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Pentium iii 533mhz build

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First post, by Bj0rn83

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I was messing out my attic and i found my old pc and a box of old games, from Dos till Windows 98 games and some loose parts. My plan is to build it up again and putting some new features in it like a gotek and a Nec usb 2.0 card so i can play the games from my childhood again. Unfortunately this used to have a beige case but that time the PSU stopped working and PSU was intergrated in the case so i throw it away 🙁 So my plan is to search for a other beige case, till that time i will use the ugly Aopen silver/black case.

Specs
Motherboard: Asus P3V133
CPU: intel 533EB Coppermine
Ram: 384mb SDRAM pc133
GPU: Geforce2 Asus v7700 32mb + Diamond stealth 2001 2mb (s3 trio64v+)
Audio: Sound blaster live audigy, live drive + awe64 ct4380
Case/PSU: Aopen 350w
Floppy: sony/gotek
Optical: asus dvd-rw drive/Creative dvd drive

My goal is to play late 90's DOS games and windows 95/98 games.
So probably i think i wil need a older sound card, too bad i sold my good old awe64 🙁

I was also thinking about changing the Ram as it contains 1 of 256mb and 1 of 128mb from two different for me unknown brands hope someone can give me advice.

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Last edited by Bj0rn83 on 2018-03-29, 16:39. Edited 2 times in total.

Asus p3v133 | P533mhz | AWE64 | MT-32 | SC-55 | MU80 | Roland MPU401at |

Reply 1 of 22, by chinny22

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If your happy to play DOS games while in Windows the Audigy will be fine.
The Audigy also has native dos drivers but can be a pain to get working.

Ram is fine, You probably wont really need more the 256MB but its not going to hurt to keep the 128MB stick in as well.
but if you really want you can find matching low latency ram just know its not really going to make much of a difference, this is all before duel channel memory or whatever.

Graphics card is excellent for dos, great vesa compatibility. It may hold you back for some windows games but is pretty good match to the CPU.

You actually have a really good setup for what you want dos/windows PC. I'd just try out some of your later Windows games and see if anything is held back.

Reply 2 of 22, by Bj0rn83

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chinny22 wrote:
If your happy to play DOS games while in Windows the Audigy will be fine. The Audigy also has native dos drivers but can be a pa […]
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If your happy to play DOS games while in Windows the Audigy will be fine.
The Audigy also has native dos drivers but can be a pain to get working.

Ram is fine, You probably wont really need more the 256MB but its not going to hurt to keep the 128MB stick in as well.
but if you really want you can find matching low latency ram just know its not really going to make much of a difference, this is all before duel channel memory or whatever.

Graphics card is excellent for dos, great vesa compatibility. It may hold you back for some windows games but is pretty good match to the CPU.

You actually have a really good setup for what you want dos/windows PC. I'd just try out some of your later Windows games and see if anything is held back.

Thanks for the information, that's what i thought about the dual channel thing, that's why i was thinking of a matching pair of ram.

Asus p3v133 | P533mhz | AWE64 | MT-32 | SC-55 | MU80 | Roland MPU401at |

Reply 3 of 22, by Bj0rn83

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Today i was lucky at a local thrift store and picked these up for 1 euro each, the creative dvd drive had my interest as it wil match my live drive. Still need to test them, hope they will work.

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Asus p3v133 | P533mhz | AWE64 | MT-32 | SC-55 | MU80 | Roland MPU401at |

Reply 4 of 22, by Bj0rn83

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I finally found a beige case at a local thrift store, it's a Aopen HQ45 not the nicest case but it's quite period correct and looks better then the grey black one. So finally i can start swap everything an put it together. I ordered 3 weeks ago 3x sata to ide adapters from ebay and i was really looking forward to receive them! Bummer, this is how they arrive. ':( 🙁 🙁

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I really don't wanna wait again for 3 weeks with the chance to receive them like this, they aren't packed wel. Any advice is welcome, i still have a 80gb NOS sata hdd which i was planning to use, now i'm thinking to order a cf to ide adapter cause that's easy to get here in The Netherlands.

