Kaasschaaf wrote:

smeezekitty wrote:

Kaasschaaf wrote:

So I did some reading around and it turns out an Athlon XP sucks a lot of power from the +5V line, so I focused my search on that. But the only reasonably priced PSU's (e.g. not in the €150-300 range) I could find supply only 24A max on that line. (Seasonic S12II 520W), so I'm not sure if 24A is enough for an XP 2800+ on an A7N8X-X with a GF4Ti. (probably isn't :'() I googled around a bit too and got to an earlier thread here (2012), but 2 years later it's become even harder to get a proper PSU for it (35A on +5V, impossible)

If 24A isn't enough then I'm probably going to get a Northwood 2.8GHz on a P4C800-E Deluxe (which uses a P4 power connector, so less problematic)

You might want to look for older PSUs

How far back should I look, and what brands should I focus on?

(also, general consensus seems that second hand power supplies are more trouble than they're worth - in which case Northwood may be a better idea?)

Look for PSUs that are pre-ATX 2.0. Second hand PSUs shouldn't a problem if they didn't use crappy capacitors.
Aim for 26-30 amps on the +5

Some socket A boards use 5V and some use 12V. I am getting mixed results searching that board

smeezekitty wrote:

Look for PSUs that are pre-ATX 2.0. Second hand PSUs shouldn't a problem if they didn't use crappy capacitors. Aim for 26-30 amp […]
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Kaasschaaf wrote:

smeezekitty wrote:

You might want to look for older PSUs

How far back should I look, and what brands should I focus on?

(also, general consensus seems that second hand power supplies are more trouble than they're worth - in which case Northwood may be a better idea?)

Look for PSUs that are pre-ATX 2.0. Second hand PSUs shouldn't a problem if they didn't use crappy capacitors.
Aim for 26-30 amps on the +5

Some socket A boards use 5V and some use 12V. I am getting mixed results searching that board

A7N8X-X doesn't have the P4 connector, unless the schematic in Asus' own manual is incorrect, of course.

I'm having big trouble finding even second hand PSU's with that amount of current on the +5, so Northwood it is!

A7N8X-X doesn't have the P4 connector, unless the schematic in Asus' own manual is incorrect, of course.

I'm having big trouble finding even second hand PSU's with that amount of current on the +5, so Northwood it is!

Just because it doesn't have a +12V connector doesn't mean that it cannot draw power from +12

You can play Half-Life on almost anything, but Splinter Cell is when you start getting into brand specific, time specific hardware.

The nice thing about a dedicated retro-gaming PC is that you don't lose much if the hard drive crashes and burns. Unlike with your daily use PC, where it takes months to reinstall all the little bits you need.

The advantage of a solid state drive, or a new hard drive with a converter is noise. I have a few drives that make so much noise it's almost unpleasant. Some old Maxtor drives, and the Quantum Fireball in my PowerPC G3 Mac. Phil's got some videos about using modern HDDs with old systems. Handy stuff.

smeezekitty wrote:

A7N8X-X doesn't have the P4 connector, unless the schematic in Asus' own manual is incorrect, of course.

I'm having big trouble finding even second hand PSU's with that amount of current on the +5, so Northwood it is!

Just because it doesn't have a +12V connector doesn't mean that it cannot draw power from +12

Because I'm still curious I've been doing some digging around other ASUS models, and this is what I generally find in some earlier manuals (still socket A though):

IMPORTANT: Make sure that your ATX power supply (minimum recommended wattage: 200 watts; 235W for a fully-configured system) can […]
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IMPORTANT:
Make sure that your ATX power supply (minimum recommended
wattage: 200 watts; 235W for a fully-configured system) can supply at least 20
amperes on the +5-volt lead and at least 10mA (750mA recommended) on the +5-
volt standby lead (+5VSB). Your system may become unstable/unreliable and may
experience difficulty in powering up if your power supply is inadequate. For Wake-
On-LAN support, your ATX power supply must supply at least 750mA +5VSB.

