Show off your old and retro computer parts

[da na]

29 minutes ago, vf1000ride said:

So I decided to put together an old system I had sitting around.  Everything in the build is dated from 2006 or 2007 except a pair of the noctua fans.  I just don't have any older fans that still work and even the cpu cooler is not sounding great but it just looks so cool sitting in there.  It boots into bios and it's detecting everything.  Now just to find my windows XP disk and see if I can load an OS on it.

 

Specs;

Zalman FC-ZE1 case

Zalman CNPS9500 cooler

EVGA 780I motherboard (132-ck-nf78-a1)

Intel Q-6600 CPU

A-data DDr2 800mhz, 2x1gig sticks

EVGA Nvidia 8800GT video card. (single slot, woohoo)

Antec Truepower II 550watt powersupply

WD 250gig hard drive.

some random dvd drive that the label peeled off.

 

Awesome. I have the XFX nForce 780i SLI board and it's my absolute favorite out of my whole collection - excellent overclocker.

Great looking system!

[Dabombinable]

This was one of the cheapest Socket A boards that I saw on Ebay. And only missing the 40 conductor IDE cable. As luck would have it I have a lot of replacement 1500uf caps for the blown Sanyo (board should still post however):

 

 

 

Athlon XP 1800+ under the heatsink, and 1GB mismatched DDR400. One stick labelled "July 2003".

[Dabombinable]

I am shocked. It's a Palomino Athlon XP with what appears to be all the mods. Whomever had this board and CPU knew what they were doing - went beyond what I can do:

Also means that the board+heatsink can handle my Duron 1300, and might be good for unlocking the L2 cache.

[Average Nerd]

Belkin PS2 KVM Switch.

Sadly I don't have all of the cables, just one of them, but it does still work.

 

 

Edited January 30 by Average Nerd
Better picture with the cables in the right place

[Beerzerker]

Here's one I have with an identity crisis.....
At least I know it's a 775 chip.

 

[Average Nerd]

10 minutes ago, Beerzerker said:

Here's one I have with an identity crisis.....
At least I know it's a 775 chip.

 

 

Can you test it? Because I'm curious what it actually is.

I'm leaning towards 3,4GHz, because that one's "complete"

[Beerzerker]

9 minutes ago, Average Nerd said:

Can you test it? Because I'm curious what it actually is.

I'm leaning towards 3,4GHz, because that one's "complete"

Not ATM, I'd have to setup a 775 machine, load an OS and see what it really is according to CPU-Z.
As far as I know it should work but the machine it came out of ( A Dell PC) doesn't.
Keeps giving the 1-3-2 beep thing.

[Bitter]

Either a P4 540 or a P4 550, weird. Never seen one double marked like that. My guess is it got re-binned as a 540 but after the IHS was bonded, since it was a bulk sale to Dell they figured it was never getting pulled I guess? It's the same serial under both but appended with a T at the end.

Probably won't get a reply but might be fun to email Intel and ask about it.

[Average Nerd]

18 minutes ago, Beerzerker said:

Keeps giving the 1-3-2 beep thing.

Dell provides a list of POST codes for their machines, maybe that will help: https://www.dell.com/support/kbdoc/en-us/000124349/understanding-beep-codes-on-a-dell-desktop-pc

[Beerzerker]

9 minutes ago, Average Nerd said:

Dell provides a list of POST codes for their machines, maybe that will help: https://www.dell.com/support/kbdoc/en-us/000124349/understanding-beep-codes-on-a-dell-desktop-pc

Thank you for trying to help but I've already found that - It's not the RAM at fault, being that beep code indicates a RAM fault.
I found a swollen cap in the board around the area where the sticks are and that's probrably it. The board is not worth fixing in itself but the chip, being good or not is a different matter.

Will have to try it before long.

[Kilrah]

After really extensive repairs the Quaderno lives and is fully working, albeit with a slightly damaged LCD...

 

Now to back up the HDD contents... seems my only option is interlink, so first try to find out why it doesn't work. Well the COM port is disabled by default in the BIOS, and while I've seen the full BIOS setup page once I can only get it to show me the time/date adjustment... No manual around unfortunately, so got stuck until I thought of looking for BIOS combos for other Olivetti machines, but that gave me a result, Shift-Ctrl-Alt-Del and it worked.