Asus p3v133 | P533mhz | AWE64 | MT-32 | SC-55 | MU80 | Roland MPU401at |

Reply 5 of 22, by KCompRoom2000

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Bj0rn83 wrote:

I ordered 3 weeks ago 3x sata to ide adapters from ebay and i was really looking forward to receive them! Bummer, this is how they arrive. ':( 🙁 🙁

-images removed to reduce screen clutter-

I really don't wanna wait again for 3 weeks with the chance to receive them like this, they aren't packed wel. Any advice is welcome, i still have a 80gb NOS sata hdd which i was planning to use, now i'm thinking to order a cf to ide adapter cause that's easy to get here in The Netherlands.

How common are IDE hard drives in your area? I can still find some 40-120GB IDE drives on eBay at cheap prices but YMMV since you're not in the US. Since you have an 80GB SATA hard drive at your disposal, a PCI SATA controller might be an option (most of the older ones will work on Windows 9x), what brand SATA-to-IDE adapters did you buy? if they came from a generic Chinese retailer, then I can see why they didn't survive in transit.

Reply 6 of 22, by Radical Vision

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Nice system, the Creative Front panel and Creative DvD are very nice to have, specially the SB front panel, it makes one computer to look many times better, and like alien tech..
For the Card you will need to downgrade to SB live 5.1, as Audigy is way too newer.. Great choice of PSU AOpen are very solid..
Is the case Aopen or ?

Mah systems retro, old, newer (Radical stuff)
W3680 4.5/ GA-x58 UD7/ R9 280x
K7 2.6/ NF7-S/ HD3850
IBM x2 P3 933/ GA-6VXD7/ Voodoo V 5.5K
Cmq P2 450/ GA-BX2000/ V2 SLI
IBM PC365
Cmq DeskPRO 486/33
IBM PS/2 Model 56
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Reply 7 of 22, by Bj0rn83

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KCompRoom2000 wrote:
Bj0rn83 wrote:

I ordered 3 weeks ago 3x sata to ide adapters from ebay and i was really looking forward to receive them! Bummer, this is how they arrive. ':( 🙁 🙁

-images removed to reduce screen clutter-

I really don't wanna wait again for 3 weeks with the chance to receive them like this, they aren't packed wel. Any advice is welcome, i still have a 80gb NOS sata hdd which i was planning to use, now i'm thinking to order a cf to ide adapter cause that's easy to get here in The Netherlands.

How common are IDE hard drives in your area? I can still find some 40-120GB IDE drives on eBay at cheap prices but YMMV since you're not in the US. Since you have an 80GB SATA hard drive at your disposal, a PCI SATA controller might be an option (most of the older ones will work on Windows 9x), what brand SATA-to-IDE adapters did you buy? if they came from a generic Chinese retailer, then I can see why they didn't survive in transit.

Here in The Netherlands IDE is difficult to get as everyone throw them away i still have one but it's a old western digital 170mb, way not enough for my needs. Yes the adapters came from a Chinese seller on Ebay. Still in a doubt what to do, don't know if cf is good for my needs.

Asus p3v133 | P533mhz | AWE64 | MT-32 | SC-55 | MU80 | Roland MPU401at |

Reply 8 of 22, by Bj0rn83

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Radical Vision wrote:

Nice system, the Creative Front panel and Creative DvD are very nice to have, specially the SB front panel, it makes one computer to look many times better, and like alien tech..
For the Card you will need to downgrade to SB live 5.1, as Audigy is way too newer.. Great choice of PSU AOpen are very solid..
Is the case Aopen or ?

