You might not realize that you've brought happiness to many people, especially those around your age. For instance, someone like me who lived in the IT world during the 2000s-back when we encountered 486DX and 286 processors in our university labs. Nowadays, people might dismiss these older technologies as irrelevant and outdated. However, technology doesn't emerge spontaneously; appreciating history is essential for understanding the present and shaping the future. 😊
I would have agreed at the time that only rubbish was being repaired. Today I see it with different eyes. This old hardware is like a classic car, of which there are very few left today. I hope the hardware on display will one day end up in a computer museum.
My father bought his first computer in 1982 to use for inventory control at his family's store. But the software needed to be developed and was much more expensive than the computer itself. He started studying on his own and created the first inventory control program in our city, Rio Negro, in the state of Paraná. I've seen the evolution of computers, and watching Necroware reminds me of a lot of things from the past. That's why I consider it one of the best channels of its kind.
They are not the Gold hunters, İn fact the gold hunters are also the people who are trying to repair faulty old computer hardware to show that they are still usefull and in the history these Hardware were produced and used and showingb to the New generations to old computer technology. Necroware, you are doing a good job in these videos, i like to follow your successfull repair adventures. Thanks for your efforts.
if you ask them for boards they ignore you...i lost count of the number of messages i sent to scrappers that buy boards...i tell them i pay them more then the scrap value etc etc and i never got one answer... as for physically going to a scrapyard...well i have one that sells me stuff but its so bureucratic and hard to just be able to hand pick and check stuff that i almost never have motivation to go there...and they trash and destroy everything ..and of whats left they remove all the harddrives to destroy...once you go over the bureaucracy and choose what to buy, the process of getting a quote, paying and leaving with the stuff takes days...sometimes person X is not on the facility...sometimes there will be an inspection....sometimes people Z is on a meeting...blah blah blah.....and when all the people are there,finally, its almost like you are making a marriage proposal....its frustrating
I agree with you. Indeed, over time, we can become weary due to the excessive amount of time wasted on things that should be quick. However, when it comes to content, that's where we find enjoyment. I hope you stay healthy and continue creating more content. In my opinion, your content remains unrivaled up to this point-it's unique and original. 😊
I think something like a Rampage Extreme (the original, socket 775 X48 version) would make for an excellent test platform, since it has two PCI slots, ATA connector for HDDs and floppy drives, and still packs enough punch to support modern OSes with relative ease (even windows), with a considerable advantage over the motherboard you show us. If it were not for the ridiculous price I mean. Rampage II Extreme would probably be a nice option aswell if you can live with a single PCIe, and it is still relatively cheap at least in Spain. For the very few cases where you maybe cannot use linux, I think winXP with a proper proxmox virtualized setup, maybe using snapshots to allow for quick restore to a no-drivers no-conflicts state would be convenient aswell. Very nice video as always.
That Revel glue is a solvent actually. You bound together broken parts, not glued - thus that poor connector does not need to be replaced at all. Thumbs up, as always!
Don't pay any attention to those comments about the ISA bus. It's your "go-to" arquiteture, just like you should start with TTL/CMOS 74XXX and 40XX chips if you want to understand how logic circuits works.
Man I tell you one think. Everytime I am fed up with people who are just showcasing "supere rare expensive collectible unobtanium HW" or telling some bullshit why this or this is worthless, I go to watch one of your videos to get back the feeling that the aim is to enjoy the stuff in it ´s original glory and run games on it and save that Hw whenever it is in our capabilities. Of course you can still get another SB Life for 4-5€ and yes "gazillions" of these was made becouse the card IS GOOD! But saving another one just added some more power to our retro-computer space Force 😀. Thank you Mr. retro-computing Jedai. 😀 PS: I have saved one SB Life just a few weeks ago - mine had loose pins on the main chip - it surprised me on this late 90ties card but possible.
Good catch on that Sound Blaster. Honestly, I would've thought the resistor was supposed to be missing. It became obvious only after you pointed it out.
The clue is the pad. Unpopulated looks very different from a ripped one. Unpopulated looks flat or perfect round/smooth, while ripped will have sharp edges, like a fracture does
Its nice to see emu10k1 work well out of the box on Linux. I still have painful memories of that module back in the early 2000s, and fighting hard to even get OSS working.
it works so well with modern drivers that there's someone in China taking EMU10K1 chips off of scrapped Live! cards, and loading them on a custom PCB with a PCI to PCIe PLX chip. I've actually got one of them in desktop, after replacing all the suspicious electrolytic bypass/filtering capacitors with aluminum ones to clear up some audio hiss and buzz that it had.
@@francistheodorecatte Given the Audigy Rx exists and is pretty cheap I'm surprised that's worthwhile. Out of curiosity what would one look for and did they leave the legacy functions the Rx lacks (gameport and MPU-401 specifically) in tact?
I started using Linux in 2003. I have a Soundblaster LIVE! 5.1 (SB0060 ; EMU10K1-KEF) card had no problems besides data corruption. The data corruption happened in Windows too. It happens with the VIA south bridge chipset such as VT82C686A. The distribution that I used is Mandrake version 9. It worked out of the box. I had to learn what program to use to set the mixer controls. It worked after I knew that it is alsamixer instead of the GUI volume controls in Gnome or KDE. I used the analog outputs and yes all 6 channels. I used 6 channels for movies, but not for gaming. I did not set up digital audio because I had no SPDIF input on my audio equipment. I also did not care to set up hardware MIDI and EAX though. I played the Linux version of Unreal Tournament Game of the Year. I was not too fond of the sound of the Soundblaster LIVE, so I switched to Turtle Beach Santa Cruz. The Turtle Beach Santa Cruz caused no data corruption. I used Timidity for MIDI. The emu10k1 was revised into a different chip and it had CA???? model number. Does your model of SoundBlaster use that chip? If so, that chip had many problems in Linux. Took many kernel versions to support it though. What kernel version did you use at the time with your sound card? If you do not know, what distribution and version were you using? I know that Mandrake 9 uses the 2.4.19 kernel version. Of course, the ALSA libraries and utilities are required preferably equal to the ALSA version in the kernel. My most painful memory in Linux was doing updates and Adobe/Macromedia Flash. Flash had no hardware acceleration in Linux, so it was slow on my Linux computers. Any computers I had back then did not have a Windows XP install. They ran Linux. At this time, I use OpenSUSE because of its update excellence. 🤓
I used to dual boot with the non-value version of the card on one of my P4 systems with Linux Lite and XP, made networking + file sharing safer and it's fun to see what the old hardware can do in the modern age
The soundcards of the late 90's early 00's up until 2010 are the best and last true soundcards! Find the Live! drive with the remote control it really steps it up The Live 5.1 was my first multichannel card and also paved the way for all the rest from Creative or not. I used it as multichannel then had Audigy then found the panel and remote then got Audigy 2ZS with black panel, then XFi and stopped there cause afterwards soundcards became DACs no midi no hardware processing no nothing. I daily use an Asus Xonar STXII 7.1 with daughterboard which really sounds and records gorgeous and an XFI platinum with panel and remote which has great looks good sound and a lot of abilities even with Win 11 Keep up! Cheers from Greece
I have the exact same thing, I love the older hardware from the ISA bus era, because it's a lot simpler and components are easier to handle. Also on the software and addressing side it's a lot easier to understand what is going on, because of DOS only being a tiny layer for most stuff.
