I'm building a win98 machine and have nearly all the parts figured out, one exception being the power supply. I'm not sure how to select one for older systems, save that it'll need MOLEX connectors
What kind of specs? Athlon XP, Pentium 3, are you going to just use an optical drive and a couple hard drives or are you going to be loadig it down with a bunch of fans, drives, expansion cards etc? Also location has alot to do with availability. Do you have anyhing on hand that you could use? Your typical Pentium 3 system can get by on a typical older 250+ watt psu for example.
Edit: If Newegg is an option the Startech ATXPOWER300 appears to be a solid option for a typical retro box. 20pin atx, has plenty of molex connectors, 4pin P4, as well as the 6pin AUX connector that some P3-early P4 systems require.
Main pc: Asus ROG 17. R9 5900HX, RTX 3070m, 16gb ddr4 3200, 1tb NVME.
Retro PC: Soyo P4S Dragon, 3gb ddr 266, 120gb Maxtor, Geforce Fx 5950 Ultra, SB Live! 5.1
The build is a modified build by Phil's Computer Lab. The build I've chosen is a Win98 system centered on excelling at 3D gaming from that era. I've modified it to accommodate DOS gaming as well
MB: AOpen AX6BC
RAM: 512 or 768 MB
CPU: shooting for a Pentium III 600E
120 GB SSD
Voodoo3 16 MB AGP
Aidio: Yamaha Labway XG PCI Sound/Audio Card A301-G50 YMF724-V
I know that I don't require a -12V rail, since there's no ISA content in the build. The original build calls for a 300W PSU, IIRC
That spec is very undemanding, so focus on quality and longevity rather than high specs. I always recommend looking into OEM supplies from HP, IBM, and Dell (with a caveat*), specifically PSUs made by Delta, Liteon, etc (all top flight manufacturers). Zippy is another really great manufacturer that's often found in server systems.
Because they're often used in business systems, these OEM supplies are very common and reasonably inexpensive on the used market. To top it off, they're almost bulletproof.
* Dell manufactured some models of PC that look like they're ATX standard but use a proprietary pinout.
All hail the Great Capacitor Brand Finder
So, can I just look on Newegg for these OEM parts?
wrote:So, can I just look on Newegg for these OEM parts?
You want to look for them at companies selling 'refurbished' components.
If you simply want to grab a PSU asap then look for a midrange Seasoning (should be about 50 bucks). As a comparison I can get old OEM PSUs for 5 euros here in Romania.
Nope, eBay, Craigslist, any local computer recyclers, etc. Newegg has those aforementioned Startech ATX supplies (which are fine).
All hail the Great Capacitor Brand Finder
