@ Tr3vor42532
That's great that a thrift store would have old systems like that. You're lucky...the ones around here all have a contract with a "e-recycler" that take all their "e-waste" and they almost never put any systems up for sale. I hate "e-cyclers" 🤣

Tr3vor42532 wrote:

I typically only use Ebay for specific parts like hard drives. I don't like using modern SATA or later IDE drives in old computers. I love era correct stuff, especially hard drives with the noises they make. a simple swap of hard drive can almost change the experience with a retro computer.

I also have a Pentium III 500mhz machine, a P4 machine and about 3 other P4 motherboards and a bunch of other not so old computers, but they wouldn't fit the definition "retro" for me. Pentium MMX is about as new as it gets for now to me.

I totally agree....when I put in a CF to IDE, I was wondering why things just didn't feel the same as back in the day, and it was the lack of an old Hard Drive. I switched back to my old seagate 100MB HDD and the buzzing and whirring sounds were back and everything sounded just right.

As for Pentium MMX being as new as it gets, my limit is a PII400.

Watch out not to get a weird setup out of those parts!

Last time I did a Athlon XP 1700+ machine with 128MB DDR266 RAM (which is a very small amount)and a old Seagate Medalist HDD which was 1.7GB.Not to mention,instead of a AGP card I used a S3 Trio 64 PCI video card (1MB)and a Realtek network card,all of this along with,if memory serves me right,a 350W Codegen PSU.(which I later swapped for a 400W DeluX PSU)

Just literally completed my latest rig. Here's the specs:

Generic beige case (found on the side of the road)
Gigabyte GA-6VXE7+ Motherboard
Pentium III Tualatin 1.4Ghz CPU (with pin mod)
Coolermaster CPU Cooler with copper heatsink and fan
Voodoo 3000 AGP Graphics card with copper fan and copper heatsinks
Intel PRO 1000 GT Network Card
Sound Blaster Live CT4760 with Live Drive II
Sound blaster AWE 64 Gold
Noctua NF-R8 Case fan
Sony DDU1622 DVD Rom Drive
Iomega 250mb Zip Drive
Cannon MD5501 5.25" 1.2mb Floppy Drive
Sony MPF920 1.44mb Floppy Drive
Aerocool Strike-X 500Watt PSU
Kingston 512mb SDRam with copper heatsink
Western Digital Caviar SE 120GB Hard Drive
Windows 98 SE

Everything's been setup and runs really well. Only issue I'm working on is that the AWE 64 Gold volume sounds really low in dos games. Have to crank my speakers up all the way 🙁 There is no mixerset or diagnose utilities like with my other sound blaster drivers. Admittably this is the first time I've used an AWE 64 Gold before. Will have another play with it tomorrow and see how we go. Hope you guys like it! 😀

Tr3vor42532 wrote:

I typically only use Ebay for specific parts like hard drives. I don't like using modern SATA or later IDE drives in old computers. I love era correct stuff, especially hard drives with the noises they make. a simple swap of hard drive can almost change the experience with a retro computer.

I think you are one of the few here that enjoys the old hard drives. I've tried to use the old drives in my machines, but after a few minutes I can't bear the noise and the low performance. Harddrive performance especially boosts Windows performance, boot time, loading times, installation time. In general it makes me save time on pure waiting when using my retro machines. I use newer drives as much as possible, the oldest I have in use is a SCSI drive from late 1999, but noise is the most important thing for me. I have a highend server SCSI disk from 1992 laying around, but it isn't usable as it sounds like a jet engine taking off.

I don't use CF cards in any of my machines (except the Compaq for boot files). The reason here is that they are limited to 2GB and performance under Windows is questionable. I prefer using quiet SCSI drives for my 386/486 to get around the 2GB limitation and very quick SSD and/or IDE/SCSI drives for my Pentium and newer machines

Gotta love them old hard drives 😁
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DBNi8VpuIq4
My 486 had a WDC 21200 1.2gb drive in it. Could only access 502mb of the thing so I went and bought a Conner 240mb drive to replace it. 😜

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DDR333?Wasn't the 845 series chipset limited to 266MHz?