This is exactly how PCI testing should be done. Linux really shines here, not 100% sure but could be that there are chipsets out there that support PCI hotplug, the kernel is definetly able to handle it.
PCI hotplug is part of the ACPI standard, however it's not implemented on most boards. If you want to check compatibility, try dumping the DSDT and checking the PCI slot objects for an _EJ0 method.
@@SiliconExarch sata hotplug works with ancient hardware too. at least with the m4a. also, linux also shines when you don't test and only use old hardware ^^
Yep, this is one of my most useful tools. I have a mini-ITX board in a mini-tower, with a PCI IDE / SATA controller, and one each hot-swap drive dock. I just rmmod sata_promise, swap drives, modprobe sata_promise, run dmesg with the follow option, and wait for the all-clear from the kernel drivers. Then I can run badblocks to test a drive, dd to create or restore images, or fdisk (or some of my own tools) to prepare it for use. It also has a network interface (of course), a ZIP drive, and a USB floppy drive (case only has one 3.5" bay) which makes it a handy NAS-to-floppy converter for the mini tower right next to it, which has a SCSI ZIP drive, and 5-1/4" 360K and 3-1/2" 720K floppy drives. Maybe some day I'll network that one too.. haha
Nothing hurts me more than seeing perfectly good and working computer equipment wrecked by gold scavengers. The puny amount of gold they hope to recover pales in comparison to the value of the hardware itself, both monetarily and sentimentally (and in some cases, historically). Thank you for restoring this stuff whenever you can. I hope to join the ranks of hardware preservers soon!
good save. I find most PCI / AGP type cards suffer wrom being thrown in a box and have impact damage like that. Long Live ISA Bus! (Not that they are exempt from impact damage!
Just upgraded to e new kernel today and spent 30 minutes watching ALL the drivers compile. If this Ryzen laptop had an ISA slot, I could just plug in say an old Adaptec SCSI card and it would just work. It's a benefit I cannot forget. :)
I have an X-fi Titanium HD in my main desktop system. To me it is one of the best sounding cards Creative made, and it's easy to upgrade the analog path if I wanted to- not that I have felt the need to. It does have occasional driver issues, but I keep it because I like how it sounds- and I also like the built-in hardware sampling synthesizer that the later cards don't have.
ich habe das video mit freunden angeguckt. die haben sich direkt darüber aufgeregt das necroware einen 20pin stecker in einen 24pin slot gesteckt hat. um den leuten etwas entgegen zu kommen die das noch nicht wussten: das ist ganz normal und auch nicht schlimm. viele mb´s laufen auch nur mit dem 20pin. dadurch das necro das mb nur als test mb nutzt, ist das komplett ok. wie man ja sieht läuft der pc auch perfekt. sollte man aber die möglichkeit haben, ein 24pin einzustecken, wäre das auch sehr empfehlenswert da das mb dann auf 100% arbeiten kann. (es ist etwas komplizierter, weswegen ich nur 100% schreibe) vielen dank und abo nicht vergessen ;] die videos sind sehr hilfreich
Jepp, wenn ich Belastungstests mache, z.B. GPU Benchmarks, dann verwende ich auch ein anderes Netzteil. Bei einfachen Funktionstests und kleinen Reparaturen muss man das aber nicht machen.
Hi Necroware! Thanks for your wonderful tutorials! I learn everything new every time I see they! Just a little question: is it possible to send you a 486 motherboard for repair? I'd like to see it live again and I'm sure that you never see one like it before! Thanks for you answer!
For some reason I've never thought about this. Once I finally get my move done and go through my old hardware I'll have to use this for pci testing, if I actually have a pci capable 64bit supporting board that is.
I have a PCIe -> PCI riser from Aliexpress to run my SoundBlaster Audigy 2 on new boards. Works just as if the mainboard itself had those PCI slots. I am not sure, but I think you can just plug and play the riser, and then you will save time. Maybe you have to suspend to memory when swapping, this is how it easily works with SATA drives anyway.
I have that adapter too. Unfortunately it doesn't work with every card. Sometimes it even looks like it would work first, and then starts to go crazy and you end up hunting the ghosts.
I had original live! 4.1 with cambridge soundworks 4.1 speaker setup 😎 was such a step up over everything before it I would guess an asrock 939dual or similar tor your build so you can test agp as well?
so very nice and interesting topic, hope such nice testing device/ motherboard is avail for isa slots, as you said you work with old hw, and then you show this modern pci pcie hehe :P
SB Live was the go to pci sound card for linux during the early 2000s. It got really good linux support fairly quickly One downside to the EMU10K series is that it's DSP always runs at 48KHz which means that it needs to resample anything at a different sample rate to 48Khz. Considering 44.1 KHz tends to be much more common, the output from a SBLive and Audigy is not as good as from a sound card that does not do any resampling. Audigy2 has a mode where the DSP could be bypassed allowing support for some non 48KHZ frequencies without resampling but the older cards did not have that capability.
yes, but the dsp is the hidden gem. and philips nailed audio when it created the cd. i can't manage to get close to the sound the audigy 2 creates even with 32/192khz (the recon3d does that (Sound Core3D [Sound Blaster Recon3D / Z-Series / Sound BlasterX AE-5 Plus] ), hdmi too, but that creates a lag when you only use the hdmi for the sound and want to play games on another display)
"The CPU as i said is AMD Athlon Something..." means you are the kind of person that deals with computer hardware every day and does not sometimes create videos from the perfect museum of old computers at home.
