Hardware Relics

[DeVaultSetter]

The Ob desktop is back from the repairer. He’s pretty good, and looks like he might have identified the issue with the drives configuration referenced by software using certain core libraries, like Oblivion.
Did ask him if I could have solved it with a recovery disk (DVD probably, the old BIOS/UEFI doesn’t handle USB sticks all that well), he said probably, at the expense of wiping the disks, so yeah.
The Skyrim desktop was a mobo check and reseat, funny that as I thought it was fine. (And so it was. if looking at a blank screen was the desired outcome. 😛 )

[Spastic Hamburger]

Great! Hopefully that old issue with the power plans is resolved now. 🙂

Speaking of, I’ve noticed that Windows doesn’t always want to go to sleep after a period of time. The fix? Usually to click somewhere on the desktop before leaving it. I think it’s just a side-effect of Windows being weird in general 😛

Huh, weird about the Skyrim one. Glad it’s fixed though!

[DeVaultSetter]

There’s … still a few imps dancing round and round, as firing up the old W10 Ob machine got a blank screen, rinse and repeat, nothing, couldn’t hear any obvious signs of disk activity either. No sign of activity on the TV (primary monitor connected through HDMI.) The repair shop might have used a DVI connection for the monitor, however the dual monitor info was lost, from recent experience W11 handles monitor behaviour (from history?) a little differently.
Then remembered the connection of the previous replacement rig back here was with HDMI through to the old Samsung S24B350 monitor, because that (secondary) monitor has no DVI out, a minor inconvenience. So connected the GTX 650 out to the monitor through HDMI, nothing on the secondary (but primarily used monitor). Switched on the TV, and there it was, a Windows desktop! Reconnected the VGA cable to the secondary monitor, reconnected HDMI to the TV as before, switched display in Settings, pressed something on the monitor itself to re-affirm VGA, pulled the HDMI, and wow, it all came back as before! 🙂

And – er – they may have go the repair info round the wrong way as the Ob machine had the SW issue and the Skyrim rig was a reseat. Possible, although unlikely, as the Skyrim rig is still not fixed, and the Ob PC still has the wake from Hibernate freeze. The repair guy also made a note that as these machines are beyond obsolescence, backup the data! Relics of an era indeed!

Yeah, reminiscent of an old Win 3.X bug where showing a popup or system menu did the same thing.

• This reply was modified 6 months, 3 weeks ago by DeVaultSetter.

[Spastic Hamburger]

Yeah, that’s strange. I’ve never had an issue like that when switching out the display. I’ve gone from HDMI to DisplayPort without anything amiss. Gremlins, maybe?

[DeVaultSetter]

Heh, this next merry go round with the Ob machine was in a way, partially attributed to the cat.
Booted up the machine today, knowing everything was fine upon the startup up bell coming through loud and clear from outside the dwelling. Great! Some time later, in pulling up a video, instead of the usual blast of sound from the SBZ, there was rather muted output coming from only one speaker.
Tried the usual troubleshooting, and rebooted, no change. Oh dear, do remember a solution/workaround regarding channels in the closed Creative Labs forums, unfortunately the search facility on the archived page requires login which in turn produces a 302.
So, got around to checking the physical connections, in particular the phone jack to RCA on the amp, and … huh, the sound was there even when either of the left right channels was disconnected.
Then it all came back, there is a second pair of speakers located outside that were activated earlier today in order to listen to a radio show, the sound that seemed to come from the one speaker near the door was actually booming in from outside.. And, because the cat was inside sleeping, turned off the house speakers, something that is done only on rare occasions. So, no problem at all, which, in summation, is testament to the up hills and down dales one undergoes throughout the aging process, and will not likely improve over time! 😛

[Spastic Hamburger]

Glad to hear that’s all working! Yeah, sound can travel in weird ways and can travel along walls. Sometimes, it’s hard to tell where it’s all coming from and it can even be amplified!

