I like it. But that power supply is scaring me, and I would replace it ASAP if it were mine. The Retroweb says these boards are known for having bad capacitors so I would give it a careful inspection for that. Bad caps/bad power supply (or both) could easily cause the instability with the video card.

Repo Man11 wrote on 2026-04-30, 00:24:

I like it. But that power supply is scaring me, and I would replace it ASAP if it were mine. The Retroweb says these boards are known for having bad capacitors so I would give it a careful inspection for that. Bad caps/bad power supply (or both) could easily cause the instability with the video card.

Yeah I found the OG power supply that goes with this case so ill probably swap it back in. I reckon it's the tension of that power wire pulling on thd GPU due to the stupid placement of the molex connector. No idea why Asus did that!

As for these caps, ivd double triple checked and none seem bulging. So I think I got away with it 😀

Virtue wrote on 2026-04-30, 07:13:

As for these caps, ivd double triple checked and none seem bulging. So I think I got away with it 😀

Maybe.
On these Intel i845 boards, it's mainly only the caps around the CPU that fail. Namely, if you see brown Chemicon caps with a "Y"-shaped vent on the top and "KZG" written on the side, they could have failed but are not showing it yet (though in most cases, these do bulge when they go bad.) Same goes for Nichicon capacitors from the "HM" series - particularly those with date codes of H01xx through H04xx. H05 date codes are a *maybe*, depending if the caps are rated at 16V or more or below.

Virtue wrote on 2026-04-30, 07:13:

Yeah I found the OG power supply that goes with this case so ill probably swap it back in.

Be careful with that. Might be running away from one devil only to be running into another.
Best way is to check both PSUs internally for bad caps... and in general if they appear to be cheapo units (typically light weight, with short cables, no certifications with proper certification numbers on the label, and missing AC input filter inside the PSU.)

Virtue wrote on 2026-04-29, 22:58:

Asus 7600GS - Originally a 6600GT which I am selling, The 7600GS has intermittent corruption and artifacting, I have refreshed all thermal paste and pads and it still does it on occasion, not sure what's causing this?

GeForce 7600 is from nVidia's "bumpgate" era, so it could well be the GPU is failing. But given the PSU(s) used in this system, I wouldn't rule it as a bad GPU just yet. Also, while ASUS does usually use good capacitor brands for their electrolytic caps, it might be worth to check what the card uses anyways (or just post a picture of it.) That, and also try running GPU-Z with logging enabled to see what temperatures the GPU reaches when under load. Anything over 70C is bad for the GeForce 7000 series. For optimal life, I like to keep them under 60C.

Virtue wrote on 2026-04-29, 22:58:

I thought I'd take the time to restore this PC to working order trying to keep things period correct, so no SSD drives here!

Nice once for a change around here!
I also don't do SSDs for these old systems and I think these old systems are absolutely fine without them. If the system is running too slow, then you probably have too much bloat on there. A clean and properly performance-optimized XP SP2/3 install should load in mere seconds. I still use a few machines like this on the internet. They are not great for it anymore... but still do OK with older and/or non-bloated sites, like VOGONS.

momaka wrote on 2026-05-14, 16:36:

Maybe. On these Intel i845 boards, it's mainly only the caps around the CPU that fail. Namely, if you see brown Chemicon caps wi […]
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Virtue wrote on 2026-04-30, 07:13:

As for these caps, ivd double triple checked and none seem bulging. So I think I got away with it 😀

Maybe.
On these Intel i845 boards, it's mainly only the caps around the CPU that fail. Namely, if you see brown Chemicon caps with a "Y"-shaped vent on the top and "KZG" written on the side, they could have failed but are not showing it yet (though in most cases, these do bulge when they go bad.) Same goes for Nichicon capacitors from the "HM" series - particularly those with date codes of H01xx through H04xx. H05 date codes are a *maybe*, depending if the caps are rated at 16V or more or below.

Virtue wrote on 2026-04-30, 07:13:

Yeah I found the OG power supply that goes with this case so ill probably swap it back in.

Be careful with that. Might be running away from one devil only to be running into another.
Best way is to check both PSUs internally for bad caps... and in general if they appear to be cheapo units (typically light weight, with short cables, no certifications with proper certification numbers on the label, and missing AC input filter inside the PSU.)

Virtue wrote on 2026-04-29, 22:58:

Asus 7600GS - Originally a 6600GT which I am selling, The 7600GS has intermittent corruption and artifacting, I have refreshed all thermal paste and pads and it still does it on occasion, not sure what's causing this?

GeForce 7600 is from nVidia's "bumpgate" era, so it could well be the GPU is failing. But given the PSU(s) used in this system, I wouldn't rule it as a bad GPU just yet. Also, while ASUS does usually use good capacitor brands for their electrolytic caps, it might be worth to check what the card uses anyways (or just post a picture of it.) That, and also try running GPU-Z with logging enabled to see what temperatures the GPU reaches when under load. Anything over 70C is bad for the GeForce 7000 series. For optimal life, I like to keep them under 60C.

Virtue wrote on 2026-04-29, 22:58:

I thought I'd take the time to restore this PC to working order trying to keep things period correct, so no SSD drives here!

Nice once for a change around here!
I also don't do SSDs for these old systems and I think these old systems are absolutely fine without them. If the system is running too slow, then you probably have too much bloat on there. A clean and properly performance-optimized XP SP2/3 install should load in mere seconds. I still use a few machines like this on the internet. They are not great for it anymore... but still do OK with older and/or non-bloated sites, like VOGONS.

I've been running this system now for a few weeks, everything seems to have settled down and it runs OK, about as fast as a 20 year old XP install can do on a hard drive. I've been using it to make boot disks for my Socket 7 build, so far so good!

The AOpen PSU that came with the case is really high quality, very heavy, I'm just waiting on a 24pin-20pin converter as the Mobos can't physically fit the 24pin plugs and it doesnt break out the last 4 pins sadly! I intend to use it on my socket 7 build now anyway.

A real issue I have now is no sound whatsoever out of the onboard sound 😒 Ive been through both the official Soundmax drivers and tried to force Realtek AC'97 drivers on which crash halfway through install. No idea why? Probably gonna get a cheap soundblaster for this anyway so its not a massive issue just annoying.