Show off your old and retro computer parts

[Average Nerd]

Both of the Toshiba Tecra M5s that I bought yesterday are now cleaned and operational.

Spoiler

 

I still need to track down a charger for them, until then, I'll continue to charge them from my bench power supply that they're currently sitting in front/on top of.

Both are equipped with a Core 2 Duo T2300, a NVIDIA Quadro NVS 110M and 1024 MB of RAM, though one of them had to borrow a 512 MB module from a HP laptop, because with just 1 module it was unbearably slow.

 

And at least the one with Chrome on it can access the internet with no problems whatsoever.

[SimplyChunk]

3 hours ago, Average Nerd said:

Both of the Toshiba Tecra M5s that I bought yesterday are now cleaned and operational.

  Hide contents

 

I still need to track down a charger for them, until then, I'll continue to charge them from my bench power supply that they're currently sitting in front/on top of.

Both are equipped with a Core 2 Duo T2300, a NVIDIA Quadro NVS 110M and 1024 MB of RAM, though one of them had to borrow a 512 MB module from a HP laptop, because with just 1 module it was unbearably slow.

 

And at least the one with Chrome on it can access the internet with no problems whatsoever.

Do they use the same charger as the M7?  I have one floating about somewhere

[da na]

2 minutes ago, SimplyChunk said:

Do they use the same charger as the M7?  I have one floating about somewhere

Most all of Toshiba's laptops use a generic barrel jack also by Lenovo, Fujitsu, Compaq, Acer, Panasonic, and Asus.

[Average Nerd]

1 minute ago, SimplyChunk said:

Do they use the same charger as the M7?  I have one floating about somewhere

In terms of power they need 15V at 5A, and they use this connector:

 

[da na]

2 minutes ago, Average Nerd said:

In terms of power they need 15V at 5A, and they use this connector:

 

Very smart to use the VGA port for ground. 

You could make your own charger quite easily - they're rated for 15v but they'll take at least 25v with no problem. You could snip the connector off another laptop charger and solder on that barrel connector; that's a relatively common size used by small appliances, just at an above-typical voltage.

[Average Nerd]

Just now, da na said:

barrel connector; that's a relatively common size used by small appliances, just at an above-typical voltage.

This one doesn't fit any of the barrel connectors that I have, it's way bigger (generic barrel connector for scale).

 

[Bitter]

You know what I'm going to pull out my old Dell with it's Pentium M to see if it still boots. I had it out to see if I had a SSD in it, I do not. It's weird tho, PATA HDD but SATA optical but it can't hold the boot loader on the SATA HDD in the optical to 2.5 adapter for some reason so I have GRUB on the PATA and just point to the SATA in the optical bay. I can't believe how long I used it for, I'll check some file dates. Having just one core is what crippled it, but the screen was pretty terrible too. Good speakers tho, seems like everyone forgot how to put speakers on laptops.

[Kilrah]

There are adapter sets from the most standard 5.5x2.1 to everything, good thing to have. 

 

e.g. https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005004289665223.html

[da na]

11 minutes ago, Bitter said:

You know what I'm going to pull out my old Dell with it's Pentium M to see if it still boots. I had it out to see if I had a SSD in it, I do not. It's weird tho, PATA HDD but SATA optical but it can't hold the boot loader on the SATA HDD in the optical to 2.5 adapter for some reason so I have GRUB on the PATA and just point to the SATA in the optical bay. I can't believe how long I used it for, I'll check some file dates. Having just one core is what crippled it, but the screen was pretty terrible too. Good speakers tho, seems like everyone forgot how to put speakers on laptops.

Very weird, I always see it the other way around - ATA optical w/ SATA hard drive. 

