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What's the worst/weirdest thing your PC has ever done?  "(my example in the first post)"

User is offline   Robman 

  • Asswhipe [sic]

#31

Well, that explains why the kb/mouse ports don't work on one of my Athlon XP machines. Last time I hooked it up, it booted into windows and all that but I couldn't control anything, lol. I just said "wtf" and turned it off. If I go to use it in the future, it better work with a USB kb/mouse.

This post has been edited by Robman: 06 March 2016 - 04:15 PM

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User is offline   Person of Color 

  • Senior Unpaid Intern at Viceland

#32

HT, that story is pretty fucked up. When I built my ultimate 98 rig recently, I had this sick ass MSI BX Master board that I got years ago and rarely used. The little bastard couldn't finish posting. It was covered in horrid Chhsi caps. No swelling but I knew they were done, I've used this thing before. I found out one of the suppliers I use at my job has over 500 brand new Intel SE440BX-2 slot 1 boards in their gorgeous retail boxes. They were over $50 but worth it, all of the caps were Japanese. The hardest part of that build was getting a 1GHz Socket 370 100MHz FSB Pentium 3. Those 100MHz FSB chips are so rare you'll be lucky if two suppliers in China have them on eBay, I bought the only one in the US on the entire site. I would seriously love to know the production numbers for those things, they're total vaporware...

I still haven't posted that computer here, or if I did I forgot. It's the best computer I have ever built, by far. It's absolutely perfect. I even scored a vintage bubble light case from the early 2000's for it. It's the most perfect system for late 90's games imagineable. I originally didn't want to spend much, but it kept evolving, and about halfway through I realized that this was becoming my magnum opus as a system builder so I refused to compromise and by the end of it I was "out" almost $400.

Robman if that system is already doing that, you're probably screwed if it is indeed the caps.

This post has been edited by Person of Color: 06 March 2016 - 05:02 PM

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#33

Ah, the trusty SE440BX, an excellent board that never quits. I use a QDI for my Pentium II rig and I just rely on a SiperMicro P6DGU dual-slot motherboard for my Pentium III box. I couldn't get 1GHz chips for it and at the time I didn't think to use slotkets (There were a few 1GHz 100MHz Socket 370s there at the time) so I went with SL4BS. This is the Slot 1 model at 133MHz FSB, I just overclock the board if I need the speed but I'm happy at 750MHz for the most part and probably won't bump the clock much higher than ~880MHz if at all, it's a real working machine and not for entertainment, so stock clocks it is. Sadly, it won't take the Powerleap Tualatin adapters I have. As they take Coppermines and work with them installed I guess I could upgrade it someday as this opens up both socketed and slotted versions to me, I did upgrade the Radeon VE to a Quadro 2 Pro at some stage last year.

There are only two known S-Spec numbers for the 100MHz Socket 370 chip; SL5QV and QGG4.

Hah, the worst machines at work were the Celeron 266 boxes, they only had two but the boss insisted I got them to work... He wouldn't have it that they didn't work when they left the factory and I was stuck getting BSODs in Windows Setup for two weeks before he gave in.

I know how you felt about the build because that's me with my POD build. The 486 is kinda my platform or, the one I feel a strange affinity to, so it's the one I've spent the most money on. It is a shame the original video card I had for it fried a chip, it was neat having a video accelerator / capture board from the early days of PCI in there. Oh, well, with any luck I'll be able to repair my WinFast T230 instead. Everything in this machine is overblown, black case, SCSI CD-RW with those weird disc cartridges, PAS16, Ensoniq S2000 with internal speaker system, VLB Ethernet, 4x4GB CF Cards, the afore mentioned OverKill button - I call the build "Pentium OverKill" - and a whole host of other stuff that is totally unnecessary. As it still needs quite a lot of work (example, I have to replace the amp on the PAS16 as it was blown when I got it) all I can say is that it at least looks good;
Posted Image

Old photo, but much the same still. What is it they say? Once you go black, you never go back. The small system next to it is the 486SX (U5S) then below is my 386 (Cx486DLC) and under that is my currently dismantled for repair at a later date K5 - currently the also busted K6 has been merged with it to get me through until I can patch up the bits that don't work right. Hah, turns out I have one from when the original VGA/Capture card was briefly working; It worked in WFW too.

Posted Image

Guess I can get a seperate ISA capture board, especially if I get the T230 working to replace the SPEA card. The only problem is that the T230 doesn't have MPEG acceleration, only having the TSeng Viper chip for AVI stuff, so I would have to use my RealMagic and I'm running out of slots.