It's just in this case. I have built this setup long ago explicitly for such testing and I don't remember, which CPU is under the cooler. I keep it like that completely in the box and use it every now and then. That's why I forgot which CPU exactly it is. It's dual core Athlon 64 AM2 CPU, but I don't remember the exact clock.
Давно использую линукс для тестов, жаль что не все звуковые карты работают. Помимо прочего легаси тоже выпиливают из ядра, скоро придется искать или пилить самому кастомное ядро совместимое со старым железом.
love your videos unfortunatly I can't solder SMD components so small... my eyes are terrible and my hands shake a bit but maybe one day I will invest in a microscope... I have here so many boards with thorn SMD compenents...
the oldest card i got is an audigy2. with the quite rare 5¼" bay and a ton of ins and outs. you're using it too atm ^^. well, at least the past you... damn. even arch. i recently hopped to debian because of the insane kde regression :D i have a second one, in case you're interested, i'll send it your way for free... take a peek into the alsamixer. it should have some tone control and the default slider values are all over the place too.
is it actually ok to Test resistors in circuit? I mean in this case since the PCI slot isn't connected it's fine but usually other circuits add stray resistances
FYI the EMU10k1 has a 31-bit DMA which limits it to about 2GB of RAM max. The Linux driver can fall back to "ISA" mode, limiting it to about 16MB of memory on modern systems. EDIT: Apparently there is a way to get it to access 4GB with 32 bit DMA but nobody put in the work for the driver. Mayhaps it can be done?
Ok, first things first, Arch sucks. With that out of the way, which distribution would be a good pick to run on a Socket 370 testbench board with AGP/PCI/ISA for the same purpose?
It's archlinux, which is unlike f.e. Ubuntu, a rolling distribution. I use it since 2007. So, basically latest state of archlinux. Kernel is currently at 6.9.2, but the distribution itself has no version.
Ist das ein Kopfhörer aus dem Action? Alter, Du lässt es Dir gut gehen! Kanal läuft wohl? Als ich seinerzeit noch mit der neuen Hardware herumbastelte, die Du heute reparierst, packte ich eine HDD in einen Rechner mit K6-2+, hatte aber keinen Plan mehr, was darauf war. Es war Suse-Linux und ich entsann mich, dass ich das seinerzeit auf einem 5x86 installiert hatte. Bootete direktmit allen Geräten korrekt initialisiert hoch. Als damaliger Windows-Fanboy war ich sehr perplex. Heute fasse ich Windows nicht mehr mit der Zange an. Nur für die wenigen Spiele, die nicht unter Linux laufen, starte ich das. Also einmal im Jahr vielleicht.
@@necro_ware Oh! Du kennst den Action nicht? Das ist so ein Billig-Markt. Habe einen ähnlichen BT-Kopfhörer von denen für 15 EUR gekauft. Gibt es mittlerweile mit Noise-Canceling zu dem Kurs. Action ist nicht vergleichbar mit TeDi, ist eher der Aldi für Haushaltswaren. Die haben auch Markenware, die nur 50 bis 60 Prozent der Baumarktpreise kosten. Pattex Polymer-Klebstoff, die Kartusche zu 5,99 EUR. Selbst die Spray-Farbe von denen ist mittlerweile richtig gut geworden. Auch das Weiß deckt nun richtig gut. Das ganze PC-Zubehör ist für den Preis ohnehin der Hammer. Dual-Monitorarm für 20 EUR oder riesige Tastatur-Mauspads für 5 EUR (?). Wenn das LSC-Smarthome-Zeug von denen mal vorrätig ist, decke ich mich auch immer auf Vorrat damit ein. Der Action hat Aliexpress-Preise vor Ort, denn Action ist mittlerweile in ganz Europa vertreten. Ich kenne den selbst auch nur durch den Kanal vom Technikkeller. Sonst wäre ich da auch nie hingefahren. Mittlerweile meine erste Adresse für den PC-Tagesbedarf und Baumarktartikel.
Recently I tried Linux, Mint (Debian) was stuck on 640x480p on my 1440p desktop. I moved to Arch (Garuda) and it worked out of the box. I don’t want to upgrade to Win11 and Microsoft made me try different things… last time I did it was OS/2 30 years ago. Except for Windows 8 (which I skipped), I was happy with XP and Win7.
Athlon64 boards with certain sound cards are excellent for retro gaming: modern infrastructure, relatively inexpensive and flexible speed adjustments (CPUSPD). Thanks for sharing!
Windows XP supports frozen state by installing SteadyState software. It supports programmed revert back and caching the disk changes to ram along with caching to disk/ssd partition. Also you don't need to reinstall Windows XP using the old, time consuming Setup procedure. There are tons of open tools and scripts which fully support Sysprep and WIM imaging procedures to get the system ready from a clean disk in 2 or 3 minutes.
This card has no own memory. It uses mainboard memory for sound fonts through PCI bus. Tested that as well of course and nothing spectacular there, everything works fine.
@@jamiedoesstuff4877 First of all, I fixed the title in the hope that more people will click on the video. Secondly, I don't even know how to sarcastically fix your sentence because I don't even know what you are trying to say.
@@corneet OK, you are correct on "bringing" being the correct term here, but the "live" instead of "life" seems to be a pun on the sound card's name, especially so since it's capitalized and written with an exclamation mark. (Also, just realized I myself made a typo... oh the irony!)
After more than 25 years of using Linux I can tell, that it mostly doesn't matter. My personal preference is ArchLinux, but only because I got used to it in many years. For example anything Debian based would do the work just as good. On older 32-bit machines I use that one for example, because ArchLinux dropped 32-bit support years ago. In Linux world it's more about understanding how things work. Once you know it, distribution is just a detail. If you don't understand it and instead try to switch the distribution when something doesn't work, you will just exchange one problem for another.
In the most cases this is due to the fact, that everybody has an own understanding what retro hardware is. And for some people there is such a thing as "too retro". Well, luckily everybody is free to tinker with whatever is considered suitable from the personal point of view.
