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Post by GiGaBiTe on Oct 29, 2007 0:00:21 GMT -5
Most of the media that you can find there are those crappy Matrix DVDs, but i've been very lucky: i can't found them anywhere! Instead, i burn onto cheap Imation (Mitsubishi Chemicals) and Maxell (Ricoh) media. As for DVD+RW: i can only find Memorex media, and it's a big PoS (it wears out after 10 uses?!?!)  It's safe to replace 1500uF with 1000uF caps? I can agree that Memorex media is garbage, I bought a whole spindle of CD-Rs and they all went bad after sitting for about a month. Whenever I try to burn them, it always results in some cache corruption error and it spits it out. I usually stick with Sony as I've never had any issues with their stuff. Also, the caps issue is probably a devster question, but I really don't think it would be a good idea to replace a 1500 uF with a 1000 uF cap as it may cause some power problems. |
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Post by paulpsomiadis on Oct 29, 2007 15:15:59 GMT -5
They CANNOT be lower OR higher uF value!
OR lower voltage!
However, you can replace 1500uF 16V capacitors with, say...
1500uF 25V capacitors or 1500uF 30V capacitors, etc...
Oh and I ALWAYS burn all DVD writable media at MAX 4X speed for reading reliability - same goes for CDR.
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Post by Tom Maneiro on Oct 29, 2007 16:56:38 GMT -5
Good news for that shitty M755: we have dozens of those 1500uF, 6.3V thingies: the donors? A couple of dead M748s. It's matter of time to get the board working again in full shape. I did a test today: it still boots, but as any good PCCRAP, it's a bit picky (required to clear CMOS a few times, it refused to recognize all RAM...).
After some fiddling with it, i managed to do a BIOS dump of it with Uniflash... Anyone have a overclockers' BIOS for the M755? 66MHz BUS is NOT fun! (even Saki is faster than that, with a 75MHz bus)
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Post by paulpsomiadis on Oct 30, 2007 15:34:23 GMT -5
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Post by Tom Maneiro on Oct 31, 2007 10:45:26 GMT -5
Mine is a v7.1, but i need one of those hacked BIOSes that enable overclocking... because, almost no PCCRAP M7xx board cannot be overclocked.... And i've read that those crappy Celerons are good candidates for overclocking. Also PCCRAP sells "overclocked" boards: later revisions of the M810 board (an Athlon/Duron) came with a soldered 1GHz Duron, OVERCLOCKED to 1.3GHz, with a really bad heatsink/fan combo. It's not rare that the average lifespan of a M810 does not exceed 2 years... I got one of those, and recently, i gave it to a "AMD-fanboy" that STILLS think that he can make that board to boot again! (yea, right :  Since i don't have DDR266 sticks, i had no reason to keep that board... |
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Post by Tom Maneiro on Nov 3, 2007 17:48:58 GMT -5
Another friday just came... and went quickly. But this one was not a normal Friday! Yes, it's time for another.... SERVICE NIGHTTM!- The PCCRAP M755 is back from the workshop, with new* capacitors. Unfortunately, it's awfully sloooooooooooooow! Guess that, since we can't do overclocking here, that huge Foxconn fancooler is not needed at all...  System is now known as "Kotaro", and will serve as a backup for Saki, in case if something goes bad (but even Saki is faster than that piece of crap called "Celeron"... I have PC133 sticks, so i need to find a REAL PIII somewhere) - Let's flash that sucker! All rich kids on the block flash their uber-l33t boxes with Uniflash, but...  ... with latest BIOS (one from May 2002), the onboard NIC no longer works... and even worse, Uniflash failed to flash the bootblock of this BIOS. Fortunately, i had made a backup just before the experiments, so after 12 failed bootblock flash attempts, everything was working again... Now, open wide your eyes, and SCREAM like a litte girl! Another treasure from the lab was just discovered... an Universal Programmer! (aka ROM burner/dumper). In fact, we found TWO programmers and two EPROM erasers. Say hello to the "Hi-Lo Systems ALL-03"!   Unfortunately, there was no manual and/or software inside the box, but again, Google can save your ass. After some CD-RW madness, it's showtime for this baby! Since this is 1990's hardware, we need a 1990s box, so i picked one of those random 486 IBM boxes. First, plug your SAC-201 adapter card (if you lose yours, you can always make your own, see the link):  ... and plug that fat 25-pin cable to the card and your gray box...  ... and you're done!  The software has some problems to detect the box, but finally it works. Due to the lack of time, experiments will be performed later, but at least, the thing seems to be OK. SEGA carts, get ready to be dumped! ;D ;D ;D (once i read the manual of this crap) ---- THE HORROR TALE OF THE WEEKTMsponsored by G-Luxon explosive Taiwanese low-ESR caps5 inflated caps out of 9! All were manufactured by Luxon, an Taiwanese company, using the (in)famous leaked Nichicon formula (without the "stabilizer" ingredient). That ex-Nichicon engineer that stole and sold the (incomplete) formula must be treated like a terrorist, and must be put in the "Most Wanted"/"Seek and KILL" lists of the CIA and the FBI, because replacing hundreds of millions of defective caps is NOT fun!   *The replacements were not new, but more G-Luxon crap from some random M748s... At least they looked OK. |
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Post by paulpsomiadis on Nov 3, 2007 18:54:07 GMT -5
You lucky LUCKY swine!
