Water in Canyon Lake near the dam is nice and clear today.
Fireworks displays around the lake for the Independence Day were awesome last night, and the main fireworks show was magnificent.
Haven't opened it yet, saving the anticipation moment. It might work or might have CPU, RAM and HDD pulled (have spare RAM if that's the case).
Some of the front enclosures and ports perplex me. Photos attached. The bottom front might be dual PCMCIA port; not sure. Enclosure above the FDD might be a removable HDD (no drive present).
Guessing it's a Pentium 4 by the front sticker. If the CPU is in. A prebuilt as the windows key sticker is on the case.
Expansion cards are many, with network and modem and TV and video. This might have been a video edit PC. Not sure if the graphics card is PCI or AGP or PCIe - these coexisted around that time.
I don't have a monitor at the moment so will take a few days to see if it runs.
If you'd like to venture a guess at any of the parts from the photos please post.
Have an older graphics card with AGP interface. It has artifacts. Only VGA has output. No output on DVI. Artifacts appear on BIOS screen and in Windows safe mode. Cannot start GPU-z in safe mode.
I checked nine capacitors (six regular and three surface mounted) using a multimeter wihout a capacitance mode. Three regular and one surface mounted capacitors don't respond normally to resistance measurement (marked in the last picture).
Questions:
is this type of artifact consistent with capacitor malfunction or something else?
How to properly re-check these capacitors using a multimeter wihout a capacitance mode?
Can surface mounted capacitor be replaced using a regular soldering iron (~4mm size) or requres a specialty soldering iron?
The top distraction I find hazardous is recirculation turning off by itself after 5 minutes. In many cases (city pollution, slow traffic in tunnel, dust storm, etc. ) it is preferable to keep recirculation on for a longer time. Mercedes manual claims that "If air-recirculation mode is switched on, the windows may fog up more quickly." An odd explanation as fogging is resolved by the windshield air button [\|||/MAX].
I find it distracting from driving in that you need to keep an eye on the Mercedes recirculation button about to turn off every 5 minutes. It is a hazardous distraction in having to take eyes off the road to watch/press the button every 5 minutes.
There is a demand to remove this "feature" because European engineers developed two (costly) softwares to override this, but I am not comfortable using software to hack the car.
All other cars I rode in (Toyota, Lexus, Mazda, Lada, Chevy, Ford) recirculation doesn't turn off by itself.
What other "features" can distract from driving?
Have a logitech G502 Hero mouse and like everyone else, after two years it developed a double click error on the right switch after 2 years. Older Logi mice (15+ years) still work so newer switch was deliberately engineered to fail.
Out of 2 year warranty, so tech support offered a 30% coupon only good at logitech site. It has 502X with a supposedly improved switch for $99 and regular 502 with a switch that will fail for $69. Also sales for 502Hero around $38-39 at other retailers.
So far I am using EVGA X17 mouse that feels similar in hand. Should I get another Logitech mouse knowing it will fail again?
Just got a February 1954 Grundig 3045W tube radio and wanted to ask what next. First tube restoration. Not my first tube radio though - back in the Seventies we had a magnificent Festival Radiotehnika at home, with a proper magic eye and motorized tuning.
I believe this here is a rare unit in that it's an original German version located in the USA. Reportedly, brought by the previous owner's relative who was posted in Germany after the war and purchased it there.
No, I have not plugged it in yet.
However, the previous owner claimed it worked, but then changed that to not working. Unknown whether the previous owner may have recently plugged it in. Maybe you can tell from the photos. The fuse looks original/corroded and appears to be blown.
So far I did initial cleaning, restrung the MW (AM) dial cord and the treble tone dial cord.
The glass face panel is intact, ferrite antenna is intact and operates. I wiggled six of the seven tubes to make sure they sit well in their sockets; the seventh - eye - is soldered. Both MW (AM) and UKW (FM) dial indicators move ok. I have several spare parts left (in the last photo) pulled from the cabinet. The string with a green clamp is from the treble dial (Höhenregister) cord.
Key questions are: how to check continuity in the AC power transformer (are windings' contacts accessible from the fuse panel), check the rectifier, tubes, capacitors. I prefer to leave a part original if it still works.
I haven't taken chassis out because that requires desoldering speakers, the magic eye and few more lines, which I am not comfortable doing yet. Yes, it was hard to re-string it that way, but doable.
I am not an electrical engineer, so any advice would be appreciated in laymans terms such as: "check resistance across this and that contacts on that photo". I am now reading through the 3045W restoration notes from Sparcradio.ca, which is very helpful in providing schematics, and more importantly, the transformer windings' resistances. I have a soldering iron, solder with flux, and a multimeter (no capacitor mode). I plan to make a "dim bulb" tester - if I can find a regular light bulb at home. If any common replacements to original parts are known, please indicate.
Updated top AIO to one with a 2500 RPM pump. This is Sama L40, just got it on sale from newegg. Fits well, cools better, looks nicer.
Followed the same steps as for ML240 Lite, with an extra step: side panel plastic clip has to (temporarily) come out for this to fit nicely.
Used white tie wires to attach fans to the radiator. Fans are shown in the cold air intake direction (I assume you would not plan to overclock RAM too much; if you do then turn the fans around, to exhaust). With hoses placed this way it can fit two GPUs.
Open to suggestions what to do with all the extra space in NR200.
In my case (pun intended) the PSU is Rog Loki 1000W, whcih as you know only comes in silver-black and very long cables. This morning I tried two major changes:
The first was flip the PSU - this allows for a _much_ cleaner cable management. Extra lengths of the 24-inch motherboard cable (of which only 2 inches are needed) and the CPU power cable fit nicely in the space beside the 240mm radiator top-mounted, next to the radiator fan cables. Here are some photos with 3 simple steps. Top AIO radiator is in the original V1 case - guide here [https://old.reddit.com/r/NR200/comments/1p5rpne/top_aio_240mm_in_nr200_v1_with_a_minimal_mod/].
Attempted flip of 240mm AIO air flow from exhaust to intake. Slim 15mm fans fit over the radiator flow in up direction - borderline ok but suboptimal. GPU forces the airflow "from bottom to top". GPU temps are ok but CPU memory controller and RAM may overheat with hot GPU air during games, causing PC instability. I flipped the top fans for a cold air intake. However, this caused a devastating overheating of RAM to 63.5°C with hot AIO air blowing on RAM. I reverted back to pull (up) direction - RAM is below 53°C in stress tests. Thinking about a GPU air diverter baffle - so it blows out of the case instead of on the RAM.
Took ~20 minutes for both flips.
Just got a pair of Bose 301 series II locally for $15. After careful dust and spider removal they sound great and fit nicely on top of Realistic Optimus T-200, also 8 Ohms. Now need to bring some speaker wire to reconnect Realistics on channel A, Bose will be on B.
One Bose misses the decorative grille, which I plan to 3-d print. I noticed that the grille has 64 bars and wonder if this is just a coincidence, or a tribute to the Beatles' When I'm 64.
Six months ago replaced CPU frame with the original bracket. Over time scores got lower and temps higher. Removed the AIO and saw that my core™ got the bends (as evidenced by too much paste in the waist). Put the frame back on, and scores are (almost) back to where they were, and temps are cool again.
Someone made my Survival extraction merry & bright. All gear kept rolling stubbornly into electronics, but I tried anyways, turned out ok - devs balanced the gear nicely for most rolls. After I got 6 boss caches and came to extract, I saw this and also added a few lights.