Re: Bought these (retro) hardware today

Posted on 2018-11-05, 15:41

by

by gex85

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Diamond Sonic Impact S90. I never owned any soundcard based on an Aureal chipset before and got this one for less than 10€ (shipping included) on eBay. I think it will go into my P3-650 build to replace the SB Audigy Platinum EX (SB0090) that no doubt is far more capable but to me feels a bit out of …

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Re: Bought these (retro) hardware today

Posted on 2018-10-19, 14:47

by

by gex85

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I never owned an AMD K6-2 (or any other K6) system before, so I thought it was time to change that: k6-2-400.jpg (sellers photo) Planning to pair it with an ASUS TXP4 socket 7 motherboard that I already have. However, I don't know if the whole system will stay with me in the long run since it would …

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Re: Average PC Specs for Low, Medium, and High-End PCs of late 1998 - early 1999

Posted on 2018-10-19, 11:56

by

by gex85

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

If you are on a tight budget you might want to look for a TNT2 M64. Would be a good fit for a 500 MHz Katmai and ranges between TNT and TNT2 performance-wise. At least here in Germany there are plenty of these cards available on eBay for 6-7€, shipping included.

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Re: How to get Realmagic EM8300 Mpeg decoder to work?

Posted on 2018-10-18, 13:46

by

by gex85

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Not sure if anyone still needs the driver cd, but here is an image of mine. Just wanted to leave a quick note that I have successfully used this driver for installing a RealMagic Hollywood Plus / EM8300 PCI card in Win95C. The .cdr file can be extracted with 7-zip in case you don't want to burn a …

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Re: Average PC Specs for Low, Medium, and High-End PCs of late 1998 - early 1999

Posted on 2018-10-18, 11:25

by

by gex85

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

German food discounter ALDI sold the Medion branded MT-24 system in late March 1999: * Pentium II 400 MHz * Intel 440BX or LX chipset * 64 MB SD-RAM * NVidia Riva TNT onboard graphics with 16MB RAM * onboard audio, don't remember the details * IDE hard disk about 13GB afair, but might have been less …

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Re: Bought these (retro) hardware today

Posted on 2018-10-17, 15:05

by

by gex85

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

[...]Both with the underrated SiS5511 chipset.[...] In what regard "underrated"? I have an AOpen AP5S mainboard with that chipset (and a layout nearly identical to the MSI 5122) that I actually got with a used Highscreen midi tower pc some time around 1999. While the case is long gone, the board is …

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Re: Bought these (retro) hardware today

Posted on 2018-10-17, 12:31

by

by gex85

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

[...]Both with the underrated SiS5511 chipset.[...] In what regard "underrated"? I have an AOpen AP5S mainboard with that chipset (and a layout nearly identical to the MSI 5122) that I actually got with a used Highscreen Sky mini tower pc some time around 1999. While the case is long gone, the …

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Re: Anything else besides games on your retro PC? How old are You?

Posted on 2018-10-04, 12:45

by

by gex85

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Why not put together a nicer desktop PC then for your modern needs. Get a good processor, lots of RAM and SSD drive. Big screen and nice mechanical keyboard. A laptop is always going to be an inferior, more cramped experience compared to a desktop[...] Well, I disagree with that statement. I still …

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Re: Internal DVD drives period correct?

Posted on 2018-10-03, 11:50

by

by gex85

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

This source (in German) states that the first DVD drives became available in 1996 and the first DVD writers were introduced in 1999. Price tag for the writers was approximately 2500,- DM (ca. 1500€) back then. The page doesn't name any sources for this information however. But in the year 2000, …

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Re: Possible to Use a Slocket with 1-1.1GHz PIIIs on a 100MHz FSB Asus P3B-F?

