VOGONS

P3 1.0 GHz Millennium Build "Orangina"

Topic actions

First post, by drosse1meyer

Posted on 
User metadata
Rank Member
Rank
Member

Meaning to post this for a while but only just got it all together.

Target build is an early-2000s Pentium III (!!!) machine with reasonably accurate hw thats decently spec'd. The time was ripe as I had accumulated a collection of parts from other projects, random fleabay purchases, etc.

It was mostly plug and play aside from a problematic PSU. Minor work needed for the old case, just a little clean up and retrobrighted some of the front panel. It was missing two 5 1/4 bay covers and had no I/O shields, luckily some how I had the correct shield in my parts box. More on the missing drive covers later. There was also a lack of a GPU fan but that was taken care of with a small one from a 3D printer, which fit perfectly.

I know a lot of people don't like them but I think the SD-IDE adapters work pretty well in retro builds. So I went back to the well and installed Win XP on a 32 gb sdcard. Boot time is pretty good, the OS is very responsive and apps load quickly. Win98 may be a little bit faster overall but XP could equally have been used with such a build and its stable. (I ran Win2k on my p733 back then until XP came about.)

Regarding drivers, I stuck mostly with XP SP3 defaults, so benchmarks could perhaps be better. I may play around with nvidia drivers a bit after watching Phil's video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HRhm4aGNI3o).

As for the name 'Orangina' - everything on this PC has an orange LED (unintentionally) - both CD drives, power and activity LEDs, and even an orange glow emits from the vents in the side panel (the SD-IDE LED's are super bright). Very cool 😁

Here are the results along with some benchmarks. Please reply with comments, questions, ideas, benchmark requests, etc.

Enjoy 😀

The parts:

  • 815 based board - modeled off Intel D815EEA - gateway OEM (was not aware of this when purchasing)
  • Intel P3 1 Ghz @100 mhz PSL5QV
  • Geforce 2 GTS Pro 64 MB (AGP)
  • ESS 1938S
  • 384MB RAM (3 x 128mb)
  • Random optical drives
  • SD-IDE adapter (32 gb card)

Benchmarks (1024x768 32bpp without tweaks):
Quake2 - 183 FPS
Quake3 - 93 FPS
Unreal - 50 FPS (opening flyby, game mostly plays > 60fps)
+See attached CPU/memory benchmarks

The cons:
Not a D815EEA2 and thus no Tualatin support
CPU/RAM is 100 FSB
On board USB is v1.1

Last edited by drosse1meyer on 2021-09-01, 11:58. Edited 1 time in total.

P1: Packard Bell - 233 MMX, Voodoo1, 64 MB, ALS100+
P2-V2: Dell Dimension - 400 Mhz, Voodoo2, 256 MB
P!!! Custom: 1 Ghz, GeForce2 Pro/64MB, 384 MB

Reply 1 of 8, by Tetrium

Posted on 
User metadata
Rank l33t++
Rank
l33t++

That's a nice rig 😀
I like the Intel D815EEA. Used 2 in 2 builds of mine even though one of those 2 boards seemed to have a dead FDC connector (was like that when I first tested it but decided to use it anyway).

your case won't provide much airflow though so you better have a PSU that provided the necessary airflow or yout system may start becoming quite hot after having run for a longer while. part from the virtually non-existent cooling of your case, your case is really quite fitting with the era of the rest of your components 😜

Whats missing in your collections?
My retro rigs (old topic)
Interesting Vogons threads (links to Vogonswiki)
Report spammers here!

Reply 2 of 8, by Joseph_Joestar

Posted on 
User metadata
Rank l33t++
Rank
l33t++

I have a very similar case. Is yours from AOpen as well?

Very nice build BTW! Excellent performance, especially for that time period. Would have been a great machine for Quake3 and UT back in the day.

PC#1: Pentium MMX 166 / Soyo SY-5BT / S3 Trio64V+ / Voodoo1 / YMF719 / AWE64 Gold / SC-155
PC#2: AthlonXP 2100+ / ECS K7VTA3 / Voodoo3 / Audigy2 / Vortex2
PC#3: Core 2 Duo E8600 / Foxconn P35AX-S / X800 / Audigy2 ZS
PC#4: i5-3570K / MSI Z77A-G43 / GTX 980Ti / X-Fi Titanium

Reply 3 of 8, by drosse1meyer

Posted on 
User metadata
Rank Member
Rank
Member
Tetrium wrote on 2021-08-31, 18:05:

That's a nice rig 😀
I like the Intel D815EEA. Used 2 in 2 builds of mine even though one of those 2 boards seemed to have a dead FDC connector (was like that when I first tested it but decided to use it anyway).

your case won't provide much airflow though so you better have a PSU that provided the necessary airflow or yout system may start becoming quite hot after having run for a longer while. part from the virtually non-existent cooling of your case, your case is really quite fitting with the era of the rest of your components 😜

Thank you!

