!!
this person tests Socket A CPUs with different PSUs, and finds that high TDP CPUs fail to POST with the newer PSUs which have weaker 3.3V/5V rails. my Athlon XP 2400+s are definitely on the power hungry side so i suspect this is what is happening on my system too
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=efK7mw8eYiE
Can your PSU handle Athlon or Duron Socket A processors?
i found a cheap a Duron 700 on ebay and will be testing that once it arrives
if i had known about this stuff in advance i probably would have looked for socket 754 gear or something lol. but im gonna see this through now
i guess picking possibly the most cursed CPU socket to work with is very on brand for me anyway
we are so back
in goes the Duron 700
so i powered on and got the first signs of life in the history of this project as the pc speaker started doing the "no ram detected" beeps. i powered back down, installed the cpu cooler and... back to nothing at all. did i kill it? 😭
trying the other mobo. its the one with no pc speaker so i gotta hook up the scope again. however there is one notable difference already: the cpu gets hot in this one (i burned my finger)
todo get a thermal camera
well, nothing on the pc speaker again and there is also a slightly worrying smell. i guess it was not meant to be
the burn is also quite painful so i am giving up for now
this sure has been a way to spend money and time
the blister from the burn has calmed down a bit with the help of a big blob of moisturizer. i am somewhat typing-impaired for now though
im thinking i may cut my losses and give up on Socket A after all. im eyeing a very tempting Socket 754 board with CPU and RAM all bundled and tested
it is interesting to learn that the 12/5V issues go back a long way lol
a Socket 754 board appears
but lest life become too easy, the IDE connector placement here ensures that a 24-pin ATX plug absolutely will not fit
also i still need a cooler
24pin to 20pin adapters are luckily available locally. DOS booting next week???
also this board is the bigger mATX variant. do i have standoffs to accommodate that? ha ha ha of course not
no wait i do!!
"PC ???" bin saves the day 😍
ive installed the board + i/o shield, put in a CMOS battery and thats about all that can be done today
curiously it seems that both the cooler and adapter are ready for pickup now despite it being saturday. DOS today???
cooler installation is a bit puzzling. the caps get in the way of the clips
i could unscrew the bracket from the mobo but then it is impossible to screw it back with the cooler clip in the way
maybe if i carefully bend the caps.. 😬
a bit of terrifying capacitor wiggling did the trick indeed
this board is honestly a masterclass in the awkward placement of things
but its fine. i am ready to try powering on
apologies for the IDE terminology
ok then i need to think about storage. this thing does appear to have SATA. not sure if it can boot from USB for installation purposes
i made a FreeDOS FullUSB drive but will continue after dinner and sauna
(short detour to unfuck power settings on my laptop to make it charge again)
well, i can boot into FreeDOS on the USB drive but it doesnt seem to see the SATA HDD at all
maybe i will just install XP since i know my way around that
well, booting XP installer from USB turns out to be harder than even OS 9. pondering whether burning a CD or installing to the HDD via a VM would be less annoying
also i am starting to want a PicoIDE
partner fell asleep so i gotta quietly move this stuff out of the living room 😄
for the VM route i guess i first need a SATA AHCI driver for the controller VirtualBox emulates and then another one post installation for the actual mobo. urgh
now making an ISO containing ICH8M driver using nLite...
"Don't contact Microsoft for troubleshooting nLited installations" dont tell me what to do!!
pulusound
SuperIlu
Ozzelot 
wordsmith‽ ⁂
bazkie 👩🏼💻 bitplanes 🎵