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Ed Herdman
Member
Last Activity: 02-19-2015, 06:12 PM
Joined: 04-06-2014
Location: Battle Creek, MI
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  • Ed Herdman
    replied to What are these tapes?
    in General Computer & Tech Discussion
    Re: What are these tapes?

    I noticed the one tape with a label was made in 1994...System/390, perhaps? I'd guess it's still good.

    Watched the bit about the nuclear arsenal a day or so ago...just hope nobody has the skill and tools to try to reverse engineer the launch sequence command signals. I'm sure it's more complicated than hotwiring a car, but...
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    Last edited by Ed Herdman; 05-04-2014, 07:41 PM.

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  • Ed Herdman
    replied to Asus M4A88T-M LE bios file
    in General Computer & Tech Discussion
    Re: Asus M4A88T-M LE bios file


    These are portions written to by other OEMs, right, like the USB chipset manufacturer, right?

    A while back I looked into USB chipset firmware upgrades for another motherboard, and discovered essentially what you write here: The USB chipset manufacturer's firmware was written to a portion of the BIOS space and could be upgraded independently of the main BIOS. It was a pretty ad-hoc and not guaranteed operation but it showed that indeed the motherboard manufacturer doesn't necessarily update the whole BIOS space.

    ...
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  • Ed Herdman
    replied to lol @ the suckers!
    in General Computer & Tech Discussion
    Re: lol @ the suckers!

    Can't help but see the conspiracy angle in this one :P
    Must be a dream come true for advertising execs everywhere (especially in the "kill ie6" camp within microsoft, but probably the "kill xp" camp is just as happy!)

    Meanwhile, who suffers...everybody else! (Even those of us who don't use XP ourselves could be at risk if some goober is doing work with our information on an XP box.)
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  • Ed Herdman
    replied to Lead vs lead free solder headaches
    in Equipment Usage, Soldering, Techniques, and Reviews
    Re: Lead vs lead free solder headaches

    I have a question on the tin/copper or tin/copper/silver solders: Does the copper or silver lead to any reliability concerns long-term? I am hoping the through-hole repairs and replacements I'd like to do will be essentially permanent (good for decades of service).

    The station I'm likely to get is something like a Hakko FX-888D - I'd like to get a JBC but don't quite have the money.
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  • Ed Herdman
    replied to Another instance of the shameless Sacon FZ... with a twist!
    in General Capacitor Questions & Issues
    Re: Another instance of the shameless Sacon FZ... with a twist!


    I had the same thought, but it could just be a reflection of the photographer/camera.

    I wonder how long this card was in service, and how many years it's been since it was last powered on - the fan looks surprisingly clean to me....
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  • Ed Herdman
    replied to Cramming Heatsinked RAM into an Imac g5
    in General Computer & Tech Discussion
    Re: Cramming Heatsinked RAM into an Imac g5

    I'd write Super Talent asking them if it's okay to remove the heatsinks.

    It's a totally different machine than a G5, but I've got a large tower in which I placed a huge Noctua heatsink over my CPU. Unfortunately the heatsink is so big that is partially overhangs two of the RAM slots, and I couldn't place two of my RAM modules in with the heatsinks on. I wrote the manufacturer for guidance and they said it was fine. I haven't been overclocking the RAM or running hot temps inside the case, though, so it might work out totally...
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  • Ed Herdman
    replied to Ultrasonic cleaning pcb's with caps still on board
    in General Capacitor Questions & Issues
    Re: Ultrasonic cleaning pcb's with caps still on board

    Maybe you could get away with not submerging the board fully?

    Freon conspiracy theories aside, I don't see why plain old water (or alcohol) wouldn't be fine. It's a natural solvent for milk already, and I'd just try washing it first. As a bonus you could better avoid soaking things that way. Ultrasonic cleaning is probably overkill in this case, even if the milk is spilt. Cleaning PCBs with mounted components has never given me problems - though I don't run it over capacitors, they're not one of the components that...
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    Last edited by Ed Herdman; 04-26-2014, 04:52 AM.

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  • Ed Herdman
    replied to PB Items
    in General Computer & Tech Discussion
    Re: PB Items


    Those are the only thing off of mine that died, and that happened long ago, heh. Everything else has been solid. I've known about the (deserved!) bad rap PB had for reliability, and then value after Compaq for years, which only makes the continued survival of the machine more interesting.

    Didn't think to save the wall wart...that may have come in handy, if it's got the same top-name caps inside that the main machine does. All the wall wart transformers I've got just seem to have junky caps inside, unfortunately. I wonder if that's ever...
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  • Ed Herdman
    replied to Psu makes PC hibernate? Is it possible?
    in Troubleshooting Power Supplies and Power Supply Design
    Re: Psu makes PC hibernate? Is it possible?

    Nah, probably this prevents many goobers from burning through hundreds of dollars of power (per machine) each year. Multiply that by however many people leave their PCs running full tilt for no reason...
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  • Ed Herdman
    replied to PB Items
    in General Computer & Tech Discussion
    Re: PB Items

    Indeed, it's pure nostalgia. The cases used design cues from Frog Design (Macintosh II / Apple IIc) and the Navigator software was far-out. Not the most practical (in fact, the L90's case layout is the worst I've used, in terms of ease of access, though the extra steel cubes-on-cubes construction is sturdier than most boxes) but it works.

    However it happened, mine has been solid over the years, though I'll see what my opinion is like after posting the interior of the PSU. 1996 may have been their last bad year, though by then Compaq (itself not really something...
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    Last edited by Ed Herdman; 04-24-2014, 08:35 PM.

