WildW wrote:

Finished setting up my Gateway Pentium III 450 system and installing Windows 98. Decided to give this a Voodoo3 2000 as somehow I've managed to go all this time without ever owning one. This is now very nearly the machine I had back in 1999 - same CPU, same 128MB ram. . . just the original was a desktop case with a Rage 128 and this is a tower with 3DFX. It had the same 13GB Quantum Fireball drive too, but thankfully it was dead so I could get something quieter 😜

Funny, I am in the middle of upgrading and slightly modding the case of a P-III Gateway 450 model. Mine had a pathetic Newton 200W PSU, so that had to go (although, I do save all the original parts). I took apart the Newton PSU, though, and gave it a thorough blast from a large air compressor because its heat fins were caked in dust bunnies. When I am done I'll get a video up. They are solid machines and the original Intel 440BX mobo that was in there looks and runs like new.

440BX was such a legendary chipset

also, highly entertaining

(ok I cheated. 86box, backed it up first)

TheAbandonwareGuy wrote:

bjwil1991 wrote:

Decided to swap the DVD drive for the DVD burner in my IBM ThinkPad R40, and I thought the connections were different, but they aren't. The DVD Drive is now in my Pavilion N3350 since it's not needed since the software I have is dated and probably won't detect the drive at all.

How does the R40 perform? I just looked on thinkwiki and wow the possible configurations vary so widely.

It only has 256MB RAM installed since the 512MB RAM module RMA'd itself and wouldn't POST, but the 256MB module works, and XP Pro with SP3 is hogging the memory and I put a 4GB HDD from my Pavilion into the system in place of the 20GB (rookie mistake by me), but I'm planning on cloning the HDD without reinstalling the OS or just get a 120GB HDD and 1GB (2x 512MB) DDR RAM. Other than that, it works without issues, even Windows 98SE ran amazingly with 256MB RAM.

liqmat wrote:

WildW wrote:

Finished setting up my Gateway Pentium III 450 system and installing Windows 98. Decided to give this a Voodoo3 2000 as somehow I've managed to go all this time without ever owning one. This is now very nearly the machine I had back in 1999 - same CPU, same 128MB ram. . . just the original was a desktop case with a Rage 128 and this is a tower with 3DFX. It had the same 13GB Quantum Fireball drive too, but thankfully it was dead so I could get something quieter 😜

Funny, I am in the middle of upgrading and slightly modding the case of a P-III Gateway 450 model. Mine had a pathetic Newton 200W PSU, so that had to go (although, I do save all the original parts). I took apart the Newton PSU, though, and gave it a thorough blast from a large air compressor because its heat fins were caked in dust bunnies. When I am done I'll get a video up. They are solid machines and the original Intel 440BX mobo that was in there looks and runs like new.

Mine has a similar 200W PSU that is making me nervous. The case only has mounting holes for a micro-atx/SFX power supply which are expensive for no good reason...and even if I get a new one I'll have to MacGyver together a way to mount the CPU duct/shroud as the PSU fan is the only one in the machine. So nice and quiet though.

Bit the bullet and opened up my 486 rig so I could it and it's PSU to test some video cards an motherboards.

ISA Mach64 - working
ISA Speedstar PRO- working
VLB Speedstar SE -Working
VLB Genoa Windows VGA 24 - working
VLB Trident ??? -dead

Shuttle HOT-433 + AMD 120 - Working
Biostar 1433 AEA V -working
Random 286 board - dead

Really disappointed the 286 isn't working. I really wanted to use that system. I'll get a POST tester one day and take another look. Glad the shuttle MB worked though. Now i've got VLB, EISA, and PCI 486 systems. I'm thinking of using a trio64 in the pci system

WildW wrote:

Mine has a similar 200W PSU that is making me nervous. The case only has mounting holes for a micro-atx/SFX power supply which are expensive for no good reason...and even if I get a new one I'll have to MacGyver together a way to mount the CPU duct/shroud as the PSU fan is the only one in the machine. So nice and quiet though.

