Have you looked at the five 1800uF capacitors in the PSU yet?
If they are original and they haven't yet leaked caustic brown fluid out of
them, they will start leaking it soon.
Regards,
Peter Coghlan.
Aha! It has an H7821-00 180W PSU which makes it a Model 10. So now I know
for sure.
- Peter
On Sun, Dec 7, 2025 at 12:36 PM Peter Ekstrom <epekstrom(a)gmail.com> wrote:
> Alright, so the 3100 arrived yesterday afternoon and looks to be in good
> condition visually. The voltages from the PSU look ok as well. So I plugged
> things back in and powered it on.
> I don't have a console for it yet, but it seems to go through some
> self-test, the tape drive does
> some stuff as well as the hard drive. It came with the slightly larger
> RZ25 rather than the RZ23.
>
> I am getting some 6-conductor cable soon and will make a console cable
> for it. I'm very curious
> to see what it does on the console.
>
> I have a SCSI CDROM coming in a few days. I also have an old SUN external
> enclosure that I'll put to use for it as an external CDROM.
>
> Interestingly, it doesn't have a model number on the sticker, but based on
> what I have seen, and
> the pattern of the connectors in the back, I am pretty sure it is a model
> 10.
>
> - Peter
>
> On Mon, Dec 1, 2025 at 10:30 AM emanuel stiebler <emu(a)e-bbes.com> wrote:
>
>> On 2025-11-30 14:53, Peter Ekstrom via cctalk wrote:
>> > Very interesting thread. I was kinda thinking too that someone running
>> VMS
>> > on a machine for hobby use would be too small of a potato to go after.
>> > Incidentally, what would y'all value a MicroVAX 3100 at? I am looking at
>> > one on eBay for $550 but am considering making a lower offer.
>>
>> Which 3100?
>> There are some very low performance 3100 at the lower end, and the
>> best(?) 3100/105 or 3100/95 still fetch some serious money.
>>
>> My recommendation is usually the pizza box 4000/vlc ...
>> Specially, if you don't know what you need it for :)
>>
>>