Tetrium wrote:

Just a note, you mounted the cooler backwards 😉

I've killed Athlons that way.

Yeah, you heard me, plural.

😢

It seems like, at least in the 90s and up to the mid 2000s, Intel chips were much more tolerant to heat abuse than AMD chips. I had two K6-2s and an Athlon XP all die within minutes of the heatsink fan failing to go on spinning whereas most Intel chips I've used proved to be more resiliant. Come to think of it, a few years ago, my dad burnt out a 3ghz Prescott Pentium 4 HT after he failed to put the heatsink back on properly but, never the less, he was able to use the computer for a good 10 or 15 minutes then reboot after it locked up before it permanently died. I don't know of any AMD chips newer than the K5 series that'd last more than a few seconds without heatsink and fan.

BTW, just for fun, some old 2001 era CPUs and their performance without cooling:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QIsr1R1qy1Y

Part of the reason why AMD chips of this age die faster is because they tend to put out MUCH more heat, often the Athlons produce twice as much as the Intel Coppermines.
Frankly, I find it more surprising to hear about a P4 burning up, those are supposed to clock down in case of overheating to protect the chip from getting damaged due to excessive heat.
I know all of the Socket A chips are vulnerable to burning up, but the Athlon 64 may have better overheating protection?

I only burned one Athlon XP. I installed the cooler properly, but forgot to apply TIM. The system would not even post, it burned up right away within seconds.
Otoh, my Socket A test processor (a Thunderbird 900) has survived several instances of powering up without TIM using a copper HSF. It also boots fine at 1200Mhz using the same copper HSF, so there are a couple out there (most likely the lower speed chips) that can stand at least a bit of abuse 😉

But in my experience, Coppermines are a lot more resilient to thermal abuse.

The Socket A chips are supposedly more brittle as well, but so far I haven't had the displeasure of cracking a die *knocks on wood*

Tetrium wrote:

Just a note, you mounted the cooler backwards ;) […]
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Just a note, you mounted the cooler backwards 😉

Edit:About the same picture, the pic is really small but could you check the 3 caps directly to the right of the PS/2 connectors? Judging from the light, it "appears" as if the middle cap is bulging.

Otherwise you chose your parts well btw 😉
AOpen PSU's are just FSP PSU's with AOpen stamped onto it 😀

note taken on the cpu cooler will change it around next time I am mucking around with the computer...also will check the caps there was no bulge that I noticed (abit boards of that era are notorious)
That psu came with a full tower Aopen case and has been going great for the last decade...

stano wrote:

Tetrium wrote:

Just a note, you mounted the cooler backwards ;) […]
Show full quote

Just a note, you mounted the cooler backwards 😉

Edit:About the same picture, the pic is really small but could you check the 3 caps directly to the right of the PS/2 connectors? Judging from the light, it "appears" as if the middle cap is bulging.

Otherwise you chose your parts well btw 😉
AOpen PSU's are just FSP PSU's with AOpen stamped onto it 😀

note taken on the cpu cooler will change it around next time I am mucking around with the computer...also will check the caps there was no bulge that I noticed (abit boards of that era are notorious)
That psu came with a full tower Aopen case and has been going great for the last decade...

Cheers mate! The system otherwise looks great, I also like the case a lot!

But be careful when unmounting the cooler to not crack the CPU (thought a Coppermine 1000-133 is dirt cheap these days 😉 ).

The Socket A chips usually die from chips and cracks. Heat will kill em if you don't have the heatsink attached right though.

Coppermines got killed from chips too because the coolers for them were often poorly designed and they didnt have the foam pads like Athlon.

In retrospect it was pretty crazy that AMD didn't use heatspreaders on Athlon and Athlon XP. AMD just cheaped out back then. Intel stopped that nonsense after Coppermine. Unless you're talking mobile chips that is, where it's not risky to go bare.

SquallStrife wrote:

Out of curiosity, have you actually used one, or is that hearsay? […]
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SavantStrike wrote:

The iPad has bad flash support so it's a bad web browser, and it's too big to curl up in bed with so it's a bad e-reader.

Out of curiosity, have you actually used one, or is that hearsay?

Having owned Galaxy Tab and iPad, I can tell you that the lack of Flash has next to no impact on like 99% of browsing.