It looks like a SFX PSU would fit where the old micro ATX PSU is, but it just falls short in measurement. The other problem is you will notice that 200W PSU has a proprietary bracket stabilizing it to the side of the case. So when you remove the original PSU there is no stabilizing lip like in most cases meaning a new PSU would only have the four screws holding it up which could be sketchy. You can find cheaper SFX PSUs on Ebay, etc., but from what I have researched their components are terrible and this is a much smaller package than your standard ATX PSU so you want high quality components. I found the Corsair models expensive, but using high quality components and also uses a thermal sensing cooling fan for quiet operation. They also happen to have modular wiring which I prefer. If you look at your case there are actually four standard ATX PSU screw holes already on the back. One of the holes (the offset hole) is hidden behind the rear sticker. What I did was ordered the Corsair SF450 450W SFX PSU (they also make a 600W model) and then ordered the ATX to SFX mounting bracket to install it to this case. Not only does the bracket allow you to mount the SFX PSU to the Gateway 450 case it also stabilizes the PSU because it has a metal lip. Once installed with the ATX to SFX bracket it is solid without any give and it almost fits the hole in back. Get back to that later. Corsair makes an ATX to SFX bracket, but I liked the SilverStone bracket design much better because of the stabilizing metal lip which the Corsair lacks. Also, you could look at SilverStone SFX PSUs as they are a bit cheaper, but still have decent quality from what I have read. The Corsair SFX PSU does get better ratings overall though, but they're expensive. Back to the hole in back. The Corsair almost fits perfectly with the bracket, but the edge of the power switch on the PSU doesn't quite clear so I am going to dremel out a tiny bit of metal so the PSU sits flush against the case. You really don't have to do this as the SF450 fits almost perfectly except for a tiny gap left where the edge of the power switch hits the edge of the hole in back. The power switch functionality is unaffected by this. It's solid either way. I am just a little more OCD than most people. I will show all this in the video.

So why not just install a regular ATX PSU since there are ATX screw holes already there? Because they are upside down (thank you Gateway). So the offset screw hole is at the bottom rather than the top like in most cases. This means any ATX PSU you buy for this Gateway model the PSU cooling fan will be facing upwards rather than down which wont be near as effective to cool the case. You could buy an ATX PSU with front to back cooling, but they are a bit harder to find and I prefer the cooling fan to be sucking air from the bottom to move the air in a less linear fashion. Also, with a larger ATX PSU you will have to either weld a metal lip to the case to stabilize the PSU or drill holes in the case so you can screw in some sort of jerry-rIgged bracket or lip. The biggest problem with a regular ATX PSU is good luck getting the power plug and switch to fit that small opening in back properly without some dremel metal work. The SFX solution is much cleaner, more stable and a lot less work. I am ditching that fan shroud since there is a rear 80mm exhaust fan port. The 440BX motherboard has a secondary 3-pin fan interface. I personally am upgrading the CPU as well with a slotket and a Coppermine CPU and adding a CPU fan/copper heatsink.

I found all of this to be the best solution for me with this case without a lot of metal work or drilling new screw holes which I like to keep to a minimum.

Here are the parts you can research yourself.

SilverStone ATX to SFX bracket:

https://www.amazon.com/SilverStone-Technology … 7923WZGT7SCTHA8

Corsair SFX PSUs:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01CGGOXWQ/ref=twis … ding=UTF8&psc=1

SilverStone SFX PSUs:

https://www.amazon.com/SilverStone-Technology … Bsfx%2Bpsu&th=1

Got a bracketless 3dfx VooDoo3 2000 PCI card in the mail today, so I borrowed a bracket from my nVidia GeForce4 MX 4000 PCI card, and the bracket is way off so there's a gap between the bracket and the mounting screw, so I might try to find a bracket for the card itself, but other than that, I installed the card and drivers in Windows 98SE, and my 3D games play a heck of a lot better than my old setup, plus the card supports SVGA games and my old setup only worked with the resolution set to 640x480

liqmat wrote:

WildW wrote:

Mine has a similar 200W PSU that is making me nervous. The case only has mounting holes for a micro-atx/SFX power supply which are expensive for no good reason...and even if I get a new one I'll have to MacGyver together a way to mount the CPU duct/shroud as the PSU fan is the only one in the machine. So nice and quiet though.