Please don't overrate Creative products, they destroyed Computer audio with their monopoly and unfair competition practices. They bought or ruined all competitors, Aureal, Soundstorm, etc. Obsolecense by not releasing drivers and banning community of doing so, etc. That soundcard has a better DAC in the rear than in the front, have to use KX drivers to reverse it, and many other issues their products have. Best wishes.
That is true. I even made a video about it a long time ago: th-cam.com/video/_7P8anriPbA/w-d-xo.html But considered all that as SB Live! was released, we have to be honest, it was really a very good and competitive product. Most probably it was more an achievement of Ensonic, than Creative, but still, if we put names aside, this was a very good product.
yes, that's where you use spdif. the only issue is the limitation of the emu10k driver module. but the people who claim to notice the difference, won't play audio from a pc anyway. that would be blasphemy.
Is it really worth putting repairs into a $10 Sound Blaster Live? They are like roaches on eBay, as you can't get rid of them fast enough. The trouble is knowing the correct SKU to get, and not end up with an OEM Live (SB02x0/SB48x0).
But they won't always stay so cheap. Besides, why not fix it if you can? It takes *literally* 3 minutes of work, if not less. And 5 minutes for the diagnostics. Perhaps some people "value" their time too much...
It's very easy to change the SKU on these cards by modifying a couple of bytes in the card's firmware. :) The hardware is identical, and by changing the card's PCI ID it will identify itself differently to the driver installer, which will enable all of the features "missing" from the cheaper OEM cards. Sneaky Creative. :)
@@stamasd8500 or you just change it in one the alsa files. but the hassle to adapt the internal connections (which do differ), is just a pain and i'd rather buy one
People often forget how much time it actually costs to make and publish a video. Repairing and developing hardware/software doesn't even make 20% of the whole effort. 80% of my time is spent on going through hours of recorded videos, creating a plan, cutting, making additional pictures, schematics if needed, and of course publishing. Dependent on a video, every minute costs about 3 hours of work in real life. So, the answer is no, it is not worth it at all, but I do it because it's my hobby.
so on a channel called NECROWARE ,people have the intelligence of complaining the hardware is too old obsolete and useless? really?? thats the point of this type of channels... i think that about 20% of people or more are just zombies...i mean....i get it that you are not interested in old hardware...i totally get it and respect it...but why complain about it on a vintage hardware channel?? jeez its beyond reasonable.... zombies ....zombies and NPCs everywhere
Type of hardware which is now the "does not worth my time" category. Just throw in like 6 ess pci, sb, sbxfi, terratec cards into the trash after none of them was detected in Linux.
@@worroSfOretsevraH Kubuntu for beginners or if you need the most stable OS, Fedora (KDE spin, what I have switched to from Kubuntu after over 10 years) and maybe openSUSE too.
![[MV] A leap of faith...ความเชื่อใจครั้งสุดท้าย (From "Petrichor the series")](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/U1piZH2CNXA/mqdefault.jpg)
You might not realize that you've brought happiness to many people, especially those around your age. For instance, someone like me who lived in the IT world during the 2000s-back when we encountered 486DX and 286 processors in our university labs. Nowadays, people might dismiss these older technologies as irrelevant and outdated. However, technology doesn't emerge spontaneously; appreciating history is essential for understanding the present and shaping the future. 😊
One of my favourite channels to watch .. really easy to listen to and follow the journey and it’s just relaxing to watch.. cheers
I would have agreed at the time that only rubbish was being repaired. Today I see it with different eyes. This old hardware is like a classic car, of which there are very few left today. I hope the hardware on display will one day end up in a computer museum.
My father bought his first computer in 1982 to use for inventory control at his family's store. But the software needed to be developed and was much more expensive than the computer itself. He started studying on his own and created the first inventory control program in our city, Rio Negro, in the state of Paraná. I've seen the evolution of computers, and watching Necroware reminds me of a lot of things from the past. That's why I consider it one of the best channels of its kind.
What aggravates me about those gold hunters is the cards they're destroying are worth more than the gold they get from them.
Absolutely, but they are too ignorant to understand that.
There are no limits to human stupidity, unfortunately.
They are not the Gold hunters, İn fact the gold hunters are also the people who are trying to repair faulty old computer hardware to show that they are still usefull and in the history these Hardware were produced and used and showingb to the New generations to old computer technology.
Necroware, you are doing a good job in these videos, i like to follow your successfull repair adventures.
Thanks for your efforts.
@@mirlivaturab9078 Gold hunters don't repair these. They destroy them. Do you know how many Pentiums I've watched a local idiot who does this destroy?
if you ask them for boards they ignore you...i lost count of the number of messages i sent to scrappers that buy boards...i tell them i pay them more then the scrap value etc etc and i never got one answer... as for physically going to a scrapyard...well i have one that sells me stuff but its so bureucratic and hard to just be able to hand pick and check stuff that i almost never have motivation to go there...and they trash and destroy everything ..and of whats left they remove all the harddrives to destroy...once you go over the bureaucracy and choose what to buy, the process of getting a quote, paying and leaving with the stuff takes days...sometimes person X is not on the facility...sometimes there will be an inspection....sometimes people Z is on a meeting...blah blah blah.....and when all the people are there,finally, its almost like you are making a marriage proposal....its frustrating
That moment when you realize that the motherboard Necroware uses just to test stuff is slightly newer than what you have on your main PC 🤣
:)
This is a roundabout way to say "yeah, I use Arch".
"Yeah, I use arch btw"
I mean... can you suggest a more appropriate tool for the job?
I agree with you. Indeed, over time, we can become weary due to the excessive amount of time wasted on things that should be quick. However, when it comes to content, that's where we find enjoyment. I hope you stay healthy and continue creating more content. In my opinion, your content remains unrivaled up to this point-it's unique and original. 😊
I think something like a Rampage Extreme (the original, socket 775 X48 version) would make for an excellent test platform, since it has two PCI slots, ATA connector for HDDs and floppy drives, and still packs enough punch to support modern OSes with relative ease (even windows), with a considerable advantage over the motherboard you show us. If it were not for the ridiculous price I mean.
Rampage II Extreme would probably be a nice option aswell if you can live with a single PCIe, and it is still relatively cheap at least in Spain.
