First post, by khyypio
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Hello everyone! I´m a completely new member to these forums and I figured I´d share my Retro PC project with you guys.
So, this is my rig in its current state:
- case: Fujitsu ErgoPro eL
- mobo: Abit ST6
- CPU: Pentium III 800EB
- RAM: 512 Mb
- GPU: nVidia GeForce 2 GTS
- sound card: Sound Blaster Live! (CT4830)
- Some generic Lite-On DVD-ROM
- Some generic Lite-On DVD-burner
- Some generic floppy
- PSU: Corsair CX450M
- storage: IDE to SD adapter and 64 Gb SD-card
- cooling: 2 Noctua case fans + generic cpu fan
- speakers: Cambridge Soundworks 4.1
- Display: BenQ Q9T4 19 "
I started by dismantling the case to its bare bones, and while wiping it down, I though "Yeah, what the hell...", and hosed and scrubbed it thoroughly under a shower.
Another improvement for the case was sound proofing. There are a many things I feel nostalgic about but distracting noises are not part of those. I wanted my retro build to be quiet, so I also dampened the front panel of the case.I sanded every plastic part of the front panel, DVD-roms and floppy, and painted them bright white. Power and HD leds were changed to blue ones.
For speakers I found Cambridge Soundworks 4.1 speaker set for a reasonable price. However, the speaker cases vibrated terribly even at low volume levels, so I decided to soundproof them too. As a result, the sound quality improved noticeably bass sounding thighter and more accurate.
As much as I´d love a good CRT, they are simply way too impractical for me at the moment. So decided to get an older LCD, and I found a 19" BenQ Q9T4 for 20 €. I also sanded and painted the of the screen with the same shade of white as every other part, and changed the indicator led to a blue one. I did similar mods to my Keytronic MPR II keyboard.
Well, that´s about it. Questions, feedback and suggestions would be nice, and I also try to be active in these forums and contribute to discussions. There are many upgrades coming sometime in the future, which I will be documenting and if you´re intrerested, present to you folks. However, I´d also like to ask for your wisdom and guidance:
1. My motherboard (Abit ST6) has Tualatin support and after updating BIOS to the latest version (9P), it also supports 1,4 GHz Tualatin Celerons. I´ve been trying to find an exhaustive list of supported processors, but there´s just none. Does anyone know if this motherboard supports Pentium III-S 1.4 GHz CPU?
2. At some point I will change my 4.1 speaker set to just a pair of speakers. As lovely as they sound, they just take way too much space and also create a nightmarish cable mess. With only two speakers, is it worth it to change my SB Live! CT4830 to SB Live! 5.1 SB0100?
3. Unofficial Service Pack 3.64 for Windows 98 SE. At first, I installed this SP with every possible addon it came with. Within a couple of days my computer got slower and slower, showing different error messages and crashing constantly, and at some point it didn´t even boot. I formated my HD and installed OS again, and installed about half of the addons from the USP and it worked a little better for a little longer, but it didn´t last long. Now, I´ve only installed like five addons and it has been working perfectly for a while. Obviously, some of those addons don´t work well with old rigs. Is there some sort of no-no list for this SP somewhere?
4. Which thread would be a good place to discuss about getting games from Steam and GOG to work in Win98?