I don't know why I've neglected to post this but I do have a neat setup based on an Asus P5A-B (super 7)

What i've done is take the FSB, Multiplier and cpu voltage jumpers and wire switches to them and put them on the FRONT of the case. This makes for stupid fast overclocking and testing. ALSO, the case is special, it is hinged at the power supply and opens up to allow easy access to the cpu area. Making for easy switch outs for the cpu. I use this system to test processors. I recently got a 533mhz k6-2 that I had running at 616mhz! (5.5x112) It wasnt stable enough to get into windows reliably but it was still cool!

Ah, the P5A-B with the mounting screw -inside- the CPU socket! 😁

Weird looking case 🤣, it looks a lil bit alien-like in a certain way 😜
Could you post a couple pics of the case itself?

Edit:Odd how it can fold open at the front. Usually AT cases have the detachable motherboard tray thingy.
Never seen anything like your case, it looks awesome and kinda odd 😜

luckybob wrote:

What i've done is take the FSB, Multiplier and cpu voltage jumpers and wire switches to them and put them on the FRONT of the case. This makes for stupid fast overclocking and testing.

That sir, is a truly badass idea. Wish I had thought of it.

luckybob wrote:

What i've done is take the FSB, Multiplier and cpu voltage jumpers and wire switches to them and put them on the FRONT of the case. This makes for stupid fast overclocking and testing.

Nice!

I did the same ~ 15 years ago. It was a AMD 486DX4-100 based system and I routed the FSB and multi jumpers to the front.

It allowed me to run the machine as:

DX2-50
DX2-66
DX2-80
DX4-75
DX4-100
DX4-120

The DX4-120 setting wasn't stable though, but fun for quick benchmark and seeing what it's like.

I don't know exactly why I did this, but I think some games ran too fast (Comanche).

DX

ProfessorProfessorson wrote:

That sir, is a truly badass idea. Wish I had thought of it.

if you search on ebay for "servo extension" you see what I bought. they fit right onto the jumper headers and I just chopped off the other end and soldered it to SPDT switches. I think I paid $5 for the wires and another $5 for the switches. Granted, I wish the wires were black but it doesnt matter tbh.

Best Money Ever Spent!

Tetrium wrote:

Ah, the P5A-B with the mounting screw -inside- the CPU socket! :D […]
Show full quote

Ah, the P5A-B with the mounting screw -inside- the CPU socket! 😁

Weird looking case 🤣, it looks a lil bit alien-like in a certain way 😜
Could you post a couple pics of the case itself?

Edit:Odd how it can fold open at the front. Usually AT cases have the detachable motherboard tray thingy.
Never seen anything like your case, it looks awesome and kinda odd 😜

I hope that screw isn't vital for supporting the board in a tower case. I usually install my boards with the CPU already in place, so I'd end up skipping that screw. It would also be a pain in the butt to have to remove that motherboard for any reason and have to take out the CPU, fan/heatsink first. Some cases are so cramped inside you'd be sure to get scraped knuckles or lacerated fingertips trying to get it out.

sliderider wrote:

I hope that screw isn't vital for supporting the board in a tower case. I usually install my boards with the CPU already in place, so I'd end up skipping that screw. It would also be a pain in the butt to have to remove that motherboard for any reason and have to take out the CPU, fan/heatsink first. Some cases are so cramped inside you'd be sure to get scraped knuckles or lacerated fingertips trying to get it out.

thats what makes this case so awesome! this case opens and makes upgrading so easy!

luckybob wrote:

sliderider wrote:

I hope that screw isn't vital for supporting the board in a tower case. I usually install my boards with the CPU already in place, so I'd end up skipping that screw. It would also be a pain in the butt to have to remove that motherboard for any reason and have to take out the CPU, fan/heatsink first. Some cases are so cramped inside you'd be sure to get scraped knuckles or lacerated fingertips trying to get it out.

thats what makes this case so awesome! this case opens and makes upgrading so easy!

You're case definitely seems a special case (pun intended?) 😜

I think it's usually safe to leave 1 screw unused, it will rest on the thingy that's fastened to the motherboard tray. Unless it's one of the white standoffs.
With these rigs, sometimes you need to be a bit creative, something that luckybob shows that he has (cheers mate!) 😉

OK here are my recent creations...

486dx2 66
OPTi 895 MB
8mb parity RAM
210mb HDD
Winbond VLB IDE Card
Cirrus Logic VLB Video
AWE64 sound
DOS 6.22

It took me a while to get the bits together for this and originally I wanted to re-create my ~1994 era SX33 in a desktop case, but ended up with the DX2 and a tower case because I just couldn’t find the bits. I’m very pleased with the case all the same, love the turbo button, although the LED display doesn’t seem to change with the button press? I assumed it would drop to 33 when turbo was off.

