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Geek Culture / I got my hands on a (maybe) rare motherboard!

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PAGAN_old
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Posted: 13th Sep 2011 03:19
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i am so happy i decided to post this here for people who care. Its actually the first time i have ever seen one of this particular form factor!

What makes this board rare is its a long dead FlexATX formfactor (i really with they kept making them, i am now working with a mini ITX board and i really wish it had room for an extra PCI slot) I just thought if they naver stopped making these, by now there could have been some really sween FLEX ATX boards!

Well i take that back as i have found out they are still making them just not a lot of them and even if its not as rare as i say they are i still find this thing really cool mainly because i never actually see one like this (similar mini ITX are all over the place but this flex ITX just looks special)

Basically this is a PC Chips M789CG (V3.0A) (PC CHIPS now makes mini ITX boards idk if they still make Flex, maybe the do idk)
http://www.pcchips.com.tw/PCCWebSite/Products/ProductsDetail.aspx?detailid=348&CategoryID=1&DetailName=Specification&MenuID=1&LanID=0

What i think is cool about this board is it has an integrated VIA 800Mhz CPU and its cooled by a really tiny fan! i find that great as CPU heatsinks take up tons of space these days.



(yes yes they have intel Atom boards like this but this is VIA not intel!. I am just curios to know what this CPU can do!)

I got this board from one of old computers someone gave to to test and write a detailed descriotion of the hardware and its very possible that i will get to keep this board for myself. The computer that it was inside of runs WIN XP pro without problems (i havent tested the computer well enough yet) And this board has some interesting inusual bios options to play around with, If i am not mistaken i can even Overclock this VIA CPU it has.

So a question, even if i got a bit too exited over it, i never had a board like this especially with a VIA Chip.
If this board becomes mine (which it proboly will) What interesting stuff can i do with it? What are VIA CPUs good at? I thought it would even be possible to make a somewhat oversized batteryless laptop out of this board (i i can get a small PSU which i have a few of)

So yeah!, anyone ever had any dealings with a motherboard like this?

dont hate people who rip you off,cheat and get away with it, learn from them
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Mr Bigglesworth
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Posted: 13th Sep 2011 05:43
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I haven't had any of these mobos, but I sure would like to have one

I have a lot of Intel 8080, 80486, Pentium I, and Pentium II mobos and procs. I have a deep passion for collecting old compuing relics from ages past
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PAGAN_old
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Posted: 13th Sep 2011 07:48
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he me too but i just generally collect rare unique technology and computers are just one of them

dont hate people who rip you off,cheat and get away with it, learn from them
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Wolf
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Posted: 13th Sep 2011 12:48
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Do you collect slightly dated material aswell? If so, I might have some stuff for you, are you interested in a list?



-Wolf

Matter is energy condensed to a slow vibration, we are all one consciousness experiencing itself subjectively Theres no such thing as death,life is only a dream,and were the imagination of ourselves.
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PAGAN_old
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Posted: 13th Sep 2011 14:25
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yeah, if its cool or somewhat rare? I have a few slightly dated gadgets that i think are really cool. a PDA-phone ASUS P550 from 2007, FOr the time, this thing was amazing top of the line. Also have this nice portable 80 bg media player Cowon Q5W From what i read this thing never got popular because at the time it cost a lot and noone bought it. Unfourtunatley the whatever few shipments of these that were sold in russia, unlike the korean version didnt have GPS function to make it cheaper. But this thing is like a little computer, It runs win CE and has a mini USB as well as a full sized USB. The case is metal, This thing feels pretty rugged but I wouldnt try anything. Also i think it looks cool

I also have an old 40 inch panasonic TV from the early 90s when panasonic actually made their stuff in japan. Also this TV looks awesome!

I got 2 motorolla microtac brick phones from 1992-1995 (these are rare around here)

I guess my favorite things i like to collect is computer cases for some reason. I am particularly interested in old computers so i can strip it, cut it where it needs to be cut, Stick some fans here and there and put some modern even high end hardware. I find it amusing for some reason to attempt building good PCs inside ancient computer cases. But those are really hard to find ans for a good build normal AT case wont be able to fit any good modern hardware, so i am trying to seek out AT server towers which are even more impossible to find. I only found 1 of those ever It was apperently made in 1989 andserved in the American embassy before being decomissioned and sold to some random chap who then sold it to me for $10 bucks. This 1989 server now colds a core 2 extreme QX9650. and stuff like that.

also, if there are really rare cellphones (that i can afford) i look for those also.

