The (now the death of) Dolby DP600 Build (BEYOND COOL BUT PIC HEAVY)

[Topcat]

Re: The (now the death of) Dolby DP600 Build (OK, this one is BEYOND COOL)

Played around with this some today.....a few of the first 'permanent' modifications have been made....no turning back now!!

A 5U enclosure.....use your imagination for now!!



A 7U cover plate....this one will make a little more sense as you scroll down.



The faceplate removed from the former Sencore 'transport streamer'....





All I was after was the support frame behind the fascia/panel.... The support frame will be modified for my needs, the old face/panel will be discarded.



Now I had to remove all the parts I had stored in the old Dolby DP600.....



Inspite of the big rack, there's no way I can delete the Dolby unit from this build....but with this revised design, it wasn't even considered.....hint: I hope you've been counting "U's"....





Now for the next mod....this will no longer be used/needed as a SBC. The backplane and backplane tray have been removed and now its time to remove the card slot bracket. This is riveted in. I drilled out as many as I could from the inside of the case, but the ones along the bottom & left side edges were not accessible for drilling and had to be ground from the outside with a dremel.

Top & right side edges drilled out.





Bottom & left edges ground off.



The rivets then driven out with a punch & hammer.



Removed.



The fans that were once in the midplane will be moved to the outside rear. The pics below are just the fans sitting there. Permanent fitment will require a little more modding, which was not done today....but you'll get the idea.





Now, the 2 units were drilled in the corners and attached to eachother.







Yea baby!



If nothing else, I made a mess and had some fun!



More to come!!

[momaka]

Re: The (now the death of) Dolby DP600 Build (OK, this one is BEYOND COOL)

There's still MUCH MUCH more to come.....so those who give a shit, stay tuned....those who don't, I hope you're on a dialup with all these pics!!

I'm still following. Just quietly observing (and taking notes??)

No slow internet here either. But viewing this on my Pentium 4 main PC in Opera 12 (which is pretty darn efficient with resources) gives the CPU a very very good exercise for a few seconds. Still no issue though.

[ratdude747]

Re: The (now the death of) Dolby DP600 Build (OK, this one is BEYOND COOL)

Anyway, so much has changed on this thing, it's been redesigned, streamlined, and expanded..... Ratdude is to blame, that rack!!

Oh, the old "blame it on Ratdude" routine... Just kidding. Glad you're enjoying it. Remember that you have a 2nd one to play with when you eventually get bored of this one!

There's still MUCH MUCH more to come.....so those who give a shit, stay tuned....those who don't, I hope you're on a dialup with all these pics!!

Good thing I have fiber at home, and whatever we have at work is also wicked fast (at least to the internet, to/from our satellite facilities out of town ("local" company network), it's a frayed can and string some days )

[Topcat]

Re: The (now the death of) Dolby DP600 Build (OK, this one is BEYOND COOL)

I had a little time today, I don't have a lot on the shop's plate....just the lul before the storm, no pun intended....as things get busy around here when the spring thunderstorms really come....

Anyway, so much has changed on this thing, it's been redesigned, streamlined, and expanded..... Ratdude is to blame, that rack!! Today's task was stripping out that old Sencore Stream processor/viewer. The internals are of absolute no use for this project....but the case is. The SBC hardware in it is actually worth a little, it'll eventually get sold off. Very solid steel, 4U, and roomy/deep....so I have a plan for it, but it'll require some pretty extensive modification.

To strip it first...These pics are more for reference if I ever decide to reassemble it outside a case later and tinker with it...

The SBC itself....to refresh your memories, it's a Pentium classic 233MMX.









All the cards.... The GPU is a Chips & Technology ISA with VGA out and some kind of proprietary internal interface (looks like a 50-pin SCSI, but obviously it's not)....and of course the proprietary controller for whatever it is this thing was intended to do...



The PICMG SBC backplane. These are standardized, and actually still used today.



PSU removed. The PSU is good. Caps are good...and it has pretty stout +5v and +3.3v rails. Good for a retro build somewhere...



backplane removed.



Backplane tray removed.





Midplane removed, which has 2x 120mm PWM fans in it.





hmmmmm......





