about:XIN.at
This is my personal weblog at XIN.at. I am the maintainer of the XIN.at server and most of its
content, such as this WordPress weblog. All of this is being hosted on quite an ancient machine from the 90ties, to prove that such an old industrial/business server can still handle modern applications and content. This was born as a hobby project, and it has taken many years to fully complete the server, which now houses components from Austria, Germany, Canada, the U.K. and the USA.
So, the machine running all this is one central and important element. It’s an IBM PC Server 704 with four Pentium PRO 200MHz processors, Pentium II Overdrive 333MHz processors, 2GiB FPM-DRAM, old SCSI storage hardware, a good old Matrox Millennium II graphics card and other PCI 2.0 compliant hardware, etc. If you want to know all the details, check out this link: [XIN.at server system information]
. This page documents a large part of the server build in a chronological order, showing most of the work and upgrades done on the machine.
Most of the stuff on this weblog will be clearly technology-related, you might find
commentary on different tools, operating systems, hardware etc. here.
Enjoy your stay!
-the GAT
Full hardware system specifications of the IBM PC Server 704 “Zenit/XIN.at”:
- System board based on the Intel AP450GX reference board, Intel 450GX Orion chipset
- 4 × Intel® Pentium® II Overdrive® 512k 333MHz processors with MMX™ technology
- 16 × 128MiB = 2048MiB Parity FPM-DRAM augmented by IBMs memory board ECC (IBM ECC+P)
- 2 × Adaptec AIC-7880 SCSI controllers onboard
- 1 × Adaptec AHA-19160 SCSI controller
- 1 × IBM ServeRAID-II SCSI RAID controller (IBM Viper+Rattler, IBM PowerPC 403GCX, 4MB EDO-DRAM Cache)
- Matrox Millennium II PCI 4MB graphics card
- 3Com 3C905CX-TX-M, 10/100MBit NIC
- Intel PRO/1000 GT, 10/100/1000MBit NIC
- Adaptec AUA-5100 USB2.0 card, PCI 2.0 5V compatible
- 1 × Seagate Cheetah 15k.3 34GB/15.000rpm/U320 SCSI-3 HDD @ AHA-19160
- 12 × IBM 9.1GB SCSI-2 7.200rpm HDDs (RAID-5 array with 3 hotspares) @ IBM ServeRAID II
- Plextor PX-40 TSI 40x SCSI CD-ROM @ AHA-19160
- Eaton 9PX 1000W RT2U with a single extended battery module, network card and environment monitoring
Some information about the software working on the box:
- Microsoft Windows 2000 Server SP4
- Apache web server, SSL/TLS enabled
- PHP, SSL/TLS enabled
- MySQL 5
- Gene6 FTP server, SSL/TLS enabled (FTPS/FTP+ES)
- MDaemon Pro, SSL/TLS enabled (including Hashcash, proper DK/DKIM and SenderID/SPF setup)
- AnGeL IRC bots
- Kerio Winroute Firewall
- FreeSSHD
- Networx monitoring tool
- PRTG network & hardware monitoring suite
- AnalogX Atomic Timesync server
- IBM ServeRAID monitor
Legal notice:
According to Austrian media law and amendments (“Mediengesetz”), §24/1/4 as well as §25/1-2/4-5 I hereby publish my name and residence as well as the editorial policy of this weblog.
- Michael Lackner
- A-8600 Bruck an der Mur, Austria
Editorial policy: XIN.at (including wp.xin.at) is a private, technology-oriented website without any commercial background and without any services offered in return for payment. The website discusses modern technologies in the sectors hardware and software. XIN.at is politically and economically independent.
I reserve the right to take legal action against any misuse of the information provided here.
All interactive contents (comments) posted by users of this weblog have to conform to all Austrian laws in effect. The publishers of all such contents are responsible for their own publications, XIN.at can not be held liable for what users are posting on this website. I will however do my best to remove all content that is in clear violation of any Austrian or international laws. In addition, users have to implicitly agree to have their contributions released under a free [CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 International License].
Furthermore, XIN.at can not be held liable for any external content linked to on this website, where external is defined by services which are not hosted locally on this server and which is not accessible under the www.xin.at or wp.xin.at domains.
Contact:
1. You can contact me by commenting on this page. The comment will be public of course, but the eMail address you can provide will not. I can then contact you either via a direct reply or via eMail.
If you wish to reply to me with an encrypted mail, I do support PGP/GnuPG. You can obtain the following public key beforehand:
GPG key: [0x5705E744].
Key fingerprint: 157D 4069 68E3 B7B0 D813 A48E 1B02 54BF 5705 E744
If you do send me an encrypted message, please attach your own public key in encrypted form too. Thank you.