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JayCeeBee64 wrote:

http://i.imgur.com/ebl7citl.png […]
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^ What a sin of restrictive rear case fan grill 😵 . Put it to the sword!

TELVM wrote:

JayCeeBee64 wrote:

^ What a sin of restrictive rear case fan grill 😵 . Put it to the sword!

I noticed that as well...I usually use a good hole saw attached to my hammer drill to remove all that metal.

It makes a big difference in sound as well..it will be much quieter after you remove the obstruction.

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retrofanatic wrote:

... I usually use a good hole saw attached to my hammer drill to remove all that metal.

It makes a big difference in sound as well..it will be much quieter after you remove the obstruction.

^ This man knows his cases.

TELVM wrote:

^ This man knows his cases. […]
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retrofanatic wrote:

... I usually use a good hole saw attached to my hammer drill to remove all that metal.

It makes a big difference in sound as well..it will be much quieter after you remove the obstruction.

^ This man knows his cases.

hollow out a junk fan and sandwich between the "grate" style outlet and the fan and you have increased flow rate. it sort fo acts as an expansion chamber. it's not always ideal though as it takes up spaces. i'v always anted some one to make already hollowed spacers made fro mthe those ultra slim fans, like 1cm or an just a bit over an 8th of inch. doesn't take too muhc space and increases air flow.

Alternatively you could strip the case down and take a 120mm whole saw to it and use and fan grill.

retrofanatic wrote:

@ Tr3vor42532
That's great that a thrift store would have old systems like that. You're lucky...the ones around here all have a contract with a "e-recycler" that take all their "e-waste" and they almost never put any systems up for sale. I hate "e-cyclers" 🤣

More like evil-cyclers. We need a Hardware Preservation organization!

JayCeeBee64 wrote:

Here's the datasheet straight from Intel 😀

Oh.Okay then.Still,you should have used Asrock for the motherboard.Not only they have 845 chipset boards,but some of them have Prescott support,which AFAIK weren't supported until 848 and newer.Example is the P4i45D+ Rev3.It uses 845D chipset,and it supports Prescotts.😁

Here's a rig I've working on lately, I hope you guys find it interesting:

The machine is a Samsung SD610, a 16Mhz 286 with 1MB of RAM and a 50MB HDD. Couldn't find a reference of it on the net, but I've seen there are other models, like one SD630. It came with a VGA card but I changed it for a generic CGA one.

The monitor is an IBM 5153. I've found it in the local eBay just as an "old monitor", so I've got it for next to nothing. The downside is that the IBM badge is all scratched, and some of it corners got damaged in the mail, but I glued back the pieces. It works perfectly, but I'm a little worried since the innards are all covered in a black, charcoal-like grime. I hope it doesn't die on me soon!

I also installed a Sound Blaster 16 (CT2290) that I haven't used since like '98. And for transferring files I've been using an external ZIP drive with its DOS driver.

Finally, the keyboard is a Model F AT. I've got the monitor and the keyboard first, then I got the machine so I could have something similar to a 5170. But I like it so much that I'm probably going to "max it out" with VGA, more RAM (it takes SIMM modules), other sound cards, and a CF card as a hard disk. I'll see if I can get something less powerful to go with the monitor, and put together an 80's CGA rig.

^^^^^Nice computer!! I love 286 machines and older, smaller capacity hard drives. The monitor is nice too.^^^

Cool! 😀

Glad you guys like it! I already ordered a CF-IDE reader so I get rid of the clunky zip drive. 😎

fantasma wrote:

Glad you guys like it! I already ordered a CF-IDE reader so I get rid of the clunky zip drive. 😎

Noes! 😢
ZIP drives are cool 😜