Now for some fun! I only got the male ends of the rails with this unit....and they don't match anything I have......so they got removed. Now I have to fit some very heavy duty 4U rack rails/slides to this case that KC8ADU gave me over 10 years ago.....but of course they don't fit the mounts on this case. I chose to modify the rails versus modifying the case, as the case had a good centralized setup for mounting.

The original rail, used as a template to mark off the new rails.



The new old slides...



Marked off....



That center hole doesn't exist in the case....so I poked one hole by mistake....ohh well.



Drilled with a drill press....I dont trust myself to get them lined up right with a hand drill....and yes, the oopsie hole in the middle... Pinned in with some random screws...





These slides have a hell of a reach!





Now for the other side, rinse & repeat....except I didn't drill the oopsie hole!!





Mounted up after test fitting with the proper screws.









...and done with that mod!!




There's still MUCH MUCH more to come.....so those who give a shit, stay tuned....those who don't, I hope you're on a dialup with all these pics!!

[Topcat]

Re: The (now the death of) Dolby DP600 Build (OK, this one is BEYOND COOL)

Ok....today was just some test fitting & experimenting. I had some things I forgot I had and it's been well over a decade since I've piddled around with a rack. In my huntings, I've discovered that a lot of nifty things have come out for racks in the last decade of my absence......The last rack I worked with was ~2007 IIRC, and it was pretty straight forward servers.... Anyway....the witchcraft today and the pics that resulted from it are for fitment testing & reference only...this is a long way from any permanent state. FWIW, I dinged up the monitor a little more in this test.....it slipped when attempting to put the screw in and I dropped it.....added another scratch on the screen.... I retested it, it's still working fine...

Since I don't have the rails for these antec cases and their purpose (yes, there's another one, details further down) would not require them to be on slides (they'll remain stationary), I didn't bother wasting money on the rail kits for them. Instead, I bought just basic server shelf rails.

Tested with the mounting tabs in the plane of the case.













It then dawned on me to try them the other way (flip them over).....which worked better with the tabs on the monitor/display side....the display will clear them on the back side which then makes it not such a tight fit with both 3U's between the shelf and the roof of the rack.







Now for the second case....match to the first one. I forgot I had this, it's been sitting up in the attic in it's box since ~2008....and this discovery has changed the dynamics of this build yet again and will definitely allow for some streamlining as well as things matching better aesthetically...yea, I like stuff to look good as well as function effectively.











Nice fit!!!



Snug with the display and everything clears.





I'm tickled with that so far. The display is eye-level when standing at the rack.



Side shot. This is the first enclosed rack I've ever worked with that has removable sides like this. Stellar feature, makes working with things inside so much easier and creates room to work......this would be a godsent with a rack that's cram packed.....I'm sure this feature will prove useful at every turn on this project!



Butt shot....one of the cases has a black butt, the other has a bare metal butt.



Rear of the display.



Nice design by Antec. None of the doors interfere with eachother when they open, nor do they hit the screen (not that it matters, this panel has a few scrapes)...







Still a long way to go.....but so far so good!!





Screws!!

[Topcat]

Re: The (now the death of) Dolby DP600 Build (OK, this one is BEYOND COOL)

This is still in development.....

The latest pickup for it is a Samsung 19" rackmountable display with a native resolution of 1600x1200 (model LCDR8U19-02)! The panel is a little scuffed up, but for my needs its just fine and it was filthy cheap for what these normally go for.



I haven't had a lot of time to work on this, but it'll get done..... The parts are piling up still.

[momaka]

Re: The (now the death of) Dolby DP600 Build (OK, this one is BEYOND COOL)

This thing isn't intended to play games....

I know.
What i meant to say is those SM motherboards would just have had a much better resell value in the retro community had they included AGP slots (or PCI-E for the newer ones.)

FWIW, I do have one of those 'gray market' FX5500 PCI cards. It actually works....I played around with it in a retro rig, but it just felt strange when the rig's GPU had more RAM than the motherboard had.

Had a colleague at a previous job buy a bunch of those for a fleet of retro Pentium 3 PCs he was preparing for a retro PC LAN party. The cards worked OK... or about as good as an AGP FX5200 anyways (and those aren't really stellar performers.) The worst part about the cards he got is that they all came with ventless Sacon FZ caps, like these. I told him they'll likely need to be replaced in the future. Haven't heard from him in a few years, so maybe they haven't gone yet... or maybe he didn't want to deal with them and dumped them already. It's not like we can do retro LAN PC parties right now with Covid, lol. (Well, maybe we can outside - but good luck with that when the weather gets warm here in VA and all the mosquitoes come out.)