This post has been edited by High Treason: 06 March 2016 - 06:05 PM

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User is offline   Robman 

  • Asswhipe [sic]

#34

My p3 1Ghz machine is the EB (133Mhz FSB) ...
It stopped reporting the 512mb ram I had in it and is only showing 256, I played with it for quite awhile to try and get it back up to 512 with various other sticks I have, bummer. I really should store my computer stuff in a temperature controlled environment, rofl. Most of it is kept in a 53' transport truck trailer where it's exposed to mother nature mood swings of -30c to +35c.
I swear, nothing is built quite like my Aptiva E03, it was my first PC I got new and it still works perfectly fine and gives zero trouble whenever I pull it out to play with it, original power supply too. The quantum bigfoot 2.1gb died years ago though, no biggie.

Edit... On a separate note, I'm having EXTREME issues getting my Soundblaster Live 5.1 x-gamer to work in windows 7.
I've tried all manner of drivers on the creative site that "say" they work. And even some KX 3rd party drivers. I quite liked these cards, bought one new years ago, was expensive, almost $300 if I remember correctly.

This post has been edited by Robman: 07 March 2016 - 07:34 PM

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User is offline   Inspector Lagomorf 

  • Glory To Motherland!

#35

I don't know what it is about sound cards that makes them so fiddly. I bought a Sound Blaster Z PCIe (chose that card based on reviews of most other sound cards saying that they sucked; the Z had a 4.5 star avg on Amazon) so I could hook it up to my surround sound system and take advantage of the Dolby Digital settings. I used a TOSLINK cable to hook the sound card up to the surround sound system. Problem is, Sound Blaster doesn't regard the TOSLINK device as an actual set of speakers. So I have to turn off my actual desk speakers or else I get a weird feedback/echo effect due to sound delay.
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User is offline   Person of Color 

  • Senior Unpaid Intern at Viceland

#36

Integrated. Shit just works. Load up drivers and go. Get an external amp - Doesn't matter if you have Realtek, Via, IDT, Conexant, Analog Devices or Smegmatel. Those little shit chips just work.

Surround sound is bullshit. For the price of five mediocre speakers I can get two bangin' used ones on eBay. Entry level audiophile shit like Paradigm Atoms. A decent new receiver is $300 and used ones are cheap as pot baggies. If the setup accepts SPDIF then congratulations, you've bypassed the integrated sound and gone right to the box. Now you have a better DAC than a dedicated sound card. Analog only? No problem. Still sounds better than a card and computer speakers.

HiFi is dead. Thanks, plebs.

This post has been edited by Person of Color: 11 March 2016 - 01:03 AM

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User is offline   Forge 

  • Speaker of the Outhouse

#37

Cheap Asus Xonar DX 7.1 PCIe. Works just fine.
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User is offline   Person of Color 

  • Senior Unpaid Intern at Viceland

#38

Most of the Xonar cards have terrible drivers.
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User is offline   Forge 

  • Speaker of the Outhouse

#39

yup.
but once you get it running right, it's like an old car that you can abuse the hell out of and it keeps on running
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User is offline   Person of Color 

  • Senior Unpaid Intern at Viceland

#40

I love my shitty, unreliable Mustang, but I expect a computer to just fucking work when I own it.
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User is offline   Forge 

  • Speaker of the Outhouse

#41

View PostPerson of Color, on 13 March 2016 - 08:45 PM, said:

I love my shitty, unreliable Mustang, but I expect a computer to just fucking work when I own it.

Ah. One of those, "It must work out of the box or I'm calling Geek squad" kind of guys. Got it.
:whistling:

the drivers got a bad rep in part because they stopped supporting everything after windows 8 for their Xonar models, so someone came up with the 'Uni Xonar Driver'.

The drivers for the DGX were pretty buggy on some systems

and the instillation of the asus driver could be a pain in the ass.

forget the uni driver
and the install probs can be fixed with a simple change to the CmSetx.dll file that comes with the windows 8 asus driver installer.

[SETUP]
ATYPE=30
INI_PATH=SoftwareDriver\InI
SupportOS=win81

You need modify like this:

[SETUP]
ATYPE=30
INI_PATH=SoftwareDriver\InI
SupportOS=donotcare

then run the setup program as admin

otherwise it's a decent card

This post has been edited by Forge: 13 March 2016 - 09:26 PM

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User is offline   Inspector Lagomorf 

  • Glory To Motherland!