It looks like a SFX PSU would fit where the old micro ATX PSU is, but it just falls short in measurement. The other problem is you will notice that 200W PSU has a proprietary bracket stabilizing it to the side of the case. So when you ...

Thanks for that, seems like you've been all around this loop already - I'll take a another look at my case as I already tried removing the PSU and sliding in an standard ATX one to see if anything lined up (nothing did). I didn't spot any extra holes behind stickers before but will look again. I do wonder if it would be more sensible to just drill some new holes for a standard PSU.

WildW wrote:

liqmat wrote:

WildW wrote:

Mine has a similar 200W PSU that is making me nervous. The case only has mounting holes for a micro-atx/SFX power supply which are expensive for no good reason...and even if I get a new one I'll have to MacGyver together a way to mount the CPU duct/shroud as the PSU fan is the only one in the machine. So nice and quiet though.

It looks like a SFX PSU would fit where the old micro ATX PSU is, but it just falls short in measurement. The other problem is you will notice that 200W PSU has a proprietary bracket stabilizing it to the side of the case. So when you ...

Thanks for that, seems like you've been all around this loop already - I'll take a another look at my case as I already tried removing the PSU and sliding in an standard ATX one to see if anything lined up (nothing did). I didn't spot any extra holes behind stickers before but will look again. I do wonder if it would be more sensible to just drill some new holes for a standard PSU.

It sounds like you may have a slightly different model than I do with a different case. On the back sticker my model is a TBR2. This is my PSU hole configuration from an inside shot with the PSU removed.

Working on my new build. Its a early 775 system, agp and ddr1 ram. Has a 3ghz p4 for now.
Still waiting on some parts.

WildW wrote:

liqmat wrote:

WildW wrote:

Mine has a similar 200W PSU that is making me nervous. The case only has mounting holes for a micro-atx/SFX power supply which are expensive for no good reason...and even if I get a new one I'll have to MacGyver together a way to mount the CPU duct/shroud as the PSU fan is the only one in the machine. So nice and quiet though.

It looks like a SFX PSU would fit where the old micro ATX PSU is, but it just falls short in measurement. The other problem is you will notice that 200W PSU has a proprietary bracket stabilizing it to the side of the case. So when you ...

Thanks for that, seems like you've been all around this loop already - I'll take a another look at my case as I already tried removing the PSU and sliding in an standard ATX one to see if anything lined up (nothing did). I didn't spot any extra holes behind stickers before but will look again. I do wonder if it would be more sensible to just drill some new holes for a standard PSU.

I'm curious how that compares to going the SLI route. SLI V2 should be comparable in FPS performance, but is the trade-off in image quality worth it? I'd love to see a side by side comparison.

Jade Falcon wrote:

Working on my new build. Its a early 775 system, agp and ddr1 ram. Has a 3ghz p4 for now.
Still waiting on some parts.

"for now" ??? Not bad, IMO as long as it isn't a chip with crippled cache. You don't see much improvement in the 3ghz spectrum without changing cache size or core architecture. Also, is that a GF4? Nice choice.

Jade Falcon wrote:

Working on my new build. Its a early 775 system, agp and ddr1 ram. Has a 3ghz p4 for now.
Still waiting on some parts.

I hope one of them is a heatsink for that northbridge chip....

liqmat wrote:

It sounds like you may have a slightly different model than I do with a different case. On the back sticker my model is a TBR2. This is my PSU hole configuration from an inside shot with the PSU removed.

IMG_0444.JPG

Like me you would probably assume that these holes would be right for an ATX PSU. . . but they really aren't at all. Darned peculiar.

xplus93 wrote:

Jade Falcon wrote:

Working on my new build. Its a early 775 system, agp and ddr1 ram. Has a 3ghz p4 for now.
Still waiting on some parts.

"for now" ??? Not bad, IMO as long as it isn't a chip with crippled cache. You don't see much improvement in the 3ghz spectrum without changing cache size or core architecture. Also, is that a GF4? Nice choice.

Its a preshot (Prescott) and a abit gf3. Ill be putting a fx5950 ultra and p4EE in it.