2. Alternatively, you can join the IRC channel #guests on [ircs://www.xin.at:6697] with SSL/TLS support, or [irc://www.xin.at:6666] in case your client does not support encryption. An encrypted [webchat interface] is available as well, if you don’t want to install an IRC client.
Licensing:
about:XIN.at © 2012 by The GAT at XIN.at is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
Hi,
I was wondering, if you how to install the scanner for hp printer like office jet c4650. Their drivers block at the os version checking (the msi ones)!
Thanks in advance,
Have a good day,
Rgds,
Hi Anonyme,
Please provide more information, this isn’t enough to start working with. If you’d like me to look into it, I need at least the following:
Hi,
Regarding what you said, i will perhaps wait that you’re in better shape!
After it’s been 4 years that i’m switching to seven to scan…
Rgds,
Hi,
I hope you will get full health again!
Can you perhaps have a little time for the hp drivers lookup?
Target operating system: XP x86_64bit
Links to the exact drivers you mean : OJ4650_Full_WebPack_1122.exe (Extractable with zip tools)
https://affordablehas-hvac.com/hp-officejet-4650-desc%C4%83rcare-drivere/
Ocr seems to be in optional directory.
Ps: the latest x264 you did are buggy, in fact while trying to heavy compress some file, playing with the bit depth didn’t work at all. Even wit -D 8 -D 10, and the profile directly, it seems it’s tuck to 12bits…
Ps3: you should add a cancel upload file in case of error, i tried to upload the drivers but 300mbyte, and was unable to empty the upload part…
Thanks in advance,
Have a good day,
Rgds,
“ I hope you will get full health again! […]
– anonyme-x22 ”
That’s the one thing I can say confidently: It’s no longer possible. Some remaining damage (from treatments) is actually permanent.
As for “x264”: I guess you mean x265vfw. How did you determine that? Because [MediaInfo] just doesn’t report any bitness, since x265vfw is just not writing remotely complete headers into the files it builds. Probably thanks to Microsoft’s AVI Compressor filter or DirectShow in general, no idea.
Would be strange to see this fail, as the multilib part of the build system is unchanged from the original. Would be great if I could at least identify the bits per color channel from the output file!
@HP printer driver: I’m not sure I can even test it without an actual device! I guess I’ll take a look and see how far I can get!
@Weblog software / file uploader: I once tried to replace the entire uploader with a better, multi-file one, to make this stuff generally better. That failed. All I achieved was to break uploading as a whole, so I gave up on modifying / replacing it… Adding functionality to the existing code of this site isn’t actually simple at all (at least not for me). There aren’t any good plugins for that either.
So, to sum it up:
Edit: I managed to modify and install the driver, but… there is no way to actually test it without having the device. There are still some .dll files that might require binary hacks, but I wouldn’t know unless I get my hands on the actual printer.
Hi,
Can’t you change the treatements?
I don’t excly what you have, but some chimacl treatement are badder than a ntural alternative one. And in Us there are very open to alternative natural ones.
Anyway, since it helps improove your health, that a good thing. in my case if i take the treatments, i’m completly loosing brain control, just physical things are working like a robot minus the brain. So i don’t take them, and i have a brain, but with inreverscible physical damage! Prefers to die but thinkink than, to live a little more with a computer brain… Hawkins took the same path…
Just give me the optional directory modified, i’ll test them!
Regarding x265, i will come back with picture to show you the issues.
Stay cool,not too much computer work…
thanks in advance,
Have a good day,
Rgds,
Hi anonyme,
Altering it significantly was not possible. It’s not an ongoing thing, it was essentially a “do or die” decision, with the actual treatments (not counting after-care to deal with the fallout) lasting for about 3 months. There were configuration options, out of which I decided to choose the one that would wreck my body the least, while incurring a lower survival probability at the same time. A big gamble, if you will (and I don’t even gamble, usually
). Not doing it would have meant certain death within a very short period of time.
I’d love to talk about the details with you, but would do so only in private (e.g. via PGP-encrypted eMail). But I have no way of doing so as you’re entirely anonymous.
So you’ll have to settle for that much. 
Ah right, my [IRC server] (including the [web chat interface]) would also be an option. Just saying. 
I’ll share the modified driver including some instructions tomorrow, as I don’t currently have access to the testing environment. Let me say this though: It’s likely not gonna work. This might become a multi-step process where we’ll have to test new mods multiple times before getting there. I’m about… hmm.. 50-60% confident it’ll work in the end.
Hi,
Could you dhare the files?
Meanwhile i’m stuck to 2.7Mghs (Mbits) on my real time processing video script, so i was wondering if xp could work correctly on an higher processor, what do you recommend for vp ?
I’ve seen some people having succes with 6xxx serie…
Thanks in advance,
Have a good day,
Rgds,
Hi,
Erratum 2.7Ghz (Gbit)
Rgds,
Ah, I forgot, my apologies! Here’s the modified basic driver:
As per usual, unpack with [7-Zip]. Then, run the installer OJ4650_Basicx64_36.0.72\O4650x64.msi.
