We need some more pics in here!!

As I was taking some pics for DonutKing, I took the opportunity to take some pics of the 2 retro rigs I used to play Unreal, so here they are 😉

The left box is my Super 7 Glide rig and the right one is my s370 Glide rig

The Super 7 retro rig:

FSP-made PSU (either 250W or 300W)
Gigabyte GA-5AX rev 4.1 (I think it's 4.1)
K6-3/400 AFR
256MB SDRAM PC-133 set as PC-100 cl2
AGP TNT2 M64 Vanta 16MB (Doesn't even have a heatsink. It's used for 2D only)
Voodoo2 12MB (has some slight artifacting, it always displays one block of the screen correctly, but with about half it's pixels dark blue! Didn't bother me in Unreal though and as it was otherwise performing just fine, I left it in there)
Soundcard can't remember if it was the Vortex or a Creative
Harddrive, somewhere around 6.4GB to 15GB I guess
Windows ME

This is actually my very first (and atm only) Super 7 rig but I really wanted to build one.
The case it's in has a story of it's own.
Years ago, back in my dark ages of endless dumpster diving (2002-ish), this was the very first ATX case I ever found that didn't have any missing parts. All other ATX cases I had found had either their drive cages removed or had one of their side panels missing.
This is also one of THE very first ATX cases to have ever made it to the market in The Netherlands. It's got "Designed for Windows 95" printed on one of it's front bezels on the front!
It's side panels are unusual in that they have these large plastic thingies in the side that you use to slide them in the "open" or "closed" position. Both side panels have this plastic grip thingy but the one on the motherboard side has always jammed a bit. No prob, as I only need to open the other side for accessing the insides of the case.
As a sidenote, it originally came with a Pentium 2, ASUS P7L97 I think. The board still functions and, even though I never used it in any rig of mine, I've always kept the board 😀

Because I wanted to avoid having any AGP related problems I at first intended to put a Voodoo3 PCI in there, but since a V3 is a bit overpowered and I had always wanted to try out teh Voodoo 2 for myself, I put a Voodoo 2 in there.
I used ME because it's what I use, it's basically my standard 9x OS. I know how it works, how to tweak it and how to keep it running. That, and my only ever own experience with 98SE turned out to be less then impressive.
It uses some standard cdrom drive and comes with a plain ol' boring 1.44 floppy drive.
I played through the entire Unreal 1 campaign on it for I can't remember how many days! The system has been remarkedly stable for me, not a single crash or lockup 😀

The s370 Glide rig:

FSP-made PSU 250W
Chaintech ??? i400BX Socket 370
Celeron 800 (yep...could've just put a Pentium 3 in there butteh...I wanted a Celeron hehe 😜)
256ish MB SDRAM PC-100 cl2 or PC-133 used as PC-100 cl2
AGP Voodoo3 3000
Soundcard can't remember if this one had the Vortex or the Creative
Some random cdrom burner or drive and another plain ol' boooring "a million a bucket" floppy drive
Harddrive probably 10 to 20Gigs

This rig was build after my 1st Glide retro rig.
As I had chosen the Voodoo2 in my Super 7 rig, I still was eager to try out a dedicated Voodoo 3 rig of my own.
I decided that a P3-1000 was a little bit overpowered for a Voodoo3 so I opted to try an Intel BX system.
As I prefer Socket 370 over Slot 1 I ended up using this i440BX Chaintech motherboard.
As I had no speedy 100Mhz fsb Coppermines at that time and underclocking one of my then few P3-1000's to a mere 750Mhz, I decided that I might as well put my Celeron 800 in there.
Another reason for me to stick with the 800Mhz Celeron is because I encountered a slight problem while mounting it's cooler: There are so many caps directly around the socket that it's impossible to mount anything larger then a Socket 7 sized cooler. I did try a smaller aluminium cooler but after a little while the heatsink became a little bit too hot for my taste.
Hence I went with the Celeron 800 (slower ones are 66Mhz fsb and I wanted 100Mhz fsb) and my only smallish copper cooler you see in the pic. I might have replaced the original Coolermaster fan with another Coolermaster fan to make it a bit more quiet.
However!...even though the little copper cooler cooled it much better, it's clip was blocking the memory slots and after a while I got tired of having to unmount+remount the cooler everytime I wanted to switch memory around. So I put the aluminium cooler back and mounted a neat looking LED fan which shines in 3 different colors yay! And it did fix the overheating problem well enough. (edit:the LED fan is actually an 8cm case fan. Thought I should point that out :endedit)