Is the other one for sale?
First dibs if it is!
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Post by Tom Maneiro on Nov 3, 2007 19:04:19 GMT -5
Both programmers are from my university, so they're "National Assets" (AKA "NOT FOR SALE"), so you're out of luck  We have lots of rare stuff: shitloads of 74LSxx chips (used on Digital Circuits practices), some oscilloscopes (gathering dust for no good reason), those programmers, transistor testers... and lots of stuff that, due to the courses content (and phantom professors), will NEVER EVER be used...  It's a shame, because the students of Informatic Engineering (the only users of this lab) could learn some cool stuff. But this is the third world, so we can do nothing (except enjoy those programmers for some hacking/homebrew development ;D) |
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Post by paulpsomiadis on Nov 4, 2007 18:49:21 GMT -5
WHEEEE! ;D
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Post by GiGaBiTe on Nov 9, 2007 4:42:47 GMT -5
I finally managed to get my hands on some old ass point of sale terminals (they were totally fried, but the CPUs, RAM and one hard drive were still in very good condition.)
Parts List:
1 x AM486 DX/2 80 MHz
1 x AM486 DX/4 133 MHz
1 x Fujitsu 4.3 GB ATA66 drive
5 x 8 MB 72 pin SIMMs
I also got my hands on an old Dell Pentium pro 200 MHz box that's pure SCSI which is rather odd. Though back in the day when it was brand new, it was priced at around $5000.
Now that I swapped the 120 out with the 133 in my old 486 box, it runs much better because the PCI cards aren't bitching about the 40 MHz bus speed and having stability issues. The fuji drive didn't seem to have any bad sectors despite it's years of tortured use in an under cooled system.
I'm currently installing Windows 98 on it and going to use it for an old DOS gaming machine.
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Post by Tom Maneiro on Nov 10, 2007 14:28:21 GMT -5
Newsflash!* After some fixes (it's always nice to have a spare parts box, and some random AT cases around the room), Kotaro (the PCCRAP M755 box) was sold! I decided that a Celeron 700 is way too slow to do something useful, and since finding a PIII over here is almost impossible... At least those $60 that i got for it will be useful for something, like a new HD for Saki (however, HDs are no longer cheap here: a 80-gig Samsung drive costs up to $110 here! Also, it's damn difficult to find a brand-new IDE drive on local stores ) The money shot ;D  Tip: Want a quick sale? Do your university force your people to program in Linux? Preload Knoppix in your box, and advertise it as having "Linux with lots of apps". It's an instant hit, you can get rid of that box in less of 2 days! (i got a buyer in only two hours! there is a lot of Informatic students that need a system like this for their "GPL-powered" homework)* Anyone here tried to fit an OEM Intel PIII fancooler on a Socket-7 board? IT's ANNOYING HARD! Their clip is too rigid, and if you try to force it, you may end breaking the socket! (due to small but noticeable width differernces between sockets) The solution? Get a clip from those cheap Socket-7 fancoolers, swap it, and enjoy your improved Socket-370-to-7(tm) cooling solution! Now Saki's CPU should not melt, despite being ON 24/5 on one of the hottest places of the world... * Personal HD blacklist: added WD Protégé to the list. No need to say more about this. Got one that is still alive? Backup and BURN! * RAGNAROK Project status: audio rips: almost done, raws: stuck Not good  * ROM dumping news: I was playing with that Hi-Lo ALL-03 programmer in the lab (dumping every BIOS FlashROM that i found floating around the lab), and these are the results: - I can dump FlashROMs (29xxxx), using an 27xxxx EEPROM dumping program, but i have no way to flash them back (so there is no way for revive dead motherboards, except the hot-flashing with Uniflash ) Anyone have a 29xxxx FlashROM utility for the ALL-03? - I can dump and write standard EEPROMs (27xxxx) with no problems. Anyone wants a boot ROM for a NatSemi AT/LANTIC NIC? Or a VGA BIOS for a Realtek ISA videocard? - I can also dump mask ROMs, but if you don't have pinouts... it will be like a shot in the dark Next stage: pirate Sega carts! I WANT MY MTV FLASHCART!!! 
