ODwilly wrote:

Make sure to pop the powersupply open for bad caps!

Newegg has a cheap EVGA 450 watt for $20 I may get.. I should just need a molex to floppy connector and it will fit the black aesthetic of the case. Cheap new supply can't be any worse than old full of dust 20 year old garage power supply, If it was an AT I would want to repair it.

So I can buy any PCI USB 2.0 card and it will work on Win 98 SE? Are drivers contained on the install CD? Or will I need to find a specific card that has drivers?

kanecvr wrote:

1. There are. I can't recommend an exact model, you'll have to scower add sites or aliexpress for them. […]
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1. There are. I can't recommend an exact model, you'll have to scower add sites or aliexpress for them.

2. This is down to your personal preference of course, but I wouldn't bother - too much work and kind of ruins the look of the PC - audio front panels are more of a 2000-2005 PC thing. An easy and cheap solution would be a simple jack extender.

3. Definitely the AGP Voodoo 3. Fast enough for most games the CPU can run, glide, and great DOS performance / compatibility. Alternatively you could go for the S3 AGP card (or a RIVA TNT2) + Voodoo 2 or Voodoo 2 SLi but that might be a more expensive solution.

4. CPU: It really depends on what you want to run on it. As a 440bx machine, I think the 650 is a perfect fit. It will comfortably run most games up to year 2000 with a few exceptions. A faster CPU will only extend performance to running a few more titles, but not enough to warrant an upgrade - and will interfere with the machine's ability to properly run some DOS games. If you feel the need to run later titles, go for a socket 370 machine with a 1100MHz PIII or (preferably) a 1400MHz Tualatin - even better a socket A rig. The latter will allow you to run titles up to 2004 but will break compatibility with most DOS games.

I'd say keep the CPU and build around it.

2. I tend to agree with the front panel bay like the Audigy 2 ZS, I never even liked those at the time. I'm just going to pop out the headphone jack and replace it with a male to female line running straight to a splitter on the sound card. Maybe I'll eventually find a time period proper case for this machine anyway, but for now I'm trying to save up my chips to get a 486 running.

3. Since I'm bargain hunting, are there any OEM Voodoo 3 cards I can look for? I remember I had a pre-built machine with an unmarked 3dfx card.. Can't remember much about it but I'd guess those would be cheaper and under the radar.

I'll stay with the 650 then, it seems snappy enough for me as it is, plus the heat-sink is passively cooled and I only have some modern 120mm fans in the case. Only noise it makes is the drive spinning up 😎

Well, any voodoo 3 card will do. I don't know about OEM stuff as the only OEM voodoo cards I've ever seen were out of Compaq machines - 3DFX Velocity if I'm not mistaking - basically a crippled Voodoo 3.

Hop on over to amibay ( http://www.amibay.com/forumdisplay.php?13-Hardware-for-sale ) and check for V3 cards on the sales thread. There should be some for sale, and cheaper then ebay.

Erghhh so much good stuff on that website.. Too bad I'm in the US, I see no US based sales. I need an AT case too but the shipping would be murder :\.

Where do people in North America buy and sell this stuff?

Iv been happy with the 430watt Evga's for budget/low-end machines. The new EVGA supplies seem to be the sweet spot for build quality and price. Although if you want to save a few bucks the original PSU should work no problem as long as the caps haven't bulged.

For example iv got a pair of mid 90's AT supplies with hardly any hours on them, that are full of burst fuhjuus. while another one was in service from a 386 all the way into a late P3 as a daily driver into 2006ish. Its full of Chemicon and Rubycons. . .so it's still kicken!

Bello, you can add a cheapo PCI USB 2.0 card. I use one on every build. You will get 2.0 USB speeds. I use a cheap ALi-based chipset one. In ME the driver is ready to go, in 98 or 2000 It must be installed. If you need it, PM me

Ampera wrote:

The CT3670 models are what I use. They are basically the AWE64 EMU on an AWE32 card. It doesn't have a wavetable header, but makes up for it with brilliant onboard MIDI out of the box.

Does it sound different from stock AWE32 in MIDI games? I have a CT3670, but never bothered to try it.

I've never used a stock AWE32, however from listening to the AWE32 Clint used in his 486, if that's how they all sound then the CT3670 sounds better.

Even still, they sound great, here's a sample of Passport.MID off my 486 machine

(WARNING: This is a .WAV file, it is large for some people on metered or slow connections (44.7MB))

https://www.dropbox.com/s/tzwb0hhbyv8i6gf/Pas … tAWE32.wav?dl=0

Here is the OPL3 MIDI emulation:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/xmljmgob91gped3/Pas … ortOPL.wav?dl=0

Again, a large file.