Yeah the psu has dual fans, but I may add something else in the future. There's not much in terms of vents in the front, so my only option is a small fan on the back (see pics of the rear)

Joseph_Joestar wrote on 2021-08-31, 18:10:

I have a very similar case. Is yours from AOpen as well?

Very nice build BTW! Excellent performance, especially for that time period. Would have been a great machine for Quake3 and UT back in the day.

Thanks for the kind words.

Yes it's an Aopen case! It was missing too many bay covers and I didn't want to fill it out with three cd drives, so I made a 'faux' drive bay cover from a busted dvd drive. Does the trick. Maybe we should start a 'retro life hacks' thread.

P1: Packard Bell - 233 MMX, Voodoo1, 64 MB, ALS100+
P2-V2: Dell Dimension - 400 Mhz, Voodoo2, 256 MB
P!!! Custom: 1 Ghz, GeForce2 Pro/64MB, 384 MB

Reply 4 of 8, by H3nrik V!

Posted on 
User metadata
Rank l33t
Rank
l33t
drosse1meyer wrote on 2021-08-31, 17:52:

As for the name 'Orangina' - everything on this PC has an orange LED (unintentionally) - both CD drives, power and activity LEDs, and even an orange glow emits from the vents in the side panel (the SD-IDE LED's are super bright). Very cool 😁

We need night time pictures to see! 😁

If it's dual it's kind of cool ... 😎

--- GA586DX --- P2B-DS --- BP6 ---

Please use the "quote" option if asking questions to what I write - it will really up the chances of me noticing 😀

Reply 5 of 8, by gerry

Posted on 
User metadata
Rank l33t
Rank
l33t
drosse1meyer wrote on 2021-08-31, 17:52:
The cons: Not a D815EEA2 and thus no Tualatin support CPU/RAM is 100 FSB On board USB is v1.1 […]
Show full quote

The cons:
Not a D815EEA2 and thus no Tualatin support
CPU/RAM is 100 FSB
On board USB is v1.1

they are only cons if you encounter software which is at the performance limit and suffers for it a little, from the stats it looks very good for the era.

USB 1.1 is slow compared to later versions but unless you are transferring 100's mb it's ok, and even if you are then provided its an occasional thing it's ok too, time it so as to make a coffee while it does its thing 😀

Reply 6 of 8, by drosse1meyer

Posted on 
User metadata
Rank Member
Rank
Member
H3nrik V! wrote on 2021-09-02, 09:12:
drosse1meyer wrote on 2021-08-31, 17:52:

As for the name 'Orangina' - everything on this PC has an orange LED (unintentionally) - both CD drives, power and activity LEDs, and even an orange glow emits from the vents in the side panel (the SD-IDE LED's are super bright). Very cool 😁

We need night time pictures to see! 😁

Ask and ye shall receive 😀 My phones camera sucks but you get the idea, looks better irl

gerry wrote on 2021-09-02, 15:02:
drosse1meyer wrote on 2021-08-31, 17:52:
The cons: Not a D815EEA2 and thus no Tualatin support CPU/RAM is 100 FSB On board USB is v1.1 […]
Show full quote

The cons:
Not a D815EEA2 and thus no Tualatin support
CPU/RAM is 100 FSB
On board USB is v1.1

they are only cons if you encounter software which is at the performance limit and suffers for it a little, from the stats it looks very good for the era.

USB 1.1 is slow compared to later versions but unless you are transferring 100's mb it's ok, and even if you are then provided its an occasional thing it's ok too, time it so as to make a coffee while it does its thing 😀

True, I only noted the USB slowness because all my nics were in use and was too lazy to swap one out... so was using sneakernet for a short time 🤣... could always remedy with a PCI card i suppose

P1: Packard Bell - 233 MMX, Voodoo1, 64 MB, ALS100+
P2-V2: Dell Dimension - 400 Mhz, Voodoo2, 256 MB
P!!! Custom: 1 Ghz, GeForce2 Pro/64MB, 384 MB

Reply 7 of 8, by H3nrik V!

Posted on 
User metadata
Rank l33t
Rank
l33t
drosse1meyer wrote on 2021-09-03, 01:21:
H3nrik V! wrote on 2021-09-02, 09:12:
drosse1meyer wrote on 2021-08-31, 17:52:

As for the name 'Orangina' - everything on this PC has an orange LED (unintentionally) - both CD drives, power and activity LEDs, and even an orange glow emits from the vents in the side panel (the SD-IDE LED's are super bright). Very cool 😁

We need night time pictures to see! 😁

Ask and ye shall receive 😀 My phones camera sucks but you get the idea, looks better irl

Nice glow!

If it's dual it's kind of cool ... 😎

--- GA586DX --- P2B-DS --- BP6 ---

Please use the "quote" option if asking questions to what I write - it will really up the chances of me noticing 😀

Reply 8 of 8, by Gmlb256

Posted on 
User metadata
Rank l33t
Rank
l33t

Nice that you made something worth with that Gateway motherboard. 😁

It would be more interesting to have that side panel with a window so that orange glow would be more visible. 😀

Go to top of page Go to top of page
Back to System Specs
Close window
Close window