Re: DosFreak All System Specs 10-9-2019

Currently running Windows 10 but is for Linux,9x+ testing and some DOS when not using DOSBox.

Still playing with the voltages a bit.

TEST DESKTOP

CPU: Intel Core 2 Quad Q9650 @ 3.9GHZ FSB:434MHZ @ 1.325V
CPU Cooler: Zalman CNPS9900A LED Ultra Quiet CPU Cooler Replaced fan with Noctua NF-P14 FLX 140mm Case cooler
Motherboard: Gigabyte X38-DQ6
Memory: 16GB DDR2 F2-6400CL5D-8GBPQ @ 868Mhz CL5-6-6-17 @2.1V
GPU 1: Zotac Geforce GTX 980 Ti 6GB AMP! Extreme GDDR5 ZT-90507-10B PCIe
GPU 2: Quadro FX 1300 128MB PCIe
NIC: Realtek RTL8111 PCI-E Gigabit
Audio: Audigy 2 Platinum 6.1 SB0240 (9x-8.1) (PCI)
Audio: Realtek (Windows 10) (Onboard)
Audio: Yamaha YMF724E-V DOS-XP (Possibly Vista-10 32bit) (PCI)
Monitor Dell U2410 1920x1200
DVD 1: Bluray HL-DT-ST GGC-H20L
DVD 2: Plextor DVD-R PX-760A
SSD: 2x Samsung SSD 860 EVO 1TB w/ StarTech.com M.2 to SATA Adapter
Case: CoolerMaster ATC-110 Replaced fans with 4x Thermaltake TT-8025A-2B 80mm Case Cooling Fan
PSU: Corsair RM850x
USB3: Inateck PCI-E to USB 3.0 (5 Ports) (KT5001) w/ Amebay 5.25 Inch Front Panel USB Hub 2port 3.0, USB 2.0 for Computer Case

buckeye wrote:

oeuvre wrote:

The HP Z420 in my signature. E5-1620 and 32GB RAM, FirePro V7900.

Oeuvre, how did you go about getting the SSD to work in XP? Are there any "potholes" to watch out for?

Simple. XP is installed on the 1TB drive and 7 is on the SSD. But they're both NTFS and MBR.

mothergoose729 wrote:

There is nothing special about SSD support in windows XP. XP doesn't natively support TRIM, but you can run a TRIM routine from a bootable CD if you want, and most modern SSDs have some degree of hardware TRIM support anyway.

"Some degree of TRIM" means garbage collection (GC) and most new drives tend not to have it.

My fastest XP machine is a small form factor PC - a Fujitsu Esprimo E7936.

I put a Q9550 in there and a Nvidia GT730 (only DDR3 though - couldn't find a low-profile version with GDDR5 for a reasonable price.)

It's an "ok" PC. I can play Far Cry without graphical glitches, which is nice.

But it's much more fun to run Windows 10 on this thing with a GTX 1650.
That setup can still handle modern games like Mass Effect:Andromeda very well.

There are some crazy fast Windows XP machines in this thread.. Mine is actually rather mundane comperatively, it's an era correct Socket 754 Athlon64 3700+ with an X1950Pro AGP.

my fastest xp rig is a dual socket 604 xeon gallatin 3.2ghz with a quadro fx 3000.

My main PC still runs WinXP, as it has since I bought the board+CPU. Other parts have changed a bit over time.
Motherboard is a GA-790XTA-UD4 (AMD 790X chipset). I'm not real happy with this board though.
CPU is Phenom2 X2-555 unlocked to 3 cores at 3.6GHz.
8GB RAM (it's not always in XP32, just usually).
Video card is a GTX285.
Sound card is a SB Audigy2 ZS with a working 15pin joystick bracket attached.

Back last year I set up a clean WinXP install with my Steam library and imaged it. I intend this to remain usable as a Steam WinXP machine in offline mode. I see WinXP gaming as it's primary purpose from now on, but I also use it as a general desktop thus far. I guess eventually some bored internet devs might break XP, but right now I'm happily browsing with it.

There is a utility made by AData that will let you manually issue TRIM from WinXP. I think it's called "SSD Toolbox" or something like that. It doesn't require an AData SSD, it will work the same with anything.

Unfortunately, this is the only motherboard I've used with WinXP that refuses to cooperate with TRIM. On other systems that utility works fine, but on this one I get errors. The SSDs are the same (I have a few of the same model), and I've tried in AHCI and ATA modes. I haven't seen TRIM work in any OS on this board, but most of my effort was in WinXP(32 and 64).

There are ways to mitigate non-working TRIM, but I didn't go that route. By late 2018 I wanted to set up a simple Steam installation image on 1 partition, so I went to a single 2TB 7200rpm SSHD hard drive instead. It seemed like the best choice for this system all things considered, but now that carefully chosen hard drive is starting to fail and it's hardly even broken in yet. 😒
I'll wait until it's failure is more obvious and then send it in for warranty, but I hope the replacement is better than this. I'll be disappointed if Seagate SSHDs turn out to be a dud due to lack of reliability.

