember correctly.
Never seen one before.

I'm using a 154 in my "top 2005 system" as a replacement for an FX-57 (and it was already not cheap). But the 156 is much rarer.

Thermalwrong wrote on 2024-06-03, 18:13:

Is that like an opteron equivalent of one of the Athlon 64 FX cpus?

The 156 is the highest clocked CPU for socket 939 (3GHz). That's 200MHz faster than the FX-57 (and Opteron 154).

BetaC wrote on 2024-06-03, 20:39:

I finally got one of my white whales today, even if it's on the more useless side of the line. IMG_3507.jpg IMG_3511.jpg A fully […]
Show full quote

I finally got one of my white whales today, even if it's on the more useless side of the line.
IMG_3507.jpg
IMG_3511.jpg
A fully working Newton 110, with a decent amount of the box contents still intact. I'll hook it up to my macs eventually, and figure something out to do with it.

If you get the most expensive NiMh AAA high capacity rechargeable batteries, you'll get several days of use, or 30 minutes with a wifi card.... well that's what my MessagePad 100 does. It's a bit of an orphan as far as useful software goes, not a whole lot around. At least compared to say a Palm III or a Windows CE 2.0 palmtop of similar vintage.

BitWrangler wrote on 2024-06-03, 22:43:

BetaC wrote on 2024-06-03, 20:39:

I finally got one of my white whales today, even if it's on the more useless side of the line. IMG_3507.jpg IMG_3511.jpg A fully […]
Show full quote

I finally got one of my white whales today, even if it's on the more useless side of the line.
IMG_3507.jpg
IMG_3511.jpg
A fully working Newton 110, with a decent amount of the box contents still intact. I'll hook it up to my macs eventually, and figure something out to do with it.

If you get the most expensive NiMh AAA high capacity rechargeable batteries, you'll get several days of use, or 30 minutes with a wifi card.... well that's what my MessagePad 100 does. It's a bit of an orphan as far as useful software goes, not a whole lot around. At least compared to say a Palm III or a Windows CE 2.0 palmtop of similar vintage.

I was planning on using the 1000+mA/h batteries that I already have, but that's good to know. I'm sure i'll find something to put on it, though. Can't do that too heavily until I get a new battery for the 1MB card though.

Kahenraz wrote on 2024-06-03, 21:46:

I really liked the early PDA era. I wish that it had continued to flourish. Modern smartphones do not feel like the natural progression of that evolution, even with a stylus.

Yeah, you're not wrong. It's almost strange just how different things are despite them being somewhat similar.

Steve Jobs was right to make a phone without a stylus. He had to throw it out entirely to force a paradigm shift in user interface design. Old PDA interfaces really made use of the stylus in ways that just don't exist on modem smartphones.

I'm pretty pleased about this.

I must preface this by saying I have had a rough history with EGA-capable multi-sync monitors. Bought a Sony CPD-1302 online, seller shipped it with basically no packaging and it was destroyed (tube broken). A year or so later I bought an NEC Multisync II about 2 hours away (incredibly rare find in my area, far from cities) and it powers on but I have never been able to sort out some color related issues that render it unusable (basically the colors are inverted and the image is distorted).

So, a month ago I saw someone on a popular marketplace selling a bunch of vintage gear for very low prices in a large-ish city about 3.5 hours from me. They seemed far more knowledgeable about what they had than most sellers. It was a recycling place and they sell stuff online but if it's too bulky, can't be tested or the value is questionable they prefer to sell it in person only. Among the items they had listed was an Evervision monitor which may be capable of EGA (based on very limited info online), and a Mitsubishi Diamond Scan. The first one was untested due to them having no EGA\CGA equipment to test it with. The Mitsubishi they said they were unable to get an image on using a standard composite cable.

The prices were so low they were nearly free.

Problem is... I don't really like to travel, I don't have much time to travel and I hate (hate!) driving in cities... it's just how I am. I grew up in the rurals and I get very stressed out dealing with city traffic and navigation, especially places I'm unfamiliar with. So, it'd be a huge stretch for me to make such a trip just for some monitors that may both be dead. Coincidentally, a family related event popped up that would bring me within 20 minutes drive of this seller if I chose to go, but it was nearly a month away. This event really meant a lot to a particular family member so I made some arrangements and the seller actually said they would hang on to these for me.

Well... after almost 9 hours of driving today, we all made it home alive, the car is in one piece, the family had a great day and I now have these two beauties...

(err... I would say three, but I have had the cat for a while... she's not new)

They are in excellent condition cosmetically. The slight dark marks on the corners of the Evervision are just crud and come off easily. They seem to have basically no yellowing of the plastic!

So far, I have tested both and the Mitsubishi doesn't seem to want to power on properly... the led kind of flashes on then off, and sometimes kind of dims partially. I'm wondering if the power button got messed up recently somehow. I will crack it open and take a look some time.

The Evervision seems to work amazingly well though! I have only been able to do the tests available in Checkit, which doesn't seem to test for high res EGA modes, but even for the lower res 16 color modes (the same ones I use on my 5153) it looks fantastic! So, I do not yet know 100% for sure if this is an EGA monitor or just CGA, but it does work!

If anyone knows of a quick and easy way to test for high res EGA mode compatibility please let me know and I'll try it out as soon as I get some more time.

Got myself New Old Set of this Cambridge Soundwork speakers.