For the very few cases where you maybe cannot use linux, I think winXP with a proper proxmox virtualized setup, maybe using snapshots to allow for quick restore to a no-drivers no-conflicts state would be convenient aswell.
Very nice video as always.
That Revel glue is a solvent actually. You bound together broken parts, not glued - thus that poor connector does not need to be replaced at all.
Thumbs up, as always!
That transition from headphones to capture was spot on! Nice job Necroware keep doing what you do!
Nice repair and test bench. I will look up for your coming video. Greetings from Steven from the Netherlands
Good stuff. Good music. Relaxed video. I am tinkering now with Aopen AX6B Plus new 1998 pc build with riva 128zx
Don't pay any attention to those comments about the ISA bus.
It's your "go-to" arquiteture, just like you should start with TTL/CMOS 74XXX and 40XX chips if you want to understand how logic circuits works.
Awesome video, awesome music, awesome visuals. Thanks again for a great video.
Man I tell you one think. Everytime I am fed up with people who are just showcasing "supere rare expensive collectible unobtanium HW" or telling some bullshit why this or this is worthless, I go to watch one of your videos to get back the feeling that the aim is to enjoy the stuff in it ´s original glory and run games on it and save that Hw whenever it is in our capabilities. Of course you can still get another SB Life for 4-5€ and yes "gazillions" of these was made becouse the card IS GOOD! But saving another one just added some more power to our retro-computer space Force 😀. Thank you Mr. retro-computing Jedai. 😀 PS: I have saved one SB Life just a few weeks ago - mine had loose pins on the main chip - it surprised me on this late 90ties card but possible.
Good catch on that Sound Blaster. Honestly, I would've thought the resistor was supposed to be missing. It became obvious only after you pointed it out.
The clue is the pad. Unpopulated looks very different from a ripped one. Unpopulated looks flat or perfect round/smooth, while ripped will have sharp edges, like a fracture does
Its nice to see emu10k1 work well out of the box on Linux. I still have painful memories of that module back in the early 2000s, and fighting hard to even get OSS working.
Yeah, that was indeed a pain back in that days, but luckily in 25 years some things improved :)
it works so well with modern drivers that there's someone in China taking EMU10K1 chips off of scrapped Live! cards, and loading them on a custom PCB with a PCI to PCIe PLX chip. I've actually got one of them in desktop, after replacing all the suspicious electrolytic bypass/filtering capacitors with aluminum ones to clear up some audio hiss and buzz that it had.
@@francistheodorecatte Given the Audigy Rx exists and is pretty cheap I'm surprised that's worthwhile. Out of curiosity what would one look for and did they leave the legacy functions the Rx lacks (gameport and MPU-401 specifically) in tact?
I started using Linux in 2003. I have a Soundblaster LIVE! 5.1 (SB0060 ; EMU10K1-KEF) card had no problems besides data corruption. The data corruption happened in Windows too. It happens with the VIA south bridge chipset such as VT82C686A. The distribution that I used is Mandrake version 9. It worked out of the box. I had to learn what program to use to set the mixer controls. It worked after I knew that it is alsamixer instead of the GUI volume controls in Gnome or KDE. I used the analog outputs and yes all 6 channels. I used 6 channels for movies, but not for gaming. I did not set up digital audio because I had no SPDIF input on my audio equipment. I also did not care to set up hardware MIDI and EAX though. I played the Linux version of Unreal Tournament Game of the Year. I was not too fond of the sound of the Soundblaster LIVE, so I switched to Turtle Beach Santa Cruz. The Turtle Beach Santa Cruz caused no data corruption. I used Timidity for MIDI.
The emu10k1 was revised into a different chip and it had CA???? model number. Does your model of SoundBlaster use that chip? If so, that chip had many problems in Linux. Took many kernel versions to support it though. What kernel version did you use at the time with your sound card? If you do not know, what distribution and version were you using? I know that Mandrake 9 uses the 2.4.19 kernel version. Of course, the ALSA libraries and utilities are required preferably equal to the ALSA version in the kernel.
My most painful memory in Linux was doing updates and Adobe/Macromedia Flash. Flash had no hardware acceleration in Linux, so it was slow on my Linux computers. Any computers I had back then did not have a Windows XP install. They ran Linux. At this time, I use OpenSUSE because of its update excellence. 🤓
I used to dual boot with the non-value version of the card on one of my P4 systems with Linux Lite and XP, made networking + file sharing safer and it's fun to see what the old hardware can do in the modern age
I just tell myself it's easier to see what components I've already replaced if they're crooked.
Excellent video, thanks for the knowledge as always! 😊
The soundcards of the late 90's early 00's up until 2010 are the best and last true soundcards! Find the Live! drive with the remote control it really steps it up
The Live 5.1 was my first multichannel card and also paved the way for all the rest from Creative or not. I used it as multichannel then had Audigy then found the panel and remote then got Audigy 2ZS with black panel, then XFi and stopped there cause afterwards soundcards became DACs no midi no hardware processing no nothing.
I daily use an Asus Xonar STXII 7.1 with daughterboard which really sounds and records gorgeous and an XFI platinum with panel and remote which has great looks good sound and a lot of abilities even with Win 11
Keep up! Cheers from Greece
Neatly done on the repair (better than I could do at my age...). I will definitely check out Model Povedeniya - sounds like good Electronica. Thanks!
ISA slots are my favorite too. I don't use anything above a Socket 5 motherboard for my retro PCs.
I have the exact same thing, I love the older hardware from the ISA bus era, because it's a lot simpler and components are easier to handle. Also on the software and addressing side it's a lot easier to understand what is going on, because of DOS only being a tiny layer for most stuff.
I still have the very same card. These seem to be soemwhat common and I still use it in my 2005 Gaming PC!
This is exactly how PCI testing should be done. Linux really shines here, not 100% sure but could be that there are chipsets out there that support PCI hotplug, the kernel is definetly able to handle it.
Hot plugging could damage the cards i think
PCI hotplug is part of the ACPI standard, however it's not implemented on most boards. If you want to check compatibility, try dumping the DSDT and checking the PCI slot objects for an _EJ0 method.
@@SiliconExarch sata hotplug works with ancient hardware too. at least with the m4a. also, linux also shines when you don't test and only use old hardware ^^
Yep, this is one of my most useful tools.