I can still send that old Cedarmill back if you need it....seems a shame to waste it.

I don't know what motherboard I would put it in.
I mean, I do have one Dell Dimension 5150 tower that currently has a Pentium 4 in it... but I was planning on swapping that with a Pentium D830 nuclear reactor (130 Watts of TDP lol) since I have one of those 3-pipe heatsinks that go into these Dell towers. Also recently got another Pentium D from another CL motherboard which can take a C2D CPU, so I do have a spare "better-than-a-Presshot" CPU now.

IDK, I guess with a future cap order, I might have you send it. But just going to the postal office for this CPU alone... probably not worth it. And given the amount of systems that go through your shop, I'm sure you might find a use for it faster than I will, even if just one time as a test CPU.

I cheated. I have a wirewound resistor substitution box that can handle 20w (more than enough for this)...and played around with that until I got the desired speed (happened to be 50ohm)....

o.0 you're fancy then. I just plug an adapter and play around with some loose resistors... or in the worst case, bust out my breadboard from college and take the project there if it's something more complicated. But generally, I find most fans will be happy with a series 20-100 Ohms resistor, depending on the fan, of course. Once I feed it 12V and measure the current it draws, that will usually already give me an idea of what value to try, and from there, it's maybe 5-10 minutes of tweaking to get it where I want it with different resistor combos.

and then rummaged though junk power supplies until I found a 50ohm 2w.
All I have in new stock is 1/2watt and lighter.....I don't think those could take the heat....so I went scavenging. I'm not sure how low one could go with wattage, but I don't think a 2w would be a factor for heating.

2W should be plenty.
I just did a similar mod the other day on the stock AVC cooler of an Intel D845bg motherboard. Fan was rated for 200 mA at 12V, but was pulling substantially less at lower voltages. A 100-Ohm resistor ended up being perfect, dropping down the voltage to about 6V, with the fan running around 1900 RPM. But since it was a smaller 70 mm fan, I added a 470-Ohm resistor in parallel with the 100-Ohm resistor, which increase the voltage a bit and sped it up to about 2500 RPM - a little loud, but kind of needed for the Pentium 4 CPU it was cooling.

In regards to power rating of the resistor, it's pretty easy to calculate how much you will need - just put the resistor on the fan and measure the voltage drop across the resistor. In my case with the 100-Ohm resistor, the drop was 6V across the resistor (and 6V left for the fan) when running at 12V. Thus, P = (V^2)/R = (6^2)/100 = 36/100 = 0.36 Watts
Since my 100-Ohm resistor was a 1/2 Watt, it was adequate for the task.

Yes, I modify the chip itself....too risky sticking razor blades into those sockets....

Not to mention that without the notches in the motherboard, it's also risky if you don't pay attention and orient the chip the wrong way - especially if switching between LGA775 and 771 CPUs.

I do that too... 4 wire cables are the worst... but there is a 4 string braid out there, and once one learns it, it does work when practiced.

When it comes to 4 wires, I'm lazy so I take two wires and twist them into a pair, then do the same with the other two. After that, take both pairs and twist again in the opposite direction. It doesn't look as neat, especially with colorful wires, but it does tidy them up, so whatever.

I got one better... one of these (Geforce 6200 256MB), recapped awhile back in Nichicon HN. Kept for testing things more then anything.

Since it appears we are whipping out Johnsons on the table here , this is what I have: A PNY GeForce 8400GS PCI. Haven't installed it into anything yet, but I plan this to be the last upgrade to my aging Dell Optiplex 170L (and still) main PC, along with a 3.2 GHz P4 from the current 2.8 GHz. I just don't feel like taking the PC out of its current nuk, as I'll have to move and disconnect a bunch of towers and other stuff to get it out. And when I do that, I know I'll find a bunch of dust there and that would likely prompt a cleaning parade once I'm in the zone for it.

[ratdude747]

Re: The (now the death of) Dolby DP600 Build (OK, this one is BEYOND COOL)

FWIW, I do have one of those 'gray market' FX5500 PCI cards. It actually works....I played around with it in a retro rig, but it just felt strange when the rig's GPU had more RAM than the motherboard had.