It all went together easily enough but I couldn’t source a manual for the motherboard (I found some that were close, but the jumper descriptions didn’t match) so it took me a while to get the CPU settings correct – the amount of jumpers on those old 486 boards is insane!

HP Vectra series 5
Pentium 200 MMX
2GB HDD (quantum fireball I think)
64MB RAM
S3 Trio 64 Video (integrated)
Integrated IDE
AWE64 sound
DOS 6.22
Windows 3.11

I found this bad boy sitting in the grass on someone’s nature strip while I was looking for bits for the 486 and thought it might have some useful parts, but after opening it up and finding it original and complete, I decided that it was a perfect DOS box (and far better than any 486 was going to be).

It’d been rained on during its stay in the great out doors but it fired up first go (without actually catching fire) and runs like a dream. I’ve always turned my nose up at OEM PC’s but no more; it’s solid as a rock after all these years, installing DOS / Win 3.11 was too easy, and HP still provide all of the relevant drivers / manuals, etc on their website – that’s pretty cool. All I needed to add hardware-wise was an AWE64 which I had lying around.

AND it has 2 USB 1.0 ports, so no messing around with floppies and CD’s for me. It’s great for games - more than enough power for my favourites from the late 90’s. Later ones in vesa mode slow it down a bit but that doesn’t worry me, I don’t know much about the vesa mode graphics – I lost interest in gaming during the period when games transitioned from SVGA to 3D. Something for me to read up on one day…

I found a great PS2 keyboard to go with this machine on eBay, it’s a brand new IBM clunker which doesn’t have the windows keys, cost me 3 bucks (+ $15 postage of course).

Pentium III 1Ghz
ep-3vca AGP MB
512mb RAM
Geforce 2 Ultra 64mb
10gb HDD
Sound Blaster Live! 5.1
Windows 98 SE

Somehow my humble plans to build a 486 have snowballed into a worrying desire to own every old computer I cross paths with, so when I saw this beautiful beige box sitting in the window of a local computer store and learnt that he only wanted $20 for it, I made it mine. It had a slot 1 MB in it originally and the CPU was around the 500Mhz mark, but I had a Socket 370 in the shed with a faster chip in it so I wacked that in. Another visit to the afore mentioned PC store and I ended up with the 1Gz.

It’s a great store, looks to have been there forever and is full of dusty piles of old systems, bits, etc. The guy who runs it can’t understand why I’m interested in his piles of junk - yesterday I found a 21” Sony Trinitron sitting forgotten out the back, bought it for peanuts and wrestled it into the car. It looks amazing!

Anyway I haven’t spent much time on this machine yet, setting up Windows 98 was easy enough but made me realise how far we’ve come with technology (I have a modern PC too obviously). Browsing the internet in IE6 @1024x768 res is interesting, and I’d forgotten how delicate 98 can be, it actually crashes!

So that’s my retro PC experience so far, and I’ve had a ball. I must say the experience with the 2 Pentiums has been the most rewarding, and I suspect that comes down to money. I was frustrated to find that 486 bits are few and far b/w and therefore I paid some embarrassing prices for bits on eBay, etc, and in the end I think that took some of the fun out of the experience. I’m glad I got the 486 up and running though, I can put it in the shed now and show my kids in 15 years time what a computer looked like when I was their age. If they respond at all I assume it will be to say “so?” 😀

theRobin wrote:

OK here are my recent creations...

-snip-

That was a fun read! 😁

Your cases look very good, hardly any yellowing, if any 😉
If possible, keep an eye on the PSU in your P3, it's one of the lesser brands but 400W should be enough.
The lesser PSU's are more prone to become defective and cause damage to your hardware in case it does become defective. Just a reminder should you start noticing strange instabilities.

Your rigs look perfect, also from a hardware point of view, well thought out 😉

theRobin wrote:

OK here are my recent creations...

Those old Vectras are soome of the best OEM PCs you can find. I had a VL600 back when, and it was bomb proof. ONly the stupidly high price of RDRam back then kept me from keeping it longer....

BTW, nice PIII rig - all my favourite parts too- VIA Apollo/ PIII Coppermine 1ghz/ GF 2 Ultra/ SB Live 😎

theRobin,

you have found a gold mine in that old store...
love those pc's, so very retro..

