Had to travel a bit today, but I think it's worth it. First, another AT desktop case for my 5x86 VLB machine:

The size and internal layout is almost identical to another case I have:

Although this one has a much more interesting design. You can't really see it, but the case has both a Turbo button and a LED display (it's inside the black area). Sadly, it has a crack on the side of the front panel that isn't visible but is on the verge of breaking off. Not sure if there's a way to fix that kind of plastic.

Inside is actually a full system:

- an IBM 6x86 150+ CPU.

I don't really "collect" stuff, but I think it's fun to have this. I also have an AMD K5-100, so it's not going to be a lone weird Pentium clone in my closet! Seems like the system is configured to run this CPU at 188 MHz when Turbo is on.

- an ASUS P/I-P55SP3AV motherboard (the photo isn't mine):

It's my first Socket 7 motherboard that doesn't use an Intel chipset but rather a SIS510X one. It has onboard SIS 6205 video and ESS1788 audio. The connectors are placed on a peculiar addon AV card that uses a proprietary slot and even has Waveblaster header. I also think it's interesting because it has both a COAST slot and slots for 486-like cache DIP chips.

Finally, got this Socket 3 motherboard:

Can't identify this yet: it just says "AV-7541 rev 1.2" on the front (Google tells me that the vendor could be "Ansoon Tech Co", but that's it). It's SIS471, ZIF socket, 3xVLB, has VRM. So I guess, it should support my AMD 5x86. Kind of hoping it supports EDO RAM or is at least less picky about FPM sticks than my other SIS471.

Interestingly, it has jumper settings for 1M of cache. I can use my other SIS471 board's chips as a donor, but it only has 256K.

Also, it's missing a battery. Looking at this layout I assume I can just ask my friend to desolder a CR2032 holder from one of my other boards and just solder it here, right?

I recently bought the fallowing

Awe64 gold
MicroSolutions Backpack PD External Drive with disks
Ortek 84 key alps keyboard

A local friend of mine told me he got 2 7950 gx2 along with a A8N32-SLI Deluxe and 550mhz ddr ram.
He says he will only use it for benchmarking. Maybe I can get it from home when he's done with it. Fingers crossed .

jheronimus wrote:

Had to travel a bit today, but I think it's worth it. First, another AT desktop case for my 5x86 VLB machine: […]
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Had to travel a bit today, but I think it's worth it. First, another AT desktop case for my 5x86 VLB machine:

I have the exact same case in minitower format - it's so weird they used the same face for both desktop and tower versions 😀

Artex wrote:

Got another one of these little guys. Since you can never have too many.. :) […]
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Got another one of these little guys. Since you can never have too many.. 😀

B E A U T I F U L !
You're lucky!

kanecvr wrote:

I have the exact same case in minitower format - it's so weird they used the same face for both desktop and tower versions :) […]
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I have the exact same case in minitower format - it's so weird they used the same face for both desktop and tower versions 😀

The guy I've bought that case from actually had the tower version, too, as well as the two AT tower cases on the left from your picture!

That blue-and-cream/white case in the middle looks like a Tsunami Capricorn, which is giving me PTSD.

Not sure if this is "Retro" or not. But picked up a EVGA GTX 580 Classified card tonight.

This is the 855 mhz (stock speed from EVGA) Fermi cards, and come from EVGA with double ram to 3GB instead of the normal 1.5 GB of ram.

Specs are over here: http://www.gpuzoo.com/GPU-EVGA/GeForce_GTX_58 … P3-1588-AR.html

This will be part of building my "Ultimate DX9 Gaming Rig" soon. Not sure exactly what CPU it will be paired to but I'm hopeful I can mate it to an overclocked AMD 6-core SLI system before summer. Also of course.. I still need to (hopefully) find a 100% exact 1:1 matched card for it some day to pair with this one for an SLI set. The chances of that happening are rare though... stranger things have happened. Like me ending up with a pair of 6800 ultra 512MB's in 2016. 😲 So who knows!

Predator99 wrote:

Have the same one. But..stupid question: This is an EGA Monitor, it will not work with 640x480 VGA?

It will but it requires a special adapter dongle to connect it to VGA. I limit it to 640X480, but the maximum res per the Service Manual is 800X560, and someone on the VCFED Forums said 800X600 on some other thread I read on it.