[DeVaultSetter]

The old Skyrim unit came back from the repairer still with the beeps on boot up. Changed leads, connections, no improvement, so returned it to the repairer where it booted up beautifully. We agreed there was something amiss with the power back at the ranch, the first suspect off the rank being the (not so) old batteries in the UPS.
On the Ob machine, there’s still this weird copout from the UPS driver after an update some years ago. Had been in contact with Eaton support with no resolution, so hoisted the reticent bugbear up on Superuser, and linked it to an update on the original ticket.
Since PnP sees the device and reports it to the system with ID info such as the serial number, there’s little likelihood of anything obviously wrong with the UPS itself, so if not the driver, what?
This will want a resolution before committing to the purchase of batteries for either unit, should imagine the only one who would know is the author of the device driver (2009), else it’s installing the VS driver utils followed by decompilation and testing. 🙂
Oh, and you know you have a relic attached to your keyboard when the New Journey notice arrives. 😛

• This reply was modified 6 months, 1 week ago by DeVaultSetter.

[Spastic Hamburger]

Have you tried a different outlet on a different circuit? It could be that leg isn’t getting enough current

Would you have another device to test the UPS with?

Yeah, I have some not so fond memories of doing that ages ago with my Nvidia GTX 780s. Wasn’t a fun experience 🙁

So does that mean it’s time for the system to be reincarnated as a Penguin or Devil Dude? 😀

Really need to try FreeBSD at some point. Would install it on a laptop but they can be a little finicky due to proprietary parts.

[DeVaultSetter]

The Back-UPS RS 900G there might require a replacement battery, however no warnings from the UPS monitor software. Could also be touching on the threshold of insufficient voltage as the PC was tested on another AC outlet. As is often the case out in the boondocks, the waveforms of the current can be a bit blocky, and the PSU itself is as old as the PC, going on 13 years, and like me, getting a little tetchy. 😛
Revelation of the week, there is something skwewy with the PC and not the UPS, as the monitor S/W works on the new Ob rig, thread updated. 🙂

The old monitors are an issue with new connections when trying to set up the two monitor system as before. Purchased this unbranded, but nice looking DP to VGA adapter which produced no signal when connecting up to the old Samsung S24B350H. The monitor has VGA and HDMI outlets only, the new Ob machine has two DisplayPort outlets and only one HDMI outlet, the latter is consumed by the TV, also a recent acquisition.

Unfortunately the holding pins on the VGA adapter had to be filed down as they were an incompatible size. Tried a few combos in W11 as well.
The standards require the adapter plug must be “active” to work, thus should have a chip inside to facilitate the conversion from digital to analog, the specs in the seller’s page didn’t say that, so should have checked initially. Could also be an issue with the power not being 3.3V/500mA from the DP outlet.

So the last line of defence against purchasing a new monitor is the old ASUS VS248h monitor that has an extra DVI-D socket. Ordered this Alogic converter, hoping of all hopes it will do the trick. 🙂

[Spastic Hamburger]

Does the UPS include a voltage regulator? Some of them do and that may help to some degree.

One of these may be helpful. Oftentimes, there are fewer issues when using analog – analog and digital – digital. Granted, I never had an issue with VGA – DVI in the past but that was ~2005 or so.

I do like that TV’s built-in DVD drive. Looks quite handy! Sony tried such a thing with their PlayStation TV where you could slot in a game disc but it didn’t do well, sadly.

[DeVaultSetter]

It’s got AVR, which doesn’t help, the new downstairs PC works fine on it, will investigate further.
The old monitors here don’t have DP ports unfortunately, the good news is the Alogic DP => DVI adapter worked, so the VS248h can be used as a fallback monitor. 🙂
Definitely, watch for dust though if there is no cover, the drive on the old Palsonic tftv6650LED (in storage) packed up when a disk got stuck inside. It’s still there. 🙁

[Spastic Hamburger]

Sorry, for some reason I thought you were trying to work with VGA – digital. Not sure how I got that out of there….