I have a mini-ITX board in a mini-tower, with a PCI IDE / SATA controller, and one each hot-swap drive dock. I just rmmod sata_promise, swap drives, modprobe sata_promise, run dmesg with the follow option, and wait for the all-clear from the kernel drivers. Then I can run badblocks to test a drive, dd to create or restore images, or fdisk (or some of my own tools) to prepare it for use.
It also has a network interface (of course), a ZIP drive, and a USB floppy drive (case only has one 3.5" bay) which makes it a handy NAS-to-floppy converter for the mini tower right next to it, which has a SCSI ZIP drive, and 5-1/4" 360K and 3-1/2" 720K floppy drives. Maybe some day I'll network that one too.. haha
Cool music!
Thanks..
Excellent use case for Linux which I wholeheartedly condone. You're even using XFCE, my favorite DE. :)
LOL. This motherboard was my daily driver for years when it was new. I still have it too!
Nothing hurts me more than seeing perfectly good and working computer equipment wrecked by gold scavengers. The puny amount of gold they hope to recover pales in comparison to the value of the hardware itself, both monetarily and sentimentally (and in some cases, historically). Thank you for restoring this stuff whenever you can. I hope to join the ranks of hardware preservers soon!
Thanks! I’ll get a copy of Linux for my troubleshooting!
Man I feel bad for what that ATI card went through, at least it got useful !
Yeah, even if it is not a rare one, it still could have had a better retirement, than this one. Unfortunately, I got it like that.
good save. I find most PCI / AGP type cards suffer wrom being thrown in a box and have impact damage like that. Long Live ISA Bus! (Not that they are exempt from impact damage!
Great video!
Nice idea - as i have a full linux server here and im working with linux at work i did not catch that benefit of hardware drivers. Great video :)
Just upgraded to e new kernel today and spent 30 minutes watching ALL the drivers compile. If this Ryzen laptop had an ISA slot, I could just plug in say an old Adaptec SCSI card and it would just work. It's a benefit I cannot forget. :)
Short but satisfying!
That's what I tell everybody too.
I have an X-fi Titanium HD in my main desktop system. To me it is one of the best sounding cards Creative made, and it's easy to upgrade the analog path if I wanted to- not that I have felt the need to. It does have occasional driver issues, but I keep it because I like how it sounds- and I also like the built-in hardware sampling synthesizer that the later cards don't have.
It's good to check for shorts first, i've had SBLive card which was bricking motherboards.
ich habe das video mit freunden angeguckt. die haben sich direkt darüber aufgeregt das necroware einen 20pin stecker in einen 24pin slot gesteckt hat. um den leuten etwas entgegen zu kommen die das noch nicht wussten: das ist ganz normal und auch nicht schlimm. viele mb´s laufen auch nur mit dem 20pin. dadurch das necro das mb nur als test mb nutzt, ist das komplett ok. wie man ja sieht läuft der pc auch perfekt. sollte man aber die möglichkeit haben, ein 24pin einzustecken, wäre das auch sehr empfehlenswert da das mb dann auf 100% arbeiten kann. (es ist etwas komplizierter, weswegen ich nur 100% schreibe) vielen dank und abo nicht vergessen ;] die videos sind sehr hilfreich
Jepp, wenn ich Belastungstests mache, z.B. GPU Benchmarks, dann verwende ich auch ein anderes Netzteil. Bei einfachen Funktionstests und kleinen Reparaturen muss man das aber nicht machen.
@@necro_ware das stimmt
@@necro_ware Oh. Mahlzeit.
Nice video, useful and interesting. Thanks a lot!
Awesome fix!
Hi Necroware! Thanks for your wonderful tutorials! I learn everything new every time I see they! Just a little question: is it possible to send you a 486 motherboard for repair? I'd like to see it live again and I'm sure that you never see one like it before! Thanks for you answer!
For some reason I've never thought about this. Once I finally get my move done and go through my old hardware I'll have to use this for pci testing, if I actually have a pci capable 64bit supporting board that is.
dude, i grew up in the early 90's. i watch your channel for the nostalgia!
Very good this video !
Thank you, my friend !
Best regards,
GalileudoLinux.
I have a PCIe -> PCI riser from Aliexpress to run my SoundBlaster Audigy 2 on new boards. Works just as if the mainboard itself had those PCI slots. I am not sure, but I think you can just plug and play the riser, and then you will save time. Maybe you have to suspend to memory when swapping, this is how it easily works with SATA drives anyway.
I have that adapter too. Unfortunately it doesn't work with every card. Sometimes it even looks like it would work first, and then starts to go crazy and you end up hunting the ghosts.
@necro_ware Oh, too bad.
I had original live! 4.1 with cambridge soundworks 4.1 speaker setup 😎 was such a step up over everything before it
I would guess an asrock 939dual or similar tor your build so you can test agp as well?
so very nice and interesting topic, hope such nice testing device/ motherboard is avail for isa slots, as you said you work with old hw, and then you show this modern pci pcie hehe :P
Yeah, as I said, from time to time get out of my absolute retro hole and look at something what is not quite so old :)
Phil and Necroware on the same night? What a treat!
Who is Phil?>
@@cowrevenge philscomputerlab
@@cowrevenge😱
@@glenncaughey5044really.. Who is Phil?
@@cowrevenge Maybe PhilsComputerLab😁
What Linux are you using? Awesome video do more of these I have a bunch of hardware to test as well ty ty.
Great, thank you too! My daily driver is ArchLinux, but I also use Debian quite a lot.
SB Live was the go to pci sound card for linux during the early 2000s. It got really good linux support fairly quickly
One downside to the EMU10K series is that it's DSP always runs at 48KHz which means that it needs to resample anything at a different sample rate to 48Khz. Considering 44.1 KHz tends to be much more common, the output from a SBLive and Audigy is not as good as from a sound card that does not do any resampling. Audigy2 has a mode where the DSP could be bypassed allowing support for some non 48KHZ frequencies without resampling but the older cards did not have that capability.
yes, but the dsp is the hidden gem. and philips nailed audio when it created the cd. i can't manage to get close to the sound the audigy 2 creates even with 32/192khz (the recon3d does that (Sound Core3D [Sound Blaster Recon3D / Z-Series / Sound BlasterX AE-5 Plus] ), hdmi too, but that creates a lag when you only use the hdmi for the sound and want to play games on another display)
Upgrade the Opamps and / or Capacitors on one of the Creative Sound Cards and make a side by side comparison with the original card.