In fact, if you use a 3G connection when you're out and about, the lack of Flash saves you precious quota on bandwidth-intensive ads.

Having owned Kindle and iPad, I can tell you the size difference isn't that bad. It looks to be that way on paper, but iPad is easily light enough to hold up like a book. In fact, it's because of this that I prefer web surfing on it than on my laptop.

I've seen them in use, but I haven't spent a lot of time with one, no. I just feel that flash support is a bare minimum as a lot of sites use it, although you make a good point about bandwidth. I would prefer a set up where I had flash support available to me when I wanted it, and then I would just disable it when I didn't. For those who don't care about flash, then it's lack of support is not important.

As for the Kindle, it makes a terrible web browser, so if I needed a browser, I'd rather take the Ipad, flash support or not. And yes, size wise the Ipad isn't much larger than the Kindle DX, but the aspect ratio isn't the same, and even the DX is also a bit too hefty for my liking. It all comes down to personal preference really.

Clearly the solution is to just own one of everything. At least that's what people here keep telling me...

And Stano, that's a nice box you've got there. 1Ghz is pretty much the sweet spot. I foolishly dove into a 1.4ghz Tualatin vs a 800mhz Coppermine, but as of yet I haven't maxed out the 800mhz with my V2 SLI setup, and my Tualatin hasn't arrived. 1Ghz is pretty much perfect!

I like the Raidmax case too. I have one of a similar vintage and I really appreciate the twin 80mm exhaust fan holes on the back, and the quad 80's on the front (which leaves enough space that you can put even a 120 or a 140 there in their stead if you're so inclined). The newer models have 120 front and 120 back, which is even nicer. Bang for the buck though, they were a heck of a case.

Is there anything cool you can try on a 486 with a silly large amount of RAM?

first of all, I am a lazy person, so my retro PCs must match these requirements:

• only one set of input devices using a 4-port KVM
• in addition to the computer LCD screen, the Plasma TV must be connected via DVI resp. DVI-HDMI
• only one main sound control unit
• midi rack must be switched dynamically without using midi-through
• always WIN98 SE as OS since it contains drivers for every hardware, in addition DOS 7.x has benefits like FAT32 and >2GB partitions
• silent but with sufficient cooling
• no slowdown software (messes around with joystick input processing etc.)

so here we go:

Retro PC#1 built in a SilentMAXX ATX case:
CPU

• AMD K6-III+ 400MHz, by default jumpered to 200MHz
• using K6DOS.SYS it can be switched dynamically between 133-400Mhz

Mainboard:

• DFI K6XV3+/66 with VIA MVP3 chipset and 128MB SDRAM

Hard disks:

• IBM DHEA 38451 8,4GB Ultra DMA
• IBM DHEA 36481 6,4GB Ultra DMA
• Using Vantec Vortex HDD cooler for cooling and noise reduction

CD-ROM:

• Toshiba Samsung DVD-ROM Drive SH-D162
• Allows software speed-down and has great CD-R / DVD-R compatibility

Graphics:

• NVidia Geforce4 Ti 4600, likes DOS thanks to VBE 3.0 and has enough power for Direct3D in Windows
• Last NVidia AGP generation which fits the DFI board (AGP 3.3V)
• GPU cooler is a NVSilencer V1

3Dfx:

• Diamond Monster 3D Voodoo1 for 100% GLIDE compatibility
• Voodoo2 has too much issues with first generation of GLIDE games

Sound card #1:

• Sound Blaster AWE64 Gold, best "quality" and compatibility
• S/PDIF output for recording FM and EMU-8000 midi game music

Sound card #2:

• Gravis Ultrasound PNP Pro, best of all Ultrasound cards with 512K Onboard RAM and additional 2MB SIMM
• Unneccessary ressources like gameport, blaster emulation, midi are deactivated to spare ports, IRQs and DMAs

Sound card #3:

• Roland SCC-1 for providing MPU401 output only

Sound card #4:

• Sound Blaster Live 5.1 incl. LiveDrive II for Windows (EAX, too)

Images:

Retro PC#2 built in a Proline AT case:
CPU

• Intel 486DX2-66Mhz

Mainboard:

• Asus 486SP3 with SiS Chipsatz and 64MB FPM RAM

Hard disk:

• IBM DHEA 36481 6,4GB, yet the board has no Ultra DMA support
• Using Vantec Vortex HDD cooler for cooling and noise reduction

CD-ROM:

• Toshiba Samsung DVD-ROM Drive SH-D162
• Allows software speed-down and has great CD-R / DVD-R compatibility

Graphics:

• Matrox Mystique 220, likes DOS thanks to VBE 2.0 and 4MB video memory allows higher resolutions in Windows

Sound card #1:

• Sound Blaster AWE64 Gold, best "quality" and compatibility
• S/PDIF output for recording FM and EMU-8000 midi game music

Sound card #2:

• Gravis Ultrasound PNP Pro, best of all Ultrasound cards with 512K Onboard RAM and additional 2MB SIMM
• Unneccessary ressources like gameport, blaster emulation, midi are deactivated to spare ports, IRQs and DMAs

Sound card #3:

• MediaVision Pro Audio Spectrum 16 for native PAS support

Sound card #4:

• Roland MPU-IPC-T for providing MPU401 output only

Images:

MIDI-Rack:

• Yamaha MU-50 for XG support
• Roland SC-55 for GS / General MIDI support
• Roland SC-55mkII for GS / General MIDI support (deactivated since it lacks some instrument compared to the SC-55)
• Roland CM-32L for 100% LAPC-I support
• Roland MT-32 for old Sierra games support (CM-32L sounds different)

Image:

So how are they connected:
KVM:

• Input devices are PS/2 Microsoft Wireless Desktop Elite keyboard and mouse
• LCD monitor Samsung Syncmaster 960BF
  -> unfortunately a 5:4 LCD, but I'm looking for a 4:3 right now
• Retro PC#1 loops VGA output of the Geforce through the Monster 3D, no problem thanks to high quality loop cable
• VGA signal will be converted to DVI using a ATEN VGA-DVI converter

Plasma TV:

• Retro PC#1 has thanks to dual view direct DVI-HDMI connection
• Retro PC#2 only has one VGA port so I have to manually switch between KVM and Plasma TV

MIDI:

• MIDI Through is bad because it adds 10ms per device and each device must be powered on.
• That's why I use a EES MIDI Thru Box which provides up to 8 MIDI devices to two different inputs

Sound:

• MIDI Rack is attached to a Behringer MiniMon Mixer angeschlossen, providing 4 separate inputs
• Behringer Mixer Line-Out goes to the AUX-In of the Sound Blaster X-Fi Elite Pro Breakout Box connected to my main PC
• Both retro PCs are connected to the Line-In of the Sound Blaster X-Fi Elite Pro in my main PC
• Retro PC#1 connects GUS output to the Line-In of the AWE64 Gold
• Retro PC#2 connects GUS output to the Line-In of the AWE64 Gold, alternatively the output of the PAS16

Images: (first image shows main PC to the left)

Two cell phone cam shots at my primary time machine. Currenty with only one 60 GB HDD, planning to add a 500 GB WD and a DVD-ROM soon.

The components are:

• Chieftech midi tower, Chieftech 300W PSU
  Gigabyte GA-5AX rev 5.2 motherboard
  AMD K6-2+ at 600 MHz
  2 x 256 MB PC133 SDRAM
  Seagate Barracude IV 60 GB IDE HDD
  NEC 1.44 floppy drive
  Sony 52x IDE CDROM
  Abit Siluro GF MX400 64MB AGP video card
  Voodoo 2 12MB 3dfx card
  AWE32 CT3900 8MB with "Creative-But-True" OPL3
  Roland MPU-401 IPC-T MIDI controller

this happens to be another of my retro pc's
equipment includes:

abit ic7-max 3 motherboard
Pentium 4 3.0 ghz cpu(northwood)
512 mb corsair pc 3700 ddr ram
His Radeon 9800 pro video card
Diamond monster mx300 sound card (aureal vortex 2) with optical daughterboard
Zalman 460w psu
operating system windows xp

this pc has a bit of a story...
It started of with an abit ic7G mainboard which died in '05.
I bought another secondhand which lasted just under six months before it died also. Now having two mainboards die very soon of each other lead me to suspect that my antec powersupply was the culprit.
It was removed and the pieces of the pc cpu/ram hd were put into a via chipset p4 board. There they stayed for about 4/5 years until last year,when I found a ic7max3 board on ebay.