As said, this may not be enough. All I did was to edit O4650x64.msi with Microsoft Orca to remove the following
LaunchCondition, which blocks the installer and gives the error message “The Operating System of this computer is not supported. For a list of supported Operating Systems, please check http://www.hp.com or your printer documentation. Install this software on a computer with supported Operating system.”:( (VersionNT = 501) AND NOT (VersionNT64 = 502) ) OR ( (VersionNT >= 600) AND NOT MsiNTProductType >= 2) OR ( (VersionNT >= 600 OR VersionNT = 502) AND ENTERPRISE~="Yes") OR InstalledPlease let me know what other errors you encounter when attempting to use this version!
As for faster machines: There is no clock rate limit. I’ve ran chips at >4GHz with no issues. You want to go for higher IPC (instruction per clock) instead of just for MHz. So yeah, newer CPUs, essentially.
Unfortunately, this is not my area of expertise. I know some people have had success with modern Intels and AMD Zen platforms (e.g. see [here] using backported and modified drivers (e.g. for [NVMe SSD boot]), but it’s simply not something I ever did myself, so I cannot be of any assistance, unfortunately.
My fastest XP x64 platform is a Xeon X5690 on S1366. That’s a Westmere hexcore wit HT clocked at 3.46GHz reference with a 3.6GHz all-core turbo. Essentially a Core i7 990X on an ASUS P6T Deluxe, which still has full XP x64 support. Plus a supported USB 3.0 upgrade card and a supported Areca ARC-1883ix-12 RAID-6 controller, also an Auzentech Prelude 7.1 sound card and an NVIDIA GeForce Titan Black, all of which come with XP x64 drivers.
Please also be aware, that even a modern processor will not make x265 encode as fast as on a newer OS. The XP compatibility glue layer of x265 causes a significant slowdown, especially on boxes with fewer cores. Expect roughly -10% to -20%. Also, the NT 5.2 kernel lacks support for
XSAVE&XRSTORCPU instructions, so it cannot safely context-switch with AVX code. Hence, the AVX / AVX2 / AVX-512 / BMI1 / BMI2 / FMA3 / FMA4 instruction set extensions supported by x265 cannot be used on XP or XP x64, further slowing down the encoding process.Just saying.
Hi,
Thanks for the drivers i will test it.
Regarding the new computer. I was looking for a i712700.
But found nothing regarding XP64. I also thought to buy an hex core from i7 third generation whose have all the drivers ready to go.
As it was for real time video processing, not x265 encoding
or even other ones. (no codecs are able to work above 20Mbits datarate, and 2.7Gbit datarate raw data cannot be handle from file system)
i thought i could try windows 7 on a i712700.
Unfortunately also no information of success.
So tying to convince myself i looked up the specification of a motherboard and the audio dac are still 192Khz 24 bit, so except for more power calculation there isn’t anythng to take in those new hardware. As far as i cannot support bad code specially till windows 7, (C# user interface, multipe dependancy services, file system with more than 32000 files, remote control not removable, etc…), and operating systeme whose are requiring 4 times the power of xp just to start themself. I will remain with this configuration till audio dacs on mother board switch to 384Khz/24bit and video car support 16K/32K with HDR 16 bit. Perhaps at this time i will try those new os. But without any pleasure for sure.
After all a 2.7gbit datarate fron a 4005kbit source isn’t to bad after all just that power comsumption is heavy, but i will shortly try an analog support for reducing power consumption if my guess are right i should retain the datarate while lossing resolution but my test don’t show a great difference, escept when looking the video with magnifying glass at 30cm of the screen…
Keep well,
Thanks for helping me with xp64.
Have a good day,
Rgds,
Hi,
Here are the result:
Installer launched it self.
Install ok till the drivers registering. (rundll32 stuck)
I shut down the ruldd32 process.
The hp software works but still not the scanner function.
No detection in paint of the device.
It seems something is wrong with these files:
HPWia_OJ4650.INF !!!
HPWia_OJ4650x64.CAT
HPScanTRDrv_OJ4650.dll
HPWia1_OJ4650.dll
HPWia2_OJ4650.dll
Thanks in advance,
Have a good day,
Rgds,
Hi,
There is also a O4650x86.msi. But cannot install it due to signature issue…
Thanks in advance,
Have a good day,
Rgds,
Attachment:
O465Ux86.zip
Thanks for the feedback!
I did not inspect nor alter O4650x86.msi, because I thought the 32-bit version wouldn’t be required. I’ll take a look at it next week!
Also, I expected some .dll libraries to fail. I saw a few of them call unsupported Win32 API functions. I just ignored the issue, hoping for the best!