Posted on 2018-09-24, 10:02

by

by gex85

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

SL5QV and SL5QW should both work well. They are both Coppermine CPUs, not Tualatin (PIII-S), so no modding is needed at all. The P3B-F supports up to 150 MHz FSB (see page 18 in the manual). However since the BX chipset is rated at 100 MHz max FSB by Intel, Asus won't officially support 133 MHz CPUs …

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Re: Ultimate Windows 98 AMD Athlon

Posted on 2018-09-24, 06:59

by

by gex85

in Marvin \ System Specs

in Marvin \ System Specs

So I actually did find the invoice for that machine. I built it in Dec. 2001. But the invoice item just says "1x Midi-Tower, 300W Power Supply". No make or model. The other hardware that went into the build: - EpoX EP-8KHA+ - Athlon XP 1600+ - 2x 256MB DDR CL2 - Matrox G550 Dual Head - Maxtor 40GB / …

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Re: Ultimate Windows 98 AMD Athlon

Posted on 2018-09-22, 15:45

by

by gex85

in Marvin \ System Specs

in Marvin \ System Specs

I used that case when I built a Socket A system for my parents in 2002 (or maybe 2003). Although the system was sold or trashed (don't know) quite some time ago, my dad might still have the invoice for that system in some old folder. I happen to be at their place tomorrow, so I can ask him. Maybe …

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Re: What hardware is in this PC (I've bought it now!)

Posted on 2018-09-21, 07:23

by

by gex85

in Marvin \ System Specs

in Marvin \ System Specs

Glad you got it!

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Re: What hardware is in this PC

Posted on 2018-09-19, 07:32

by

by gex85

in Marvin \ System Specs

in Marvin \ System Specs

The video card looks... the VESA connector very close to the back plate combined with those (unpopulated) holes for a bigger connector directly above the PCI slot seem pretty characteristic, but I don't recognize it. It's not a Matrox or any Diamond or STB card I'm familiar with. By looking at this …

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Re: What hardware is in this PC

Posted on 2018-09-18, 08:18

by

by gex85

in Marvin \ System Specs

in Marvin \ System Specs

The sound card would probably be a Sound Blaster AWE32 (Value), CT3910. Some information about its limitations compared to the "full size" AWE32 can be found here: http://nerdlypleasures.blogspot.com/2012/07/s … 64-options.html

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Re: Bought these (retro) hardware today

Posted on 2018-09-17, 08:12

by

by gex85

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

One thing that these BSD or Linux firewall/router distros seem to have in common is that while they provide industry-grade features, speed, security and stability in wired networks, they do not really shine when it comes to wireless LAN support. If you really want to use such a distro in your home …

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Re: Bought these (retro) hardware today

Posted on 2018-09-17, 07:47

by

by gex85

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Not really retro, but I found a PC Engines ALIX 2D13 complete with aluminium case, 4GB CF and power supply at a garage sale for just 4€, which is really a steal. The case did not have any labels on it but looked somewhat familiar, however when I decided to buy it I didn't know what exactly would be …

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Re: 2006 Q4 - Core 2 Extreme QX6700, Geforce 8800 GTX, Sound Blaster X-Fi Fatal1ty

Posted on 2018-09-10, 14:12

by

by gex85

in Marvin \ System Specs

in Marvin \ System Specs

Very nice build! Even if most people won't consider a 2006 system "retro" yet :happy: What's appealing about systems from this period is that even the high-end parts are still widely available and usually rather cheap, so building a 2006-2008 high-end rig is quite an easy thing to do. I have a basic …

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Re: 1994 Q4 - DX4 100, S3 Vision864, Sound Blaster Pro 2.0, Gravis Ultrasound, Roland MT-32, Roland SC-55

Posted on 2018-09-05, 13:47

by

by gex85

in Marvin \ System Specs

in Marvin \ System Specs

I really like the clean, tidy style of your builds and the period correctness, which is one of the main concerns for my own builds as well. What type of lighting equipment do you use for your "glamour shots" like the ones in the first post? According to the EXIF information you did not use a flash, …

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Re: PIII 850MHz / GeForce 256 / SB Live! Dual boot LAN build.

Posted on 2018-08-29, 19:04

by

by gex85

in Marvin \ System Specs

in Marvin \ System Specs

Excellent choice in speakers as well. My parents got these back in the day with their first 486 DX2-66. They still sit on my moms desk today and since they sounded so good I just recently acquired another pair from eBay for my own retro setup. Here in Germany they were sold as "Quadral allsonic SM …

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