So then install DOS 6.22 from floppies on another machine with an easily accessible drive slot I can throw a fresh CF in and take >1h to transfer 18MB...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Dabombinable]

14 hours ago, Beerzerker said:

Here's one I have with an identity crisis.....
At least I know it's a 775 chip.

 

It'd be either the P4 650 or 651 since it's 3.4GHz and LGA775. If you are lucky it'll be the 651 - which is far better being 65nm. Either that or it is an engineering sample. Can't make heads or tales of the spec numbers - it shouldn't have double ups and should clearly say what model.

Edit: Bingo, clicked the image to view it closer and found it.
https://www.cpu-world.com/CPUs/Pentium_4/Intel-Pentium 4 550-550J 3.4 GHz - JM80547PG0961M (BX80547PG3400E).html
 

I've got the next model down somewhere - the 540J. Early (and worst) Prescott.

[Beerzerker]

8 hours ago, Dabombinable said:

It'd be either the P4 650 or 651 since it's 3.4GHz and LGA775. If you are lucky it'll be the 651 - which is far better being 65nm. Either that or it is an engineering sample. Can't make heads or tales of the spec numbers - it shouldn't have double ups and should clearly say what model.

Edit: Bingo, clicked the image to view it closer and found it.
https://www.cpu-world.com/CPUs/Pentium_4/Intel-Pentium 4 550-550J 3.4 GHz - JM80547PG0961M (BX80547PG3400E).html
 

I've got the next model down somewhere - the 540J. Early (and worst) Prescott.

Yes, it's a Prescott chip and had one of my teammates explain it's a chip that was originally binned as a 3.4 chip, but for some reason it failed the final checking process and was downgraded to a 3.2 chip.
That's why it's double-stamped and the info off to the side is what it finally turned out to be.

These restamped chips aren't unknown and was probrably a from a batch of such sold to Dell because it came out of a Dell machine.

Will setup a 775 and see if it works or not - The machine it came from has a defective board and it's really not worth fixing (Alot of work) even though the fix itself would be simple to do (Swollen cap). 

Thing about a Dell is how they have it all crammed in the way they do and I do have another one that's similar with a good board in it.
I'll probrably part this one out and get that one running again, then make it a retro-gaming system.

I've got a few 775 chips here and can spec that system after testing this chip to see if it works or not.

BTW I've got a P4 651 Cedar Mill here and it works but it runs hotter than hell too.


 

[Dabombinable]

5 hours ago, Beerzerker said:

Yes, it's a Prescott chip and had one of my teammates explain it's a chip that was originally binned as a 3.4 chip, but for some reason it failed the final checking process and was downgraded to a 3.2 chip.
That's why it's double-stamped and the info off to the side is what it finally turned out to be.

These restamped chips aren't unknown and was probrably a from a batch of such sold to Dell because it came out of a Dell machine.

Will setup a 775 and see if it works or not - The machine it came from has a defective board and it's really not worth fixing (Alot of work) even though the fix itself would be simple to do (Swollen cap). 

Thing about a Dell is how they have it all crammed in the way they do and I do have another one that's similar with a good board in it.
I'll probrably part this one out and get that one running again, then make it a retro-gaming system.

I've got a few 775 chips here and can spec that system after testing this chip to see if it works or not.

BTW I've got a P4 651 Cedar Mill here and it works but it runs hotter than hell too.


 

That 651 should still run cooler than the 540J (since that is what it was down-binned to). They were called Preshot for a very good reason. TBH I think they ran hotter than Northwood (at least earlier example).

[SimplyChunk]

Mirror from latest purchases:

 

Ok so finally gotten round to checking my haul from the 'weird' shop in Bexley.  It's a hair saloon that also sells retro PC parts..(though i'm sure the Dude in there thinks his stuff is bang up to date.  Paid just £50 for this little lot.

 

 

3 internal Floppy drives.  One External USB floppy drive and an unopened pack of 10 Floppies.