I’ll attempt to hack in the required functionality, but it might be tricky. This’ll require additional DLLs to be loaded, so it could be that those will have to be copied into the correct destination directory/-ies before installation, just in case rundll32.exe attempts DLL registration from the target directory instead of the setup directory. This is actually very likely! This significantly reduces probability of success overall I’d say.
We’ll just have to see.
About a modern PC with XP x64: I might be wrong and I have no test data to prove my statement, but I assume the 12 series Intels to be a bad choice for XP / XP x64. Reason is that those CPUs have what we call a “big.LITTLE” architecture in the ARM field. As the NT 5.x thread scheduler does not handle mixed speed cores, this might have a detrimental impact on performance and latency on context switches (which happen all the time). I consider this to be specifically bad for loads with just a single compute thread or generally less compute threads than the CPU has cores.
I would assume the 11 series or AMD Zen 3 to be a better choice for a thread scheduler that doesn’t understand big.LITTLE type architectures, or as Intel calls it, “P-cores and E-Cores”.
As for your data rate requirements: Quite a challenge. But not impossible to meet. That value’s ≈350 MiB/s. You may reach more by using an actual NVMe SSD with backported XP x64 NVMe drivers. Also, I am for instance running a mechanical drive RAID-6 array comprised of 12 disks. While bad at IOPS / random I/O, sequential raw throughput is over 2 GiB/s. In practical applications, about 800 MiB/s – 1 GiB/s are left over after NTFS and Truecrypt AES256-XTS encryption. That’s about 8 Gbit/s when leaving the crypto layer out. More for NVMe, I guess ≈30 Gbit/s might be possible with optimum tuning (alignment, cluster/block size tweaked to match your I/O load, disable 8.3 fname generation, disable atimes, etc.).
While the file system itself obviously impacts performance, it should not stop you from reaching at least 20 Gbit/s with proper hardware. And some tweaks to the file system itself. After all my RAID-6 with some 7200 rpm drives already reaches ≈6 Gbit/s when not fragmented. That’s at a 16 kiB NTFS cluster size and reads happening at 1 MiB block size, so very linear.
NTFS fragmentation significantly impacts performance for my 54 TiB array based on mechanical drives, but that would be a non-issue with an NVMe SSD. And heck, you might even go ahead and RAID-0 them.
With a much faster CPU and memory than mine, the impact of NTFS on I/O performance will naturally also decrease!
Hi,
so rry for the spelling but i’m in a very bad sgape actually.
In fact the drivers does say that it support xp32bitSP3.
Ecxept the drivers signing, all is ready to work !
and i so esxpect that pant, mu scan application or paintshop pro are 32 bit.
I’ve tried to install the install the driver directly from the inf without success. So pergaps there is something missing insode for XP64.
Also wanted to say that the scanner is allready recognized by xp, it jus miss the scan software layer, so i assume that this is these dll.
Regarding the new harsware, ad is told you seconday feature like audio performances and video dac still don’t have sufficient improovement to me for invest.
Regarding what i’ve found recently about digital audio i could no more buy something else than 384jgz/24bit.
As for the video my research rought me to 16bit dac..
I will put some file for the audio, i’m sure you will understant them and you can easy translate to video.
Please do private/remove as soon you will see them ou will understand why as soon as yu will see them.
Regarding the I12, you totally right, but as i don’t thought about any success on xp… If only i could have informtion about success on a i711xxx hardware i will go like this, even if for the video i will still be stucj to a ati7970 even if it seems that here it’s the cpu which isn’t sufficient. I do think they are goin into a wall with these mixed core, and effectively after what you said, i do think bow that i would definively go for a i711xxx; unfortunately by the time of the audio da c improovement, we should be at i715xxx.
I hate those compgnay whose are even not capable to give a legacy drivers for xp. Nothing block vulvan opengl and i also suppect directx11-12 to works on it, except a fw adaptative works…
ut’ s just business nothing more. The constition does include something on the liberty for people yo use the technology they like, but nothing to force the compagny to support them!
Regarding raw data on file sstem , sd card just to slow, therivaly a ssd should works butn i would need at 5 tera byte for a movie. the onvest does not woth the pain.
Also the cppu would consume all it s power for tht, and it won’t be stable, as other file ststem device memory card hdd would also take the bandwidth. even then the goal won’t be achieved becausetheorically 4.5ghz with a video dac on xp are achievable. at the end , even if it’s seems to be raw data with high birate, the source cannot be improoved in the texture somain, what’s gone in numeric is forever.
Only by memry in realtime is reliable.
Keep well,
have a good day,
Rgds,
Attachment:
secon part
Attachment:
third part
As you ca see analog is the only format that can handle pure sinus wav…
Im at work for device rstortion, but i’m blocked in several way…
It’s the same for video, nfortubately ib this worls they do cut the technology to fast, WVHS are just unobainaible, so stuck to SVHS, plus the 10bit dac i got for video cobertion i got does make crosstalk, whereas my 3K analog device don’t.