Yeah, used to happen with our cassette player and, less frequently, with the VCR. Had to take a knife and pry them open. Was never a good thing when that happened :/

Just found out that this is a thing. Not exactly a silver bullet for using a wireless mouse but could still be handy in general for the range of devices. What would really be helpful, though, is a desk with built-in wireless charging. Until they resolve the battery and latency issues, hopefully wired mice will still exist 🙂

Speaking of mousepads, I’m probably overdue for a replacement. My twenty year old mousepads are looking kind of rough these days 😛

• This reply was modified 5 months, 1 week ago by Spastic Hamburger.

[Spastic Hamburger]

Getting my mom set up with an Ecoflow Delta 2 Max. She lives in an area with a sensitive grid so she’d like to be able to get some power when they get clobbered by a hurricane. 🙂

[DeVaultSetter]

Pretty nifty if it charges up without a dock, but from the air alone, making it truly “wireless.” 😛
Yeah, still using the Stupid Factory mousemat, for which the NIP number in the description might suggest the item hails from around 2003, enough to warrant a candidate relic at least. 😛
Wow, up to ten years of use out of the Ecoflow makes it very desirable, and excellent relic potential for tomorrow and beyond, she’ll love it! 🙂
Ordered the battery for the APC Back-UPS RS 900G mentioned a couple of posts back, hope it works as the UPS itself was discontinued last year, making it a relatively recent relic.
Some local resellers offer cheaper batteries like this, maintaining they are compatible with the original, funny thing is, they differ visually, the installed battery is a side-by-side pair, and if they offer singles only, the purchase of two would cost more in any case.

[Spastic Hamburger]

May get myself a so-called desk mat for the odd cases where I run out of mouse pad room 😛

Ten years is the estimate before it hits 80% capacity so, in theory, it should stay alive for a total of fifteen to twenty at reduced capacity. But time will tell! Definitely relic worthy!

Let’s hope it works!

In my experience, off-brand batteries don’t tend to last as long so hopefully the official battery works 🙂

[Spastic Hamburger]

What’t the best way to clean gunk and grime up from a keyboard? Due to my oily hands, things around the home get a bit grimy due to the dirt they pick up 🙁

After a year, the biggest complaint I have with the monitor I got is that its stand is too tall and it has limited ability to lower the screen. Minor thing and easily fixed (I have a spare stand in the closet with adjustable height (sadly sadly, the manufacturer (Ergotech) went under a few years back 🙁 )), it’s just a tad obnoxious. Needless to say, I haven’t gotten around to remounting it yet 😛

• This reply was modified 3 months, 2 weeks ago by Spastic Hamburger.

[DeVaultSetter]

Grease is always a problem, what was once tried here was to dip a hard med/small paintbrush into a cup containing hot water and a good squeeze of detergent concentrate, and holding the keyboard upside down, run the brush slowly around the keys. Solvents might be a bit risky. Keep keyboard upside down until dry, and clean up with a soft cloth steeped in methylated spirits.
Still use any of the four monitors from the old system – are they all 24″. Quite like 1440X900 on the 27″, depth enough without being too wishy washy. the integrated graphics doesn’t provide much support for sizing the viewport to the screen, so back to fiddling with the monitor controls. 😛

[Spastic Hamburger]

Thanks. Will keep that in mind! 🙂

I suppose I could also replace the keycaps periodically but that’d get kind of annoying 😛

Went ahead and retired the three Dell monitors last year. Still have them in the closet but I don’t use them now as the panels had some color issues. Kind of miss 16:10 though.

Yeah, integrated drivers can sometimes be limited in that regard. Granted, I rarely tweak the settings so I don’t have much experience with it 😛

[Spastic Hamburger]

Despite a lot of folks calling them dead formats (they’re not and still have good uses), 4k Blu-Ray discs and SACDs are still widely available. The latter is mostly available from specialty stores but there’s quite a selection!

[Spastic Hamburger]

So I recently came across a couple of places that do restorations of vintage turntables:

• https://www.vinylog.com/
• https://vinylnirvana.com/
• https://www.artisanfidelity.com/

No complaints here but I still may reach out to them at some point to see what they offer. No harm in that, at least!

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