Not using that, but I did use the case turbo button to directly operate on clock jumpers, and multipliers before (Switched it between them to try) and it didn't seem to mind that the short was now a 20 inch round trip.

Inserted COASt cache module in my Siemens Scenic 5H PCI today. I don't if this cache makes difference in games, but POST message about 256 kilobytes makes me feel better, even if it is like being ricer 😀

I finally got around to testing this NOS VLB VGA card I bought a while back and it turned out to be decent, despite appearing to be a cheap-ish implementation of the S3 805 chipset. Nice image quality and fast enough for the 486SX 33 I'd be running it in.

Not pictured but I happened to have a Trident VLB card hanging on my outdoor toilet wall of dead hardware that had 2 X the exact same NEC memory chips that this card takes, so I was able to take it up to the full 2MB 😎

Are you sure you enabled the cache ? For heavy games, you should definitely see a difference if you had 0 cache before that. Use cachechk or speedsys to know if your cache is functionnal

@Badmojo are you going to dump that floppy disk ? It may hold interestind data ^^

Deksor wrote:

@Badmojo are you going to dump that floppy disk ? It may hold interestind data ^^

Yep it's on my to-do list next time I have a machine out with a 5 1/4 floppy drive.

Since I remember the two 3Com 3C905B-TX PCI NICs I have for spare were rather picky when it came to 9x driver support in the past and the RTL8139 has terrible NT3.51 drivers (in my experience), I decided to test one of the 3Com NICs on my P1 rig to see if it was a viable alternative to the RTL8139 that's currently in it. It works great on all three OSes I use there (which are MS-DOS 6.22, WFW 3.11, and NT3.51) to the point where I was able to sort-of do some internet browsing on both Windows versions whereas the RTL8139 would only work on DOS and WFW but not NT. I guess I'll put the RTL8139 into my Win95 C433 build and use the 3C905B-TX on the P1 build as soon as I get a couple things to finish them off.

badmojo wrote:

[..]Not pictured but I happened to have a Trident VLB card hanging on my outdoor toilet wall of dead hardware that had 2 X the exact same NEC memory chips that this card takes, so I was able to take it up to the full 2MB 😎

I...need to see this.

Also the bit about filleting a Trident card for the RAM it never deserved, muhuhahahaaaaa...

(Okay, tbh I have a Trident TGUI card that's alright, powered it up once and the house didn't explode or anything.)

probnot wrote:

badmojo wrote:

[..]Not pictured but I happened to have a Trident VLB card hanging on my outdoor toilet wall of dead hardware that had 2 X the exact same NEC memory chips that this card takes, so I was able to take it up to the full 2MB 😎

I...need to see this.

The standard in this community should be to pass dead hardware onto people who can fix it unless its something obviously unfixable even by the most skilled user.

Tech which displeases me dies in fire, or takes a ride on the business end of my 12 gauge. I have a SoundBlaster that needs some solder work, when I can cheaply source fewer than a THOUSAND surface mount capacitors, and when I can determine the values for the caps that were scraped off of the board thanks to the United States Package Smashers beating up every envelope I get from Russia.

TheAbandonwareGuy wrote:

The standard in this community should be to pass dead hardware onto people who can fix it unless its something obviously unfixable even by the most skilled user.

Not worth fixing, bro. Friends don't let friends use Trident.

gdjacobs wrote:

TheAbandonwareGuy wrote:

The standard in this community should be to pass dead hardware onto people who can fix it unless its something obviously unfixable even by the most skilled user.

Not worth fixing, bro. Friends don't let friends use Trident.

Its interesting from a technology science standpoint. What if in 20 years you want to study the low end from that time frame? And not everything trident made was garbage. They did make some nice budget 3D accelerators in 1997-1998 that were near RiVA128 speed.

Plus nobody has recognised their value as a video decelerator, when your pentium system is still a bit too fast for a 286 game. 😁

I've finally troubleshooted my faulty 1541 disk drive. Leds indicated that the logic was working, but motors refused to spin.
The 12v line was shorted, but the 7812 was fine. (one of the 2 big metallic transistors on the right)
Tried changing and testing some capacitors and diodes near it, on the 12v line, but all were fine. I was giving up, the i read on a 1541 troubleshooting guide that sometimes the c15 tantalum capacitor,also connected to 12v is the culprit .
Capacitor c15 is located on the far side of the logic and power board. Removed it and it was indeed shorted. Had a similar capacitor around , swapped it and the disk drive came back to life!

My next big project will be a complete ic removal and socketing of a c64 board. I have 4 commodores 1st type, none is working properly. I must gain some knowledge in desoldering, first. I can desolder most 2 pin o 3 pin stuff, but ics are a nightmare.
Maybe with the right tool? I won't mind spending a bit of savings in a good desoldering gun.

TheAbandonwareGuy wrote:

The standard in this community should be to pass dead hardware onto people who can fix it unless its something obviously unfixable even by the most skilled user.

Uh ha - so you want me to ship my dead Trident all the way to whatever planet you live on? That’s gonna cost you.

I have enough trouble giving away working hardware.

Setting up an experiment with a Pentium II 233Mhz underclocked to 133Mhz, Intel BX Asus motherboard, Voodoo 3 3000 graphics and SB16 CT2230 sound card. Just gathering some spare pieces of hardware and see how they manage DOS games. Nothing fancy but enjoyable nonetheless.

JetSetWilly wrote:

Setting up an experiment ....

Careful man, you never know what might....

Uh oh.

BitWrangler wrote:

Careful man, you never know what might.... http://l.j-factor.com/gifs/AnotherWorld-Lightning2.gif […]
Show full quote

JetSetWilly wrote:

Setting up an experiment ....

Careful man, you never know what might....

Uh oh.

🤣!

Fortunately, it´s everything under control 🤣

Paintied an ls-120 drive to match my case. Not my best work, but its cold here so it would never come out perfect.

4th set, and still more games that I can't open or run from within Windows 3 on a 66MHz 486 DX2.