My personal theory is that most M/B manufacturers don't change electrical design that much, so this leads me to believe that pretty much all Asus K7 boards are +5V heavy. I could be wrong though

Older Enermax units are fantastic. I have a 475watt or so Noisetaker that I bought off of ebay for $30 shipped. It has an incredible 35-40 (cant remember which) amps on the +5 running a dual cpu Pentium 3 machine.

Just go for a complete system with an athlon xp, there are lots of them at marktplaats and they are usually pretty cheap.

Geforce 4ti is a good match for those cpu's and if you can find a system based on the Asus a7v600, a7n8-x etc. then you can use the onboard sata connectors for a harddisk.

Total package shouldn't set you back more than 50 euro. I bought a pretty similar system not long ago for 20 euro on marktplaats....

I used to have a GeForce 4 Ti 4400 back in the days, and a mate of mine had a 4600. There wasn't that much of a performance gap that I could notice. When my card failed, within the warranty period, I got a 4200-8x (AGP8x version of the 4200) Golden Sample from Gainward as a replacement. That card was overclocked from the manufacturer and in some cases managed to outperform my old 4400, so I wouldn't be to worried with which version of the GeForce 4 Ti to use for a retro build, as they should all be fast enough.
If you're going for an Athlon, but not "XP" model, then I can recommend the Abit KT7A. It was a solid performer and Abit kept providing BIOS updates and support for it for a very long time. It's only PC133 on the memory front, but for non-XP Athlons, that's not really a problem. I even knew somebody who popped an Athlon XP into one of those boards and got good performance out of it, but at that point I'd go DDR personally.

EDIT:
This http://hexus.net/tech/reviews/mainboard/188-abit-kt7a/ review shows the KT7A, with some tweaks to memory settings, performing on par, if not a bit better, on memory tests compared to a PC2100 DDR based motherboard. That's pretty impressive from an older SDR PC133 motherboard in my opinion.

So I'm returning to this thread.. I've just seen a really good deal about 1km away from me. Complete Northwood system on an Intel D865PERL board, with some mysterious 64MB NVIDIA card (I suspect a MX440), having to judge from the Speccy screenshot.

Intel boards are generally known for being rock solid and stable (albeit a bit boring as a consequence), but I figured it couldn't hurt asking first. So are there any pitfalls with it (bad caps for instance, which seems less likely to me for an Intel board). Speccy also reports the RAM as running at apparently 166 MHz (though I personally expect it didn't take the double data rate into account, so its probably DDR333)

EDIT: apparently bad caps are an issue with it

Oh well, nobody ever got fired for buying Intel... right?

Kaasschaaf wrote:

So I'm returning to this thread.. I've just seen a really good deal about 1km away from me. Complete Northwood system on an Intel D865PERL board, with some mysterious 64MB NVIDIA card (I suspect a MX440), having to judge from the Speccy screenshot.

Intel boards are generally known for being rock solid and stable (albeit a bit boring as a consequence), but I figured it couldn't hurt asking first. So are there any pitfalls with it (bad caps for instance, which seems less likely to me for an Intel board). Speccy also reports the RAM as running at apparently 166 MHz (though I personally expect it didn't take the double data rate into account, so its probably DDR333)

Its a solid motherboard. I have one but its not in use right now.

Skyscraper wrote:

Kaasschaaf wrote:

So I'm returning to this thread.. I've just seen a really good deal about 1km away from me. Complete Northwood system on an Intel D865PERL board, with some mysterious 64MB NVIDIA card (I suspect a MX440), having to judge from the Speccy screenshot.

Intel boards are generally known for being rock solid and stable (albeit a bit boring as a consequence), but I figured it couldn't hurt asking first. So are there any pitfalls with it (bad caps for instance, which seems less likely to me for an Intel board). Speccy also reports the RAM as running at apparently 166 MHz (though I personally expect it didn't take the double data rate into account, so its probably DDR333)

Its a solid motherboard. I have one but its not in use right now.

I guess I'll contact the seller then.