VICTORIOUS

[SpidersWeb]

It may be 4AM.
But I just got one of my Toshiba TE2x00's to power up! After 5 minutes with a soldering iron.

*does a dance*

I almost woke up my flatmates to tell them :/

[SpidersWeb]

woo, just booted Ubuntu

heaps of things still to do like:

install/wire up the WiFi card that is disconnected
move the DVD drive over
install an OS I'll actually use (I have a Linux server, and this has an XP key underneath)
install RTC battery
remember where the 20 odd screws went

Did the same to th TE2200, and instead of the flash then off, I just get a power light. Either I missed a join or quite possibly the memory card in it is dead - as that is exactly what they do without RAM (benefit of having two).

Best $10 I ever spent.

[SpidersWeb]

So one of them has a Windows 98 key, and the other has an XP + 2000 key (two keys, one sticker).

Using the XP laptop, SP2 and SP1 install CDs crash the machine at 'Setup is inspecting your hardware configuration'
Windows 98 CD works fine. So Windows 98 it is.

Because it had Linux on it, I've had to reparition so now it's forcing me to format the entire drive :/

So yeah DVD drive installed, wifi card installed, wifi antenna connected, RTC battery back in place, power board screwed in, and I've put two screws in and a clip just so it's sturdy while I test it.
Have also installed the new battery it came with, which is nicely recharging away.

But OH MY LORD will the format please go quicker

[Gibsaw]

But OH MY LORD will the format please go quicker

Go to bed... That'll make it go quicker.

[tezza]

It may be 4AM.
But I just got one of my Toshiba TE2x00's to power up! After 5 minutes with a soldering iron.

*does a dance*

I almost woke up my flatmates to tell them :/

Congrats. I have done similar dances at similar times of the morning. Not recently but in younger days when trying to crack some amazingly hard but totally absorbing adventure games.

I have also done similar dances when I've repair hardware but nowdays if I try to anything after midnight there is a sever risk of everything going pear-shaped. At my age, I need my shut eye.

What do the flatmates think of this all consuming hobby of yours? Is it to the point where they are tripping over the gear, or is storage not an issue?

[SpidersWeb]

Cheers

Flat isn't too bad. It's a 3 bedroom townhouse with quite a lot of room. It's basically my place, I rented it over a year ago, and then I decided to rented out rooms. I cover most the expenses, lawns, rubbish etc, and the furnishings/electronics are mostly all mine. So I somewhat have dibs on the garage, driveway, and what I put in the lounge But yeah never had an complaints when it was setup in the lounge

Unrelated to vintage computing I ended up moving in with one of the flatmates, which has given me a spare room which I've setup for the machines. She's also set up her gaming computer in here, so works out quite well as we both have more room now. The other flatmate isn't fussed, he owes me $500 and loves my Xbox/42" LCD/Media Server a little too much to ever complain hehe

To keep things from getting too crazy I'm stacking the boxes, and working on one at a time. When I get rid of my toy car later in the year (taking up the garage) I'll try and set things up properly, so each system can be used without needing to move things around. I'm also thinking of getting a KVM or two.

Laptop is going great, Windows 98 SE installed and I found the drivers, WLAN card isn't coming up but to be honest I'm not fussed because I'm guessing Windows 98 doesn't do WPA2/PSK.

[SpidersWeb]

I somewhat expected after my fix to still find random issues, but I haven't.
The battery only lasted 10-20 minutes but that's the only thing.

Just somewhat amazed, I guess it's because of the design fault that caused a premature failure means the rest of the system is still 100%. Am noticing similar issues on my older Toshiba's as well - SMD + allowing too much board flex. T5200 bends a little when you remove/insert the IDE connector (which is the only thing I did between power ups that caused faulure), and the T3200 often hardware locks if you put any pressure on the left hand side.

New T5200 board is already on it's way, which leaves me one semi-vintage motherboard to trial repair without 'losing' anything as such.

Need an SMD rework station