Still cannot know if it the hdr to video, or the video to hdr who does this. Need t go throught RGB converter, then RF ones, but no ones exst in the RF->HDR.
You understand why i do 12 bit encoding now…
I was preparing the sources… But i do need more powerfll profile (16bit)
Movie and audio for lovers remain in pure sinus waves…
Attachment:
Hi,
Hope you’re well, i’m just sorting out new covid infection from my aid people…
Thanks to you, and a new experimental tool in seven only unfortunately which allow me 768Khz 24bit simulation of audio wac, i’ve remarked that not only the video is resample before outputing, but also the audio, and it’s stuck to 192khz 24bit with their drivers strange process. The sound in Xp of the same 768lhz 24Bit wav file is totally different. I haven’t noticed tht because up to 500Kjz 24bit i was doing them in XP. I must definitevely by Xp xompatible hardware backup…
Is it possible to desctivate those darn resampling?
Can you tell me more about those resampling?
Do you have news regarding the hp drivers?
Thanks in advance,
Have a goog day,
Rgds,
Hi,
I’ve forgotten, can it be bypassed by asio drivers for the audio?
Thanks in advance,
Have a good day,
Rgds,
You should consider adding RSS feed support, because it would be useful (at least for me and probably others) to keep up-to date with your new posts.
Hi Nojus,
Thanks for mentioning that!
Actually, the feeds are already there, I just never cared to advertise their presence. Probably just because I don’t use RSS myself (I guess I should?).
I’ve added the corresponding RSS feed links to the sidebar on the right, near the top. Since it can sometimes take weeks or even months (!) before these things are visible due to the static HTML precaching on this site, I’ll also post them here:
Hello Admiral Thrawn,
This is a long shot but… did I talk to you on IRC DalNet and EFNet in the mid-90s? Does #10forward ring any bells?
There was a friendly German user called Thrawn I used to chat to. He also cosplayed as Thrawn and showed me a photo with Timothy Zahn. My handle was “toto-”
Email me and let’s re-establish contact if so!
Hello Imran,
I’m sorry to have to disappoint, but unfortunately that wasn’t me.
While I’ve been on IRC in the mid- to late-90’s, that was on IRCNet and later also QuakeNet as well as on my own, independent server, which I’m still using today. I’ve also never cosplayed and never met Timothy Zahn (although that would’ve been awesome, as I’ve read and loved his trilogy!).
If you’re looking for that person, and he has actually met Mr. Zahn, maybe you could ask around in some Star Wars fan communities or go all out and try to contact Mr. Zahn directly. That is, if you haven’t attempted that already.
If you’re still interested in talking to me for any reason, see the IRC info on the top right, a webchat option is there as well. I’m usually online from 08:00 am – 04:00 pm and sometimes around 06:00 pm – 10:00 pm on weekdays. Timezone is UTC+1 DST and initial channel is
#guests, which… uhm… I should probably mention in that top right box.My apologies for not having been able to help you any further with your search.
Hi,
Could you look into HeidiSQL’s installer issue? I have tried my best with CFF Explorer and it trows Error 193 after changing to 5.1, i’ve already issued this on the official forum (https://www.heidisql.com/forum.php?t=35095)but like always at the end I got the ol’ mantra to “upgrade my Windows”. The application itself is API compatible, though
Hello Glassman,
According to my quick analysis, the installer executes some code compressed within itself, that is not compiled with the correct platform toolset either. This means we would need to unpack and repack it from scratch using InnoSetup, because that part of the code cannot be extracted and/or modified with [innoextract] either.
Also, are you sure this program is fully compatible with XP as-is? Several of its DLLs seem to target NT 6.0, like libmysql-6.1.dll or libmariadb.dll. When attempting to connect to a MariaDB server with its native client library, I ran into a failing
InitOnceExecuteOnce()dependency in the kernel API. Hence, I am not convinced that this is API compatible across the board at all. Some DLLs are (like the classic MySQL one), whereas others are not.Even when using the classic SQL library (libmysql.dll) I couldn’t connect to my own MySQL server. It would just give a wrong password / access denied error. This is clearly not true, as the same connection using the SQLyog community edition version 8.81 works perfectly fine.
I’m unsure about this. Maybe using an older version of HeidiSQL would be the right advice?!
Hello Thrawn
please check my post titled “Modifying Windows XP 64 using Windows 7 Dlls to run Latest Programs!”
here:
https://www.sevenforums.com/installation-setup/419656-modifying-windows-xp-64-using-windows-7-dlls-run-latest-programs.html
& kindly assist me with your knowledge Thank you!