The nice thing about this monitor is it has a detection circuit for TTL/Analog sense - so it can figure out based on whatever it's attached to weather it's a Digital or Analog signal and act accordingly. I used to have the first version of this monitor but it got lost in moving long time ago - not so sad now though since this one has the VGA converter to it. Just need to fix the DB-9 jack in back.

kithylin wrote:

This will be part of building my "Ultimate DX9 Gaming Rig" soon. Not sure exactly what CPU it will be paired to but I'm hopeful I can mate it to an overclocked AMD 6-core SLI system before summer.

Why AMD 6-core, and not Intel 6-Core ?
LGA 1366 32nm Xeon's have better OC'ing potencial than Phenom II and X58/ICH10R platform has Win XP support.

agent_x007 wrote:

kithylin wrote:

This will be part of building my "Ultimate DX9 Gaming Rig" soon. Not sure exactly what CPU it will be paired to but I'm hopeful I can mate it to an overclocked AMD 6-core SLI system before summer.

Why AMD 6-core, and not Intel 6-Core ?
LGA 1366 32nm Xeon's have better OC'ing potencial than Phenom II and X58/ICH10R platform has Win XP support.

Purely price and nothing more. I picked up a sexy AM2+ nvidia SLI motherboard for $25 and I've found good amd 6 core chips for $50 - $75.

A nice higher-end 1366 motherboard alone is still $200+ and the 6 core chips are still $150+ even for a used xeon.

Not a whole lot of choice there.

jheronimus wrote:

Finally, got this Socket 3 motherboard: […]
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Finally, got this Socket 3 motherboard:

Can't identify this yet: it just says "AV-7541 rev 1.2" on the front (Google tells me that the vendor could be "Ansoon Tech Co", but that's it). It's SIS471, ZIF socket, 3xVLB, has VRM. So I guess, it should support my AMD 5x86. Kind of hoping it supports EDO RAM or is at least less picky about FPM sticks than my other SIS471.

Interestingly, it has jumper settings for 1M of cache. I can use my other SIS471 board's chips as a donor, but it only has 256K.

That looks really similar to the board I had in my old 486. If it's the same one, it should be stable at 40 MHz bus speed and possibly also at 50 MHz, even with VLB cards.

kithylin wrote:

Purely price and nothing more. I picked up a sexy AM2+ nvidia SLI motherboard for $25 and I've found good amd 6 core chips for $50 - $75.

A nice higher-end 1366 motherboard alone is still $200+ and the 6 core chips are still $150+ even for a used xeon.
Not a whole lot of choice there.

150$ ?
Here's 60$ X5650 (i7 920 in 32nm with 6C/12T and 12MB L3) : LINK
But yeah, motherboards are the biggest problem... (since Xeon's don't work in all of them).

Finally got 1,9GHz so now s423 line complete

and some new vgas

TNT2 with tuner

Triplex G4 Ti4200 128MB

Club 3D FX5900XT 128MB

Evil Kyro

s423 with i845 SDR

TT Volcano 7

agent_x007 wrote:

150$ ? Here's 60$ X5650 (i7 920 in 32nm with 6C/12T and 12MB L3) : LINK But yeah, motherboards are the biggest problem... (since […]
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kithylin wrote:

Purely price and nothing more. I picked up a sexy AM2+ nvidia SLI motherboard for $25 and I've found good amd 6 core chips for $50 - $75.

A nice higher-end 1366 motherboard alone is still $200+ and the 6 core chips are still $150+ even for a used xeon.
Not a whole lot of choice there.

150$ ?
Here's 60$ X5650 (i7 920 in 32nm with 6C/12T and 12MB L3) : LINK
But yeah, motherboards are the biggest problem... (since Xeon's don't work in all of them).

The reason that's so cheap is it's a dual-QPI-Link xeon, which is for dual-socket boards like the SR-2. Pretty much none of those will work in any normal 1-socket desktop boards. Or if they do, no overclocking.

See here: www.cpu-world.com/CPUs/Xeon/Intel-Xeon% ... 5650).html And note the "Integrated peripherals / components" Section.

The only 6 core xeons from 1366 that work in most (high percentage) of desktop boards is the single-QPI-Link ones. Which are much more expensive.. because they work in almost everything.

These are the Single-QPI-Link 6 core 1366 xeons: http://www.cpu-world.com/CPUs/Xeon/TYPE-Xeon%203600.html There's only 3 of em.

See here: http://www.ebay.com/sch/Computers-Tablets-Net … p=15&_nkw=W3670 They have come down a lot to $70 for the slower ones, but still.. it's the motherboards that's the problem. People are still charging way too much for good 1366 motherboards even though they're 7-8 years old.