The 800Mhz Celeron is somewhat special as it is the very first Celeron to make use of the 100Mhz fsb. All previous Celerons were limited to a mere 66Mhz fsb which was fine for the PPGA Celerons, but made the first lot of Coppermine Celerons woefully underpowered compared to it's Coppermine brother (I always try to avoid the Celeron 566-766 ones).
That, and I actually wanted to use a Coppermine Celeron (I had already used a couple P3 Coppermines before and wanted to try out something new 😉 )
I used a different soundcard in this rig as I wanted to play through the campaign with a sound solution that was totally different from that of my other Glide rig.
Of course I installed ME on this computer also. XP seemed a bit too new for this one.

The case is a very nice one. Sturdy and good looking for an ordinary beige case.
No sharp edges on the inside, it was probably made by a quality manufacturer.
The only thing I dislike about the case is it's miniholes on the back for using the 8cm case fan, but other then that, I'm very pleased to own 2 of these cases 😀
I've played through the entire Unreal campaign again, only this time in hard.
Again, not a single crash or other ugly problems.

I intended to post some more and also different pics, but as my camera ran out of juice and it's too dark now to shoot a couple more, these ones will have to do 😀
I hope it was an enjoyable read! 😉

edit: Since PB decided to take a crap on us, I decided to re-upload at least some of the pics to Vogons directly, because missing pics in a picture thread just isn't really something many of us will probably like. Keep enjoying! 😀

Going to spam the hell out of this thread shortly with pic's 😁
Been too buried in work lately (arrghh)

Good deal... this thread needs a good picture spamming. 😁

@Tetrium
I see you went with the typical mid-'90s "meh, screw it" style wire management, too. 😁

That's a rather poor design for the vent holes on the front of that second case... at first glance, I thought that was mildew or something.

Old Thrashbarg wrote:

Good deal... this thread needs a good picture spamming. :D […]
Show full quote

Good deal... this thread needs a good picture spamming. 😁

@Tetrium
I see you went with the typical mid-'90s "meh, screw it" style wire management, too. 😁

That's a rather poor design for the vent holes on the front of that second case... at first glance, I thought that was mildew or something.

Lol! Yup, couldn't be bothered using tie ribs, but at least I kinda pushed the cables away from the HSF 😁
And yes, the vent holes are rather crappy though the back vent hole is a bit less crappy. It's the only thing I don't like about this case though, it's perfectly fine otherwise 😀

As for more pics, I still got a couple older ones of my 486. Will post a couple in a minute (must keep the picture spam going, right? 😉 )

Edit: Heres a couple older pics of my 486.

The pics are at least 2 years old I think. It was the 2nd system I ever build!...or should I say, completed 😜
I build this system around 5 years ago actually and used it off and on for playing DOS games (mainly stunts 😁).
It was kinda badly configured as I was kinda a newb back then, but at least I got it working without breaking anything! 😁

Though after I moved I discovered the serial mouse port for some reason wouldn't work anymore. I tried a couple different solutions, couldn't get mouse to work and finally decided to give up my efforts for the time being.
And on top of that, I remember it being annoyingly unstable. BSoD every time I used it, but it could've been caused by anything really. I'd basically put the hardware carefully together, but the hardware doesn't really match it's intended use very well. I basically threw 95 on there, installed a driver or 2 and that was it basically...ah those newb days! 😁

Even though this rig's kinda decommissioned right now, I haven't cannibalized any parts from it (yet?) so atm it's sitting in my bedroom and should at this time still be functional (though I've always intended to replace it with an improved 486 at some time in the future, or at least add at least one more 486 rig).

What I remember from the hardware is it's got an Acer AP43 PCI board, PCI Rendition 2100 (the one made by Diamond) and I think an ISA soundcard, probably Creative.
The CPU is a DX4-100 though I can't remember if it was Intel or AMD. I'm pretty sure it's not one of the other ones and it's for sure not one of the Intel DX4-100 WB's.
Due to those tiny CPU coolers being kinda loud, I experimented with one of those large passive Pentium coolers + wire clip.
The 4 memory modules are 4 identical IBM 16MB FPM simms.