Well not particularly a retro rig, but still - it's big
ftp://78.47.153.163/pictures/dos_on_tv/toasted.jpg
and fullscreen: ftp://78.47.153.163/pictures/dos_on_tv/fly3.jpg
I put a 5.25" floppy box in front as size reference.
The rig behind is my P166MMX system on 430HX.

theRobin wrote:

Somehow my humble plans to build a 486 have snowballed into a worrying desire to own every old computer I cross paths with

Rofl, i know what you mean, i caught the same disease. 🤣

theRobin wrote:

Somehow my humble plans to build a 486 have snowballed into a worrying desire to own every old computer I cross paths with

Time to get a house with a bigger attic? 😜

I know -exactly- what you mean 🤣! I got so many systems right now, I haven't even posted all of them yet. I have around 5 or so complete systems in the attic (mostly Thunderbird 1Ghz and 1.1Ghz) unused (at this time)) 😜

Lots of cool rigs you guys have. Now, it's my turn to share some of them, and I'll start with one of my most beloved computers of all time, my father's old Packard Bell Legend 316SX:

It may be incredibly slow for the vast majority of DOS games I play(and can't even run Doom because the CPU is too slow and the system doesn't have enough RAM - not that I care as this only serves as a light DOS gaming PC), but this computer was a part of my childhood, even though there were much better computers back when I used this thing(although back then, I had no idea what the hell was inside the computers I used - I wasn't even 10). I could never give this thing up no matter how slow it is. Its specs are:

-AMD 386SX 25MHz
-4MB of RAM
-1GB hard drive(of which only about 300MB can be used) - this computer originally had a 20MB hard drive, but it crashed, and the computer doesn't seem to like big hard drives very much)
-Integrated Oak Technologies graphics card(I assume this is junk? Either way, I would like a Tseng Labs ISA graphics card to replace the Oak Technologies card)
-ESS AudioDrive ES1869F sound card(this is temporary while I fix my Audio Excel AV300, get a second SoundBlaster Pro 2.0 or get a sound card with a Yamaha YM3812 - I don't want anything newer than the SoundBlaster Pro 2.0 in this thing, thought I would prefer a sound card with OPL2 rather than OPL3 FM Synthesis considering the computer's age. Oh, and the computer originally came with no sound card)
-Packard Bell PCB-302 Rev. 00 motherboard with ACC Micro chipset
-Mitsumi 12X CD-ROM drive(originally came with no CD-ROM drive)
-OS is MS-DOS v6.22 along with Windows 3.11(I was told this computer originally had Windows 95 on it - yeah, I don't think it would run that well on a 386SX)

A look inside:

It's a mess of ribbon cables in there now that the CD-ROM drive has been installed(so messy, I couldn't even get a proper shot of the 386SX) and I had to mount the hard drive sideways like I did as it wouldn't fit well inside the case otherwise. And yes, I did splice part of a dead ATX power supply to extend one of the power connectors on the computer's power supply.

I will post pictures of my other classic computers later.

Nice computer! It really looks clean and nice, you obviously take good care of it. I wish i had a 386 or 286 to play with, maybe someday i will.

I recently went to my dad's place and retrieved the computer i was playing with as a kid, a 486 dx33 , its all dusty and yellow but im gonna give it a good clean up eventually!

Reading that really makes me want to get a Socket 2/Socket 3 motherboard. I have a 486DX2 66MHz my mother gave me along with a Socket 4 Pentium 60MHz which are both in need of motherboards(and I need to find some AT cases). It's been a while since I wanted to put together a 486-based computer, but could never find the parts. I now have a CPU(although I would have preferred a 486DX4, but if a 486DX2 is sufficient to run X-Wing, TIE Fighter and Doom at full speed, I won't complain), so all I need is a motherboard with PCI slots and 2 SIMMs.

Tomorrow, I shall post images of my main MS-DOS gaming PC, which has just recently been upgraded.

By the way my friend, i see you live in Montreal, i am in quebec city. I may have a plug for you!

It all begins with a fun story. At the flea market i was talking 486 with some guy selling electronic parts, i ask him if he has 486 boards or 30pin memory. He start laughing like : " hell no i don't have those ". But then a woman nearby heard it, comes in and says : " My husband has the basement filled with old computers, he has 486 and things like that". So i ask her if i can call him, she was a bit hesitant so instead i gave her my number with a note about the things i wanted. 2 days later the guy calls me back and say : "unfortunately i gave all my old stuff to a computer recycler/resseller guy, 2 carloads packed full of anything from 286 to P2, so he gives me the name of the other guy and the name of his shop. Apparently this guy has some treasures hidden and will sell them real cheap!

He also has a website with some hardware listed, not much is listed really but it is stated that if you are looking for other stuff, to write him an email, he will sell and ship for cheap. I hope you are speaking french, i know some of you Montreal folks dont, because the website is in french, and maybe the guy is not good in english, i did not contact him myself yet, i only know this since monday. Maybe he no longer has any of the old stuff, i will contact him myself soon, but anyway, felt like sharing this story 😜

Here the website : http://www.cash.alpha-terra.com/

Nah, I'm good with either English or French, although looking at site, I don't see any old parts. I might contact him later on or if the shop isn't too far away from where I live, I'll drop by.

EDIT: Yeah, I think I'm gonna send him an e-mail. I'm not gonna drive more than 3 hours just to get some parts.