Resurrecting a Legacy X86 PC..

[Terryl]

I was going to go direct Terry ..but there are some chips inside the switch unit ..and they need power ..
hence the hack-up..
Yep it is a PIII ...on that mobo ..but no way I can ID the board ...
Which is why it might be quite rare..

There is an FCC stamp on it,(between the AGP and first PCI slot) the model number may be inside that.

Or it also can be on the bar code sticker, if you have a bar code scan app for a phone it may reveal something.

And you have looked on the bottom side right?

 

[Vipersan]

Yep ..that did the trick ..
cut wire 14 ...which presumably is CS ...and it works just fine..

 

[Terryl]

Another issue with the IDE switch ..
There are only 2 ide to drive cables ..where there should be 3 ...
A standard UDMA cable wont do the job ..
Closer examination of the 2 I have show a cut out section in the ribbon length ..
I suspect this is to isolate ' cable select ' ..so will have to mod one of my own ..
doh!

Only two???? I thought there were 3 when I repacked it, I will look on the bench, if that is so then I will have some words with the vendor.....

 

[Channel Hopper]

A qick search found this ..
MS-6183 | Motherboard - The world leader in motherboard design | MSI Global
MSI grrrr

Only found one on fleabay ..complete with CPU in the states ...
Approx £30..
So not that rare afterall..
lol

You seem to have raided the skip I threw everything in that I didn't ship to you a couple of years ago. I must have binned about 20 PIIs /P IIIs and mobos to make some space, keeping only the Compaq and one other complete machine.

 

[Terryl]

If I had kept everything that I run into over the years I would have had to build a second barn.

I sent a ton of stuff to the recycler's when I moved out of the SF bay area to the ranch, didn't have the room on the truck.

 

[Vipersan]

Time for a break and a bit of Tele' ....
Only Win 95 in..so far ...so I figured it would be a good time to post up a couple of pix of Chameleon MKII So far ..

 

[2cvbloke]

I know you ID'd the board already, but, there in your picture, between the PCI slots, it's the model number above the VER:1 bit:



And yes, ugh, MSI, if it does still work, you do indeed have a rare thing, an MSI board that still works after 3 years...

 

[Vipersan]

You seem to have raided the skip I threw everything in that I didn't ship to you a couple of years ago. I must have binned about 20 PIIs /P IIIs and mobos to make some space, keeping only the Compaq and one other complete machine.

Pity CH ..
You could have done a roaring trade in retro PC tech ..
A working Soyo motherboard for example would command a pretty price in excess of £100 these days ..
One mad p1llock is asking close to a grand for one of the rarer sought after types ..
Soyo SY-7VBA133U socket 370 motherboard 5PCI, 2ISA, 1AGP. 3DIMM sockets. Via Chi 660475075257 | eBay

 

[Vipersan]

I know you ID'd the board already, but, there in your picture, between the PCI slots, it's the model number above the VER:1 bit:

View attachment 107724

And yes, ugh, MSI, if it does still work, you do indeed have a rare thing, an MSI board that still works after 3 years...

LOL ...indeed I do ..
and yes that is where I found the paper sticker ..just didn't spot it 'till later ..
old eyes u c
dont think it was an official sticker ...but someone had covered it up at some point in its life..
Perhaps they were ashamed it was an MSI

 

[2cvbloke]

Perhaps they were ashamed it was an MSI

I know I would be, I've owned a a few that failed horribly (mostly bad caps, one a failed Southbridge, another just decided not to be alive), and the amount of them that I had to replace at the computer shop, terrible, an ASrock is an upgrade from them, and they're low-budget cheap boards (I still have one in my Core2Duo system, forgot the model though), it's amazing MSI still exist...

 

[Vipersan]

I know I would be, I've owned a a few that failed horribly (mostly bad caps, one a failed Southbridge, another just decided not to be alive), and the amount of them that I had to replace at the computer shop, terrible, an ASrock is an upgrade from them, and they're low-budget cheap boards (I still have one in my Core2Duo system, forgot the model though), it's amazing MSI still exist...

Shhhhh ...
Don't tell Chris !!
;)

 

[2cvbloke]

I think he already knows...

My Pc Upgrade

 

[Channel Hopper]

Pity CH ..
You could have done a roaring trade in retro PC tech ..
A working Soyo motherboard for example would command a pretty price in excess of £100 these days ..
One mad p1llock is asking close to a grand for one of the rarer sought after types ..
Soyo SY-7VBA133U socket 370 motherboard 5PCI, 2ISA, 1AGP. 3DIMM sockets. Via Chi 660475075257 | eBay

I can't believe anyone would seriously pay out for a 10-15 year old mobo , when the money would cover a spanking new complete PC.
Why ?

 

[Vipersan]

I can't believe anyone would seriously pay out for a 10-15 year old mobo , when the money would cover a spanking new complete PC.
Why ?

Yep ..it's crazy ..
but like the comback of vinyl ....or some pointy faced .. piggy eyed...bint lurking around the tip ..to grab anything she can to turn into ...A LAMP ...
Retro is the new 'black'..
Higgs knows why ..but folk are seriously getting into it ..big time.
;)
..one thing I will say ..
retro tech was built to be repaired ..and to last ..
not like modern day shyte..
built to fail ..and throw away..

 

[Channel Hopper]

Yep ..it's crazy ..
but like the comback of vinyl ....or some pointy faced .. piggy eyed...bint lurking around the tip ..to grab anything she can to turn into ...A LAMP ....

I was about to self harm when I caught five minutes of that programme last week, luckily I found the remote control.

 

[Archive-8]

I was about to self harm when I caught five minutes of that programme last week, luckily I found the remote control.

I think I would have done, lucky you have that remote.

 

[Vipersan]

Well I guess my chips are well and truely p1ssed on ..
Got 2 seperate drives in sporting Win95B and Win98SE ..
..and what should have been easy was the installation of Win2000 and XPpro..
For these I wanted to multiboot a 200gb IDE drive ..
100gb per partition..
Spent many hours trying to work out why this was not possible..
Finally finding a likely reason..
The Fffing bios doesn't appear to support such a large (tis to larrf) hard drive..
Restricted to 12ogb max ..it would seem
Ok ..I was all ready to flash the bios ...but the Award util claims I have the most recent..
..and ASUS has nothing later..so I'm stuffed..
I guess I could try 3 drives of 120 gb each ...which would give more OS space ..assuming 98 (fat32) can coexist with NTFS on a dual boot drive ..
More expense buying 3 x 120 gb IDE drives ..and no guarantee of success ..
This project is fun up to a point ..but now it is just bl@@dy infuriating..
On a lighter note ...the 1 Love concert was superb ...and I took time off to watch it all..
rgds
VS

 

[Terryl]

And how much hair did you loose and can you send it to me, snail mail would work.

 

[Archive-8]

And how much hair did you loose and can you send it to me, snail mail would work.

You could always fax it

 

[davemurgtroyd]

Has anyone tried a CF card for booting a PC? I kmow it is done on Amigas and I have found a 32GB card and was thinkig of using it alongside a 120GB SSD and a couple of HDDs in my multiboot tower project.The tower already has a SCSI card fitted and have a spare PCI SATA card so there probably won't be a shortage of drive options and now just have to work out which will be bootable