"The CPU as i said is AMD Athlon Something..." means you are the kind of person that deals with computer hardware every day and does not sometimes create videos from the perfect museum of old computers at home.
It's just in this case. I have built this setup long ago explicitly for such testing and I don't remember, which CPU is under the cooler. I keep it like that completely in the box and use it every now and then. That's why I forgot which CPU exactly it is. It's dual core Athlon 64 AM2 CPU, but I don't remember the exact clock.
Давно использую линукс для тестов, жаль что не все звуковые карты работают. Помимо прочего легаси тоже выпиливают из ядра, скоро придется искать или пилить самому кастомное ядро совместимое со старым железом.
Я так и делаю. У меня несколько старых версий ядра на выбор. И есть даже несколько дисков со старыми версиями Debian на 32 бита
love your videos
unfortunatly I can't solder SMD components so small... my eyes are terrible and my hands shake a bit
but maybe one day I will invest in a microscope... I have here so many boards with thorn SMD compenents...
Yes, microscope makes it a lot easier to be honest.
the oldest card i got is an audigy2. with the quite rare 5¼" bay and a ton of ins and outs. you're using it too atm ^^. well, at least the past you...
damn. even arch. i recently hopped to debian because of the insane kde regression :D
i have a second one, in case you're interested, i'll send it your way for free...
take a peek into the alsamixer. it should have some tone control and the default slider values are all over the place too.
is it actually ok to Test resistors in circuit? I mean in this case since the PCI slot isn't connected it's fine but usually other circuits add stray resistances
It depends, as you said, in this case it was ok. In other places it can be a bad idea.
Resistors are one of the few things you can test in in circuit somewhat reliably.
I also have A G41 board with 4GB of ram and a Core 2 Quad for testing cards.
Mind sharing your preferred linux build/version for this?
Who comes to a channel that fixes classic pc hardware and says it's "too old"?
Seriously. Obviously people took a right turn at Twitter and got lost somewhere between Reddit and Instagram, and ended up here by mistake.
I have an sb4010 (a live 24 bit) that just crashes the system once enables the driver.
I should look for continuity as well?
FYI the EMU10k1 has a 31-bit DMA which limits it to about 2GB of RAM max. The Linux driver can fall back to "ISA" mode, limiting it to about 16MB of memory on modern systems.
EDIT: Apparently there is a way to get it to access 4GB with 32 bit DMA but nobody put in the work for the driver. Mayhaps it can be done?
As I remember correctly, SB Live should work out of the box with XP due to built-in WDM drivers.
Probably yes, it would, but other 25 cards which I tested could have issues though. Also you need to reboot the system at least twice every time.
The perfect motherboard for testing hardware should be the ASRock
939Dual-SATA2 1x1.5V AGP 3x 32-bit PCI 1x PCIe x1 1x PCIe x16 2xIDE sata 1 and 2
With the cpu adapter it supports s939 and AM2 :)
Ok, first things first, Arch sucks.
With that out of the way, which distribution would be a good pick to run on a Socket 370 testbench board with AGP/PCI/ISA for the same purpose?
First of all LOL 😆
Second, for 32-bit systems I take debian
What about ISA devices?
Would be nice to be able to use a 32-bit computer. For the time being, Debian supports 32-bit.
So which Linux version are you exactly using? Can you provide the ISO link?
It's archlinux, which is unlike f.e. Ubuntu, a rolling distribution. I use it since 2007. So, basically latest state of archlinux. Kernel is currently at 6.9.2, but the distribution itself has no version.
I thought the card was still broken, but apparently it's music....
Ist das ein Kopfhörer aus dem Action? Alter, Du lässt es Dir gut gehen! Kanal läuft wohl? Als ich seinerzeit noch mit der neuen Hardware herumbastelte, die Du heute reparierst, packte ich eine HDD in einen Rechner mit K6-2+, hatte aber keinen Plan mehr, was darauf war. Es war Suse-Linux und ich entsann mich, dass ich das seinerzeit auf einem 5x86 installiert hatte. Bootete direktmit allen Geräten korrekt initialisiert hoch. Als damaliger Windows-Fanboy war ich sehr perplex. Heute fasse ich Windows nicht mehr mit der Zange an. Nur für die wenigen Spiele, die nicht unter Linux laufen, starte ich das. Also einmal im Jahr vielleicht.
Aus dem Action? Ich weiß nicht Mal, was das ist. Der Kopfhörer ist von Lidl für 5€ oder sowas :)
@@necro_ware Oh! Du kennst den Action nicht? Das ist so ein Billig-Markt. Habe einen ähnlichen BT-Kopfhörer von denen für 15 EUR gekauft. Gibt es mittlerweile mit Noise-Canceling zu dem Kurs. Action ist nicht vergleichbar mit TeDi, ist eher der Aldi für Haushaltswaren. Die haben auch Markenware, die nur 50 bis 60 Prozent der Baumarktpreise kosten. Pattex Polymer-Klebstoff, die Kartusche zu 5,99 EUR. Selbst die Spray-Farbe von denen ist mittlerweile richtig gut geworden. Auch das Weiß deckt nun richtig gut. Das ganze PC-Zubehör ist für den Preis ohnehin der Hammer. Dual-Monitorarm für 20 EUR oder riesige Tastatur-Mauspads für 5 EUR (?). Wenn das LSC-Smarthome-Zeug von denen mal vorrätig ist, decke ich mich auch immer auf Vorrat damit ein. Der Action hat Aliexpress-Preise vor Ort, denn Action ist mittlerweile in ganz Europa vertreten. Ich kenne den selbst auch nur durch den Kanal vom Technikkeller. Sonst wäre ich da auch nie hingefahren. Mittlerweile meine erste Adresse für den PC-Tagesbedarf und Baumarktartikel.
Gut zu wissen. Danke für den Hinweis.
Which Linux distro do you prefer for low end PC from 2009-2010? Like Acer Aspire One netbook with C-60 CPU
I always use either Arch or Debian.
@@necro_ware Clean Debian then....Will try it
lol, just noticed the pun in the title
Asrock dual vsta would add agp testing
Spoiler alert ;)
What Linux do you use for this purpose? I tried it recently and had some success with mint
arch see grub2
I use arch in this case, but it doesn't really make a big difference. Debian f.e. would do the job just as well. If you like mint, use mint.