Maybe tomorrow I'll go have a look in my house, trying to find some forgotten other rigs of mine.
I may have my 1st ever build system around though I remember having messed up that rig when I tried to upgrade it's motherboard 😵

edit: Since PB decided to take a crap on us, I decided to re-upload at least some of the pics to Vogons directly, because missing pics in a picture thread just isn't really something many of us will probably like. Keep enjoying! 😀

here are my 2 machines that I use:

1. Tualatin 1.4ghz pIII with voodoo5 and sblive :

2. p200mmx with a riva128ZX , sb16+db50xg and a LAPC-I :

keropi wrote:

here are my 2 machines that I use: […]
Show full quote

here are my 2 machines that I use:

1. Tualatin 1.4ghz pIII with voodoo5 and sblive :

-snip-

2. p200mmx with a riva128ZX , sb16+db50xg and a LAPC-I :

-snap-

Specs? 😁

Btw, I like both those cases!
I like ATX cases with room for a 12cm case fan and the AT case looks neat and clean 😉

Finally got some pictures up. they dont look great, but I'll re-take them again soon.

3DFX monster rig:

MSI master L Dual socket A motherboard
2x AMD 2800+ Mp processors
2gb ECC Registered ddr-400 cas 2 Kingston Hyperx ram (ecc is off)
3DFX VOODOO 5 5500, stock settings, aftermarket coolers.
Creative Soundblaster Audigy 2
100gb hard drive + 20gb "windows drive"
gigabit ethernet

I mostly play Diablo 2 and Quake 3 based games. I LOVE ST:VOY elite force. 😁

Next system I'm building is a Dual pentium pro system. There are a lot of things still in limbo with this system. For starters, its not powerful enough to run a pair of voodoo2's, but kinda overkill for late dos/early windows games. i.e. starcraft, diablo, carmageddon. My big holdup is a proper case. The daughercard gets in the way of the hard drive cage on EVERY case I've tried. Anyway specs are as follows:

Asus P/I-P65UP5 with C-P6ND daughtercard
2x 200mhz Pentium pro processors (@ 233mhz) with 1MB cache each
512MB BEDO ram
3D Labs Permedia 2 video card (for 2d)
2x 12mb voodoo2 video cards (for 3d)
Creative Soundblaster AWE64 Gold

Last but not least is my recently finished Dos gamer
AMD 80386DX-40
Cyrix Fastmath coprocessor
32mb 60ns ram
256kb cache
Orchid Prodesigner IIs (ET4000AX chipset) 1MB ram
Soundblaster CT3600 with 2MB ram
3com 10mb Ethernet
6.4GB IDE Hard drive with Lite-on 40x CD
StarTrek phasor mouse 😁

People say that math co-processors really aren't used but I have found that Sim city does. If anyone has any ideas of how to benchmark this, my ears are open.

Tetrium wrote:

Specs? :D […]
Show full quote

keropi wrote:

here are my 2 machines that I use: […]
Show full quote

here are my 2 machines that I use:

1. Tualatin 1.4ghz pIII with voodoo5 and sblive :

-snip-

2. p200mmx with a riva128ZX , sb16+db50xg and a LAPC-I :

-snap-

Specs? 😁

Btw, I like both those cases!
I like ATX cases with room for a 12cm case fan and the AT case looks neat and clean 😉

😁
yeah the cases are nice (I also like the babyAT one, it is clean!) and the vento case was needed as well as a copper heatsink for the 1.4ghz p3, it was just too hot! (if you remember my other thread 🤣)

as for the specs, well not much to say, the tualatin pc has an ASUS TUSL-2C mobo, 256MB 133mhz ram, voodoo5500/agp , sblive + io backplate , a 100mbps nic and 2 hdd's: one 220GB and the other 80GB... It is running rock-steady winME and is used for 9x gaming 😊

the p200mmx machine has a via-based mobo (can't remember model/make but it has a ps2 mouseport, atx psu support and can recognize hdd's up to 128GB , I think it is MVP-3 based) , 64MB SDRAM, an ELSA AGP riva128zx card , your standard non-pnp non-hanging-notes SB16 with the DB50XG and the mandatory LAPC-I... with a 20GB HDD that runs my special DOS7 ripped from win98SE so I have one huge fat32 partition 😊

I almost forgot, I also have there an ALi-based USB2 pci card with a dos usb-stack for quink'n'easy transfers....

luckybob wrote:

Finally got some pictures up. they dont look great, but I'll re-take them again soon. […]
Show full quote

Finally got some pictures up. they dont look great, but I'll re-take them again soon.