Thanks, both cases are Aopen but i swap the system to the beige HQ45 as it match most of my parts and it wil be more period correct. I'm still not sure if i wil swap the PSU cause the HQ45 just only have a 300w PSU and the old one you see in the picture has 350w PSU, i think 350w wil be better. For the sound card i'ts a 5.1 but my plan is to combine it with a awe32 or awe64 which i'm still searching for, so i can play my old DOS game collection. The only problem i'm having now is what to use as hdd. Still in a doubt what to use as hdd, cf card or my NOS 80gb hdd.

Asus p3v133 | P533mhz | AWE64 | MT-32 | SC-55 | MU80 | Roland MPU401at |

Reply 9 of 22, by Radical Vision

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I prefer HDD if possible.. This system is not power hungry, so even 200W solid power unit will fit good there ( i even tested junk 200W brands like Codegen, JNC and KME, and they are working fine with so old systems) so you can save your 300 and 350W PSUs for other builds if you have 200W.

Mah systems retro, old, newer (Radical stuff)
W3680 4.5/ GA-x58 UD7/ R9 280x
K7 2.6/ NF7-S/ HD3850
IBM x2 P3 933/ GA-6VXD7/ Voodoo V 5.5K
Cmq P2 450/ GA-BX2000/ V2 SLI
IBM PC365
Cmq DeskPRO 486/33
IBM PS/2 Model 56
SPS IntelleXT 8088

Reply 10 of 22, by looking4awayout

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Bj0rn83 wrote:

Cut

It's a shame for the way they've been mangled during the shipment, but on the other hand, there's a bright side. Those SATA to IDE adapters are utter garbage. I have tested several identical specimen of those models, and all of them had the same issue: the drives work only in PIO mode which means incredibly slow and unreliable performance, inexistent bad sectors on hard drives and random BSODs especially if you use high speed hard drives such as the Western Digital Velociraptor.

That is due to the cheap and nasty chipset those adapters use, made by SunplusIT. If you want a good, reliable SATA to IDE adapter, get a Delock adapter or any SATA to IDE one that uses a Marvell chipset. I use my 300GB WD Velociraptor with that adapter (Delock SATA to IDE) and runs fast and snappy, playing well with my motherboard's integrated ATA100 controller. Also, the Marvell chipset supports Ultra DMA mode, which is what you need if you want your retro beauty to be as fast as possible without hassles. 😀

My Retro Daily Driver: Pentium !!!-S 1.7GHz | 3GB PC166 ECC SDRAM | Geforce 6800 Ultra 256MB | 128GB Lite-On SSD + 500GB WD Blue SSD | ESS Allegro PCI | Windows XP Professional SP3

Reply 11 of 22, by Bj0rn83

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looking4awayout wrote:
Bj0rn83 wrote:

Cut

That is due to the cheap and nasty chipset those adapters use, made by SunplusIT. If you want a good, reliable SATA to IDE adapter, get a Delock adapter or any SATA to IDE one that uses a Marvell chipset. I use my 300GB WD Velociraptor with that adapter (Delock SATA to IDE) and runs fast and snappy, playing well with my motherboard's integrated ATA100 controller. Also, the Marvell chipset supports Ultra DMA mode, which is what you need if you want your retro beauty to be as fast as possible without hassles. 😀

Thanks for the advice, i was just checking the delock page, i see two different sizes, i think both are identical but one is wide. Does this matter? Cause i can get the smaller one really easy.

Asus p3v133 | P533mhz | AWE64 | MT-32 | SC-55 | MU80 | Roland MPU401at |

Reply 12 of 22, by Stiletto

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Always suspected this, hadn't seen much prior conversation about it, thanks for the head's up, looking4awayout.

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do the Fandango!" - Queen

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Reply 13 of 22, by gdjacobs

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Pretty sure the adapters I've been using have been doing UDMA. They're the same type as were squished above. I'll check for everyone later today.

All hail the Great Capacitor Brand Finder

Reply 14 of 22, by looking4awayout

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Stiletto wrote:

Always suspected this, hadn't seen much prior conversation about it, thanks for the head's up, looking4awayout.