 

[8tg]

Micron transport inspection, to figure out why it’s turning off at random when trying to start, but when it fully boots, it stays on

 

this is one of those “can I get this back together” projects

this is as far as it got, then it harsh shutdown 

 

the danger zone

this actually wasn’t that bad, just a lot of different fasteners to keep track of 

 

I thought it might’ve been this, damage to a 5v wire from sprue on the ide pcb, I cut the sprue off the pcb, put tape over the wire, retried to start and it did the same thing 

so I think my culprit is this, the power delivery board 

However I can find zero things visually wrong with it and I don’t have the tools to see if some component on it has failed 

I may just replace the capacitors and see if that fixes it

 

[8tg]

Right back at square one except I now have 2 extra screws 

it took a few attempts again to get it to even try and start 

and forgot to plug in the trackpad

i am done for tonight I’ll try again in the future 

 

[Average Nerd]

13 hours ago, da na said:

they're rated for 15v but they'll take at least 25v with no problem.

The manual says it only accepts up to 16,5V before throwing an error, I guess I'll just track down a 15V power supply and a 6,3x3 barrel connector and make a charger out of that.

[Dabombinable]

21 hours ago, SimplyChunk said:

To be honest I assumed it was USB 1.1.  I'll pull it out after a few tests.  I did have a 2 port Hi Speed USB card in there before and it seemed fine.  But i was also running from an old dying ATA HDD then too so may not have attributed any slowdown to the USB.  But Quake ran superrr smooth on it with the card installed in software or hardware mode.  

 

On a side note though...reading the post you linked from vogons..my old super socket 7 failed misserably at Quake with a K6-2 so that might be why.  I'll bear it in mind while i test

Some boards don't have any performance impacts if USB is unused (https://www.vogons.org/viewtopic.php?f=46&t=96663), however with just a mouse plugged (legacy USB support enabled) in you could see a 5% or greater impact - some were OK with USB enabled but not in use.

It took a while for me to get those results, and they were running the benchmark under my Windows ME boot floppy, so no USB drivers.

[SimplyChunk]

3 hours ago, Dabombinable said:

Some boards don't have any performance impacts if USB is unused (https://www.vogons.org/viewtopic.php?f=46&t=96663), however with just a mouse plugged (legacy USB support enabled) in you could see a 5% or greater impact - some were OK with USB enabled but not in use.

It took a while for me to get those results, and they were running the benchmark under my Windows ME boot floppy, so no USB drivers.

Did you observe a coalition between boards that had onboard USB and boards that didn't?  I'm wondering if that could be the culprit

[SirUgachaka]

Had this for a while. 

[da na]

4 minutes ago, SirUgachaka said:

Had this for a while. 

Wait is that... a fake GeForce 9800? 

Incredible. Had no clue the scam cards went back that far

[SirUgachaka]

2 minutes ago, da na said:

Wait is that... a fake GeForce 9800? 

Incredible. Had no clue the scam cards went back that far

Got it from work a few years back.

[Bitter]

20 hours ago, da na said:

Very weird, I always see it the other way around - ATA optical w/ SATA hard drive. 

 

Believe me, I was confused too.

[Dabombinable]

8 hours ago, SimplyChunk said:

Did you observe a coalition between boards that had onboard USB and boards that didn't?  I'm wondering if that could be the culprit

These all have onboard USB, no add-in card (they'd do nothing at all under DOS anyway). The Intel SE440BX-2 only saw performance impacted with the mouse plugged in, the Jetway 994AN-L (the slowest Apollo Pro 133A board ever made - period) saw it with USB just enabled. I have a BabyAT Apollo Pro board now that I could test with as well as my Asus P2L97 (440LX). Can't use my GA-5AA as I accidently shorted a mosfet while checking voltages.

Honestly, got to keep in mind that USB will have a performance impact in addition to how well a board is designed. 12-13% in sysmark for these slot 1 boards and 25-30% in games:
https://web.archive.org/web/20050214185451/http://www.thg.ru/mainboard/20000410/via_ap133a-27.html

 

Images are gone on both the original and archive version
Really want to correct them on 994 not being able to accept PIII (it runs everything that fits except Tualatin). Many years too late however.