3DFX monster rig:

MSI master L Dual socket A motherboard
2x AMD 2800+ Mp processors
2gb ECC Registered ddr-400 cas 2 Kingston Hyperx ram (ecc is off)
3DFX VOODOO 5 5500, stock settings, aftermarket coolers.
Creative Soundblaster Audigy 2
100gb hard drive + 20gb "windows drive"
gigabit ethernet

-snip-

I mostly play Diablo 2 and Quake 3 based games. I LOVE ST:VOY elite force. 😁

Next system I'm building is a Dual pentium pro system. There are a lot of things still in limbo with this system. For starters, its not powerful enough to run a pair of voodoo2's, but kinda overkill for late dos/early windows games. i.e. starcraft, diablo, carmageddon. My big holdup is a proper case. The daughercard gets in the way of the hard drive cage on EVERY case I've tried. Anyway specs are as follows:

Asus P/I-P65UP5 with C-P6ND daughtercard
2x 200mhz Pentium pro processors (@ 233mhz) with 1MB cache each
512MB BEDO ram
3D Labs Permedia 2 video card (for 2d)
2x 12mb voodoo2 video cards (for 3d)
Creative Soundblaster AWE64 Gold

-snap-

Last but not least is my recently finished Dos gamer
AMD 80386DX-40
Cyrix Fastmath coprocessor
32mb 60ns ram
256kb cache
Orchid Prodesigner IIs (ET4000AX chipset) 1MB ram
Soundblaster CT3600 with 2MB ram
3com 10mb Ethernet
6.4GB IDE Hard drive with Lite-on 40x CD
StarTrek phasor mouse 😁

-snup-

People say that math co-processors really aren't used but I have found that Sim city does. If anyone has any ideas of how to benchmark this, my ears are open.

Dual powa!!

I still have a dual slot1 board laying around (supports only Katmai) and actually have 2 identical Katmai 600's installed but as the CPU's weren't correctly recognized (and I kinda hate the server case it came with) I never actually build a rig around it. Another thing is that I'd need to install some form of NT, which imo is a bit too much for anything that's sub-gig.
Still very nice you build yourself a complete dual CPU system 😉

I love your maxed out 386! 😉
I like it when AT systems look so clean, almost as if they came out of a shop just yesterday 😁
And a nice touch is the "40" in the led display thingy in the front 😜

I find this thread very nice to read, even makes me pick up my camera again! 😀
I'll post a couple more of my rigs later. Just beware...there is a story attached to every single one of them 😜

Tetrium wrote:

Dual powa!! […]
Show full quote

Dual powa!!

I still have a dual slot1 board laying around (supports only Katmai) and actually have 2 identical Katmai 600's installed but as the CPU's weren't correctly recognized (and I kinda hate the server case it came with) I never actually build a rig around it. Another thing is that I'd need to install some form of NT, which imo is a bit too much for anything that's sub-gig.
Still very nice you build yourself a complete dual CPU system 😉

I love your maxed out 386! 😉
I like it when AT systems look so clean, almost as if they came out of a shop just yesterday 😁
And a nice touch is the "40" in the led display thingy in the front 😜

I find this thread very nice to read, even makes me pick up my camera again! 😀
I'll post a couple more of my rigs later. Just beware...there is a story attached to every single one of them 😜

Oh you have NO idea. These are just complete SETUPS that I have PLANS for. I also have:

Asus P2B-DS (one day will be a dual tualatin)
Asus XG-DLS I need to get some case fans so it stops overheating.
Tyan S1686DL (dual p-pro OR slot 1 douchett p2's)
Tyan S1590 (real nice super 7)
Asus P2B-D (I have this setup as a socket 7 testbed, but thats going to change)

I REALLY would like to pickup a Tyan S2688. Dual tualatin, 66mhz/64bit pci, and DUAL CHANNEL Sdram. That or an Asus TRL-DLS which is the same thing.