Now those in the know will be aware that the max3 was just the ic7g with extra goodies...infact I wanted this board in '03 but could not afford it..

So I bought the ic7max3 for a good price and rebuilt my pc from '03, As it should have been then. It takes pride of place in my collection...I call it 'Phoenix" ..the bird that rose from the ashes...

http://www.flickr.com/photos/61324868@N02/571 … in/photostream/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/61324868@N02/570 … in/photostream/
the radeon 9800pro

http://www.flickr.com/photos/61324868@N02/564 … in/photostream/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/61324868@N02/564 … in/photostream/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/61324868@N02/564 … in/photostream/

Nice ATI Silencer and Zalman 7000cu. 😁

Any noise on startup with the Silencer? I had the fan always get grindy after a year or so... So I eventually moved to an Acellero S2.

stano wrote:

infact I wanted this board in '03 but could not afford it.

Hehe, reminds me of a lot of items I used to want back in the day and now have 😁
Btw, I like the pics in the last couple of posts, shows some real retro determination 😜

Only thing I'm missing are some case fans though.

The silencer came standard with the His radeon, if I am not mistaken the card was one of the first "iceQ" series. It is been going great for the last 6 or so years. No noise at all!

Tetrium
there is a a 80mm case fan at the front, but yeah it needs a couple more...
I am getting a few ultra quite gelid fans to populate the cases.
Will post pics when that is done!

this next pc I bought and later upgraded in the late 90's.
I call it blackmagic from the the two voodoo2 skywell magic2 cards.

equipment is as follows:
Abit Bx6 rev.2 mainboard
Pentium 3 450mhz cpu
512mb pc133 ram
asus tnt2 v3800tvr video card
2x skywell magic2 voodoo2 in sli
Matrox m3d powerVR2
Soundblaster awe64 soundcard
OS: windows 98se with the latest unofficial update

pics follow:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/61324868@N02/572 … in/photostream/

here from the bottom you can see the awe64, the two 3dfx cards and on top the power vr card.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/61324868@N02/570 … in/photostream/

Early atx case with the p/s on the side obscure the cpu's and do not make great photography subjects!

http://www.flickr.com/photos/61324868@N02/570 … in/photostream/

here is a pic of the voodoo's

http://www.flickr.com/photos/61324868@N02/560 … in/photostream/

and a pic of the power vr card

http://www.flickr.com/photos/61324868@N02/560 … in/photostream/

@stano: You got some real nice rigs there mate. Your P4 and P3s are really similar to my builds.

sgt76 wrote:

@stano: You got some real nice rigs there mate. Your P4 and P3s are really similar to my builds.

Indeed 😉

About the case, I tend to call them "Slot 1" cases as that's what they appear to be made for.
Put in a Socketed motherboard and the 2 coolers (CPU fan and PSU fan) will try to pull air in opposite directions. With Slot 1 it's layout makes perfect sense though.
Often these cases had like at the back a way to pull out the motherboard tray!

Stano, your rigs are perfect. Very similar to what I've got planned (if they're ever done 🤣). Awesome blends of perfromance and style, plus convenience.

And schlang, that's some incredible equipment... I'm drooling.

thanks for comments guys!

this system I have next is a test system.
Some time ago I inherited a P3 733 mhz Iwill VA133 Via board(I actually have two of the same board). Now I thought this system was not worth keeping but I found a novel way to use it. It is my test system when I buy something new (agp/pci card) I test it in this system..that way I donot disturb the other systems that I game with.
Hardware stays in this system until I decide what I want to build next.
It does restrict me to that era of computing but it is the era I prefer to play with.

components are:
Iwill Va133 mainboard
P3 733 mhz cpu
512mb ram pc133
voodoo 5 pci
soundblaster pci

Here are the pics:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/61324868@N02/572 … in/photostream/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/61324868@N02/570 … in/photostream/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/61324868@N02/570 … in/photostream/

and the voodoo5...

http://www.flickr.com/photos/61324868@N02/558 … in/photostream/

Test hardware ftw! 😉