[SimplyChunk]

4 hours ago, Dabombinable said:

Really want to correct them on 994 not being able to accept PIII (it runs everything that fits except Tualatin). Many years too late however.

I might have to pick up a Tualatin and a Coppermine PIII at some point just to try it then.  I read that my revision of my board won't take them but perhaps they will after all.  I've always stuck with what the manual says.  I know it said later revisions of the board will take Coppermine.  Not sure about Tualatin though .  My CPU is a Katmai 450

[da na]

You all might enjoy the latest addition to my rare Pavilion collection - the DV6985 Special Edition. Very nice design, with the vertical lines on the back curving into parting blades of grass and fronds of plants. The rest of the body is a strikingly bright silver.

Spoiler

Hardware wise it's nothing too special - Core 2 Duo T5750 2000mhz/2m/667, 2x2gb, Intel GMA X3100. Does have a nice wireless card though, triple-antenna Intel 4965AGN, highest-end card of the first Centrino platform. What makes it special is the design.

Thinking of swapping the board for one of the several DV6000 Nvidia motherboards; could get a little GeForce 8000 card running in here. 

[da na]

HP DV6 Artist Edition is another lovely limited release model, with a design depicting the sky and sea in Okinawa.

Hardware-wise it's a lower-end model with an AMD Turion CPU, but the printing is beautiful.

Spoiler

 

 

Here it is next to my other 16" limited edition, the higher-end HDX 16

 

[da na]

Then there's the HP TouchSmart IQ770 - an odd media machine that I would call more smart TV than computer. It's a massive and quite sturdy all-in-one, coming in at over 40 pounds and sporting a 20" 1440x900 capacitive touch display. It's full of wonderful multimedia features (6 video input ports, optical/5.1 audio, decent 3D acceleration, good speakers, slot-loading DVD burner, IR remote, and hot-swap HDD bay) and features HP in-house software and Media Center plugins to make the best use of the system's features and touchscreen.

It runs on the very little-known AMD 64 Live! platform - similar to how Intel created the Centrino platform as a set of requirements for business laptops - but AMD's Live! was for media-centered computers (and also far less successful). Uses the nForce 630 chipset, a motherboard made by Asus, Turion 64 x2 CPU, and a GeForce 7600. 

Spoiler

Oddly enough its TV tuner hardware, a prominent feature of the machine, is a full-size Hauppage WinTV PCI card laid on its back in the bottom of the case. This caught me off guard when I first opened the system for servicing.

 

Spoiler

 

[Dabombinable]

6 hours ago, SimplyChunk said:

I might have to pick up a Tualatin and a Coppermine PIII at some point just to try it then.  I read that my revision of my board won't take them but perhaps they will after all.  I've always stuck with what the manual says.  I know it said later revisions of the board will take Coppermine.  Not sure about Tualatin though .  My CPU is a Katmai 450

Might do Coppermine. My Asus P2L97 lacks the microcode in the BIOS, but the voltage regulator goes down to 1.7V, so I can actually use my PIII 650 on it - with SSE functioning correctly (66/75/83MHz FSB).

My Intel SE440BX-2 luckily is one of the later revisions, so it supports every Slot1 CPU (in theory Cyrix/Via CIII via Slotket as well). Doesn't provide much AGP power however, so no FX or Radeon 9000 series cards.

[SimplyChunk]

Dinky little test setup for Frog.  Everything works so far.  not got as far as installing soundcard drivers yet (i can't find my AWE32 driver disc at the mo) but the two CD drives work, the two floppies work and the compact flash to IDE 'thingy' works and boots.  Had to fdisk /mbr to get it to boot from the CF card but it does work.  Isn't dos driver installation fun  I've pulled out the USB card for now just while I'm mucking around in dos 6.  I'm still looking for a decent size CF card for a Windows 98 install