What retro things have you done today?

LewisRaz · 5 Oct 2020 at 18:14

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/FORCOM-M...e=STRK:MEBIDX:IT&_trksid=p2057872.m2749.l2649

This was the listing. Battery has definitely had a nibble at what looks like a power rail underneath. Looks like some of the solderpads on the top are a bit fuzzy too but the traces dont look super bad... For the price of a takeaway it should at least provide me a couple of hours of ~~swearing~~ tinkering so... Lets see!

The VGA is an OAK OTI037c that I got from a trade and was going to sell in the trigem 486. It was so terrible that I actually kind of liked it so held onto it

Will be perfect in this.

cee-S-dee · 5 Oct 2020 at 21:59

Tested out the Supermicro PIIIDR3 board today to see if it was working. Happy to report it posted fine with 1 and 2 CPU's (550 PIII's). I'm going to do a build around this but it needs a recap as some of the them are bulging. The end goal is to get a Pair of Coppermine 850's running at 133fsb. Oh the board came equipped with 1gb of Samsung Ram.

almoststew1990 · 5 Oct 2020 at 22:34

LewisRaz said:
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/FORCOM-M396F-V2-7-386-motherboard-mainboard-AMD-386SX-40-CPU-ISA-AT-SPARE-REPAIR/324297258513?ssPageName=STRK:MEBIDX:IT&_trksid=p2057872.m2749.l2649

This was the listing.

Looks pretty similar to mine actually, also with the soldered 40MHz SX and a SARC RC2016A4 chipset. It's been a pretty solid board tbh! I've go a CR2032 now though

cee-S-dee said:
Tested out the Supermicro PIIIDR3 board today to see if it was working. Happy to report it posted fine with 1 and 2 CPU's (550 PIII's). I'm going to do a build around this but it needs a recap as some of the them are bulging. The end goal is to get a Pair of Coppermine 850's running at 133fsb. Oh the board came equipped with 1gb of Samsung Ram.

That must not be that much older than my 2001 Dual Xeon RD-RAM thing to be honest. I've lost enthusiasm for mine though as, like last time (dual 750MHz P3) it just isn't that useful due to being limited to 32bit and AGP x4. Gotta stop buying dual CPU systems...

LewisRaz · 5 Oct 2020 at 22:46

cee-S-dee said:
Tested out the Supermicro PIIIDR3 board today to see if it was working. Happy to report it posted fine with 1 and 2 CPU's (550 PIII's). I'm going to do a build around this but it needs a recap as some of the them are bulging. The end goal is to get a Pair of Coppermine 850's running at 133fsb. Oh the board came equipped with 1gb of Samsung Ram.

Would look great in this case I am trying to get rid of

LewisRaz · 5 Oct 2020 at 22:58

almoststew1990 said:
Looks pretty similar to mine actually, also with the soldered 40MHz SX and a SARC RC2016A4 chipset. It's been a pretty solid board tbh! I've go a CR2032 now though

That must not be that much older than my 2001 Dual Xeon RD-RAM thing to be honest. I've lost enthusiasm for mine though as, like last time (dual 750MHz P3) it just isn't that useful due to being limited to 32bit and AGP x4. Gotta stop buying dual CPU systems...

That is a similar looking board! Philscomputerlab did a pretty good review on the one I got so must be a good chipset/cpu combo.

Even tho I feel I would never even use it I still have a soft spot for these tiny 386 boards as it was the first thing I fixed with some soldering

cee-S-dee · 5 Oct 2020 at 23:13

almoststew1990 said:
That must not be that much older than my 2001 Dual Xeon RD-RAM thing to be honest. I've lost enthusiasm for mine though as, like last time (dual 750MHz P3) it just isn't that useful due to being limited to 32bit and AGP x4. Gotta stop buying dual CPU systems...

Late 99 early 2000 I think this came out. This has the i840 chipset. I think it will actually make a nice system. Never been into Xeons, Even though I have a Supermicro P4DPE but that is a pure server board. i840 was kind real high-end Workstation chipset from my understanding. Plus the fact it cost me pretty much sweet F-all it will be great to have a real unique high end P3 machine.

@LewisRaz That would be perfect, but i don't think i would be alive to put the board into it as my Wife would murder me if I bring any more cases into this house! hahahaha!

cee-S-dee · 5 Oct 2020 at 23:15

Talking of 386 builds. Mine is still unfinished. I've took parts out of it for other projects. Really need to get it done, but now I need to get another VLB I/O card and VGA card as you can't have VLB and not use them!

LewisRaz · 5 Oct 2020 at 23:56

cee-S-dee said:
Talking of 386 builds. Mine is still unfinished. I've took parts out of it for other projects. Really need to get it done, but now I need to get another VLB I/O card and VGA card as you can't have VLB and not use them!