I'd offer better examples, but it's a pain in the ass to record sound from my 486 (I have to unplug it, carry all the peripherals over to another desk, hook it all up, boot it, play the thing, and record it on another computer)

ODwilly wrote:

Iv been happy with the 430watt Evga's for budget/low-end machines. The new EVGA supplies seem to be the sweet spot for build quality and price. Although if you want to save a few bucks the original PSU should work no problem as long as the caps haven't bulged.

For example iv got a pair of mid 90's AT supplies with hardly any hours on them, that are full of burst fuhjuus. while another one was in service from a 386 all the way into a late P3 as a daily driver into 2006ish. Its full of Chemicon and Rubycons. . .so it's still kicken!

I figured as much. I'm generally very picky about power supplies and look for high JG test scores, but for a system that will probably never pull over 100 watts who cares.. I ordered the $20 PSU to have but sadly the PSU isn't the problem. I borrowed another and she's still crashing 😎

jcarvalho wrote:

Bello, you can add a cheapo PCI USB 2.0 card. I use one on every build. You will get 2.0 USB speeds. I use a cheap ALi-based chipset one. In ME the driver is ready to go, in 98 or 2000 It must be installed. If you need it, PM me

How about Dynex DX-2P2C. Quick google searches say its win98 SE compatible but I can't find drivers labeled for Win98. I can keep searching for others but I'm just looking at cheap stuff.. This one would be $5 USD after shipping.

What is the dynex Chipset? I pay for each card about 2-3 euros Free shipping on eBay. On local flea market, about 1 Euro. What It matters is the Chipset only... I only know 2.
. Via orl Ali... Both work with generic drivers downloaded from oficial site.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/BRAND-NEW-Belkin-3-Po … dEAAOSwZ8ZW7HgV I recommend these Belkin usb 2.0 cards. They use an NEC chipset that is very compatible and stable. I have used the 4 port version of this card in 98 before.

If you choose to use the jack extender, this opens you to a wider variety of sound cards. One of my favorite is the YMF7x4 cards (I've got 2 724 and 2 744). These are PCI card are excellent in my opinion. They have the same compatibility as ISA cards when you connect them to the sb_link connector of the motherboard (I've never seen an i440BX motherboard without them) they have a nice XG synth under windows and they include a real OPL3 that you can use whenever you want under windows and MS-DOS. They also feature nice little things (spdif, etc).

Also, this is more a matter of tastes I guess, but for file transfering, I prefer using the network rather than USB. The problem is that it may be a little harder to set up however it can work on almost any PC in existence, I'm about to have file sharing working on my 8088 ^^. Also, the network support on older OSes is munch better than USB support. Obviously it also allows you to play with a friend in multiplayer games if you want to

ODwilly wrote:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/BRAND-NEW-Belkin-3-Po … dEAAOSwZ8ZW7HgV I recommend these Belkin usb 2.0 cards. They use an NEC chipset that is very compatible and stable. I have used the 4 port version of this card in 98 before.

That's actually not bad. I'll look around later, but for my Pentium Pro, and even USB 1.1 P3 build, that looks good.

Deksor wrote:

If you choose to use the jack extender, this opens you to a wider variety of sound cards. One of my favorite is the YMF7x4 cards (I've got 2 724 and 2 744). These are PCI card are excellent in my opinion. They have the same compatibility as ISA cards when you connect them to the sb_link connector of the motherboard (I've never seen an i440BX motherboard without them) they have a nice XG synth under windows and they include a real OPL3 that you can use whenever you want under windows and MS-DOS. They also feature nice little things (spdif, etc).

^This^ I love Yamaha DS-XG (ymf7x4) cards.

Ampera wrote:

That's actually not bad. I'll look around later, but for my Pentium Pro, and even USB 1.1 P3 build, that looks good.

The best part is that it worked on an AT Socket 7 Intel 430tx chip set board with no issues.

Deksor wrote:

If you choose to use the jack extender, this opens you to a wider variety of sound cards. One of my favorite is the YMF7x4 cards (I've got 2 724 and 2 744). These are PCI card are excellent in my opinion. They have the same compatibility as ISA cards when you connect them to the sb_link connector of the motherboard (I've never seen an i440BX motherboard without them) they have a nice XG synth under windows and they include a real OPL3 that you can use whenever you want under windows and MS-DOS. They also feature nice little things (spdif, etc).

Also, this is more a matter of tastes I guess, but for file transfering, I prefer using the network rather than USB. The problem is that it may be a little harder to set up however it can work on almost any PC in existence, I'm about to have file sharing working on my 8088 ^^. Also, the network support on older OSes is munch better than USB support. Obviously it also allows you to play with a friend in multiplayer games if you want to

I went with extending the jack right into the front panel so that's taken care of.

I'm looking around for yamaha YM7x4 cards but they seem to all be very expensive or overseas. I guess these cards didn't have much of a run in North America? Strange because I clearly remember that being integrated on higher end boards circa late 90s - 00.