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  • Ed Herdman
    replied to fake/counterfeit capacitors
    in General Capacitor Questions & Issues
    Re: fake/counterfeit capacitors


    Hey, my last one survived 11 years. The new one seems pretty good, though we'll see....
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  • Ed Herdman
    replied to HP DesignJet 5500 Power Supply
    in Troubleshooting Power Supplies and Power Supply Design
    Re: HP DesignJet 5500 Power Supply

    @ Lemo: The same brand is mentioned here:
    [url]https://www.badcaps.net/forum/showthread.php?t=2311[/url]
    See PCBONEZ's post.Re: HP DesignJet 5500 Power Supply<b...CBONEZ's post.Re: HP DesignJet 5500 Power Supply

    @ Lemo: The same brand is mentioned here:
    [url]https://www.badcaps.net/forum/showthread.php?t=2311[/url]
    See PCBONEZ's post.
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  • Ed Herdman
    replied to Modding gone mad/crazy
    in General Computer & Tech Discussion
    Re: Modding gone mad/crazy

    Dunno what the lag to display is like on those, but probably not playable if it's anything like modern capture cards. Unless cards back then had a kind of pass-through-to-VGA function, that signal is traveling all the way through the PC, which isn't really quick.
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  • Ed Herdman
    replied to Computer fan noise and maintenance
    in General Computer & Tech Discussion
    Re: Computer fan noise and maintenance

    There are a few potential wrinkles here:

    - Some worm gears are brass, some are something like brass-plated steel, others are steel or some other shiny metal...

    - There's also additives to consider...molybdenum is the most common one.

    In some cases the chemistry of things matter - but I haven't found any record of lithium, or lithium with molybdenum, causing problems in commonly used metal worm gears.

    The synthetic silicone stuff seems pretty good and versatile - it's just an open question...
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  • Ed Herdman
    replied to Modding gone mad/crazy
    in General Computer & Tech Discussion
    Re: Modding gone mad/crazy

    Aside from heat or interference issues, the mod seems awful from a usability standpoint unless you are using something which outputs a 15KHz signal (i.e., Powerstrip or Soft-15KHz). That probably wasn't a deal at the time that mod was dreamed up, but today you are going to have to lug your PC over to a classic TV (better than moving the mountain), or add an upscaler to even connect it to many modern TVs or computer monitor, let alone get acceptable quality and responsiveness. The PlayStation is tiny - even the original models - and its best output is RGB...
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    Last edited by Ed Herdman; 04-14-2014, 12:47 PM.

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  • Ed Herdman
    replied to Aluminum (?) pad between Pentium MMX and heatsink
    in General Computer & Tech Discussion
    Re: Aluminum (?) pad between Pentium MMX and heatsink

    Just a thought: I've been wondering if changing caps on the Sound Blaster AWE64 (or some other component - maybe the PSU as well) will do anything for the rather high noise floor. But possibly the DAC is noisy, and of course the board is totally unshielded. For CD audio, there's also the classic thin gray wire fed between the sound card and the CD-ROM. Anybody have experience with that?

    @ Heihachi: I was also 13-14 in 1997! Interesting data points to compare to, there. I guess that extra 33MHz really makes a difference...
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    Last edited by Ed Herdman; 04-14-2014, 08:59 AM.

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  • Ed Herdman
    replied to Aluminum (?) pad between Pentium MMX and heatsink
    in General Computer & Tech Discussion
    Re: Aluminum (?) pad between Pentium MMX and heatsink

    @ cheapie: Thanks, love those old PC names...yeah, I think I'd better just go ahead and ditch it. It's doing nothing good anyway. It's not thick enough to be a spacer, I don't think.

    Yeah, the reliability on everything related to this PC is great.

    The only thing that's worn out from use is one of the rubber domes on the keyboard - I opened it up and found that the end of the dome on the right arrow key (of course...all those hours of Comix Zone and DOS games) has separated. I just swapped parts so that...
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  • Ed Herdman
    replied to Computer fan noise and maintenance
    in General Computer & Tech Discussion
    Re: Computer fan noise and maintenance

    Ah, I wish I'd found this thread a while back when I was researching grease.

    So far, I have some of the ol' PTFE Super Lube for plastic gears, and plastic/metal lubrication, and some Wal*mart stuff - Supertech "Moly-Lithium" grease (which reportedly has very little Moly at all).

    What I'd like to know about are worm gears - it seems to me that these parts are likely to experience some wear that could be prevented with the moly-additive grease. I just put a little on the worm gear of a floppy drive, which...
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  • Ed Herdman
    replied to Modding gone mad/crazy
    in General Computer & Tech Discussion
    Re: Modding gone mad/crazy

    Having just seen Monster Squad, and noting the source of the page, I couldn't help but think those exposed 220V male connectors are for giving Frankenstein's Monster a jumpstart - one extra for redundancy, of course. But I guess putting a silver skull on it would perhaps be taking it too far, with that swastika already there - it describes the whole thing well enough!

    Those three power outputs...aside from the obvious dangers, how is somebody supposed to keep straight where to plug the thing in? And how did he connect it, by plugging something...
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    Last edited by Ed Herdman; 04-13-2014, 09:14 PM.

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  • Ed Herdman
    replied to Aluminum (?) pad between Pentium MMX and heatsink
    in General Computer & Tech Discussion
    Re: Aluminum (?) pad between Pentium MMX and heatsink

    Thanks for the responses! No peltier here. The aluminum pad is stock - I can guarantee that nobody has ever worked on this thing; I'm looking at the 1997 factory configuration (I can date it pretty well because it says March 1997 on the (Lucky) Goldstar CD-ROM drive). Another throwback: There are only two wires going to the fan on the green heatsink - and they come straight out the back of a Molex, which is itself coming directly out of the PSU. No Q-fan or PVM control here.

    And there's thermal paste between the...
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    Last edited by Ed Herdman; 04-13-2014, 11:58 AM.

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