Note: I posted the above message but it didn’t show up, so here i post it again!
Hello oobe,
First things first: Please do not copy Windows 7 DLLs over WinXP x64 ones. Nothing good will come of it. Ever.
Secondly, this is a typical problem requiring a stub DLL reimplementation of
SHGetKnownFolderPath(). Probably, you’d want to wrap it aroundSHGetFolderPathA()or more likelySHGetFolderPathW(), the unicode version of the older XP-style function.So this is the kind of thing that needs to be fixed programmatically, and also by applying some reverse engineering (binary hack, function call interception, function call redirection). It’s the kind of issue that a certain Oleg Ovcharenko (and others) have tackled in the past, and also greatly helped me with.
Thing is, you get a missing
SHGetKnownFolderPath()function, but it’s likely not the only one. The next step would be to inspect load-time and maybe also run-time dependencies of the program in question. For that, you’d want to use [Dependency Walker].That tool will show you all load-time dependency issues immediately (in red). Also, run-time dependency issues may be detected by doing a profiling run.
Also, it would help, if you could provide me with the software in question, so I can take a look at it and/or pass it to our friendly Russian hacker Oleg.
If that’s ok with you, just say so, and I’ll write an eMail to the address you provided when commenting here.
But please, for the love of every demon in the fiery pits of the nine hells, don’t copy Windows 7 DLLs over XP x64 ones… It’s like shooting at mosquitoes with a GAU-8 Avenger… You may kill that insect, but you’ll also flatten half a town in the process.
PS.: You tried to comment twice. Please note, that this is heavy web software from 2019 running on an ancient quad Pentium Pro server from 1996. Yes, I’m running all of my online services on such an ancient machine. You’ll have to be a “bit” patient when posting comments.
Well, looks like WordPress dropped PHP 5.4.x support starting with version 5.2. I cannot update my PHP to a more later version because i am running Windows server 2003. But i guess as long as your Anti-spam plugins are up to date your fine then…
Hello again,
Well, it was to be expected at some point. As official support for PHP 5 itself has ended in 2019-01, most developers will of course drop support and migrate to PHP 7. It’s been happening for quite a while when it comes to WordPress.
Anyway, support is still being provided, even for WP 4.9.x, although the devs won’t say when they’ll drop it, as per WordPress [support policy]. That “no guarantee” statement basically says “you may or may not get lucky with your old version, and we’re not gonna tell you when the party’s over”.
Support- and security-wise I consider the WordPress support policy seriously bad practice. People may be sitting there hoping for “yet another update”, when they may’ve already been left for dead without even knowing it. But what can you do, other than update to the latest major release…
If you’re stuck on old software, there’s not much you can do other than trying to harden your services as well as possible to at least limit the risks!
Actually, I’d think it’d be marvelous if we could back-port PHP 7, modern Apache as well as MariaDB etc. to older Microsoft operating systems. But that is unfortunately extremely hard… It would probably be easier to migrate to UNIX or Linux.
Hey Mike Gimme a shout at <eMail address censored for privacy reasons>. I have that postmortum update file i made automated working perfect. Have it on a dropbox site for you to grab. I lost your email addy from last time i contacted you… had a office problem and lost my addy book somehow.
Best Regards
Chris
Hello again Chris!
I think you tried to reach me on IRC? If true then sorry for not being there, but I’m on vacation right now, which is why I’m not staying in touch with things too much.
Anyway, I censored your eMail address out of your comment, I hope that’s ok. Not sure if that’s an address you’d want to share publicly or not. This website is being scraped by spambots after all.
I’ll send you an eMail so you can add me to your address book again! I’ll host your file here, as soon as I’m back, which will be next week!
I bumbled into your page looking for an image of the AP450GX server to use in a comment I was leaving somebody. It’s interesting to see one of these old servers still being used so recently. I’ve got one of the Intel AP450GX reference servers and I can tell you, based on looking at your photos, that yours looks almost identical in appearance (except for the IBM-branded grey bezel) to the reference machine. My machine, which has very similar specs to yours, has been serving in the capacity of furniture since about 2004. I really should part it out.
I’m always happy about any spare parts I can get! Most of the parts of the reference Intel server should work in the 704 as well, minus the baseboard and potentially the CPU riser boards.
I’m currently interested in memory riser boards (both FP SIMM and EDO DIMM versions are ok), power backplanes, SCSI backplanes, power supplies, fans and also the LCD panel. Only working parts though.
If you’re willing to sell some parts to me, please reply providing a real eMail address here, and I’ll send you a mail so we can discuss this further. That is, if you’re interested at all.
I tried to submit a question on the AllowOldGPUs in Photoshop page, but it just sat there, never indicating that it worked.
When I tried again, it said it was a duplicate post.
If you don’t see it, I’d love to be able to email you my question.