Ive got 1 of each spare when you get to that

rare · 7 Oct 2020 at 01:17

Stripped, cleaned and applied new paste and pads on a a pair of 8800 GTS 640MB which will be going in to my 2006 (ish) XP build. The stickers on one of them was damaged so I decided to take them both off, I prefer the look tbh with the smoked cover letting you see the heat sinks. The biggest issue was taking the old stickers off...I had to use car glue/tar remover and heat in the end, I guess that’s what you get for trying to take off such old stickers!! As for the thermal pads, they were literally crumbling, and the paste looked well past its best. I cleaned the boards with Isopropyl and they are about as good as they will get now.

Looking pretty good I think

I also decided to change all 4 case fans for something more modern, as the originals seemed past their best. Went with some Arctic F8’s...also removed the stickers to give it a cleaner look. Naturally they all have new silver fan guards on them.

Currently have an nforce 570i motherboard in there, but didn’t realise it’s quite limited compared to the 590 variant. I think I’ve found an Asus 590i based MB locally so just waiting for that to arrive and the HSF. PSU arrived off eBay, got a sealed EVGA G2 Gold 550w for less than £50.

Xyclops · 7 Oct 2020 at 05:55

@rare those cards look really cool with stickers off. I used to have two of these cards but with 512mb RAM. Very good XP cards.

!bluetonic! · 7 Oct 2020 at 06:51

@rare that looks awesome and a very tidy build.

rare · 7 Oct 2020 at 09:47

Thanks both! It’s actually pretty hard building something like this as I’m sure we’ve all experienced. Only because I decided on a 2006 ish build but before you know it you are creeping forwards...the GPU’s are from 2007 and while I’m using an Athlon 64 X2 6000+ we all know the Core 2 Duo was an absolute powerhouse especially in 2007/8. But building something like this there’s always something ‘better’...why not go GTX 280...or quad core...before you know it you are building a Ryzen/3090 :rolleyes:

LewisRaz · 7 Oct 2020 at 18:01

386 board has turned up. The battery damage really is minimal. can see 1 badly broken trace but thats it(Its only for the battery backup). Some others look a little fluffy but I will check them for continuity later. I removed the bios and KB controller to check underneath those and they are clean so its had a quick vinegar shower followed by an IPA bath.

paradigm · 8 Oct 2020 at 10:38

Started reading this:

almoststew1990 · 9 Oct 2020 at 19:11

I picked up a second 478 board for some reason. This one is ATX and is compatible with 800MHz FSB CPUs. I'm hoping my 3.4GHz P4s will drop in and work considering 3.4+GHz seems to be hard to find on eBay now. I am also painting one of my cases which was in quite poor condition before with some left over paint. It's going to look crap! But I got some replacement case badges.

Deleted member 77746 · 9 Oct 2020 at 19:26

@rare which motherboard is that in that atc build? I am sure I had that!

rare · 9 Oct 2020 at 20:04

almoststew1990 said:
I picked up a second 478 board for some reason. This one is ATX and is compatible with 800MHz FSB CPUs. I'm hoping my 3.4GHz P4s will drop in and work considering 3.4+GHz seems to be hard to find on eBay now. I am also painting one of my cases which was in quite poor condition before with some left over paint. It's going to look crap! But I got some replacement case badges.

Damn!! That motherboard looks brand new.

rare · 9 Oct 2020 at 20:08

Bouton Aide said:
@rare which motherboard is that in that atc build? I am sure I had that!

It is an Asus M2N-SLI

It’s based around nVidia’s 570i chipset, although I have an M2N32-SLI waiting to go in there which has the 590i. Biggest difference being better memory bandwidth and allowing two cards in full x16. The 570 restricts that down to 8 when using SLI.

I’m probably going to play around with the GPU’s a bit though. Got the SLI 8800 GTS, may pick up a GTX just for fun. And a GTX 280 which is sort of the same era and quite a bit faster.

Deleted member 77746 · 9 Oct 2020 at 20:14

rare said:
It is an Asus M2N-SLI It’s based around nVidia’s 570i chipset, although I have an M2N32-SLI waiting to go in there which has the 590i. Biggest difference being better memory bandwidth and allowing two cards in full x16. The 570 restricts that down to 8 when using SLI.

I’m probably going to play around with the GPU’s a bit though. Got the SLI 8800 GTS, may pick up a GTX just for fun. And a GTX 280 which is sort of the same era and quite a bit faster.

I had that exact config when they first come out! If I remember correctly it has the nVidia audio control panel which was awesome at the time!

rare · 9 Oct 2020 at 20:19

Bouton Aide said:
I had that exact config when they first come out! If I remember correctly it has the nVidia audio control panel which was awesome at the time!

I know it has wifi, may well have some fancy audio as well. Just waiting for it to arrive in the post, I managed to find one in its box with all the original accessories. Supposedly it hasn’t been used for a while so fingers crossed it’s OK!