I got one better... one of these (Geforce 6200 256MB), recapped awhile back in Nichicon HN. Kept for testing things more then anything.

[Topcat]

Re: The (now the death of) Dolby DP600 Build (OK, this one is BEYOND COOL)

They wouldn't be too bad if they had an AGP or PCI-E slot... especially AGP, given the uptick in "retro" (Windows 9x, at least) PC building these days. Granted even a Radeon 9250 or a GeForce FX5200 in PCI flavor should both be enough for mid-late 90's games... but it's just silly.

This thing isn't intended to play games....mainly just needs to be strong enough to be able to run a modern OS & browser smoothly as it'll need secure access to the network and safely connect to the interwebs. FWIW, I do have one of those 'gray market' FX5500 PCI cards. It actually works....I played around with it in a retro rig, but it just felt strange when the rig's GPU had more RAM than the motherboard had.

Hey, I recognize that heatsink & fan!
Can tell it's the one I sent you with the SBC, as these don't come with braided wires for the fan - that's something I almost always do to my fans if they don't come with twisted or sleeved wires.

Yes it is. I had to borrow it from the SBC. I have a Dynatron 1U sink/fan....but it was hitting the case lid, this one clears. I had to do the old 'switcherooski'...

Yup. I think this is one of the reasons why I asked you in my PMs if you wanted that cooler or not. The fan was ridiculously loud... though not the worst I've heard, of course.

This one actually slows down with the motherboard's fan controller inspite being 3-wire. The one that had to be modded was the front panel squirrel cage fan. That one was really obnoxious.

IIRC, I didn't even bother with any resistors when I was testing the SBC - I just disconnected the Vcc fan wire from the fan's connector and hooked it directly to 5V. This still pushed enough air to keep that P4 641 Cedar Mill CPU cooled well.

I can still send that old Cedarmill back if you need it....seems a shame to waste it.

50 Ohms sounds about right for such a fan, though. I always try to keep a small stock of 100-Ohm resistors for this reason. 2 in parallel = 50 Ohms for a very quiet fan. 3x in parallel = 33.3 Ohms, good for pushing a bit more air, but still relatively quiet. And 4x parallel = 25 Ohms, which is better-suited for hotter cases or when more airflow is needed, but just not full blast nonesense.

I cheated. I have a wirewound resistor substitution box that can handle 20w (more than enough for this)...and played around with that until I got the desired speed (happened to be 50ohm)....and then rummaged though junk power supplies until I found a 50ohm 2w. All I have in new stock is 1/2watt and lighter.....I don't think those could take the heat....so I went scavenging. I'm not sure how low one could go with wattage, but I don't think a 2w would be a factor for heating.

I'm taking you cut two notches in the CPU rather than cutting off the ones on the board? I have a similar dual core Xeon CPU, but haven't been able to make it boot in any board I have... though I don't have any with G41 chipset, I don't think. Mostly Q965, G33's, and G31's. Or perhaps my 771 mod isn't working, as I didn't buy a sticker, but soldered my own.

Yes, I modify the chip itself....too risky sticking razor blades into those sockets....much safer using a Dremel on the chip. I have a ton of those little stickers....

Nice. There aren't many DDR3 boards that still have IDE/PATA support. Legacy floppy took a lot longer to disappear from motherboards (mostly when the current RGB bling-bling crap really started peaking and old legacy connectors were just too "unfashionable" to ruin the rest of the board's "image".)

One of the reasons I was happy to find this in my freebie pile It's kind of an oddity for its time.

Another person I'm also concerned about is Pentium4. Can't really reveal here any details as to why, but last I spoke with him a few years ago, there were some events in his life that IMO were rather concerning. Hope he's gone through with those and well now.

BTW, have you heard from WillaWake? That's another of the long-time fellas that hasn't been here for a while.

I haven't heard from either of them in a long time!

[ratdude747]

Re: The (now the death of) Dolby DP600 Build (OK, this one is BEYOND COOL)

Can tell it's the one I sent you with the SBC, as these don't come with braided wires for the fan - that's something I almost always do to my fans if they don't come with twisted or sleeved wires.

I do that too... 4 wire cables are the worst... but there is a 4 string braid out there, and once one learns it, it does work when practiced.

