Silly Recap on Compaq

[bgavin]

Re: Silly Recap on Compaq

The customer is going to buy a UPS. That will certainly put some isolation between flaky house wiring, bad breaker, garbage disposal startup, microwave, etc.

I don't mind doing another board for them, it is just that I did such a *nice* job recapping the existing board. Yes, I can pull those new Rubycons and probably re-use them.

MicroATX boards for P4 and K7 are certainly getting very hard to find. I was at Fry's yesterday, and they don't carry a single P4 board. They carry tons of ECS shit, but shit it what it is. Loaded with craps.

[kc8adu]

Re: Silly Recap on Compaq

i really doubt its the board if you can take it home for the weekend to pound with f@h
if it passes its something in the office and you can swap mobo's till the case screws wear out and not fix it.

[gdement]

Re: Silly Recap on Compaq

I just finished the most useless recap so far: Compaq Presario 5000, with 1Ghz T-Bird, and VIA chipset. Yuck.

Gotcha beat.
I did this one about 2 weeks ago. Also a Compaq Presario board, but this one is Socket-7. SiS530 w/ K6-2 400MHz processor. Works perfectly, and the old caps were junk, and there were only 7 of them so I figured why not.

[gonzo0815]

Re: Silly Recap on Compaq

K6-2 rules but Ali chip was better than sis that time, me think.

[Newbie2]

Re: Silly Recap on Compaq

VIA chipsets for "Super" Socket 7 are junk. There was one on some old QDI Advance 3 motherboard I used to have and it kept freezing (mouse cursor wasn't moving and keyboard lights didn't respond to caps lock) with RAM beyond 64MB PC100.

The K6-2 was a good processor for its time. I used to have a 450MHz version but I killed it when I turned up the voltage too much when trying to overclock it.

[bgavin]

Re: Silly Recap on Compaq

Gotcha beat.
I did this one about 2 weeks ago. Also a Compaq Presario board, but this one is Socket-7. SiS530 w/ K6-2 400MHz processor.

You win.

My old Netware box is still running on a K6-450 on an ancient FIC VA-503+ board. As to the ongoing drama with the Compaq dropping dead, it has been running over the weekend. Customer will pick up a UPS anyway, but the failure is now even more intermittent.

[gdement]

Re: Silly Recap on Compaq

VIA chipsets for "Super" Socket 7 are junk. There was one on some old QDI Advance 3 motherboard I used to have and it kept freezing (mouse cursor wasn't moving and keyboard lights didn't respond to caps lock) with RAM beyond 64MB PC100.

The K6-2 was a good processor for its time. I used to have a 450MHz version but I killed it when I turned up the voltage too much when trying to overclock it.

I had a VIA MVP3 w/ K6-3 450 back then.
I had a hell of a time getting my first AGP video card to work, but eventually got all the settings just right. The breakthrough was that I had to enable "OnChip USB" to turn on the chipset's AGP support. Yeah, that was crystal clear.
Also, AGP 2X support was unstable. Fortunately it was also useless. I reinstalled the VIA drivers in "safe" mode (which actually meant AGP 1X) and got within < 0.5% of the same benchmark score as before, and all glitches fixed.
The 3rd trick was I had to use a specific, old combination of chipset and NVidia drivers to get the proper performance. The then-current driver set was significantly slower, which was odd since the card was still current-generation at that time.

The whole process was annoying and I almost gave up and bought a PCI card.

[bgavin]

Re: Silly Recap on Compaq

I threw in the towel and replaced the board. It continues to suddenly drop power at random moments. Not acceptable.

I plan on a holding pattern while the customer runs with the replacment board. The board installed works flawlessly in my environment. If this one fails for the client... ??

Eventually I will pull all the new Rubycons off this board, and give it a toss. I don't know how to bug shoot a dropping dead problem. It acts like the Power Good signal simply goes away. Instant off.

[Wizard]

Re: Silly Recap on Compaq

Several years ago I had a special machine that looped intermittently (on off on off on off). It used a regular power supply without Power good circuit and they add external power good sub circuit on small board using a 4 pin IC and few passive components. Well, I figured out and it was this board and found a yellow dipped ceramic cap had broke it's leg internally causing power good output to disappear. New cap later, all GOOD. What a trick to chase down.

This is a machine specially made for viewing alldata stuff.

Cheers, Wizard

[chipper]

Re: Silly Recap on Compaq

It's worth it allright , especially seeing as alot of the old machines never have any problems at all , as long as you don't mix decades with software. Personally , Win95 is just like working without a mouse , with the keyboard. Madness.

I can still remember the old 5 1/2" floppy drive disks that had to be used to change back and forth between programs. Talk about ViewMaster. Allthough I have an old Win95 Operating System Disk (Full Version) , cost a mint in pristine condition.

With all of this going on it makes me think back to when my late Grandfather (Scotish) was watching TV. Man oh man , if one of the tubes went out , that phone was off the hook immediately calling a serviceman to repair it. And if it was "fight night" , hold onto yourself , cuzz he would be storming back and forth from the front door to the front window waiting for the repairman to show up , cash on the table.

You'd literally get run over by him pacing back and forth wondering if he was gonna miss something. But the fights were tough and he remembered when he had to go there in person , so the TV was a real treat to him. And Gramma , she kept repeating , settle down , he will be here , he has other customers , over and over. And he would say : "ya but" - it's 6pm and so on , having been messing around with the channel selector and the rabbit ears like he was gonna put them through the TV guy when he got there.

All of the sudden , here comes the TV guy , built / stalky and busy as hell. Then Grampa shut up and got his guide out right quick. He told him what channel he wanted and had all his previous bills out to make sure it was done in seconds with the right tube. What a freakshow it was. Me only about 8. Gramma had to take me aside and play some kinda card game , cuzz he was livid about the snowy picture or no power. This happened about 3 times a year too.

Ahhh the good old days. Then when the fight started the repair guy just closed the door and took off. I laughed and he gave me shit. Then same old grampa , swinging with every move in his chair , getting up and sayin : yeah , give it to him , more , more , uppercut , get off me , now , now.

Damn , it was exciting. Then my parents came in and Mom said : "Well we gotta go now". Hint Hint.