WildW wrote:

liqmat wrote:

It sounds like you may have a slightly different model than I do with a different case. On the back sticker my model is a TBR2. This is my PSU hole configuration from an inside shot with the PSU removed.

IMG_0444.JPG

Like me you would probably assume that these holes would be right for an ATX PSU. . . but they really aren't at all. Darned peculiar.

Even though you have a different model than I do we have the same PSU hole configuration. Your offset screw hole is just not covered up by a sticker like mine. So what I said above would work for you. SFX with the bracket is your best bet if you want easy and less work. The biggest problem is the small cut out Gateway made for their PSU. It will block the power socket of a standard ATX PSU without some metal work.

Having some strange issues with my PIII system.. Every time I open my case to do something inside, which requires disconnecting the power cord, I get weird issues.

Sometimes, the PC refuses to POST for a while, and I end up pushing every stick of RAM, the VGA card and the IDE connectors onto their respective slots and retrying until I get a POST, after which it works flawlessly every time. Some times, it POSTs and the floppy drive refuses to read any disks - I've tried with different drives and cables and it's all the same. Re-connecting the floppy cable and floppy power until it eventually works seems to be the only way. Every time I open up the case I have to close it half a dozen times before I get it working fine.

I've kind of narrowed it to one of three things in my mind; either the board is going kaput, or the PSU is going bad, or there is some weird short between the motherboard and the case..

Regardless, I've pretty much had it with the issues. And Windows Me, that's installed on it. I will probably tear it down and rebuild it with the ABIT BE6-II I have lying about, if only I can verify that it will accept 80GB (up to 128GB) HDDs.. I am really looking forward to going back to Windows 98SE.

bjwil1991 wrote:

Got a bracketless 3dfx VooDoo3 2000 PCI card in the mail today, so I borrowed a bracket from my nVidia GeForce4 MX 4000 PCI card, and the bracket is way off so there's a gap between the bracket and the mounting screw, so I might try to find a bracket for the card itself,

If you have (or know someone who has) a 3D printer: you can probably get away with printing a replacement bracket with silver filament, I've done that to get different sized brackets for my two low-profile AGP video cards.

appiah4 wrote:

Having some strange issues with my PIII system.. Every time I open my case to do something inside, which requires disconnecting […]
Show full quote

Having some strange issues with my PIII system.. Every time I open my case to do something inside, which requires disconnecting the power cord, I get weird issues.

Sometimes, the PC refuses to POST for a while, and I end up pushing every stick of RAM, the VGA card and the IDE connectors onto their respective slots and retrying until I get a POST, after which it works flawlessly every time. Some times, it POSTs and the floppy drive refuses to read any disks - I've tried with different drives and cables and it's all the same. Re-connecting the floppy cable and floppy power until it eventually works seems to be the only way. Every time I open up the case I have to close it half a dozen times before I get it working fine.

I've kind of narrowed it to one of three things in my mind; either the board is going kaput, or the PSU is going bad, or there is some weird short between the motherboard and the case..

Regardless, I've pretty much had it with the issues. And Windows Me, that's installed on it. I will probably tear it down and rebuild it with the ABIT BE6-II I have lying about, if only I can verify that it will accept 80GB (up to 128GB) HDDs.. I am really looking forward to going back to Windows 98SE.

My P3 has an Abit BE6 motherboard and I use a single Maxtor 80 gig drive with it. Not sure if the BE6 II has the extra two HighPoint IDE channels but if it does, they will incorrectly recognize it as a 10 or so gig drive, but in Windows they will appear as the correct size.

KCompRoom2000 wrote:

bjwil1991 wrote:

Got a bracketless 3dfx VooDoo3 2000 PCI card in the mail today, so I borrowed a bracket from my nVidia GeForce4 MX 4000 PCI card, and the bracket is way off so there's a gap between the bracket and the mounting screw, so I might try to find a bracket for the card itself,

If you have (or know someone who has) a 3D printer: you can probably get away with printing a replacement bracket with silver filament, I've done that to get different sized brackets for my two low-profile AGP video cards.

Great idea man! Easier than taking drill press to a blank unless you use one often.