 

 

Unopened 32 Bit PCI Soundcard (hoping for better SoftMPU support on this one over my AWE 64.  Though I'm not holding out for great DOS 6.22 support on it)

 

and a Hercules CD Writer (IDE) It also has a USB connector coming out of the back of it to power the various flash card readers in the front of it.

 

and finally my favorite

 

 

These work though the pots could do with being cleaned/replaced.  I think they're gonna look perfect on my Retro rig Frog

 

yeah the shop is just a treasure trove of stuff like this.  Like i said by day it's a unisex hair saloon.  At night it's an internet cafe.  There are cupboards and cupboards of stuff like this in there too.  I could spend hours just diving through it all

[luckybob77]

OMG...  I want that CD drive.  

 

it will go right next to my 3.5" floppy drive that also has a built-in card reader.

 

I just love "stupid" items like that.  

[Beerzerker]

On 1/30/2024 at 11:25 PM, Beerzerker said:

Here's one I have with an identity crisis.....
At least I know it's a 775 chip.

 

 

UPDATE:
Repaired the board in the system it came out of this morning (I was Bored), cleaned it up and tested - It's working!

The system BIOS shows it as being a 3.2 chip so the info off to the right is correct.

ADDITIONAL:
And this is the system it came out of.




 

[frozensun]

Hi guys.

For long time I have this issue with this retro PC which I don't want to throw away.

Usually I don't get any pic at all on monitor and sometimes it works perfectly normal.

Slight move on case and issues again.

As you can see this plastic which hold bracket of graphics card is broken, but graphics card is firmlly in place though there is a lot of move up and down around AGP socket.

I tried different card same issue.

But at frist power on I got one long and 3 short beeps.

The mobo is Soyo.

What can I do to stop having this issue?

Yeah I cod drill the hole on bracket and put screw in it but would require a lot of work and I would need to remove the MoBo because I dont want pieces of metal around MoBo.

 

20240218_152147.jpg

[frozensun]

Here as it is...

20240218_152255.jpg

[luckybob77]

"though there is a lot of move up and down around AGP socket."

 

can you elaborate on this?  

[Kilrah]

Little haul of old stuff...

Intel board with a P3 866 and 512GB SDRAM, MSI board with a Northwood P4 2.66 and 1.5GB DDR, Geforce MX440, Matrox G450, Firewire card, 3com 10/100 Ethernet card and a Conexant modem 

Everything works other than the MSI board unfortunately, it turns the PSU on and the fan spins but no other sign of life. Had to replace the fan on the Geforce, seems someone sprayed something in it probably because it got noisy, and that caused it to turn into a completely solid block of rust like I've never seen before.

 

 

[da na]

56 minutes ago, Kilrah said:

Little haul of old stuff...

Intel board with a P3 866 and 512GB SDRAM, MSI board with a Northwood P4 2.66 and 1.5GB DDR, Geforce MX440, Matrox G450, Firewire card, 3com 10/100 Ethernet card and a Conexant modem 

Everything works other than the MSI board unfortunately, it turns the PSU on and the fan spins but no other sign of life. Had to replace the fan on the Geforce, seems someone sprayed something in it probably because it got noisy, and that caused it to turn into a completely solid block of rust like I've never seen before.

 

 

 

 

Did you microwave a HDD platter and set it on your desk?

 

 

 

[Kilrah]

2 hours ago, da na said:

Did you microwave a HDD platter and set it on your desk?

Smol incident with a roll of LED strip, of the kind of "this must not be run without unrolling but it'll just be a couple minutes", get distracted by something and an hour later of it drawing 70W, well...

 

 

 

[da na]

20 minutes ago, Kilrah said:

Smol incident with a roll of LED strip, of the kind of "this must not be run without unrolling but it'll just be a couple minutes", get distracted by something and an hour later of it drawing 70W, well...

 

 

 

 

I'm in no place to judge, having personally melted my plastic table with a halogen lamp

[Bitter]

5 hours ago, da na said:

Did you microwave a HDD platter and set it on your desk?

 

 

 

I was going to guess took "burning a CD" too literally.