[momaka]

Re: The (now the death of) Dolby DP600 Build (OK, this one is BEYOND COOL)

Here went one of the Supermicro 1U racks. These are fantastic little 1U cases, but have useless P4 motherboards in them with ATI Rage GPU's.
...
The old Supermicro P4SCE motherboard...

[url]https://www.badcaps.net/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=231973&stc=1&d=1615260546[/ul]

They wouldn't be too bad if they had an AGP or PCI-E slot... especially AGP, given the uptick in "retro" (Windows 9x, at least) PC building these days. Granted even a Radeon 9250 or a GeForce FX5200 in PCI flavor should both be enough for mid-late 90's games... but it's just silly.

Speaking of which, I have a SM P8SCT sitting right here next to my desk. One of my colleagues at my last workplace found it in the warehouse destined for the recycling pile (it actually came from some server, and he wanted the case but not the mobo.) So kind of like a "last day" present, he gave me that board. It's socket 775, but only takes Pentium 4 5xx series CPUs (not even 6xx series, IIRC) and no Cedar Mill. And the lack of PCI-E makes it kind of useless really. Only redeeming thing about is perhaps the dual LAN and PCI-X slot (maybe.) A shame really, as the board's build quality is awesome otherwise. If it has a working CPU temperature sensor (I don't see why it shouldn't, given it's LGA775, but you never know), I might repurpose it for testing CPU heatsink performance. I'm currently doing that with an HP DC7700 Intel Maverick/Silverado board and a P4 630. It's not a super-hot CPU by any means (only 95W TDP, though it peaks close to 110W), but it can separate the boys from the men when it comes to heatsinks.

I'm normally a stickler for IO shields....but considering the use intended for this, I skipped destroying the original IO shield for the tiny 1U opening and will just run it without it....not much is exposed....and when installed it won't be visible.

https://www.badcaps.net/forum/attach...1&d=1615260546

Hey, I recognize that heatsink & fan!
Can tell it's the one I sent you with the SBC, as these don't come with braided wires for the fan - that's something I almost always do to my fans if they don't come with twisted or sleeved wires.

Now for a little fan mod for the squirrel cage blower, which isn't PWM and run @ an annoying ~6000RPM...

Yup. I think this is one of the reasons why I asked you in my PMs if you wanted that cooler or not. The fan was ridiculously loud... though not the worst I've heard, of course.

IIRC, I didn't even bother with any resistors when I was testing the SBC - I just disconnected the Vcc fan wire from the fan's connector and hooked it directly to 5V. This still pushed enough air to keep that P4 641 Cedar Mill CPU cooled well.

50 Ohms sounds about right for such a fan, though. I always try to keep a small stock of 100-Ohm resistors for this reason. 2 in parallel = 50 Ohms for a very quiet fan. 3x in parallel = 33.3 Ohms, good for pushing a bit more air, but still relatively quiet. And 4x parallel = 25 Ohms, which is better-suited for hotter cases or when more airflow is needed, but just not full blast nonesense.

Now here's where this system gets good.... The G41 chipset on this board supports 5400-series 1333FSB Xeons without any firmware mods (Intel motherboards were really good about this), the only mod needed was to the chip itself so the LGA771 configuration would fit the keying for the LGA775.

I'm taking you cut two notches in the CPU rather than cutting off the ones on the board? I have a similar dual core Xeon CPU, but haven't been able to make it boot in any board I have... though I don't have any with G41 chipset, I don't think. Mostly Q965, G33's, and G31's. Or perhaps my 771 mod isn't working, as I didn't buy a sticker, but soldered my own.

The next great thing is DDR3 support. Then add in that it has a legacy floppy controller & IDE so the thin floppy & DVDROM can remain functional, which is needed for this build.

Nice. There aren't many DDR3 boards that still have IDE/PATA support. Legacy floppy took a lot longer to disappear from motherboards (mostly when the current RGB bling-bling crap really started peaking and old legacy connectors were just too "unfashionable" to ruin the rest of the board's "image".)

He has heart issues as well....I do hope he's doing ok....been concerned for a while now.

Hope so.

Another person I'm also concerned about is Pentium4. Can't really reveal here any details as to why, but last I spoke with him a few years ago, there were some events in his life that IMO were rather concerning. Hope he's gone through with those and well now.

BTW, have you heard from WillaWake? That's another of the long-time fellas that hasn't been here for a while.

