I probably started thinking about rebuilding my first childhood computer before even taking it apart. I'm serious, this thing bugs me. It is time to finally rebuild it, not as a faithful recreation of the original, but as a pretty little box that contains what I consider as my ultimate Slot 1 system. Some inspiration came from this fine build - seeing it was the reason why I signed up on Vogons.

So far I have a bit of a plan, but I might need some of your feedback and advice. Specs (WIP) are below.

I won't spare you the backstory though. It was 1998 or 1999, I would have been 6-7 years old, when my grandfather said something like "this boy needs a computer", grabbed my dad, went to Saturn (big German electronics/multimedia store) and bought a PC for about 2000 DM (Deutsche Mark), using some of his hard-earned savings. It was replaced as the family computer by an Athlon XP in 2002, and I got the old one to play around with, which I did. Most components went to the trash over the years. I took a picture before finally throwing out the front panel of the case, which I had kept for sentimental reasons, years after moving out of my parent's place:

With the LEGEND name I found the motherboard manufacturer, QDI, somehow part of Legend, with Legend now being known worldwide as Lenovo. Some minimal research showed that QDI was a pretty big player at the time [1]. I like how they named their platforms after the chipset: 440LX -> LegenX, 440BX -> BrillianX, 440EX -> ExcellenX, 810E "Whitney" -> WinneX.

I wasn't happy with the motherboard so I trashed it at some point. It was the QDI LEGEND-V or a very similar one (I thought it had had onboard audio..). The 440LX instead of a 440BX was the main reason not to keep it, I think.

This is more or less what I want:

• same or slightly upgraded hardware
• try using hardware found in dumpsters over the years
• green motherboard PCB like the original, ideally only green extension cards
• Intel 440BX, Slot 1, and a CPU with a black heatsink+fan
• 5xPCI, 2xISA rather than 4xPCI, 3xISA
• nice to have: PIII Coppermine support (I have some S.370 and a slotket..)
• run win98 games with good audio quality

Now let's put the specs on the table, original vs. planned:

Case - LEGEND - Silverstone Fara R1?? (this in white + glass side panel)
OS - Windows 98 (SE?) - Windows 98 SE
Mainboard - QDI P6I440LX-?? (LegenX ??) - Fujitsu Siemens D1107?? (this)
CPU - Pentium II 400 MHz - Pentium II 400 MHz (might be the original one!)
RAM - SDRAM - SDRAM from my box of SDRAM
Graphics 1 - Matrox Millennium G200 SD - Matrox Millennium G450 (dumpster)
Graphics 2 - 3dfx Voodoo 1 (was a later addon) - 3dfx Voodoo 2 (bought & repaired)
Sound - onboard?? - Creative CT4810 (ES1373, PCI) - dumpster find. Quality?!
HDD - WDC AC28400R 8.4GB IDE 3.5" - same (I still have it)
Misc - PCI USB 2.0 maybe this one for its front panel header. VIA chip though..
Networking - 56k soft modem? I don't remember - not needed

No optical, no floppy, I absolutely don't want to fiddle around with this and it makes the case smaller and cleaner. This is why I will need USB 2.0.

The Fujitsu Siemens board is suppsed to have Coppermine support in its latest revisions [2] and is somewhat available in Germany. Good choice? Similar boards (green, 5xPCI) that I found on ultimateretro (nice website!) are the EPoX/ProNiX EP-BX3, maybe the Lucky Star 6ABX2V (some are brown) and probably some more that I missed or didn't make a note of. Also various ones with 4xPCI and 3xISA...

The case completely breaks any attempts at full period correctness, of course, but gex85's "All things dual" build looked so nice that I have no doubts about this. The white Silverstone should be an interesting variation. Or a lapse of taste.

I also have some more questions where your experience might help:

• can I run a S.370 P III Coppermine 866 MHz (133 MHz x 6.5) at 100 MHz x8 instead, or is the multiplier somehow fixed by autodetection?
• I also have an ESS AudioDrive ES1868F card (ISA), another dumpster find, that seems to be a good choice for some older games. Does it cause trouble alongside a PCI sound card?
• what was the PCI sound card of choice at the time? It looks like there was only the ES1370. Or did everyone still use ISA cards? I never used one.

Any feedback/comments are welcome. I'm not building it immediately, there are so many details to get lost in.. and I need to buy a motherboard and a case once I have settled on a choice.

[1] http://ixbtlabs.com/articles/legendqdi2k2/index.html
[2] https://web.archive.org/web/20051020050640/ht … .asp?Main=D1107