You're welcome Stiletto. I tried nearly ten of them and all of them had the same issues: PIO only mode, due to using the SunplusIT chipset.

gdjacobs wrote:

Pretty sure the adapters I've been using have been doing UDMA. They're the same type as were squished above. I'll check for everyone later today.

There are several of those Chinese ones. Most of them look very similar if not identical to eachother. What changes is the chipset. There are some versions that use JMicron ones, which according to the MSFN forums, are as good as Marvell ones although some users have reported some incompatibilities with some hard drives (some Seagate models if I recall correctly) and then there are the infamous ones with SunplusIT chips, that are usually the cheapest and the nastiest of the bunch.

Their build quality is very shoddy. After I got burned by them I preferred to play safe and searched for an adapter with a proper Marvell chip, and works great so far. I still can't imagine how fast I can go on my Tualatin once I put my hands on a bootable SATA 3GB/s to hook my Velociraptors to...

My Retro Daily Driver: Pentium !!!-S 1.7GHz | 3GB PC166 ECC SDRAM | Geforce 6800 Ultra 256MB | 128GB Lite-On SSD + 500GB WD Blue SSD | ESS Allegro PCI | Windows XP Professional SP3

Reply 15 of 22, by looking4awayout

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Bj0rn83 wrote:

Thanks for the advice, i was just checking the delock page, i see two different sizes, i think both are identical but one is wide. Does this matter? Cause i can get the smaller one really easy.

I use this one:

54218d72a7b8d3.01328553.jpg

I recommend you this adapter due to the Marvell chipset and compact size. It works very well.

My Retro Daily Driver: Pentium !!!-S 1.7GHz | 3GB PC166 ECC SDRAM | Geforce 6800 Ultra 256MB | 128GB Lite-On SSD + 500GB WD Blue SSD | ESS Allegro PCI | Windows XP Professional SP3

Reply 16 of 22, by Bj0rn83

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looking4awayout wrote:
I use this one: […]
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Bj0rn83 wrote:

Thanks for the advice, i was just checking the delock page, i see two different sizes, i think both are identical but one is wide. Does this matter? Cause i can get the smaller one really easy.

I use this one:

54218d72a7b8d3.01328553.jpg

I recommend you this adapter due to the Marvell chipset and compact size. It works very well.

Thanks, i ordered them already they will arrive this afternoon. I also saw bigger ones from delock who have more the dimensions of the cheap chinese ones. I also see on the picture they put something to keep clearance between the pcb and the hdd so no messing arround with tape to insulate the solder of the molex connector. Thanks!

Asus p3v133 | P533mhz | AWE64 | MT-32 | SC-55 | MU80 | Roland MPU401at |

Reply 17 of 22, by looking4awayout

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You're welcome. Someday you should try to put a WD Velociraptor into your build... You'll see the difference! 🤣

My Retro Daily Driver: Pentium !!!-S 1.7GHz | 3GB PC166 ECC SDRAM | Geforce 6800 Ultra 256MB | 128GB Lite-On SSD + 500GB WD Blue SSD | ESS Allegro PCI | Windows XP Professional SP3

Reply 18 of 22, by Scubs

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looking4awayout wrote:

You're welcome. Someday you should try to put a WD Velociraptor into your build... You'll see the difference! 🤣

I have 6 raptors in raid 0 in my modern system, Yes they are stupid fast compared to most SATA drives. But if you really want speed get a SCSI card and some 15kprm scsi drives.

Reply 19 of 22, by looking4awayout

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Scubs wrote:

But if you really want speed get a SCSI card and some 15kprm scsi drives.

That would be the ultimate experience... 😎

My Retro Daily Driver: Pentium !!!-S 1.7GHz | 3GB PC166 ECC SDRAM | Geforce 6800 Ultra 256MB | 128GB Lite-On SSD + 500GB WD Blue SSD | ESS Allegro PCI | Windows XP Professional SP3