[Topcat]

Re: The (now the death of) Dolby DP600 Build (OK, this one is BEYOND COOL)

...and done & ready!

[Topcat]

Re: The (now the death of) Dolby DP600 Build (OK, this one is BEYOND COOL)

Here went one of the Supermicro 1U racks. These are fantastic little 1U cases, but have useless P4 motherboards in them with ATI Rage GPU's.....I need something a little stronger than this for what I have in mind....so here we go; case stripped out.



The old Supermicro P4SCE motherboard...



I don't have any SM motherboards that have a decent onboard GPU in a uATX flavor....so introduce an Intel DG41TX; a freebie from one of my EDU clients.



Test fitting:



I'm normally a stickler for IO shields....but considering the use intended for this, I skipped destroying the original IO shield for the tiny 1U opening and will just run it without it....not much is exposed....and when installed it won't be visible.



Now for a little fan mod for the squirrel cage blower, which isn't PWM and run @ an annoying ~6000RPM... I added a 50ohm 2w resistor inline with its Vcc. I tried several values, this got it where I wanted it to be speed-wise. It reduced it from ~6000rpm down to about 2200rpm and significantly quieted it.



I also utilized the Icydock 2.5 to 3.5" adapter and the Samsung 64gb SSD from the Advantech build shown earlier in this thread since what I have in mind for that system will be booting from a CF...it didn't need this SSD. 64gb will be fine for this, all it needs to hold is the OS.



Things tidied up...





Now here's where this system gets good.... The G41 chipset on this board supports 5400-series 1333FSB Xeons without any firmware mods (Intel motherboards were really good about this), the only mod needed was to the chip itself so the LGA771 configuration would fit the keying for the LGA775. The next great thing is DDR3 support. Then add in that it has a legacy floppy controller & IDE so the thin floppy & DVDROM can remain functional, which is needed for this build.

....and here we are!!



This will do what I'll demand from this system with no issues!!

I have not installed an OS yet, it was quittin' time for the day!



More later.

[Topcat]

Re: The (now the death of) Dolby DP600 Build (OK, this one is BEYOND COOL)

Just a few more things that have been found and possibly added to this crazy build...

Ratdude should remember these too! One of them will for sure be added to this build, the other one I have something else in mind, for the front bench.



Just some other potential whatnots & additional rack rails I had on hand....



This is when you know you're getting bigtime!!



Yeah baby!!



Given the potential amount of kooky hardware that's going to be in this thing, the little devil on my shoulder and I have been contemplating a 220v power distribution setup....which really isn't uncommon for loaded racks....but ya'll know me....I want to make my own...

[Topcat]

Re: The (now the death of) Dolby DP600 Build (OK, this one is BEYOND COOL)

Lol! I sense this will never get finished if you keep getting more/new parts.

After weeks of sifting schematics & researching some thing, I found the right schematic of yet another feature I want to add....

[Topcat]

Re: The (now the death of) Dolby DP600 Build (OK, this one is BEYOND COOL)

Lol! I sense this will never get finished if you keep getting more/new parts.

I've completely scrubbed my original design....from here forward I'm improvising a completely new design. Many of the original components will be used, but this rack cabinet was a complete game changer (in a good way), but the original design is no longer realistic.....but it will continue in this thread.

I see you found a small TFX PSU for the machine I sent you. Well, I promised I'd look for a matching PSU when I get a chance and I did... but unfortunately, all I found in my stash of quirky PSUs is was just another TFX unit - this one was a 3YPower, and also a 5V-heavy design. Not working too, despite having good cap brands inside. (Looks like more PSUs for my troubleshooting pile.)

It's not a perfect fit, but it can be made to work....but given the changes mentioned above, I'm not sure what that SBC's role will be....

Nice! Looks like all kinds of pieces from everywhere are slowly coming together into this thing.

It's definitely a 'frankenstein'....still nicknamed 'Pat'....or 'project:Pat'

Speaking of KC8ADU, I wonder where he is. Like PCBONEZ, he was one of the older members that always had useful knowledge to share. Hope he's alright and all, especially given the current circumstances of the last 12-13 months with Covid craziness.

He has heart issues as well....I do hope he's doing ok....been concerned for a while now.

[momaka]

Re: The (now the death of) Dolby DP600 Build (OK, this one is BEYOND COOL)

This project already outgrew my original panel design & layout....but I'm glad I set it aside to rethink it rather than do anything permanent at this point.....because look at the introduction of this game changer!!