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Post by GiGaBiTe on Nov 10, 2007 22:16:39 GMT -5
Lol, you can't even give a Celeron 700 away here, way too old and slow. But, I have done something along the lines of using the wrong heatsink. I've used an Athlon XP cooler on an AMD K6/2 and it kept the CPU a few degrees under room temperature (70-80F)
Another note on my 486, even though it's a PCCrap M939, I managed to slightly overclock the 133 MHz to 160 MHz (40 x 4) and it ran pretty good. I don't think the PCI slots like being run at 40 MHz though (I can't really test if the PCI clock is different from the bus clock, so can't be completely sure.)
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Post by paulpsomiadis on Nov 29, 2007 23:57:48 GMT -5
Yo! @tom - you checked your P.M.s lately...
...might be something important in there!
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Post by Tom Maneiro on Nov 30, 2007 11:42:05 GMT -5
Nice! ;D I was playing with the 386SX yesterday... had to fix some PSU wiring (loose joints and such crap), and installed a CD burner, just for fun (my old AOpen CRW4850 OEM). Also i had to clean the soundcard jacks (lots of crap inside, leading to missing channels and/or no sound). I'm thinking in replace that Crystal soundcrap for a SB16 (there are LOTS of spares in the lab), because that SRS-thing sounds really awful! That Quantum SCSI disk is plain crazy! I first thinked that was dead, but i've discovered that the PSU cable had some loose wires (read the first paragraph of this post again). After fixing it, and after some failed boot attempts (this Acer motherboard can be a real pain when you touch something inside), the drive was working again... sort of... List of attempts made with the Quantum SCSI crap: 1) Managed to delete a directory, had to shutdown PC to replace case (BIG mistake!) 2) Frozen PC at My Computer display 3) IDEM 4) IDEM 5) Got errors when listing a directory 6) Passed a quick ScanDisk, then froze in the middle of a surface scan 7) Frozen at the beginning of a quick ScanDisk 8) Same as 5) 9) Where is my hammer power button? Damn, i need to install Linux on this poor box! (and get rid of that gay 504MB limit!) That old Samsung 2-gig drive is solely waiting for this experiment ;D Aside of that, everything is working OK inside Marika.... TODOs for Marika (AcerMate 333S)
- Rip a disk image of the system HD!!!
- Rip a disk image of the system HD!!!
- RIP A DISK IMAGE OF THE SYSTEM HD!!!!
- More RAM
- SoundBlaster 16 or better
- Linux
- Linux
- LINUX(tm)!!!
News about the Hi-Lo programmers: In a unfortunate "Grand Theft Auto" incident (a normal thing here in Venezuela for anyone that owns a car), the programmer featured in this post was stolen We still have the other one, but i don't know if it still works or not. Anyway, we need to be VERY careful with this one! Surely the university will NOT buy another dozen of these if we miss this one |
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Post by paulpsomiadis on Nov 30, 2007 23:01:17 GMT -5
If you left it in the SEAT of the car...well, what can I say.
If it was in the glove box...hmm - at least it was hidden...
If it was in the BOOT - then I hope they lynch the swine who stole it!
As for making a HD image - temporarily remove the HDD and put it in a Pentium (or better) system. Rip the HDD image and put the HDD back.
Fast, efficient and more importantly - DONE!
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Since i don't have DDR266 sticks, i had no reason to keep that board...
