Re: The quest for an affordable (and possibly cheap) SFF retro PC! (DOS up to Win98)

Posted on 2021-03-07, 23:06

by

by WildW

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Since you said any thoughts are welcomed, I think you're going about it all wrong. Get a desktop ATX case - supports any full size motherboard, and doesn't take up any space because it's under your CRT monitor that you were going to have anyway. Your other option are Shuttle PCs, which are not quite …

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Re: I've created a (Dual Xeon) monster and it's alive

Posted on 2020-05-24, 15:46

by

by WildW

in Marvin \ System Specs

in Marvin \ System Specs

I'm jealous because you built my old system from 2004. I had dual 3.0 Nocona Xeons, I don't remember having heat problems though, but different heatsinks that were so loud I kept the PC in a different room and used long cables. Here's a terrible vintage picture. I loved that machine. . . in many …

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Re: Voodoo3 2000 AGP on ASRock K7VT2 - compatible?

Posted on 2020-05-23, 11:06

by

by WildW

in Marvin \ Video

in Marvin \ Video

Hmm. . .1x works. . . actually now I find 2x works. However, it is still beeping bad video card on every bootup, it just also then POSTs correctly, boots to Windows, drivers install, about to try something in Glide mode. I wonder if it is complaining about a bad 5V rail or something, I don't exactly …

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Re: Voodoo3 2000 AGP on ASRock K7VT2 - compatible?

Posted on 2020-05-23, 10:37

by

by WildW

in Marvin \ Video

in Marvin \ Video

Interesting . . . I have not tried AGP 1x, I could do that now that the Radeon is back in the machine. However. . . the Voodoo3 is supposed to be a 2X card according to everything I read (even if the speed isn't needed), and shouldn't the motherboard detect the type required and switch automatically …

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Voodoo3 2000 AGP on ASRock K7VT2 - compatible?

Posted on 2020-05-23, 10:15

by

by WildW

in Marvin \ Video

in Marvin \ Video

Hi folks - so I'm messing with hardware for no particularly good reason and ran into some issues. I have a Voodoo3 2000 AGP, known good and currently working in a Pentium 3 BX motherboard without issues. I also have a known good ASRock K7VT2 motherboard (socket A, VIA KT266A chipset - https://www. …

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Re: What retro activity did you get up to today?

Posted on 2020-05-20, 13:13

by

by WildW

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Swapped out the E5200 Pentium Dual Core in my XP box for a full-fat E8400. . . they cost pennies now. Currently doing some old-school overclocking on the cheapest motherboard (G31M-ES2L) because I could never afford to be in the 4GHz club back in those days - maybe today.

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Re: Favourite 1996 games?

Posted on 2020-05-19, 14:16

by

by WildW

in Windows

in Windows

Master of Orion 2. Still playing it to this day.

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Re: My Completed Retro XP Build

Posted on 2020-05-17, 06:50

by

by WildW

in Marvin \ System Specs

in Marvin \ System Specs

Regarding 1440p monitors via HDMI - I've run into similar issues. After experimenting with a few different video cards, as well as HDMI or DVI-to-HDMI cables, I believe the problem is the Nvidia drivers for XP just won't drive 1440p over HDMI. The same computer and same video card + monitor + cable …

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What would be the most compatible Windows XP computer?

Posted on 2020-05-15, 10:05

by

by WildW

in Marvin \ Software

in Marvin \ Software

I recently encountered some problems with Sid Meier's Railroads, a game from 2006 which I guess puts it in the XP era. It crashes to desktop quite a lot on more modern computers. I found a patch that cured the issue, and the notes with it claim it is required for any computer with more than 3GB of …

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Re: What game are you playing now?

Posted on 2020-05-03, 06:33

by

by WildW

in Milliways

in Milliways

After recently burning out a bit on Transport Tycoon Deluxe, I just discovered and fell in love with Sid Meier's Railroads which is much more like a boardgame if anything. I've not found a Firaxis game yet that isn't great.

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Custom BIOS Splash Screen Graphics

Posted on 2020-05-01, 09:40

by

by WildW

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Many years ago I had a motherboard that let me replace the splash-screen graphic displayed during POST - the board came with a utility on it's driver CD to let you import an image and write it into flash. The board was an ECS KV2-Extreme (socket 939). It's the only time I've ever seen this feature. …

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Re: what hardware were you using in 1999?

Posted on 2020-04-14, 14:15

by

by WildW

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

For most of the year I was using an IDT Winchip 240MHz with 32MB ram and 4MB ATI Rage Pro. It crashed a lot. I wish I still had it, but I'm not sure why I wish that. It was basically our old 1995 Pentium 75 machine with the CPU and video card upgraded, and it never felt fast. I turned 21 later that …

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Re: Pentium III + Windows 98, Slow network transfers

Posted on 2020-04-08, 10:59

by

by WildW

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I get about 7 0r 8 mb/sec using the onboard Marvel on my A8V. It's meant to be a Gigabit controller but only works at 100 on 9x. See if you have an option for "Delay Transaction" in the bios. If so, then enable it. No, nothing like that in either machine's BIOS. The P3 in particular is pretty basic …

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Re: Pentium III + Windows 98, Slow network transfers

Posted on 2020-04-08, 10:36

by

by WildW

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Not sure why I didn't think of this before, but I tried repeating the same test on my overkill Windows 98 machine which has a faster hard disk and Athlon 64 CPU. It was able to pull 3MB per second over the network, which isn't a whole lot better. I'm willing to accept the "It's just Windows 98" …

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Re: Pentium III + Windows 98, Slow network transfers

Posted on 2020-04-08, 08:00

by

by WildW

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Hard disk has DMA checkbox enabled...I'm sure there used to be somewhere in Windows 98's Device Manager that would tell your the current UDMA or PIO mode on each drive, but I can't seem to find it now. The benchmark numbers do feel pretty slow, but I don't remember quite how fast drives were back …

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Pentium III + Windows 98, Slow network transfers

Posted on 2020-04-08, 07:27

by

by WildW

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Hi folks - I wonder if you have any advice for an odd issue. Pentium III 450MHz machine with Windows 98SE, 256MB ram, 80GB IDE hard disk and 3Com 3c905c-tx 10/100 PCI network card. I was copying files over to this PC from my modern machine and noticed that the transfers were really slow. Transfer of …

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Re: Struggling with Creative/Ensoniq AudioPCI

Posted on 2019-11-27, 09:35

by

by WildW

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

My apologies, but I was unable to find the drivers I've used in the past as I'm not using that card any more and apparently I didn't keep the drivers somewhere safe. I would echo the comments of others that the older Ensoniq drivers were the ones to go for - I'm sure that's what I used, and that …

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Re: Struggling with Creative/Ensoniq AudioPCI

Posted on 2019-11-26, 13:47

by

by WildW

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

I have one of these cards and have used it for real DOS without any problems. One of the issues I had trying to get it to work was that there seemed to be quite a few different versions of drivers claiming to support the card, but not all of them worked for me with my card (a pre-Creative card from …

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Re: Bring out your swag

Posted on 2019-11-22, 23:07

by

by WildW

in Milliways

in Milliways

Moooooo

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Re: Win98SE When is the hardware overkill?

Posted on 2019-07-03, 07:25

by

by WildW

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Just occurring to me rather late, the really nice benfit of Pentium 4 and Athlon 64 hardware is the ability to use a modern power supply without worrying about a weak 5V rail.

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