Networking card is coming in the mail.. In my experience windows 98 detects samba shares (linux) effortlessly so I'll be able to do network transfers. I got a 10/100 card which I figure ~12 megabytes per second is more than enough for these old drives. I'm sure it will be annoying to get it to see my windows 10 machine 😵

ODwilly wrote:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/BRAND-NEW-Belkin-3-Po … dEAAOSwZ8ZW7HgV I recommend these Belkin usb 2.0 cards. They use an NEC chipset that is very compatible and stable. I have used the 4 port version of this card in 98 before.

That card says 2 external 1 internal. Is that 1 internal a USB header or just another usb port? I'm very tempted to buy but I'd really like something with a header if possible so I can use the front ports since this machine will be tucked in under a desk

BeginnerGuy wrote:

I'm looking around for yamaha YM7x4 cards but they seem to all be very expensive or overseas. I guess these cards didn't have much of a run in North America? Strange because I clearly remember that being integrated on higher end boards circa late 90s - 00.

Networking card is coming in the mail.. In my experience windows 98 detects samba shares (linux) effortlessly so I'll be able to do network transfers. I got a 10/100 card which I figure ~12 megabytes per second is more than enough for these old drives. I'm sure it will be annoying to get it to see my windows 10 machine 😵

Oh I didn't knew it became expensive. In my experience (at least here in europe), they're not that rare (I bought all 4 at different places locally)

I can confirm that samba shares are working perfectly with Windows 9x (and even MS-DOS in fact ! thought the names not in 8.3 form are completely messed up under DOS for some reason : instead of having "This is some stuff" becoming "THISISS~1", it becames something like "KGRHUS~H"). You may need to tweak a little bit, but it's not that bad (IIRC I only needed to change one or two parameters and then it worked). In fact, instead of messing up the way shares work on my Windows 7 machine, I decided to take a Raspberry Pi and use it as a tiny NAS. That way, I can access it from any modern computers (or even my phone which I use frequently because my retro PCs aren't in the same room as my main PC). I even made a boot server out of that raspberry pi, that way I can install windows 98 without needing any physical media (Though this might be a little more complicated to do ^^)

Deksor wrote:

BeginnerGuy wrote:

I'm looking around for yamaha YM7x4 cards but they seem to all be very expensive or overseas. I guess these cards didn't have much of a run in North America? Strange because I clearly remember that being integrated on higher end boards circa late 90s - 00.

Networking card is coming in the mail.. In my experience windows 98 detects samba shares (linux) effortlessly so I'll be able to do network transfers. I got a 10/100 card which I figure ~12 megabytes per second is more than enough for these old drives. I'm sure it will be annoying to get it to see my windows 10 machine 😵

Oh I didn't knew it became expensive. In my experience (at least here in europe), they're not that rare (I bought all 4 at different places locally)

I can confirm that samba shares are working perfectly with Windows 9x (and even MS-DOS in fact ! thought the names not in 8.3 form are completely messed up under DOS for some reason : instead of having "This is some stuff" becoming "THISISS~1", it becames something like "KGRHUS~H"). You may need to tweak a little bit, but it's not that bad (IIRC I only needed to change one or two parameters and then it worked). In fact, instead of messing up the way shares work on my Windows 7 machine, I decided to take a Raspberry Pi and use it as a tiny NAS. That way, I can access it from any modern computers (or even my phone which I use frequently because my retro PCs aren't in the same room as my main PC). I even made a boot server out of that raspberry pi, that way I can install windows 98 without needing any physical media (Though this might be a little more complicated to do ^^)

Good to know samba shares work. My main storage system home is a Linux box for this very reason.. Takes almost no effort for any windows OS to find and access.

Hmm I do intend to get a 486 machine running once I have all of the parts so I'll probably be bugging you about your fix for that in due time.

Does the raspberry pi work as a usb boot device or did you use DHCP or PCX or something similar network boot over LAN ? Just curious.. I've never actually seen a pi but I'd like to have one 😎

I used PXE booting. My network cards have a boot rom that allow them to boot from the network. The raspberry pi has a few floppy images that I made myself with DOS 6.22 and 7.1 that can connect to the share. Next on the share I unpacked the ISO image of windows 98SE and all I need to do next is to go to the directory with the unpacked windows 98 files and execute "install" ^^.

Though this will only work if your network card is installed by 98SE during the installation, otherwise after the first reboot, it won't be able to reconnect to the share and so it will be "lost" ... When you're in that case though you can just copy every file of the unpacked windows 98 on your HDD and then start the installation from there and it would be fine.

Lol now that is awesome. If I ever start a retro computer awesome people company I'll be sure to hire you for IT for modern roll-outs on ancient hardware.

I have to get me one of them pis