Lol! I sense this will never get finished if you keep getting more/new parts.

The collection thus far.....several members here have had a hand in this build!

I see you found a small TFX PSU for the machine I sent you. Well, I promised I'd look for a matching PSU when I get a chance and I did... but unfortunately, all I found in my stash of quirky PSUs is was just another TFX unit - this one was a 3YPower, and also a 5V-heavy design. Not working too, despite having good cap brands inside. (Looks like more PSUs for my troubleshooting pile.)

Yet another member that contributed; albeit indirectly... KC8ADU gave me these 3u/4u rack rail/slides probably 12yrs ago....they've sat in the attic ever since.....I had something in mind for them, but for the life of me I can't remember what; it never materialized. I brought them down.....they'll finally be used!

Nice! Looks like all kinds of pieces from everywhere are slowly coming together into this thing.

Speaking of KC8ADU, I wonder where he is. Like PCBONEZ, he was one of the older members that always had useful knowledge to share. Hope he's alright and all, especially given the current circumstances of the last 12-13 months with Covid craziness.

[Topcat]

Re: The (now the death of) Dolby DP600 Build (OK, this one is BEYOND COOL)

My ohh my....how this project keeps growing!!

This project already outgrew my original panel design & layout....but I'm glad I set it aside to rethink it rather than do anything permanent at this point.....because look at the introduction of this game changer!!





Room is now no longer a factor and I can add extra function into this big waste of time!! Still in the black, Brethin!!

Moved aside for now....it may go back out to the garage until I officially resume this project. It's on casters, its very easy to move......but I need to do some more homework and I know I'll need a few things to make this new design work......



The collection thus far.....several members here have had a hand in this build!



The original Dolby contraption is on top....and is still included in this 'device' so far....



Yet another member that contributed; albeit indirectly... KC8ADU gave me these 3u/4u rack rail/slides probably 12yrs ago....they've sat in the attic ever since.....I had something in mind for them, but for the life of me I can't remember what; it never materialized. I brought them down.....they'll finally be used!






Stay tuned....

[momaka]

Re: The (now the death of) Dolby DP600 Build (OK, this one is BEYOND COOL)

I was expecting what was pictured on the previous page, the bare backplane and the SBC itself....but lo & behold it came encased in a really compact wall (or under bench) mountable lightweight aluminum housing...

https://www.badcaps.net/forum/attach...1&d=1612114620

https://www.badcaps.net/forum/attach...1&d=1612114620

Well I had to send it. I actually knew that I had that case, long before I knew/remembered I had the SBC (or what an SBC was, for that matter, thanks to this thread.) When I finally dug out all the stuff and was able to piece it back together, I just had to send the whole thing as one piece. Besides, I figured the case would add good protection to the SBC and backplane... and as luck would have it, I even had the right-size box too with foam pieces inside. So perhaps it was just meant to be.

Regarding the aluminum case - I think these were custom-ordered for the company that I worked for... if not made by another division of the company (no idea, really, as all this is old stuff that got decommissioned before I even joined.) Pretty sure it was Made in the USA too. So I just couldn't let it go to waste when I saw it in the dumpster.

Then came the experimental part....it came with a pentium 4 @ 3.4ghz.....ok, nothing to get excited about....

Ah crud! I thought I had swapped that with one of my E8400 CPUs to serve as a "socket protector".

On the other hand, at least this solves a mystery on my end - I was looking where I had placed that P4 Cedar Mill CPU. As it turns out, the E8400 was still sitting on the Windows sill in the room where I was packing the box. LOL! I was going to swap it after removing and packing the heatsink separately... and completely forgot.

but the Q865 chipset is capable of 1066 FSB and C2/C2Q CPU's.....so lets look in the drawer with probably ~100 LGA-style CPU's in it....and yay! Found right on top of the pile a Q6700! Plopped it in the socket, attached the sink, and bazinga!

https://www.badcaps.net/forum/attach...1&d=1612114620

Nice!
So it can run C2Q.

Is that Cu heatsink I sent you even adequate for the C2Q? (Assuming you're using it and not something better.)