So i have a "thing" for dual-cpu setups. Sue me.

luckybob wrote:

So i have a "thing" for dual-cpu setups. Sue me.

Nah! I'd rather hug you 🤣 😜

Keep up the good work! 😁

Btw, what OS's do you use on your rigs? 9x isn't made for Dual CPU's

I have both NT and 2000 so i'm covered. 2000 was probably my favorite OS. I used NT a lot in school so I know its quirks well.

luckybob, is your 386 a contaq chipset-based mobo? I bought mine from "weird stuff", on ebay. I think the manual mentions something about 80ns SIMMs, so it's possible that your ultra fast 60ns SIMMs may not be used to the fullest.

Also, you've got the same ISA Siig EIDE controller as me. I like it. Also, I notice that the barrel battery is still on the mobo. Any charge left in it? There was a bit in mine, but it soon went. I found a 3 AA battery pack works well.

Tetrium wrote:

I'll post a couple more of my rigs later. Just beware...there is a story attached to every single one of them 😜

Please do, and don't spare us any detail. It's the stories that make the thread interesting. Without which, it'll just be a collection of pictures of outdated electronic appliances.

Nice Asus P/I-P65UP5 with C-P6ND daughtercard.

I had an almost identical setup, but I couldn't get my matching PPro 200-1MB chips to work in the damn thing. I had the lastest BIOS as well. I think my board revision just didn't support them. I played with the thing for weeks, and just couldn't get it to boot. So I just gave up and sold off the parts.

retro games 100 wrote:

luckybob, is your 386 a contaq chipset-based mobo? I bought mine from "weird stuff", on ebay. I think the manual mentions something about 80ns SIMMs, so it's possible that your ultra fast 60ns SIMMs may not be used to the fullest.

Also, you've got the same ISA Siig EIDE controller as me. I like it. Also, I notice that the barrel battery is still on the mobo. Any charge left in it? There was a bit in mine, but it soon went. I found a 3 AA battery pack works well.

It sure is! As for the ram, I have all the timings as tight as possible and it performs VERY well, so I really dont want to screw with it. Its a rechargeable battery, and it still works. When I first got it, It would only hold a charge for a few hours, now its up to a few days. I have an external battery if I need it but I hope I dont. As for my IDE card, it is FAST. I was considering using scsi, as I have a few 10gb 10,000rpm drives laying around but the noise factor killed that idea.

Anonymous Coward wrote:

Nice Asus P/I-P65UP5 with C-P6ND daughtercard.

I had an almost identical setup, but I couldn't get my matching PPro 200-1MB chips to work in the damn thing. I had the lastest BIOS as well. I think my board revision just didn't support them. I played with the thing for weeks, and just couldn't get it to boot. So I just gave up and sold off the parts.

I just bought a 2nd setup from a guy that claimed he could get it to work, it was just real slow. His cards were revision 1.2/1.1 and mine are 1.41/1.2 I guess thats why mine works so well. His works too, I tested it the other night. I just wish I could find a damn case for it. http://www.hardwareluxx.de/community/f204/zei … ml#post12781388

That thread shows the same motherboard but with the socket 7 daughtercard. Same problem I have, its just the heatsinks are farther apart and bigger... I'll eventually find a case, its just annoying.

I notice that IDE card is an 'Enhanced" one, which is a moniker I'm not used to seeing on ISA cards... does it offer anything other than large drive support, like faster speed modes or anything? I always thought ISA IDE cards were all pretty much the same basic PIO0 deals, I've never heard anyone call one "fast" before.

I'm not sure if this comment is relevant or significant but - the manual for that Siig 16-bit ISA EIDE controller says its secondary IDE connector is ATAPI compliant. I tested this, and it works.

Pics??? How's about an entire web page dedicated to my old retro-rig <grin> -> http://www.cmoo.com/snor/weeds/Weeds_486DX4-100.htm 😀

Unfortunately, I broke that machine down late last year... simply not enough room for it in my old shack out in the woods.

Rich those photos make it feel like 1992-5 again !!!! 🤣 🤣