Hello SaganAndroid,
Say hello to the ancient server you can see above. It’s the reason for the slowness around here. You know, a 1996 machine and web software from 2019…
Commenting may take forever sometimes, but the comments usually always go through, even if your browser runs into a timeout. After that it takes additional time, because I have to confirm everyones’ posts manually (one of many measures to fight spam and scam).
My apologies for that!
I read about this thing: http://www.sandyflat.net/digerati/gatewayalr9000/alr%20fact%20sheet/index.htm
Can’t remember where, it might have been your site %-)
Ah yes, the ALR Revolution 6×6, a living legend. That is, if there is still a person on this planet who’s running one of those. Needs its own HAL driver because of the twin 450GX chipsets connected by a HSI bridge. Basically two front side busses. Also confirmed to work with six Pentium II Overdrive 333MHz processors (Oh how I would LOVE being able to use those!).
If I was able to go back to 2006… the year I got my own server… Ah, I could set so many things right… First, get that ALR machine, second… Use UNIX instead of Windows… but ah…
hallo du,
bin nur zufällig auf diese site gekommen und falls der server noch lebt
und du wieder einmal gezwungen bist die batterien zu erneuern.
schreib dir die batterie daten und abmessungen der USV auf, ruf
in feistritz bei bären batterien an und erkundige dich nach equivalenten
FIAMM typen. die kosten net die welt.
lg.
Hey Swash,
Since you’re from Austria, I’ll answer dual-language.
Jo, da Server lebt no, sunst hättest do eh kan Comment obsetzen kennan, wal da Blog rennt jo ah auf der Kistn.
“C:” hot schon a bissl an HDD Controllerschodn, owa a noglneie 15k SCSI Disk mit weniger ols 10 Betriebsstundn liegt bereit, muas mi nur amol aufraffn des Sys ummezuklonen…
Danke für’n Tipp auf jeden Foll! Die Batts san noch wie vur ok, owa i schätz daß i se in 2-3 Johr wui werd tauschn miassn. Immerhin lafn’s meistens bei 30°C wos, jetzt grod sans 27°C. Donn werd i den Rotschlog amol beherzign und bei Bären Batts onruafn. Wal de APC Dinger san anfoch teia, und so guat sans dafia holt ah ned… Oiso donkschen!
Yeah, the server is still alive, you wouldn’tve been able to comment here if it wasn’t, because the blog is running on that very machine.
“C:” already has a defective HDD controller chip, but a brand new 14k SCSI disk with less then 10 operating hours of is already waiting to replace it, only need to get over my laziness to clone the system over…
Thanks for the hint anyway! The batteries are still ok, but I guess I’ll have to replace them in 2-3 years time, because they are running at temperatures around 30°C mostly, 27°C right now. I’ll follow your advice and call Bären Batterien then. The APC batteries are quite expensive after all, and they aren’t that good either. So thanks!
sorry… aufschreiben solltest dir die batteriedaten und die abmessungen der batterien und net der USV …
… lg.
mei föla
Ah, hob i eigentlich eh so glesn auf die Schnölle (wal klor, wos g’mant wor).
Owa dawal hoff i, daß die Batts zur Obwechslung anfoch amol NED verrecken die nächsten Johre… schen war’s holt scho! 
That server looks great. I would love to see BeOS run on it.
Hey KP3FT,
Interesting for you to say “BeOS” and not something like OpenBSD or some other UNIX or something… My only BeOS experience comes from several versions of the Haiku OS, which gave off a nice, smooth vibe. But it also seemed to be much more like a personal desktop oriented system, not so much a server? Despite multi-threading and all… Back when I tested it, hm.. Not sure if there even was an x86_64 version of Haiku available.
Or do you mean “just for fun”? I can tell you one thing for sure: You don’t wanna run this monster as a personal desktop machine. It sounds a bit like a large civilian airplane during takeoff!
Hello and greetings from Texas. I ran across you web site by accident while I was doing a google search for “IBM PC server 704”. I have one myself. I must have bought it on ebay around about year 2000. Think I paid maybe $325 US dollars for it plus $100 or so dollars for shipping.
Recently I’ve been thinking of parting it out. Basically gutting the whole thing and saving the case to make a super server similar to your “Taranis” project, which by the way is very impressive.
If your interested I’d be happy to talk with you about any or all the parts. I see you’re looking for hot swap power supplies. I just checked mine and all 3 do have the “HS” on them. I’m not sure how much shipping would be from Texas to Austria though. Maybe $40 or $50 US dollars. I’m assuming y’all have DHL or Fedex there because I wouldn’t trust the US postal service.
