Tyan Tomcat S1563S
StarTech 230W PSU
Intel Pentium 200 MMX
128mb RAM
Seagate Cheetah 18gb 10,000 RPM SCSI Ultra Wide hard drive
Plextor UltraPlex Ultra Wide PX-40TW CDROM
Matrox MGA Millenium (with 4mb RAM daughterboard, 8mb total)
Adaptec AHA-2940UW SCSI Controller
NEC USB 2.0 Adapter
Diamond Monster 3D 3dfx Voodoo
Diamond Supra Express 56i V.90 Modem
3Com 3C515-TX NIC
SoundBlaster 16 ASP CT2230 with WaveBlaster daughterboard
Edit: PhotoBucket has been threatening to delete my photos for years now. I finally got around to saving them and I've uploaded them here as an attachment, just in case they ever actually make good on their threats. I would have uploaded the photos to Google Drive and replaced the PhotoBucket links, but I can't seem to make it work. Uploading directly to VOGONS won't work since they limit five attachments per post and my original post here has more than five pictures.
Thanks! I bought this one back in early 1997. The motherboard, RAM, CDROM, Matrox Millenium, SCSI adapter, and SB16 are all original parts from when I first built it. Everything else got added-on or replaced over the years.
Back when I originally bought this motherboard, I couldn't figure out why anybody would buy the S1563D dual-CPU version. Running a dual-CPU system was insanely expensive at the time and offered no advantages for gaming. Nowadays, I wish I had bought the S1563D instead because I could have gotten the second CPU for super cheap at today's prices.
bjt:
I wish I had a way to mount at least one more exhaust fan. The 10,000 RPM hard drive generates some serious heat.
I have considered punching a hole in the top of the case and mounting an 80mm fan to exhaust hot air out the top. I'm hesitant to do this because there are no do-overs if I screw it up. AT cases are hard to find nowadays.
chinny22:
Originally, I had a 2gb IBM SCSI hard drive in this PC. I later added-on a second 4gb IBM hard drive. Around 2002 and after 4+ solid years of heavy use, both of those drives started to fail. I replaced them with the 10,000 RPM 18gb drive you see in the pics. Unfortunately, it too failed quickly and I RMA'd it. Then, that replacement failed too. After the third replacement also failed, I began to suspect that the drives were cooking themselves to death. To cool the drives, I bought one of these and ran it for a few years:
Although the drive did not fail again, I suspected that the massive heatsink on top wasn't making good contact with the top of the hard drive. To test it, I smeared on some TIM, mounted it again, and then removed it. Sure enough, only about 15% of the heatsink was making contact. I then chucked the heatsink cooler, put the 5.25" bay covers back on, and installed this ThermalTake TMG-HD1 which you can see in my pictures:
It's a really good hard drive cooler. I especially like how the fan can be removed and turned over to reverse flow (which I did). Since the fan can be removed, it can also be replaced when it fails. The downside to this cooler is its massive size. With the drive itself, this cooler, and the other cooler on the bottom of the hard drive, the whole setup is consuming two full 5.25" bays. However, I am confident that my 10,000 RPM drive will not fail due to overheating again.
If you look in the top-left of my open PC case, right under the PSU, you can see two additional brand-new 4gb ultra-wide SCSI drives that are not connected. A friend had those and he was going to throw them out. I asked if I could have them and I've kept them as spares ever since.
Last edited by KT7AGuy on 2023-12-03, 15:53. Edited 3 times in total.
Back when I originally bought this motherboard, I couldn't figure out why anybody would buy the S1563D dual-CPU version. Running a dual-CPU system was insanely expensive at the time and offered no advantages for gaming. Nowadays, I wish I had bought the S1563D instead because I could have gotten the second CPU for super cheap at today's prices.
I bought the dual-proc version because I was an engineering student at the time. I wasn't gaming much... I tri-booted Win95+WinNT-4.0+Linux. I used linux lilo as the boot loader because it just worked back then better than anything else. Both WinNT and Linux recognized the dual-procs. I used those most often. I only booted into Win95 occasionally when I wanted to watch to TV on the ATI TV Tuner board I had back then or play a game. Win95 just ignored the second proc and it all worked just fine.
Very clever on the slot cover to hold a fan - is it very stable? Does it add a lot of noise?
On the blow-hole - I can vouch for their efficacy if the case is setup properly for the airflow. I knocked something like 15* C off of my dual Xeon setup's CPU temperatures with one, but that case had a mount point that I could utilize. As far as cutting out a hole, a hole-saw will do a very nice job, just match it up with the size fan you need, and then do whatever you like to cover/protect the hole (e.g. wire grille, c-channel, etc) after you've made it. Alternately you might consider a bay-slot blower which wouldn't require modifying the case, but might require re-arranging expansion cards.
This is my own photo, that I took myself, of my own computer. I consider it to be Public Domain.
File license
Public domain
As you can see in the last picture, it actually has two screws holding it down. It's really a very solid hack. It doesn't move at all.
The Evercool fan in the front of that case is a real howler. I'd get a quieter fan, but I'm afraid it wouldn't move as much air. Since that is currently the only intake for that system, I can't afford to reduce performance.
obobskivich wrote:
On the blow-hole - I can vouch for their efficacy if the case is setup properly for the airflow. I knocked something like 15* C off of my dual Xeon setup's CPU temperatures with one, but that case had a mount point that I could utilize. As far as cutting out a hole, a hole-saw will do a very nice job, just match it up with the size fan you need, and then do whatever you like to cover/protect the hole (e.g. wire grille, c-channel, etc) after you've made it. Alternately you might consider a bay-slot blower which wouldn't require modifying the case, but might require re-arranging expansion cards.
I'm trying to avoid a slot cooler. I'd really like to do the blow-hole mod, but I'm just afraid of screwing it up. My father has a drill press, so I'll probably ask him to help me cut the hole one of these days. I think even a 60mm fan on the top would help improve cooling tremendously.
Jr_ wrote:
where can I get those 3dfx case stickers?
I got that from a German guy on eBay about 10 years ago. Check this thread here. It looks like JayCeeBee64 may be submitting an order for new 3dfx case badges.
While saving my stuff from PhotoBucket, I found these additional four photos in the same folder for this thread, but they were never posted. I don't know why. I'm posting them now.
