So thinking AGAIN about my Athlon-based Windows XP computer here....there's almost no point in bothering with it because it's only a few years earlier than my Dell laptop (Windows XP). But looking back to when I built it, I can't help but think about how little I knew about PC gaming and hardware back in the day. I mean, look at my history.

I wanted a "gaming" PC in 1998/1999, but I ended up getting a Diamond Stealth II G460. Turns out, that's only an Intel i740 graphics chip with 8MB of memory. Worked fine, but from what I know now, that's only a mid-level card. At the time, the big names were Voodoo2/3, nVidia's RIVA TNT chips, and ATI's Rage series, right?

Then I built a new PC in 2002/2003 around the AMD Athlon XP processor. And I bought an ATI Radeon 7500 64MB AGP card. Not bad. But then get this...a few years later the card dies and I want to "upgrade" to a more powerful card, right? So what the hell did my ignorant ass buy? A Radeon 9550! Like, a shitty mid-level card that performs (AT BEST) only on-par with the previous 7500! The MB is only a 4X AGP port, so it's not like I have many options for upgrading with used hardware. I think the best I could get in the ATI cards is a 9800XT, but there are literally only Apple cards available. Everything else is $100 for a 9800 Pro.

But take the laptop.
Instead of the 1.53GHz AMD Athlon XP 1800+, it's got a 2.1GHz Intel Pentium M.
Instead of the 1GB of DDR-166 memory, it's got 2GB of DDR2-533 memory.
Instead of the ATI Radeon 9550 256MB AGP card, it's got an nVidia GeForce 7800GTX 256MB PCI-Express card.
Both run Windows XP.

No real need to fuck with this old Athlon system.

Then again.... I COULD turn it into a Linux box. Hmmm.....

Ok, so I just got my stickers in today and badged up my computers laying around. My two Craig's List PCs got Windows 10 badges each and the one my mom's old Core 2 Duo processor went in got a Core 2 Duo sticker as well. My main PC got a Windows 10 sticker, Samsung SSD Activated sticker, and a NVIDIA GeForce GTX sticker as well. I'm looking around to see if I still have the Core i7 sticker that came with the 6700K or not. If not, I can buy another sticker.

For my Windows 98 system in this thread, it now has a 600MHz Katmai Pentium III processor in it, so the front of the case has a brand-new Pentium III sticker, a "Built for Windows NT/98" sticker, and a 3dfx sticker. Yes, I know, I didn't know you could get these, but I did! Two of them! I can badge up the P200 later, because I got a Pentium sticker and the 2nd 3dfx sticker.

Also re-badged my Dell XPS Gen 2 laptop. The sticker badges that it had on it had peeled off or rubbed off from years of hand rubbing while typing, so I had them peeled off and thrown away years ago. Now it has fresh badges: "Intel Pentium M", "Designed for "Windows XP", and "Graphics by NVIDIA". I also put an XP and an ATI RADEON badge on my older AMD Athlon build. It already has the Athlon XP badge from the original build, so no need to get a new sticker.

YAY STICKERS!!!

By the way, benchmarks for the CPU upgrade are posted here. I got a 162% average boost to CPU performance from this new chip and I'm getting over 100 FPS on GLQuake. SICK SICK SICK!!!

UPDATE: I just beat Quake I for the first time. Interesting way to beat the final boss. Next I finish up Turok 2, then move on to Quake II.

Today, I attempted cable management. As it is my first attempt, it's probably not pretty, but it holds the cables out of the way effectively.

Cable management....... Some people make it an art-form. I am not good at it, it just needs to be functional,a bit tidy and safe.
I think it is mind blowing how people do it , i do not have the patience.

And I am an electrician 🤣

I bought a bundle of 50 zip ties at Wal-Mart. I really do need to arrange the cables in my modern tower system - behind the motherboard tray looks like ass.

Anyway, new very minor issue regarding the 1999 PC in this thread. I upgraded the CPU, finally, to a 600MHz Katmai Pentium 3. Works like a charm as the benchmarks clearly show.

However, when you go to System Properties, it STILL says it's a Pentium II 350 MHz processor. I found only ONE registry entry that echoes this string and changed it, but it didn't change System Properties display at all and after a reboot, it once again says P2 350. I've examined Device Manager and didn't really find a CPU driver to reinstall. Maybe I didn't look in the right spot.

Any ideas on how to correct this WITHOUT reinstalling Windows 98 (now that the damned thing is stable with all drivers and devices working properly)?

*sigh* Reading back over this thread. Oh yeah, I fixed the reporting issue by... *sigh* ... reinstalling Windows.