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Finalized Socket 7 Build

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First post, by anachronism1887

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I have finally completed my Socket 7 build. I changed a few things and it is a bit more era correct. The main goal I had was to have something akin to my very first computer and to use as many new components as possible since I really like the idea of finding things sealed after 10+ years.

The biggest quirk I had was with the Soundblaster. It was listed as an SB4390 on the box, the picture of the back is of a CT4390 (erroneously assumed this was what I was buying) and the card inside is a CT4540 which matchs the label on the box. It works flawlessly in DOS (something I could not get the Audician 32 Plus to do). The onboard Yamaha OPL3X worked without issue in DOS so I regret buying the Audician but it will go into the Slot 1 system that I have coming along that will be strictly Windows based.

Specs:
*= New Item

*Intel TC430HX motherboard
*200MHz Pentium w/MMX overclocked to 233MHz (OEM)
*64MB (4x16MB) 60NS EDO SIMMs
*4MB ATI 3D Pro Turbo PC 2 TV (replaced 32MB ATI Rage Pro 128 TV Wonder)
*12MB STB Voodoo 2
*Creative Soundblaster AWE64 Gold CT4540
3COMM LAN
*Microsoft InPort ISA Mouse
320GB Seagate IDE hard drive (starting to look for low capacity disk)
*52X IDE Lite-On CD-ROM
LG IDE DVD/CD combo drive
*Teac 1.44MB 3.5" Floppy
*Mitsumi 1.2MB/360KB 5.25" Floppy
*400W Seasonic PSU (complete overkill but I won't buy cheap power supplies, it might get swapped with an Antec 300W that came with a case I just picked up)
IBM (Lexmark) Model M Keyboard
Swapped the buzzer for a real PC speaker since the case had a spot for it.

I don't know who makes the case since there is no branding or ID labels on it whatsoever. The person I purchased it from says he thought it was InWin but I couldn't find anything online that looked like it. But I really like the 3 panel (top and 2 side) design and there is a good amount of room for cable management. Unfortunately, he no longer had all of the bay covers so I have the redundant optical drives to fill space.

I am using a Dell P1130 (I hate the Dell aesthetic but I wanted a pretty close replacement for my NEC FE2111SB that stopped working). If I manage to fix/ find someone who can fix, the NEC I will go back to it as my primary CRT.

Any thoughts on what I could have done better or changed?

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Reply 3 of 5, by anachronism1887

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GL1zdA wrote:

Nice, a classic HX Pentium. Which Windows version will you use? Why do you use a bus mouse?

Basically for the same reason I have a 5.25" floppy drive, I'd never used nor seen one in person before. I have a serial Logitech Mouseman as well but the MS mouse is really well built and nice and heavy.

Right now I have Windows 98 SE. But I'm going to use Seagate Disk Wizard to make a 2.1GB FAT partition and a 137GB FAT32 partition so that I can have DOS 6.22, Windows 3.11, and Windows 98 SE. I tested it before quickly and it seemed to work without any troubles. Just hit CTRL before start up and choose previous DOS version. I played with Windows 3.0 but it won't boot with the Ontrack Drive Overlay present but 2.11 and 3.11 have no issues.

Reply 4 of 5, by PhilsComputerLab

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Lovely machine!

Interesting that you're going for a dual partition / OS Setup. MS-DOS 7.1 works pretty well, but you will get a bit more memory with MS-DOS 6.22.

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Reply 5 of 5, by anachronism1887

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Since I didn't grow up with computers (I was 26 when I built my first system), its really about trying out as much as I can. From what I've read and watched, pure DOS is just so much "FUN". Even with Windows XP I have only a bit of experience, it's been Vista and later OSes that I have really used. Plus, the hard disk is so big that I feel I'm at least justifying it being inside if it is multi-boot.

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