#42

View PostForge, on 13 March 2016 - 08:52 PM, said:

Ah. One of those, "It must work out of the box or I'm calling Geek squad" kind of guys. Got it.
:whistling:


Replace "I'm calling Geek Squad" with "I'm bitching to Amazon and waiting for my 100% refund" and you've pretty much got me pegged.

This post has been edited by Inspector Lagomorf: 14 March 2016 - 04:14 AM

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#43

I expect things to work out of the box when I have to rely on them. When it's just old stuff to dick around with, I don't mind if it has a few quirks, like my FDIV Pentium and its tendency to occasionally do things I don't expect it to... Goes pretty mental in a certain VGA mode in RotH and it looks like Adam is having a seizure.

Also, while I'm here, my laptop acted up when I took it to the new (now returned to the city) house;

Attached Image: vlcsnap-2016-03-12-20h54m32s584.jpg Attached Image: vlcsnap-2016-03-12-20h54m07s563.jpg




That ain't nothing compared to how the camera would behave there;

Attached Image: vlcsnap-2016-01-05-07h16m04s678.jpg


No idea what caused it, possibly damp or possibly some kind of electrical interference. There was a graphics design workshop operating next door, so perhaps it was their equipment but either way, it was annoying and I lost large chunks of footage along with a file I was editing on the laptop. This was some time ago and I can't go back to the house to figure it out, nor would I if I could as I have no real desire to find out. It has always worked fine in this house and has continued to since I brought it back here so I guess we'll never know. If I believed in ghosts I'd blame that because there are parts of the footage that survived where you can hear what sounds like breathing and whispering, but I don't believe that stuff and think it more likely there was just some kind of interference or sounds I just didn't notice at the time because I was concentrating on what I was doing instead.
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User is offline   Forge 

  • Speaker of the Outhouse

#44

View PostHigh Treason, on 14 March 2016 - 10:03 PM, said:

I expect things to work out of the box when I have to rely on them. When it's just old stuff to dick around with, I don't mind if it has a few quirks

true.
the Xonar DX PCIe 7.1 hit the market back in 2008, so it's a bit dated and not supported anymore.

most of the issues I've seen about the card revolve around the installation step. Either the end user is not savvy enough to edit the install dll file to make it ignore the OS, or more times than not, they get a 'plug card in' error because they aren't smart enough to connect the internal power cable to it.


as for your laptop - it might be the video cable strip between the base and the screen

This post has been edited by Forge: 17 March 2016 - 05:27 AM

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User is offline   Person of Color 

  • Senior Unpaid Intern at Viceland

#45

Yeah, that looks like LVDS cable failure to me. It could also be faulty RAM if you have integrated video.

HP Probooks/Elitebooks are pretty hard to work on in general. The LCD assembly can be easily removed for the most part, but there's lots of screws getting there.

This post has been edited by Person of Color: 16 March 2016 - 09:48 PM

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#46

I did have to open the laptop recently to clean the heatsink. Actually, it isn't very hard to work on, very modular and most of the screws are marked, certainly easier than the low-end Toshiba I had to work on. Found nothing wrong and I do check cables/RAM/MXM/WiFi connections when I open these things as routine. Given the fact it has never given me trouble before or since I'm still chalking it up to interference.

Plus the fact, as noted previously, the camcorder kept crapping out and even my cell phone started acting weird. I don't think anything electronic worked properly in there to be honest, my friend's smart phone threw a fit as well. I doubt the fact that water would run down the walls every time the temperature changed was much help, the whole place was full of damp and the wallpaper was bubbling off the plaster. It's all someone else's problem now anyway.


As for weirdness, I've discovered that the Intel EtherExpress 16 and OPTi 82C930 don't play well together on my AMI Baby Voyager board. For some reason the Ethernet card drops off the face of the earth as far as the computer is concerned and then the OPTi driver can't find the sound card either, no real problem as I found a 3Com 3C509 I had works fine. Strangely, that same 3Com card stopped working in a similar manner on another machine and simply refused to work in said machine no matter what I did. Ah, the quirks of early software configurable I/Os / IRQs and early attempts at Plug & Play, it's always good for a laugh.



