Recent content by iulianv

I have a faulty s754 mainboard at home with several buldged capacitors next to the CPU socket. Usually I only try to replace popped caps on boards that still POST (or at least display something), so initially I was thinking about tossing this one, as it does nothing - it gets power and spins...

I've been struggling for some time now with a Sun Netra t1 105 machine which fails POST with garbled IDPROM and NVRAM data (at first I thought the battery+crystal chip was the culprit and a new one has been ordered, but replacing it solved nothing). So far, the facts resulted from my...

I usually toss ISA modems when I get any, after scrapping anything useful from them (like EPROMs or jumpers). However, I got bored today, took a quick look through the ISA modem pile and found one I decided to keep (E-Tech PC1414UX) - unfortunately, it has no ROM chip anymore. Bottom question...

On 386 mainboards (at least on the ones I have, or have had so far) the CPU frequency is half of the frequency of the oscillator installed on the board. On some boards there is also a socket for a second oscillator, intended for a math coprocessor of a different frequency than that of the CPU...

If anyone here has the board in the attached photo (is says "VER-1.1 495SX" between the last two ISA slots), please reply. I have a couple of questions, the most important being about a few resistors that seem to have been desoldered from this board I got yesterday... Many thanks in advance.

I got four of these cards recently, and now I'm looking for information about how to set the (surprisingly low amount of) jumpers: https://sites.google.com/site/iulianvshw/other/vlb_prime2c.jpg There are four 2-pin jumpers on the left side, labelled SPSEL0-to-2 and WPSEL (with SPSEL2 and WPSEL...

I have a PPro-based IBM PC Server 325 (8639-ES0) initially purchased with 2x32MB 60ns EDO DIMMs (with IBM part-numbers), later upgraded to 4*64MB 60ns EDO DIMMs (with Compaq part-numbers) and finally upgraded (well, not quite yet) to 2*256MB 50ns EDO DIMMs (with Sun part-number 370-3799-01...

A couple of days ago a fellow collector gave me two bags full of various parts he did not need anymore after clearing his vintage inventory. Among them, the following two cards: https://sites.google.com/site/iulianvshw/other/fs559.jpg https://sites.google.com/site/iulianvshw/other/fs580b.jpg...

It seems not a day goes by without problems testing my newly acquired toy :(... Yesterday I thought about testing the floppy disk drive, since I was going to need it anyway in order to get rid of the "EISA Configuration Error" message - the problem is that no matter what drive or disk I use...

This week-end I got an old IBM PC Server 325 (PPro-based) to play with, and after two days of (dis)assembling, dusting and washing its parts almost everything is working fine. The CD-ROM however (8X SCSI) didn't seem to detect any CD (I tried 700 or 650MB, factory-made or written-at-home CD-R...

Does anyone have any idea about what machines (or mainboards) made use of a PPC604e like the one in the photos below? I'm curious whether I'll ever be able to test that CPU... Many thanks in advance. https://sites.google.com/site/iulianvshw/cpu/ppc604e_375-front.jpg...

On lots of 286 and 286 boards there is a jumper for setting the monitor type (color or monochrome). I have a board identical to this one - http://stason.org/TULARC/pc/motherboards/M/MORSE-TECHNOLOGIES-INC-386-M4-386SX.html - only on mine JP3 is just an empty placeholder (no jumper, no wire...

Many 386 boards have sockets for a second oscillator and jumpers telling the NPU to run either in sync with the CPU, or in sync with this second oscillator. What exactly does "in sync with the oscillator" mean? Does the 387 run at half the speed of the OSC (like the 386 does), or do I need a...

I've recently tested the board in the attached photo - seems to be a "MB-4DUVC model 1" - and I'm stuck with a couple of weird issues about it... http://stason.org/TULARC/pc/motherboards/A/AQUARIUS-SYSTEMS-INC-486-MB-4DUVC-MODEL-1.html First thing is that at each reboot the BIOS resets the...

I cannot seem to be able to get files whose names contain spaces using the htget tool in the latest mTCP package - I'm using 4DOS as a shell and I tried everything I could think of (enclosing the URL in "" or '' (UNIX habit I guess), escaping (CTRL-X) the spaces or replacing them with %20). I'm...