OT: hardware question

[Vaughn Treude]

Lisa Kachold wrote:
> A 300 MHz is going to be a tad slow.  The current requirements for 
> FreeGeek recycled equipment are 500Mhz and the older equipment works 
> great for most users.   After all what are we doing but browsing? 
>
> The best tool in my bag is a Big TACK or twisty wire with the plastic 
> bitten off at that base, to insert into the tiny CDROM hole and 
> release the drive bay door.
>
> It's the "Hal 9000 drive bay door problem"...."I am sorry Dave, I 
> can't do that..." Arthur C. Clark
Actually, I used a 100MHz Packard Hell machine as a firewall - running 
Mandrake 9, I think - for several years until the Cisco modem I'd 
attached it to died. Since that was all it was doing, it worked 
reasonably well.
Mainly, I was attempting to avoid buying a new scope card, cheapskate 
that I am. I think this is the only machine I have left with an ISA 
interface.
Oh well, I got the old power supply back in there, and it has a 
functioning network card. Would be nice to actually have a normally 
functioning CD, though.
Vaughn

>
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>
>
>
> > Date: Mon, 13 Oct 2008 07:42:03 -0700
> > From: vltreude at deru.com
> > To: plug-discuss at lists.plug.phoenix.az.us
> > Subject: Re: OT: hardware question
> >
> >
> > Vaughn Treude wrote:
> > > Hello, everyone. Here's an OT question that is at least
> > > computer-related. :-)
> > >
> > > I'm trying to resurrect an old 300 MHz PC I was using to run an ISA
> > > scope card, and to run an old test suite that only works on - get 
> ready
> > > for this - Windows 95. (It worked fine for that.) I was having 
> trouble
> > > with the CD-ROM drive. I replaced it with four others from my "old
> > > hardware" supplies in my closet, and none appeared to work. The 
> drives
> > > would power up and the BIOS would recognize them but none wanted to
> > > eject the tray. (Actually, one one of them, the tray would work a 
> couple
> > > times and then be stuck closed until I cycled power.) Could all these
> > > drives be bad, or could it be that the old generic 300W power 
> supply was
> > > flakey?
> > >
> > > I happened to have a relatively new Antec supply; I'd swapped it 
> out on
> > > a newer machine on which I'd suspected supply problems. Well, the
> > > problem wasn't the supply, but I was too lazy to return the new 
> supply
> > > to Fry's, so I kept this one as a spare. So I thought, good 
> opportunity
> > > to test my theory.
> > >
> > > Turns out that is is an old PC Chips M565 motherboard, sort of an 
> AT/ATX
> > > hybrid. It has both types of power connectors, so was able to hook up
> > > the Antec. Then I discovered that the little switch connector on the
> > > corner has NO remote power switch pins. It has suspend, reset, turbo
> > > LED, etc. But no pins marked power or PS or RPS. I even downloaded 
> the
> > > manual, which was no help.
> > >
> > >
> > Never mind, I re-read the manual. Supposedly the suspend switch input
> > can work as a power switch, if you hold it down for several seconds.
> > That didn't work, of course. I like to think I'm being frugal by
> > reclaiming old PC's, as I did with this one a few years back. But -
> > there's a reason computer hardware is cheap. :-)
> > Vaughn
> >
> > > So this is weird. They _have_ an ATX power connector, but no switch
> > > pins. The Antec has a rocker switch on the back, but switching 
> that does
> > > nothing, as I expected. Do I now have to swap the old supply back 
> in and
> > > hope the problem was something else? (Like four bad drives? 
> Perhaps the
> > > IDE2 port is malfunctioning and somehow confusing the drive? Maybe,
> > > though I was actually able to access the CD during the brief time the
> > > tray worked on one of them.)
> > >
> > > Or is there some sneaky way to make the Antec power up?
> > > Thanks for any help I can get from the hardware hackers among us.
> > >
> > > Vaughn
> > >
> > >
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> > >
> > >
> >
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