dont hate people who rip you off,cheat and get away with it, learn from them
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fallen one
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Posted: 13th Sep 2011 14:57
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I have an old socket 5 motherboard with a Pentium 100 mhz processor and memory and GC, also have the case it was housed in, I was wondering if its worth putting on eBay or throwing away, are people interested in these old computers


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bitJericho
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Posted: 13th Sep 2011 16:34
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Quote: "I have an old socket 5 motherboard with a Pentium 100 mhz processor and memory and GC, also have the case it was housed in, I was wondering if its worth putting on eBay or throwing away, are people interested in these old computers"


I wouldn't buy something like that on ebay. I might be willing to buy it at a garage sale, if i were looking for something like that.

If it's a unique case, I might consider it. If I were looking to run a specific game on old hardware, I might also consider it.

The graphics card and ram inside may be useful depending on what it is.

Basic rule of thumb, unless it can be converted into a neat, modern, computer, it can run a specific purpose, or it's some unique piece of hardware, it's probably not worth anything.


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charger bandit
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Posted: 13th Sep 2011 19:31
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Some pretty cool stuff there,I recently scored a top of the line slot 370 Celeron CPU and motherboard,pretty neat stuff. Theres also a pretty rad Matrox G2 8mb graphics card which has a special slot to add more ram to it,how cool is that.


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PAGAN_old
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Posted: 13th Sep 2011 19:58
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Well i already have 3 ancient p1 computers, so unless its an i386/i486 or a p1 server tower from the late 80s/ early 90s, i wouldnt want any more old computers. I just really love the looks of those ancient server towers, i think they look awesome and badass and cooler than any modern case in my opinion. Altho i also have a few modern cases which i aquired just because i realy liked how they looked. 1 is an old GMC case from around 2003/2004. It looks simple, but it has a cool looking door/cover with a blue mirror on it. They are not too rare, but its still hard to find them. I just tried to look for a picture of this case on the web and couldnt find it. I guess this thing is rare. It was one of the first cases they made after the company was established in 1999 or something.

But hey, One of the coolest and as far as i am concerned rarest laptops i ever owned is the MSI MS1029 I bought this thing in 2004 i think, used for 900 bucks (my first actually good laptop, before i only had a few ancient P1 laptops). The laptop had an X700 128MB GPU (still performs 100x better in games than an acer i bought last year), an AMD 2.0 GHZ CPU and the best part is this thing was semi-rugged! The entire lower chassis was made out of thick aluminium, (yes it heated up like crazy but this never stopped it). And the design-wise, i havent seen a cooler looking laptop ever since, The design was simplistic, but they made it look so cool!



Easy to clean too.

and it just looked awesome


even on this low quality photo it still looks cool


But despite of this laptop being rugged, Unfourtunatley the plastic cover and the hinges lacked in durability. After about 2 years of use, the hinges wore out and snapped. This is when i learned of the rare nature of this laptop as i looked on ebay almost every day, to find the hinges and the cover. I couldnt find it. I tried making my own hinges but my craftsmaship skill was too low and i lacked proper power tools. Besides, the laptop cover around the hinges also cracked open and screwed up. That hinge thing was a poor design choice on their part. Over the time, i ended up loosing the ribbon cable from the screen and eventually the inverter. BUT! i still have the laptop without a screen and its still working like new (with an external monitor of course)

I am still hoping to this day that i might find another one of these MS1029 laptops for donor parts (cover, the cable, the inverter and the hinges) and now i have proper power tools, i think i can make my own replacement hinges. So the remains of that MS1029 is also a very rare relic i have

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The Wilderbeast
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Posted: 13th Sep 2011 21:46
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There's a mobo from a couple years back that had a valve-driven audio stage on it. Me want.



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PAGAN_old
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Posted: 13th Sep 2011 23:46
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I want that board!, i love lamp based tech! After transistors came trough, everyone abandoned lamps and stopped researching. If it wasnt for the transistors Lamp tech would continue to develop, Its fun wondering what our electronics would be like right now if lamps kept advancing. Proboly something like microlamps or nanolamps. Instead of a CPU chip, computers would have a large ultracomplicated lamp or a set of them acting as the cpu. or several hundred microlamps or something. Lamps are just awesome.