On Rob's Sound Blaster; Meh, I really disliked most of the Sound Blaster cards and have found them to be problematic. Most of the SB Live cards I have run across don't work at all (Due to driver weirdness and about 100 different model numbers) and when you get them to work they sound like shit and don't do what they claim on the box. I think the Audigy 2 (Oddly, built from the same processor - 10K2 vs 10K1) was the last good one they did and even that had some problems. Even back in the ISA days they were bottom of the barrel and only did well because they were comparatively cheap, the PAS and GUS cards beat the shit out of them... The Ensoniq cards were overpriced crap though, their onboard wavetable has one of the crappiest drumkits I have ever heard, it actually makes my ears hurt. Of course these days nobody makes good cards anyway and the Windows audio subsystem is useless. Next time around I'm giving in and sticking with onboard and building an external mixer, unless there is too much noise.

This post has been edited by High Treason: 16 March 2016 - 10:27 PM

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User is offline   Person of Color 

  • Senior Unpaid Intern at Viceland

#47

I'm mostly familiar with the older models of HP's corporate line. Last one I worked on made me want to pull my teeth out.

I really love the SB16 CT2230. Great sound quality compared to the older cards, real OPL3, looks huge and badass and very few have the hanging note bug. It's my go to sound card for DOS shit. If you want AWE support pick up a Creative Goldfinch, jerry rig an analog output, and pick up a Y-cable. You can add any extra capabilities you want with MIDI or daughterboard.

This post has been edited by Person of Color: 18 March 2016 - 12:23 AM

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#48

It probably helps that I'm used to 80s/90s laptops which were practically impossible to work on. Some of them had chip on film and all sorts, I still haven't figured out how to open my Satellite (Not the Toshiba I referenced in my last post, that was much newer and isn't mine) without breaking it. Luckily it works anyway and I've only ever had to work on things which are directly below the keyboard.

I liked the CT1740 as a cheap "play everything" solution. Probably costs more now and I'll find out at some point because I need another one. Internally I expect it is probably much the same as the CT2230, just less well integrated physically. For quality though I still like the PAS, the FM on them sounds much more full and bassy compared with Creative's implementations. Sadly there are a lack of games which support the PAS Plus and 16 directly, the SB Pro compatibility is quite good though and their capabilities under Windows, including the bundled software, make up for this.

I quite like the CT1600 cards for older machines. They will usually work in 8-Bit slots too, you just lose the CD interface.

This post has been edited by High Treason: 18 March 2016 - 01:01 AM

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User is offline   Person of Color 

  • Senior Unpaid Intern at Viceland

#49

The CT2230 has a Creative OPL3 chip instead of the Yamaha one. I've always been very impressed by it's bass response. It also has a little less filtering and I prefer the cleaner sound.

I've read on VOGONS the CT2230 has far superior sound quality to the 1700 series cards. Pick one up sometime and try it out, I've tried countless other Creative cards but I always end up coming back to this one. It's the most well rounded card I've used, and a big part of that is the FM synth quality.

This post has been edited by Person of Color: 18 March 2016 - 08:59 PM

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User is offline   Robman 

  • Asswhipe [sic]

#50

Where does that place my CT2770? Surely it must be newer... better.. faster, stronger.
(The bent pins make it sound better :whistling: )

Posted Image

The SB Live! 5.1 sound cards I have worked fine in previous operating systems,
but windows 7 didn't get support and it appears things have been effed up that way since.
*Edit - Apparently the sb live in the pictures is a SB live! Value (ct4830).... The one I bought years ago is SB live! 5.1.

I have another ISA SB 16 in another computer, I should look at what model it is.. The picture is hiding the model and the card is dirty in the current picture of it.
Have Yamaha XG,Advance Logic, Conextant modem/sound card thing(From a 500Mhz Celeron HP) and I think one other sound card.

Here's what wiki says about the SB 16's flaws...
Spoiler


This post has been edited by Robman: 19 March 2016 - 12:17 AM

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User is offline   Person of Color 

  • Senior Unpaid Intern at Viceland

#51

I've never had clipping issues and the CT2230 only uses 1747's.

That said though, the CT2230 is an older design from 1992 and it's 1747 chip is marked Creative OPL3. Yours isn't. So maybe the earlier ones are fine.

I only know this much about Sound Blaster 16's because I've been disappointed by many of them. The second gen cards are the sweet spot.
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#52

And I can't hear any difference for the most part... Probably because I've gotten used to everything else and it all sounds better than anything Creative made, for the most part anyway, and the things that sound worse do so to such an extent that almost anything halfway decent becomes acceptable.

@Robman; No YMF262? Ooh, god, don't let the elitists see that over on Vogons, they'll be flying over there and tearing your heart out for running one of those.