As Momaka mentioned from the previous page with the power on functions, that's the beauty of embedded systems.... ACPI manipulation is typically very intuitive, so these systems can be fired like an old AT-style system; mechanical switch on the mains for ON/OFF function, which for my application is what would be needed. It's usually a jumper on the backplane somewhere, I'll have to dig up the manuals.

I don't think this backplane has that option, from what I observed when I was looking at it. PS-ON pin only goes to that red connector (where I put a hand-made label for the "Red Orange Yellow" wires, as I had to disconnect that for the shipping.)

Also, it seems from your pictures that you have the brown wire (from that 4-wire ribbon from the SBC) not connected to anything? If so, you should connect it to the Power Good (PG). The original 4-pin ribbon connector had a crappily-crimped connector on the brown wire that then plugged onto the first pin in the AT connector next to the ATX connector side (which is also a PG signal.) However, I soldered a single header pin on your backplane on the other side of the ATX connector, where you can see there are labels for ground and "PWRGD" (i.e. power good... i.e. PG again.) I then also swapped the 4-pin ribbon with the crappy crimped connector with another one I found in my junk boxes that wasn't modified. On that one, I simply removed the brown wire from the connector so that I could directly connect it to the new PG header pin I soldered on the SBC. And that's how I got the board to POST. Before that, with the brown wire floating, board was not POSTing due to missing PG signal.

I'm not sure what PSU this thing used, I don't have anything even close to fitting the cutout in the housing.... Momaka? You wouldn't happen to have the model number from it? It's ATX but with all the negative voltages.

TBH, I saw a number of different PSUs used in these decommissioned/spare/scrapped controllers. Most of the time, what I saw was a PSU similar to this one, but a slightly older version with longer cables and more drive/peripheral connectors, including SATA. I don't remember if they had -5V rails, but I think they didn't, because they too were fairly new PSUs with APFC. However, I do also remember seeing a few with slightly "fatter"/taller version of the above form factor that seemed older (and may actually have had a -5V rail.) I think these were the only ones that fit the entire PSU cutout hole. The rest were just held on with one screw and Velcro (hence the two Velcro stickers seen in your case by the PSU area.)

That said, I'll check one of my junk PSU boxes in the garage. I think I saved another unit similar to the above PSU that, IIRC, was getting scrapped due to possible water damage. Will check and let you know what I find.

The SBC doesn't require -5v to run (you'll notice that voltage is missing on the LED's)

Yes, when I was testing that SBC and didn't get a POST initially, due to the disconnected brown PG wire on the 4-pin ribbon cable, I thought it was actually due to the missing -5V rail when I saw its LED not lit up. So I pulled another of my older repaired PSUs that had a -5V rail and tried it... but this was a no-go too. Once I figured out the PG signal issue, I tested with both the older and newer PSU without -5V and it didn't seem to matter, indeed. I think only some certain ISA cards required -5V. With that said, I don't know if any of the original hardware this lane controller was used with actually cared for -5V. All I can tell you is there were a few more proprietary PCI and ISA cards in there (besides the one I sent you... which might actually be junk, but I figured you might find out better than me) for controlling external hardware through serial RS-232 and RS-485 standards.

Anyway, yay for making this hodgepodge of weirdness even more complicated!

Yeah, sorry about that!
I really wish I knew sooner about these being useful to you. I picked up the scrapped controller from the work dumpster almost exactly a year ago from now (then had it cleaned and packed so I could put it in storage.) Had I knows, I probably could have saved more stuff from that place.

[ratdude747]

Re: The (now the death of) Dolby DP600 Build (OK, this one is BEYOND COOL)

It won't help in terms of form factor, but old Ultra PSUs all had the -5V rails... they were used for overvolting the craptastic sleeve bearing fans from 12V to 17V! This is why the fan controller was on a separate board.

Even the "nice" one like my (and formerly everell's) "old blue" bling-bling 600W ultra had this (when I re-fanned it, I re-referenced the common to 0V from -5).

I'm sure other even worse PSUs (Deer?) had this "feature" as well. Perhaps one could find one of these that was the right form factor and then rebuild it to have decent guts... with the 600W I was lucky that other than crap caps and junk overvolted fans, mine was decently built albeit built on a ineffcient half-bridge architecture. Rebuilt nicely for the most part... although it's on the shelf of testing supplies, as I only had a use for it once (and that system was rehomed; I didn't want Frankenstein out in the wild).