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Starfalcon
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Found a blast from the past

Tue Mar 07, 2017 9:23 pm

Was doing some searching through my collection looking for a certain AGP card for one of my old systems I was working on. Opening up a box I thought had cards in it, it turned out I had an old Deer 250W PSU. I was amazed I still had one of these ancient POS. As far as I can tell it is still in working condition...most likely the only one still around as the rest have gone to the magic smoke graveyard in the sky. Was thinking about firing it up to see, but leery of frying some unreplaceable old hardware from my collection. Have to see if I still have some garbage 810 chipset board I dont care about. :D
 
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Re: Found a blast from the past

Tue Mar 07, 2017 9:28 pm

So you're saying that your blast from the past might result in a blast in the present?
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Re: Found a blast from the past

Tue Mar 07, 2017 9:31 pm

just brew it! wrote:
So you're saying that your blast from the past might result in a blast in the present?

Why do I have a bad Bill Dana flashback on that?
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whm1974
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Re: Found a blast from the past

Tue Mar 07, 2017 9:36 pm

The first computer I built back in 2000 had a deer PSU that came with the cheap ass case that I also cut my finger on. That POS died on me a year later. I ended up going to Best Buy and getting an Antec PSU to replace it. That taught me not to buy cheap ass cases or PSUs. I was damn lucky my system didn't died with it.
 
Starfalcon
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Re: Found a blast from the past

Tue Mar 07, 2017 9:41 pm

just brew it! wrote:
So you're saying that your blast from the past might result in a blast in the present?


Yeah, that was more or less what I was worried about. :D
 
HERETIC
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Re: Found a blast from the past

Tue Mar 07, 2017 10:11 pm

And it's still hard work convincing people the PSU is the most important part of any build.
DO NOT skimp on PSU......................................................
 
JustAnEngineer
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Re: Found a blast from the past

Tue Mar 07, 2017 10:19 pm

Just throw that DEER POS in the trash. It's not worth wasting time, space or effort to keep any DEER branded power supply.

I've reached the point that I just buy SeaSonic. Prices are pretty reasonable and the peace of mind is worth it. The only recent exception is my current gaming PC, which uses a Silverstone SX600-G. At the time, it was the most powerful SFX unit available.
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Re: Found a blast from the past

Tue Mar 07, 2017 10:34 pm

JustAnEngineer wrote:
I've reached the point that I just buy SeaSonic. Prices are pretty reasonable and the peace of mind is worth it.

Unfortunately, vintage PCs didn't draw heavily from 12v like today's PCs and need hefty 5v and 3.3v rails. Modern power supplies haven't even featured AUX connectors for many years. So the only option is to keep repairing vintage supplies, and you just don't do that with a Deer because you'd have to re-engineer the whole thing.

Even the cheapest vintage Channelwell-made Antecs are still serviceable by replacing the Fuhjyyu caps on the 5v rail. BTW I prefer exploding caps over the OST ones Seasonic uses because at least you can tell which ones are bad without unsoldering them all from the circuit.
Last edited by bfg-9000 on Tue Mar 07, 2017 10:53 pm, edited 1 time in total.
 
whm1974
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Re: Found a blast from the past

Tue Mar 07, 2017 10:51 pm

HERETIC wrote:
And it's still hard work convincing people the PSU is the most important part of any build.
DO NOT skimp on PSU......................................................

I was certainty convinced after my Deer quit working.
 
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Re: Found a blast from the past

Tue Mar 07, 2017 10:59 pm

@bfg-9000 - Hmm... maybe I should've hung on to some of my old Antec/Chieftec PSUs with leaky caps. Pretty sure I pitched all of those a couple of years back, figuring if I ever decided to resurrect any old systems I could just use a modern ATX PSU. Oh well.
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Re: Found a blast from the past

Tue Mar 07, 2017 11:01 pm

I still remember the poor schlub at the old computer shop I worked for. He had spent all this money upgrading his Athon machine, which had fancy things like a SCSI card (for the CD burners, yo ho ho) and a decent video card. He kept the crap 250W Deer PS against my recommendations (my boss disagreed with me; I thought he'd definitely need more wattage) and about 5 seconds after he powered up the new kit, foof. Magic smoke emitted and half the stuff on the whole system fried.

Never skimp on your basic infrastructure.
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Re: Found a blast from the past

Tue Mar 07, 2017 11:18 pm

Oh, interesting... just did a bit of Googling to see if Deer was still around. I didn't realize that Allied brand PSUs were rebranded Deer units. I had a couple of Allied units fail on me back around 10 years ago; fortunately they didn't take anything with them when they fried. IIRC one of them got really hot though. Could've probably warmed my lunch on it.