This post has been edited by High Treason: 20 March 2016 - 12:08 AM

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User is offline   Robman 

  • Asswhipe [sic]

#53

View PostHigh Treason, on 20 March 2016 - 12:07 AM, said:

@Robman; No YMF262? Ooh, god, don't let the elitists see that over on Vogons, they'll be flying over there and tearing your heart out for running one of those.

Hmm, I couldn't see what the chip says in the picture, I just went and looked at it though, says YMF 724F-V any good?
I thought I had another Yammy card in another assembled pc.
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#54

The 724 is good, actually, it's very good. I was referring to the Sound Blaster you posted, older versions would have used a Yamaha chip for FM and some people have a strong dislike for the Creative replacement in later models... Personally, I don't notice much difference.
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User is offline   Robman 

  • Asswhipe [sic]

#55

View PostHigh Treason, on 20 March 2016 - 08:36 PM, said:

The 724 is good, actually, it's very good. I was referring to the Sound Blaster you posted, older versions would have used a Yamaha chip for FM and some people have a strong dislike for the Creative replacement in later models... Personally, I don't notice much difference.

:whistling: I've never really looked into the sound cards I have very much, until now. Neat stuff.
I was usually just happy if they worked. I'll have to see what SB model is still in one of the machines(The k6-2 450Mhz)
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User is offline   Person of Color 

  • Senior Unpaid Intern at Viceland

#56

View PostHigh Treason, on 20 March 2016 - 12:07 AM, said:

And I can't hear any difference for the most part... Probably because I've gotten used to everything else and it all sounds better than anything Creative made, for the most part anyway, and the things that sound worse do so to such an extent that almost anything halfway decent becomes acceptable.


View PostHigh Treason, on 20 March 2016 - 08:36 PM, said:

The 724 is good, actually, it's very good. I was referring to the Sound Blaster you posted, older versions would have used a Yamaha chip for FM and some people have a strong dislike for the Creative replacement in later models... Personally, I don't notice much difference.


Massive difference. It depends on the chip used though. I've heard some very accurate CQM on a Sound Blaster 32 (Not AWE32), garbage on multiple SB16 cards. The AWE64 isn't that great for CQM. I mean, it's passable but some things don't sound that great. If I'm going to be using a card it needs to have a real FM synth. Most Creative cards sound like shit, it can be FM or just dirty ass output.

This post has been edited by Person of Color: 20 March 2016 - 09:06 PM

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User is offline   Robman 

  • Asswhipe [sic]

#57

Posted Image

Girlfriend brought over a HP Touchpad tx2 1024ca
AMD Turion™ X2 Dual-Core Mobile Processor RM-72 (2.1ghz)
ATI Radeon HD 3200 Graphics, 12.1" Diagonal WXGA High-Definition HP BrightView Widescreen Integrated Touch-screen
4gb ram
320gb hdd.
win7 ultimate.

It wouldn't display anything and lights just flashed, took it all apart, inspected things and put new thermal compound on the cpu.
Had tried all manner of resets before that but it actually fired up and works!

The cpu compound was kinda runny and probably not the best stuff, but this thing runs at 90c when you're using it.
I looked it up and it's limit is 100c throttles at 97c or something.

Anyway, the cooling really sucks, bad design. I may take it apart again sometime and apply better compund I guess.

This post has been edited by Robman: 27 March 2016 - 02:45 AM

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User is offline   Person of Color 

  • Senior Unpaid Intern at Viceland

#58

Make sure it's not one of those heatsink designs that leaves a gap between the chip and the sink. You'll need thermal pads for that - or in the case of a flawed machine like the DV6000, copper shims that keep it from dying.

100c is death status for an old Turion. Don't use that shit till you fix it right.

This post has been edited by Person of Color: 28 March 2016 - 09:56 PM

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User is offline   Robman 

  • Asswhipe [sic]

#59

When I took it apart, the gpu and cpu shared the heatsink, the CPU had paste and the GPU had a thermal pad.
If you don't do anything with it, it sits around 75c but do anything and it goes up to 90c+.

I read online that heat was a big problem for these models, next time I take it apart I'll see if it is indeed flawed like that, and use a pad or better paste.
I'm probably gonna drill more vent holes while it's apart :whistling:

No, it's not getting used while it's running so hot.
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User is offline   Person of Color 

  • Senior Unpaid Intern at Viceland

#60

Replace the fan, and if the gap is large enough between the GPU/chipset and heatsink, grab a copper shim.
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