See over here: http://www.ebay.com/sch/Motherboards/1244/i.h … 2&_skc=25&rt=nc

Asus And gigabyte ones (good aftermarket ones) are still $200+, sadly. The ones from Intel don't overclock anything worth a darn and are useless.. it's only these later ones. And even then these gigabyte/asus ones here are "bog standard" 1366 boards. The exotic ones for overclocking are almost $400.

Intel's just waaaay too expensive.

yawetaG wrote:

jheronimus wrote:

Finally, got this Socket 3 motherboard: […]
Show full quote

Finally, got this Socket 3 motherboard:

Can't identify this yet: it just says "AV-7541 rev 1.2" on the front (Google tells me that the vendor could be "Ansoon Tech Co", but that's it). It's SIS471, ZIF socket, 3xVLB, has VRM. So I guess, it should support my AMD 5x86. Kind of hoping it supports EDO RAM or is at least less picky about FPM sticks than my other SIS471.

Interestingly, it has jumper settings for 1M of cache. I can use my other SIS471 board's chips as a donor, but it only has 256K.

That looks really similar to the board I had in my old 486. If it's the same one, it should be stable at 40 MHz bus speed and possibly also at 50 MHz, even with VLB cards.

I have a similar board as well, marked as "AV-7542" with the SiS 471 chipset.

At last, I finally have one of these: the Powerramp arcade stick. I paid a little more than I wanted to (about $50 shipped), but now I'm glad I did.

This stick is basically a PS/2 keyboard with the joystick mapped to the arrow keys and the fire buttons mapped to other keys. It's programmable, too, but I haven't had to use that function. With ten buttons, I have all I need.

The quality of the components isn't top-quality, but they're just fine for casual play. I own a Hanaho dual arcade stick with PS/2 connector, but it's a beast to haul out and use. This Powerramp is much more convenient.

I started a thread on the gamepad version of the Powerramp a while ago: Powerramp Mite Gamepad Controller

This stick makes playing games like Descent a real joy.

Plus, it's beige!

Finally received a bunch of Toshiba Libretto stuff:

Libretto 50CT (16MB) with sealed manuals.
Libretto 70CT (32MB)
Libretto PCMCIA floppy drive
An extra battery
Libretto 50CT/70CT port replicator
2x Libretto 50CT/70CT port expanders
2x AC power adapters

The speaker on the 70CT has some distortion issues and I may disassemble it to check it out. The 50CT is near mint and even the battery works. They also came with a bunch of old PCMCIA modem/network cards but nothing interesting.

(the white rectangles next to the screens are from weird lightning and my camera)

jheronimus wrote:

The guy I've bought that case from actually had the tower version, too, as well as the two AT tower cases on the left from your picture!

Small world 😀

chose007 wrote:

Finally got 1,9GHz so now s423 line complete

I'm looking for a 2GHz CPU for my Optiplex GX400 - S423 stuff is really hard to find tho'.

I have the same exact FX 5900XT card - be warned - it overheats with the stock cooler, and it's pretty noisy. I replaced the cooler on mine with a big chinese zalman clone vga cooler.

That silver GF 4 Ti4200 is gorgeous. Too bad they slapped that ugly big cooler on it - it hides that exquisite PCB.

kithylin wrote:

Not sure if this is "Retro" or not. But picked up a EVGA GTX 580 Classified card tonight. […]
Show full quote

Not sure if this is "Retro" or not. But picked up a EVGA GTX 580 Classified card tonight.

This is the 855 mhz (stock speed from EVGA) Fermi cards, and come from EVGA with double ram to 3GB instead of the normal 1.5 GB of ram.

Specs are over here: http://www.gpuzoo.com/GPU-EVGA/GeForce_GTX_58 … P3-1588-AR.html

This will be part of building my "Ultimate DX9 Gaming Rig" soon. Not sure exactly what CPU it will be paired to but I'm hopeful I can mate it to an overclocked AMD 6-core SLI system before summer. Also of course.. I still need to (hopefully) find a 100% exact 1:1 matched card for it some day to pair with this one for an SLI set. The chances of that happening are rare though... stranger things have happened. Like me ending up with a pair of 6800 ultra 512MB's in 2016. 😲 So who knows!

I also have one of those (somewhere). Pretty expensive even today, but luckily I traded some 3dfx stuff for it. Very rare card that 3GB 580, good buy.

Librettos... *drools*

Lukeno94 wrote:

Librettos... *drools*

I second that. Been trying to get my hands on one for a while, for a reasonable price.