I like WinXP better than later OSes, so I like having a more powerful system to run it on which extends what I can do while in XP. It dual boots Linux Mint, so I'll boot into that when necessary, and I have a Win7 machine for recent games.

shamino wrote:

My main PC still runs WinXP, as it has since I bought it. Motherboard is a GA-790XTA-UD4 (AMD 790X chipset). CPU is Phenom2 X2-5 […]
Show full quote

My main PC still runs WinXP, as it has since I bought it.
Motherboard is a GA-790XTA-UD4 (AMD 790X chipset).
CPU is Phenom2 X2-555 unlocked to 3 cores at 3.6GHz.
8GB RAM (it's not always in XP32, just usually).
Video card is a GTX285.
Back last year I set up a clean WinXP install with my Steam library and imaged it. I intend this to remain usable as a Steam WinXP machine in offline mode. I see WinXP gaming as it's primary purpose from now on, but I also use it as a general desktop thus far. I guess eventually some bored internet devs might break XP, but right now I'm happily browsing with it.

There is a utility made by AData that will let you manually issue TRIM from WinXP. I think it's called "SSD Toolbox" or something like that. It doesn't require an AData SSD, it will work the same with anything.

Unfortunately, this is the only motherboard I've used with WinXP that refuses to cooperate with TRIM. On other systems that utility works fine, but on this one I get errors. The SSDs are the same (I have a few of the same model), and I've tried in AHCI and ATA modes. I haven't seen TRIM work in any OS on this board, but most of my effort was in WinXP(32 and 64).

There are ways to mitigate non-working TRIM, but I didn't go that route. By late 2018 I wanted to set up a simple Steam installation image on 1 partition, so I went to a single 2TB 7200rpm SSHD hard drive instead. It seemed like the best choice for this system all things considered, but now that carefully chosen hard drive is starting to fail and it's hardly even broken in yet. 😒
I'll wait until it's failure is more obvious and then send it in for warranty, but I hope the replacement is better than this. I'll be disappointed if Seagate SSHDs turn out to be a dud due to lack of reliability.

I like WinXP better than later OSes, so I like having a more powerful system to run it on which extends what I can do while in XP. It dual boots Linux Mint, so I'll boot into that when necessary, and I have a Win7 machine for recent games.

Aha! Been looking for a GTX 285, most for sale look like they've been rode hard. Question: with it being a Dx10 card how do you get it to run in XP and what drivers do you use? Appreciate all the responses, you all have some nice setups!

mmm X1950

buckeye wrote:

Aha! Been looking for a GTX 285, most for sale look like they've been rode hard. Question: with it being a Dx10 card how do you get it to run in XP and what drivers do you use?

Occasionally you can find a card where the seller has posted screen shots of 3DMark or something, or just has a convincing sounding statement that they didn't play games heavily, but yeah in most cases it's hard to be sure that the cards are still healthy.

I had a GTX260 from new, then a used 275 for a while before the 285. I felt like this was the right generation card to use for XP so I stuck with it.
They're DX10 cards but I don't think I've ever used them that way. Under XP they just work as good DX9 cards.
I started with driver 260.99 many years ago and then just kept using it. For a time I tried a few other versions up through 285.58. My current install is back on 260.99 again but I don't remember if there was any good reason why.

Opinions vary about cooling, but I don't like the fan behavior on these cards so I use SpeedFan to make the GPU fan more aggressive at 70C+. Some of the used cards out there might have been run pretty hot. Good news is I think they're reputed to be more durable than the G92 cards were, but I still favor more cooling than what was deemed necessary for the originally intended lifespan of these cards.

These cards have a heat/power consumption flaw when using dual monitors. They stay locked in their high performance mode when dual monitors are in use. Driver 285.58 didn't do anything to fix that. NVidia says there's no fix, that it's a hardware design issue.
There's a 3rd party utility "NVidia Inspector" that can force the card into a low power state to fix this, but it's not a perfect solution, results are a little clunky. It ends up needing to throttle back and forth sometimes just using the GUI - and I think that's what NVidia was getting at with their decision to lock it in high power mode.
With a single monitor this isn't an issue.
I think there's also an additional performance issue with using a rotated monitor while in low power, at least I had that impression when one of my monitors was rotated.

Heh, well my impulsive side reared it's ugly head again. Instead of upgrading my GPU on my xp rig decided to blow some cash.
This is the result:

I3-2120 cpu/Intel DH61CR/8gb bundle
Corsair 650w psu
EVGA 1050ti 4gb OC model
480gb Sata SSD - not pictured

All told, spent just under 300 bucks. Plan is to gut my win98 rig and use the case as it's the only semi-modern one I got. Only downside is
the psu is top mounted but maybe it won't be a big deal. Could install XP but really want to get win10 on it so I can play my later GOG
stuff and Madden 20. The mobo supports up to an i7 3770 if I decide to go that route. Not looking to play the latest games at "ultra fidelity"
as I only have 1080 monitor.

Question - The intel website doesn't carry any drivers for the mobo, just bios updates. Does Win10 handle the drivers by itself?

Mine is only Core 2 duo E8500 8 Gb ram and Geforce 780 TI. All the ram isn't detected in win xp 32bit but otherwise it works fine. It is one of my old PCs and the video card is my previous video card before I bought 1080ti that is currently in my main pc. 8Gb of ram isn't useful but it used to run windows 7 in the past.