The specs on my PC server are:
4-PPro 200 256 meg cache
1 gig ram
12-4.5 gig hardrives
I have a serveraid card, I’ll have to check to see which one it is
A cheap PCI 32 bit soundcard that works
Also a PCI 32 bit USB card that I actually got to work under win NT 4
I’ve replaced NT 4 server with various Linux distros. Think I started with red hat 6, 7, 8 and maybe 9. Damn small Linux worked from a CD. I can’t remember what I ended up with. I’ll start it up here in a little while to see what’s on it.
Everything still works even after 20 or so years. It’s amazing to me. IBM built a rock solid box for sure. Too bad the technology is so outdated.
If you’re interested, please let me know. The parts I’ll let go for cheap. $5-$10 whatever. It’s the shipping that’s gonna hurt. Too bad you’re so far away.
Regards,
David
Hello David,
Interesting, you’re the second person (in many years!) who asked me about this, and both of you showed up at almost the same time.
USPS is usually fine as long as the stuff is VERY well packaged. But I can also accept DHL. Fedex is problematic here I think (not sure whether they have local package depots) and likely far too expensive anyway.
The most interesting parts would be the HS power supplies, the memory riser card + RAM and that ServeRAID card (if it’s a ServeRAID II). Maybe even the CPUs so I’d have a matched quad for emergency replacements.
Is that email address that you specified when posting your real one? I guess yes (looks like it)? Then I can send you an email too if that’s ok.
Oh, and thanks for your offer!
Edit: Ah, and thanks for complimenting the “Taranis” array.
It took me more than a year to slowly accumulate all the parts and to finally build it. After all the trouble I had with it, I’m glad it’s finally running smoothly. Let’s just hope it’ll survive our summer here as well, ’cause I don’t have an AC. 
Hm, I wonder how hard it will be to adapt the 704 chassis for using a modern RAID system tough, backplanes and all… If you’re really going to do that, and if you’re going to document that as well, please post a link then! I’d be interested to seeing that come together!
Michael,
Yes the email at yahoo is good. It’s fine if you’d like to use that. I saw the other offer for parts too. When it rains it pours. 10 or 12 years ago there were a lot of spare parts on ebay but that all dried up. I did see a complete system there about a year ago but the guy wanted like $2000 for it with 2 CPS, 512 meg of ram and only a couple hard drives. Didn’t sell.
I think I downloaded and archived article from around ’97 that listed a new PC 704 going for $50,000. Imagine that.
I don’t think the ServeRAID card I have is a ServeRAID II. I think it’s a ServeRAID 3L or 3H. The FRU# is 76H6875. There’s also a part number on it too of 55H4486 but that doesn’t seem to bring up any info. There’s one on ebay here:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/IBM-76H6875-ServerRaid-PCI-RAID-Controller-Card-TESTED-/200533839412?hash=item2eb0bf8e34:m:mrcplC4eCkyK9PPsrmTNPdQ
that looks just like mine. Says it has the same FRU#. If you like I can take a picture of mine and send it to you.
Used to be able to go to IBM’s web site and find everything for a PC 704, drivers, manuals, setup info, etc. But now I can’t find anything. In a box here somewhere I have a CD I ordered from IBM that has the ServeRAID drivers and I believe the program that ran under win nt 4 to setup a raid 5 arrary and everything.
If you’d like the the memory riser card + RAM and the CPU card that’s great. I always wanted to upgrade the CPUs to the 1 meg cache ones but when they were available on ebay they cost more than I was willing to spend. At one time I even thought about using 4 PPro 333 mhz overdrive CPUs until I found out that they didn’t support SMP.
Somewhere on a hard drive, CD or maybe a floppy I have the original ebay add for my 704 plus all the drivers, etc. I just haven’t been able to find it yet.
Regards,
David
Hi again,
I took the freedom of editing your post, just for moving it down so it’s a reply to mine, not a new comment. I hope that’s ok.
I’ll send you an email then, so you have my contact information, address and everything. We can talk about the shipping / payment details there.
As for the hardware: I got the server in its minimal configuration off eBay for just 1€. Had to invest several hundreds for upgrades though. Memory was still cheap back then, but the upgrade CPU boards weren’t. Needed those to be able to run the 1MB CPUs. Plus new drives, third PSU and so on and so forth, to make it as powerful as possible.
Oh, and the Pentium II Overdrives at 333MHz do support SMP, but officially only 2-way. Unofficially they can do 4-way as well, it’s just not supported by Intel. A User managed to run six of them in SMP on an ALR Revolution 6×6 which uses two interconnected i450GX chipsets (so, three CPUs per chipset, thus not exceeding the 4-way limit). That box needs a separate HAL as well, for Windows NT/2k at least.
Unfortunately the CPU boards of the 704 have their own firmware, and they seem to have a CPUID whitelist flashed into them. So you can only use processors the CPU riser “knows” about as far as I understand the boards. I don’t think that the Overdrive CPUs will work at all in the 704. At least I never found any proof for the opposite.
Best, Michael