Amusing review of an Allied PSU similar to my failed ones over at Jonnyguru: http://www.jonnyguru.com/modules.php?na ... nt&reid=65

"Finally, the lab lights went dim just before it blew." :lol:
Nostalgia isn't what it used to be.
 
deruberhanyok
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Re: Found a blast from the past

Tue Mar 07, 2017 11:36 pm

Forget an old 810 board, just short it with a paper clip and see what happens. Worst case scenario it blows up but doesn't take anything else with it. :)

Also, DEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEER. That's taking me way back. When I was putting computers together in the late 90s I had a pile of those lying around. Seemed like every case included one, and I'd immediately remove it and replace it with a different brand. I want to say... Enermax? Maybe FSP, but I don't remember when they started selling those in the US.
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whm1974
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Re: Found a blast from the past

Tue Mar 07, 2017 11:45 pm

bthylafh wrote:
I still remember the poor schlub at the old computer shop I worked for. He had spent all this money upgrading his Athon machine, which had fancy things like a SCSI card (for the CD burners, yo ho ho) and a decent video card. He kept the crap 250W Deer PS against my recommendations (my boss disagreed with me; I thought he'd definitely need more wattage) and about 5 seconds after he powered up the new kit, foof. Magic smoke emitted and half the stuff on the whole system fried.

Never skimp on your basic infrastructure.

Indeed. Now I would pretty much buy a Seasonic PSU for any system I build these days. However I did put in a Corsair in the system I built for my dad almost three years ago.
 
bfg-9000
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Re: Found a blast from the past

Wed Mar 08, 2017 12:05 am

deruberhanyok wrote:
Forget an old 810 board, just short it with a paper clip and see what happens. Worst case scenario it blows up but doesn't take anything else with it. :)

Many old power supplies require a minimum load on each voltage to send the power-good signal, which is why PSU testers have resistor banks. Around here the electronics recyclers often have those peltier can-coolers for $1 and usually it's only the power brick is broken or missing. As peltiers are fairly sturdy, are a resistive load and don't much care about voltage spikes or ripple (they just get even less efficient), even a Deer could probably power one (albeit noisily).
deruberhanyok wrote:
Maybe FSP, but I don't remember when they started selling those in the US.

They used to be sold under the Sparkle or Fortron/Source names.

I notice there are adapters to add 6-pin AUX to power your dual Xeon or Athlon, at least if you're not a retropurist and willing to grossly oversize the PSU in order to get enough 5v capacity. That one-wire P4 12v connector looks sketchy though.
Image
 
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Re: Found a blast from the past

Wed Mar 08, 2017 12:14 am

bfg-9000 wrote:
Many old power supplies require a minimum load on each voltage to send the power-good signal, which is why PSU testers have resistor banks. Around here the electronics recyclers often have those peltier can-coolers for $1 and usually it's only the power brick is broken or missing. As peltiers are fairly sturdy, are a resistive load and don't much care about voltage spikes or ripple (they just get even less efficient), even a Deer could probably power one (albeit noisily).

And you can keep your beer cold while you fry your PSU! :lol:

bfg-9000 wrote:
I notice there are adapters to add 6-pin AUX to power your dual Xeon or Athlon, at least if you're not a retropurist and willing to grossly oversize the PSU in order to get enough 5v capacity. That one-wire P4 12v connector looks sketchy though.

My dual Athlon motherboard had a hard drive style 4-pin Molex next to the main power connector in addition to the ATX12V 4-pin. You had to connect one or the other to get enough power to the CPUs.
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Starfalcon
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Re: Found a blast from the past

Wed Mar 08, 2017 12:18 am

Well good news, found an old PSU tester in another box of goodies. Going to test fire said deer PSU right now.....Wish me luck
 
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Re: Found a blast from the past

Wed Mar 08, 2017 12:26 am

Heh. Yeah, I imagine a true-to-form Deer PSU is even capable of letting the magic smoke out of a PSU tester!
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Starfalcon
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Re: Found a blast from the past

Wed Mar 08, 2017 12:29 am

Well no magic smoke, it did fire right up. Prob first time it has been run since the late 90's. Sadly the big warning light on the tester came on. To quote the tester "if RED LED ligh up, tested power will be destroy device, do not use. :D So I guess my 810 board gets to live another day.
 
Starfalcon
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Re: Found a blast from the past

Wed Mar 08, 2017 12:35 am

Man, just saw that ATX adapter, that thing looks sketchy as heck...cant see how that is safe at all. Fortunately I have quite a few old PSUs kicking around for my old rigs that arent Deer PSUs. Although I just found some sketchy "400W" A-Power brand PSUs in another box. No idea when I got these at all...must be some really off off brand chinese POS...they arent even UL listed....
 
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Re: Found a blast from the past

Wed Mar 08, 2017 12:41 am

Starfalcon wrote:
Man, just saw that ATX adapter, that thing looks sketchy as heck...cant see how that is safe at all.

If it's being used with a Deer (or similar) PSU, the adapter is probably the least of your worries! :wink:
Nostalgia isn't what it used to be.
 