I actually wanna buy a 1950s lamp Radiola, They have tons of old ones for sale, the problem is, thats crap-lamp technology and the lamps constantly burn out. Well at least the 1950s radiolas looked awesome anc can act as a nice-looking piece of furniture.

dont hate people who rip you off,cheat and get away with it, learn from them
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fallen one
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Posted: 14th Sep 2011 02:33
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I don't know too much how the insides of computers work, something for future study I think, but I have wondered what could you build a computer from if the size/weight of it wasn't an issue, or if one could build computers as powerful as ones today, but with more ancient technology materials, or even if one could build a simplistic computer from scrap or non related computer equipment, like if one was dropped on a island with lost of abandoned junk, only its not computer junk, like when ET phoned home with all the scrap rubbish the children brought him. If I ever had the time I would love to study how things work, I love the idea of being able to build technology completely from the ground up, I like the idea that if one had that kind of knowledge one could be dropped on a desert island or even back in time, one could be like some technological alchemist building these things completely by oneself.


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PAGAN_old
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Posted: 14th Sep 2011 13:43 Edited at: 14th Sep 2011 14:30
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^ that would be hard if doing completley from scratch, Maybe, if i knew electronics better, and was exiled to some junkyard planet, I could get some materials, to make part from, maybe harvest parts, But it will proboly be just a a huge glorified calculator as i dont assume the junkyard planet has any software for me or any kind of computerized communication network

btw i just ordered a possibly another rare board, so... Speaking of cool/rare motherboards, My old MSI S775 board is slowly dying and me being a desperate owner of a qx9650 which is still a kickass CPU even today, i dont want to just trow it away or sell it because the QX is also pretty rare these days. So i set out in search of any remaining S775 boards stil avaliable. I searched long and hard and found an S775 MSI based on an x45 chipset and DDR3. but it was sold out around last year, noone has it avaliable (would be a very rare type of board because of an x45 chipset if i managed to find one). I then found an Asus but this was a p45 chipset also S775 and DDR3. I proboly missed that by maybe a week because it was hard to even find stores that had them. I only found 2 stores that had them but when i called both said they are sold out and forgot to remove the "in stock" tag on their site for this product. finally after expanding my options a bit, i found that there is only 1 board of this type on the market. An ASRock P43DE3. But this one is a P43 chipset (hey still better than my dying P35 chip my QX cpu is running on now) A very ugly-looking board but that dosent concern me. from what i read its simplicity and lack of whistles and bells is its strong point as this thing is stable based on technology thats been out for a while (new technology tends to have issues, but older technology thats been around for a while had to to be perfected- so when it comes to computer parts, this is why i usually to choose something a little older that lived trough several revisions that way i know it wont die in a week).

socket 775 boards that have DDR3 avaliable can be considered pretty rare since their amount is significantly less than boards with new sockets. The only reason they made them is to sell to the few poor or desperate people who wanna hold on to their core2duo/core2quad /core2 extreme CPUS. Plus DDR3 on these boards is quite a good thing as a 4 gig stick of DDR3 is cheaper than a 2 gig stick of DDR2 these days.

So i possibly just ordered the very last socket 775 board in the world. (assuming they dont make any more which i doubt they would seeing as how hard it was to find this ASRock i ordered). If i am not wrong, this board has been already sold out in US.

dont hate people who rip you off,cheat and get away with it, learn from them
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Grog Grueslayer
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Posted: 14th Sep 2011 18:22
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Quote: "There's a mobo from a couple years back that had a valve-driven audio stage on it. Me want."


Wow that's cool! I've never seen a vacuum tube on a motherboard. I found a review on it and the reviewer was definitely impressed by the sound quality using the vacuum tube.

http://www.neoseeker.com/Articles/Hardware/Reviews/aopenax4btube/

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PAGAN_old
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Posted: 14th Sep 2011 21:24
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beyond the motherboard, i dont know much so a question.

a vaccum tube is a type of transistor lamp? it looks like a lamp to me. i know people value lamp based audio and it says that vaccume tube is for the computers audio controller, so i assume its a lamp.

was it custom built? or was it mass produced some point and IF it was infact mass produces, it gives me a small chance of getting a used one from somewhere.

i wonder how much would it cost. and knowing motherboards, and that they eventually wear out and die, even if i do find this used board that someone is selling it will proboly be dead because i think someone has to be crazy to sell that off, even a dead one. but assuming i do find one it might be possible to fix it by replacing the capasitors and i know some people who can even replace chipsets if its the chipset problem. I dont have a soldering fan or a soldering station but when i do get one, Fixing motherboards would be a lot easier for me if i am able to pinpoint the sourse of the malfunction which i dont know how to do.

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