PC100 BXcel board - is it worth it?

Posted on 2018-03-28, 03:11

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by SpaceCowboy87

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I came across some old hardware recently and would like to know if its possible to build an MS-DOS system with it. The board is a PC100 BXcel mATX board and was found with a P2 350 and Quantum Bigfoot TS IDE drive. No idea if any of it works or where to start troubleshooting since the board did not …

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Will PC Chips M863G motherboard work for Windows 98 build?

Posted on 2017-09-11, 23:42

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by SpaceCowboy87

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I found this PC on the curb about a month ago. It fired right up with a perfectly good install of windows XP so everything worked! :happy: Since this is a single core socket A Athlon XP I was wondering if it would be a good platform for a Windows 98 build? PC Chips is no longer around so finding …

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Re: Retro Rig Photo Thread

Posted on 2017-05-16, 11:43

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by SpaceCowboy87

in Marvin \ System Specs

in Marvin \ System Specs

Pentium D @ 3.0ghz Asus P5ND2-SLI motherboard 2GB Kingston DDR2 SDRAM 120GB WD Scorpio HDD Philips DVD ROM Drive Bestec 300W PSU Unknown generic Atx case Those empty bays bother me too 🤣 I'd like to fill that gap with a 120 fan somehow.

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Re: Retro Rig Photo Thread

Posted on 2017-05-15, 20:19

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by SpaceCowboy87

in Marvin \ System Specs

in Marvin \ System Specs

Just finished putting this together today. Had an old 775 board laying around with ram and a Pentium D. All I needed was an atx case which I found yesterday on the curb in the rain. I cleaned all the grime off :dead: took apart the case, washed it and dried it overnight. Today I started fitting …

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Re: Found Old Optiplex 740 Small Form Factor

Posted on 2016-08-28, 07:13

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by SpaceCowboy87

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

There isn't much space in that case for any additional fans. I'm gonna order a 3.5 to 2.5 inch bracket to accommodate an SSD where the floppy disk was and eventually a slim CD drive, I still like having the ability to burn a CD. Since the case was found missing its HDD caddy it has a good amount of …

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Re: Optiplex from my office

Posted on 2016-08-28, 06:57

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by SpaceCowboy87

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I ended up ordering a couple of used Core 2 Duo e8600's to replace the C2D E4500 in the Opti 330 and Dual Core E2200 in the 360. The Core 2 Quads seemed like a good choice but they're rated at higher TDP (95W I believe) and I wouldn't wanna push the heat on Dell boards, also they're not cheap at …

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Re: Optiplex from my office

Posted on 2016-08-24, 17:15

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by SpaceCowboy87

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Boss had me take out the hard drives and destroy them. I explained I could just format them but he insisted on physical destruction since he has no idea how technology works and he's super paranoid. Ssd drives would be cool but would they work on Windows XP? I could always use Windows 7 as well but …

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Re: Optiplex from my office

Posted on 2016-08-24, 16:37

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by SpaceCowboy87

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I would use them for playing games from early 2000's. They would def need discrete graphics maybe GT 730 2Gb cards, perhaps even 750 but would that be bottle-necked by the older CPUs? Other than that i would upgrade fans and possibly the PSU if needed as well as getting new HDDs.

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Optiplex from my office

Posted on 2016-08-24, 16:23

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by SpaceCowboy87

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

My boss recently wanted to clear some office space (great movie) and decided to trash some old pcs that have been laying around for a while. I managed to rescue three that caught my eye. An Optiplex 330 (desktop) with a Core 2 Duo E4500 2.2Ghz, an Optiplex 360 mini tower with Pentium Dual-Core E2200 …

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Re: Found Old Optiplex 740 Small Form Factor

Posted on 2016-08-24, 15:44

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by SpaceCowboy87

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Ill take a closer look. The PSU is also missing. My biggest concern is heat dissipation in such a small case. Don't know if i should opt for a GPU with passive heatsink or at least a small fan

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Found Old Optiplex 740 Small Form Factor

Posted on 2016-08-24, 15:28

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by SpaceCowboy87

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

So I came across an old 740 sff at my local pc repair shop. I always thought these were cool because of their small size. The pc is missing its optical drive and hdd. aside from that it seems to be in good shape. Id like to drop a low-profile gpu and use it for moderate gaming (early 2000's). It …

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Re: Building an XP gaming computer

Posted on 2016-03-30, 18:56

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by SpaceCowboy87

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Its the sweet spot, I considered a socket AM3+ since most of those motherboards still offer drivers for XP but I had a feeling an Intel setup would run cooler and more efficient. Nothing against AMD processors I love them but Intel takes the win in this case. Now its just a matter of getting the …

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Re: Building an XP gaming computer

Posted on 2016-03-30, 18:21

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by SpaceCowboy87

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I'm thinking of getting an all new board and CPU for this project, considering an Intel Core 2 Duo E8600 Wolfdale Dual-Core 3.33 paired with a GIGABYTE GA-G41MT and 4GB of Ram. Using a dual-core chip should run high frame rates if paired with the right card. Any thoughts?

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Re: Building an XP gaming computer

Posted on 2016-03-23, 01:30

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by SpaceCowboy87

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Thanks a lot for the advice. I really like you're XP build videos, they inspired me to put something together. I know the FX is the best upgrade for that socket, they're just hard to find even used. Im even considering building an AMD FM2+ based modern platform with DDR3 to run XP for the best …

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Re: Building an XP gaming computer

Posted on 2016-03-22, 21:38

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by SpaceCowboy87

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I also have an Asus A8N-SLi SE socket 939 mobo with an Athlon 64 3400+ and 4gb of RAM. It's a full atx and can hold 2 PCIe gpu's. Whats the fastest combination of cards I could use in SLI with this setup for the best frame rate on F.E.A.R.?

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Re: Building an XP gaming computer

Posted on 2016-03-17, 14:22

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by SpaceCowboy87

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Well the point of this build is to use a mobo I already have, the Stingray can take up to 3.2Ghz P4 so it should be interesting to see what the system can do with 3.2Ghz once I get one With that CPU and a 6800GT you're looking at around 60 fps in F.E.A.R. at medium details and 1024 x 768 resolution …

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Re: Building an XP gaming computer

Posted on 2016-03-17, 13:29

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by SpaceCowboy87

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

If the aim is XP games, like the title says, then you need faster than P4. And videocards like GF6xxx are good for support of Win9x, but are not best choice for XP. For XP specific machine you need to look at recommended hardware for games in 2009 year or later. Well the point of this build is to …

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Re: Building an XP gaming computer

Posted on 2016-03-17, 01:23

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by SpaceCowboy87

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I'll start searching and see what I can find. Would a sata CD/drive and ssd drive be a worthy upgrade as well? Im sure boot-up would be faster with a ssd but are they compatible with old hardware or would that just be overkill?

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Re: Building an XP gaming computer

Posted on 2016-03-16, 23:52

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by SpaceCowboy87

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I'm considering getting a whole new case for it with sufficient airflow. As well as the best P4 CPU that mobo can take. FEAR recommends around 3ghz so I wanted to find the best CPU that could perform at 3ghz or higher.

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Re: Building an XP gaming computer

Posted on 2016-03-16, 23:39

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by SpaceCowboy87

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Awesome! Theres hope. I wasn't sure if I should abandon the idea of using that mobo or try to use an Asus A8N-SLi SE I have sitting around

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