Starfalcon
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Re: Found a blast from the past

Wed Mar 08, 2017 12:58 am

I just took a look at that johnny guru link, and sadly I also have a L and C PSU .....so I ahve 2 Deer PSUs... :oops: Being a computer packrat has its disavantages.... Although I did finally find the box that had all my voodoo cards in it that I had misplaced. I now know where my 2 V1's, 6 V2's, 4 V3's, 2 V3 TV's, and 3 V5's are now :oops:

I really need to get an inventory done sometime soon....I don't even remember what I have anymore. Post away if your interested in an accounting of Starfalcon's Great Computer Stash Inventory 8)
 
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Re: Found a blast from the past

Wed Mar 08, 2017 1:08 am

I've lost track of what's in my hoard too, and it's a lot smaller than yours. Maybe an order of magnitude smaller at this point. Heck, parts of your hoard CAME FROM my hoard. :lol:

I suppose we ought to touch base at some point before July regarding what sorts of things you're still interested in acquiring so I can keep an eye out the next time I do a little housecleaning.
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Starfalcon
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Re: Found a blast from the past

Wed Mar 08, 2017 1:13 am

I think a lot of parts of my hoard came from a lot of people's hoards 8)

Yeah sounds like a good idea, cant let those parts escape my thermal grease and dust stained hands :D
 
Glorious
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Re: Found a blast from the past

Wed Mar 08, 2017 10:43 am

I've been intrigued by the concept of a starfalcon inventory for years.

Count me as very interested.
 
Walkintarget
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Re: Found a blast from the past

Wed Mar 08, 2017 10:59 am

Glorious wrote:
I've been intrigued by the concept of a starfalcon inventory for years.

Count me as very interested.

Seconded. I have some old stuff, but due to space constraints I cannot hoard what I used to. I still have a semi-retro gaming rig set up to honor StarFalcon in his endeavors. Its gotta be rare enough that nobody else has this combo of hardware. See below for details:

Asrock 939Dual-SATA2 with an AM2 upgrade riser card
AMD X2 5000+ Black Edition OC'd to 3.01
eVGA 7950gx2
Ultra X-Connnect 500w PSU

I've been searching for an Ultra 325w Power Partner to add to it just because. Those were the 5.25" drive bay piggyback PSUs that allowed your lesser power PSU to run newer video cards that demanded more wattage.
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Re: Found a blast from the past

Wed Mar 08, 2017 5:33 pm

bfg-9000 wrote:
JustAnEngineer wrote:
I've reached the point that I just buy SeaSonic. Prices are pretty reasonable and the peace of mind is worth it.

Unfortunately, vintage PCs didn't draw heavily from 12v like today's PCs and need hefty 5v and 3.3v rails. Modern power supplies haven't even featured AUX connectors for many years. So the only option is to keep repairing vintage supplies, and you just don't do that with a Deer because you'd have to re-engineer the whole thing.

Even the cheapest vintage Channelwell-made Antecs are still serviceable by replacing the Fuhjyyu caps on the 5v rail. BTW I prefer exploding caps over the OST ones Seasonic uses because at least you can tell which ones are bad without unsoldering them all from the circuit.
I've held on to my PC Power and Cooling TurboCool 510 XE for my older motherboards; 40A on the 5V and 3.3V rails.
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Starfalcon
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Re: Found a blast from the past

Wed Mar 08, 2017 6:24 pm

Glorious wrote:
I've been intrigued by the concept of a starfalcon inventory for years.

Count me as very interested.


Yeah I have some vacation coming up soon, so I may take a few days and try to do an accounting...for great justice...and to know what I actually have. Sadly I just found a huge box full of memory sticks...I did not know I had...prob 150-200 sticks of ram in there.... :oops:

I may take pictures to keep track of stuff, but don't have anywhere to host them, and there would be a lot....so will prob be a huge list.
 
The Egg
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Re: Found a blast from the past

Wed Mar 08, 2017 8:10 pm

bfg-9000 wrote:
Unfortunately, vintage PCs didn't draw heavily from 12v like today's PCs and need hefty 5v and 3.3v rails. Modern power supplies haven't even featured AUX connectors for many years. So the only option is to keep repairing vintage supplies....

I suppose it depends on what you're intending to power. I see plenty of modern PSUs offering 20-25A on the 3.3 and 5v rails, some good up to a combined 130watts. While that might not be alot, it should get most systems running, provided you take it easy on the drives and add-on cards. Maybe use some variant of PATA-to-Flash adapter to save power and avoid having to mess with old, decrepit mechanical drives.
 
The Egg
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Re: Found a blast from the past

Wed Mar 08, 2017 8:47 pm

Starfalcon wrote:
Glorious wrote:
I've been intrigued by the concept of a starfalcon inventory for years.
Count me as very interested.

Yeah I have some vacation coming up soon, so I may take a few days and try to do an accounting...for great justice...and to know what I actually have. Sadly I just found a huge box full of memory sticks...I did not know I had...prob 150-200 sticks of ram in there.... :oops:

I may take pictures to keep track of stuff, but don't have anywhere to host them, and there would be a lot....so will prob be a huge list.

I'd be interested as well. I love old PC hardware (say, Socket-7 and earlier), and would probably become a hoarder if I let myself.

With that said, there's a few things I don't miss at all, namely how awful most old cases were for building, shoddy PSUs (as mentioned), and old mechanical HDDs (also as mentioned). I suppose using all modern cases would take away from the authenticity a bit, but good riddance to the other two.

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