Recently I tried Linux, Mint (Debian) was stuck on 640x480p on my 1440p desktop. I moved to Arch (Garuda) and it worked out of the box. I don’t want to upgrade to Win11 and Microsoft made me try different things… last time I did it was OS/2 30 years ago. Except for Windows 8 (which I skipped), I was happy with XP and Win7.
Athlon64 boards with certain sound cards are excellent for retro gaming: modern infrastructure, relatively inexpensive and flexible speed adjustments (CPUSPD). Thanks for sharing!
pls: hardware testing under linux video!
❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤
Windows XP supports frozen state by installing SteadyState software. It supports programmed revert back and caching the disk changes to ram along with caching to disk/ssd partition.
Also you don't need to reinstall Windows XP using the old, time consuming Setup procedure. There are tons of open tools and scripts which fully support Sysprep and WIM imaging procedures to get the system ready from a clean disk in 2 or 3 minutes.
Miss check memory of soundfonts? upload soundfonts? Check back, center/subwoofer, microfono/linein , midi port , Gameport
This card has no own memory. It uses mainboard memory for sound fonts through PCI bus. Tested that as well of course and nothing spectacular there, everything works fine.
yes, it's not a sound card, if the mixer fits into a single screen.
Bringing* Creative Sound Blaster Back to Life*
Everybode Lives a smartass!
@@jamiedoesstuff4877 First of all, I fixed the title in the hope that more people will click on the video. Secondly, I don't even know how to sarcastically fix your sentence because I don't even know what you are trying to say.
@@corneet OK, you are correct on "bringing" being the correct term here, but the "live" instead of "life" seems to be a pun on the sound card's name, especially so since it's capitalized and written with an exclamation mark. (Also, just realized I myself made a typo... oh the irony!)
My only complaint is that his hardware is TOO new. I want to see some hot punch card and relay action.
What flavor of Linux is this?
After more than 25 years of using Linux I can tell, that it mostly doesn't matter. My personal preference is ArchLinux, but only because I got used to it in many years. For example anything Debian based would do the work just as good. On older 32-bit machines I use that one for example, because ArchLinux dropped 32-bit support years ago. In Linux world it's more about understanding how things work. Once you know it, distribution is just a detail. If you don't understand it and instead try to switch the distribution when something doesn't work, you will just exchange one problem for another.
Who the hell watches a retro channel and complains the hardware is too old??? ROFLMAO!!!
In the most cases this is due to the fact, that everybody has an own understanding what retro hardware is. And for some people there is such a thing as "too retro". Well, luckily everybody is free to tinker with whatever is considered suitable from the personal point of view.
@@necro_ware True, I appreciate it all. Some machines more than others (I tune out Apple stuff from the introduction of the Mac forward.)
Здарова. Ты где живешь?
Германия
Nah, you are not a software engineer, that is impossible and a lie.
We all know that you are a Tech Necromancer! :D
;)
Please don't overrate Creative products, they destroyed Computer audio with their monopoly and unfair competition practices.
They bought or ruined all competitors, Aureal, Soundstorm, etc.
Obsolecense by not releasing drivers and banning community of doing so, etc.
That soundcard has a better DAC in the rear than in the front, have to use KX drivers to reverse it, and many other issues their products have.
Best wishes.
That is true. I even made a video about it a long time ago: th-cam.com/video/_7P8anriPbA/w-d-xo.html
But considered all that as SB Live! was released, we have to be honest, it was really a very good and competitive product. Most probably it was more an achievement of Ensonic, than Creative, but still, if we put names aside, this was a very good product.
yes, that's where you use spdif. the only issue is the limitation of the emu10k driver module. but the people who claim to notice the difference, won't play audio from a pc anyway. that would be blasphemy.
Is it really worth putting repairs into a $10 Sound Blaster Live? They are like roaches on eBay, as you can't get rid of them fast enough. The trouble is knowing the correct SKU to get, and not end up with an OEM Live (SB02x0/SB48x0).
But they won't always stay so cheap. Besides, why not fix it if you can? It takes *literally* 3 minutes of work, if not less. And 5 minutes for the diagnostics. Perhaps some people "value" their time too much...
It's very easy to change the SKU on these cards by modifying a couple of bytes in the card's firmware. :) The hardware is identical, and by changing the card's PCI ID it will identify itself differently to the driver installer, which will enable all of the features "missing" from the cheaper OEM cards. Sneaky Creative. :)
10k views in 2 days for just for the cost of some flux, tin and heat isn't that bad ^^
@@stamasd8500 or you just change it in one the alsa files. but the hassle to adapt the internal connections (which do differ), is just a pain and i'd rather buy one
People often forget how much time it actually costs to make and publish a video. Repairing and developing hardware/software doesn't even make 20% of the whole effort. 80% of my time is spent on going through hours of recorded videos, creating a plan, cutting, making additional pictures, schematics if needed, and of course publishing. Dependent on a video, every minute costs about 3 hours of work in real life. So, the answer is no, it is not worth it at all, but I do it because it's my hobby.
so on a channel called NECROWARE ,people have the intelligence of complaining the hardware is too old obsolete and useless? really?? thats the point of this type of channels... i think that about 20% of people or more are just zombies...i mean....i get it that you are not interested in old hardware...i totally get it and respect it...but why complain about it on a vintage hardware channel?? jeez its beyond reasonable.... zombies ....zombies and NPCs everywhere
Too old lol don't change anything
Type of hardware which is now the "does not worth my time" category. Just throw in like 6 ess pci, sb, sbxfi, terratec cards into the trash after none of them was detected in Linux.
I don't understand the point of Arch Linux... Linux Mint its so much better.
Mint has no reason to exist. It is a bastard. If you want to use Debian, just use the real unadulterated thing.
Matter of opinion, doesn't matter. Nice trolling attempt though.
I would agree if you hadn't mentioned Mint, the worst of all.
@@fattymcboomboom9254 Ubuntu maybe?
@@worroSfOretsevraH Kubuntu for beginners or if you need the most stable OS, Fedora (KDE spin, what I have switched to from Kubuntu after over 10 years) and maybe openSUSE too.