VOGONS


First post, by CarlHopkinsUK

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So after procrastinating over my skt370 build and not really settling on a new retro rig - i came across this listed on one of my regular recyclers site. Needless to say i pulled the trigger...

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And boy was i glad i did! Condition was excellent and even the inside was relatively clean. So as with all new/old purchases i began to tear it down and take a closer look.
Currently fitted is a Celeron 400mhz Slot 1, with 64mb of PC100 and not much else... I do love how well designed these are with each compartment swinging or sliding out for access.

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So out came a relatively basic LG CD-ROM, followed by a Quantum Travan tape drive - i have one of these new in box at work along with some tapes so i may give this a whirl....this will be refitted.

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Also a suspiciously small HDD, i suspect this is not the original as its dated 97.... wouldn't surprise me as recyclers tend to just throw anything in once it has been wiped (or nothing at all) - i have something better in mind however...

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Also pulled two strange ISA cards, which i have posted here - Unknown ISA card combo

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Reply 1 of 15, by CarlHopkinsUK

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So on the reverse of the removed HDD was this, can recall seeing anything like this before, but then again i have generally always had WD drives myself...

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After a quick clean and visual i started to throw her back together, installing a small collection of parts mostly carried over from my abandoned skt370. I am going to max the ram out with 2x sticks of 128mb SD-RAM, and install a larger 20gb HDD. I am also upgrading the IDE cables to ATA66 80way cables as i have them new anyway...

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I am also going to replace the generic LG drive with my lovely pristine 52x LG instead - this was my first highspeed CDROM way back going from a quad to this seemed awesome!

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Once we are up and running il also drop the Soundblaster Live! in, as this is primarily going to be a Win98 build, but i may drop in something more DOS friendly as i have ISA available now...

Oh and as they say, always have a responsible individual on hand to supervise!

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Reply 2 of 15, by PC Hoarder Patrol

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The Seagate SeaShield...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seagate_SeaShield

...was little more than a gimmick. I still have a few of the 20 / 30GB Barracuda ATA II drives with the same v1 as on your Medalist, plus some of the later U series drives with the v2 rubber one. Neither was really necessary (I've certainly never lost a 'bare' drive to improper handling) and in fact as the Wiki link implies, heat retention was a problem. I also found the v2 rubber shields tended to snag on certain case drive bays during insertion / removal.

Reply 3 of 15, by chinny22

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If you ask me slot 1 is cooler then 370 anyway, not that you did 😜
Any plans to upgrade the CPU? I'm not familiar with the motherboard but you should be safe to go as far as a P3 600 Katmai.
What Video card did it have? going off the other post if it was a voicemail server I'm guessing it's need an upgrade.

Reply 5 of 15, by RobertJ

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Love my G1. Nice save and great job.

8-bit Collection: 4 64Cs, 6 1541-IIs, 1 C128, 2 1571s, 1 C128DCR
Vintage DOS: Dell Optiplex G1, ATI Rage IIC, Sound Blaster CT4520, Thrustmaster FCS Mark II, Gravis PC GamePad
Monitor: Dell 20" 2007FPb

Reply 6 of 15, by CarlHopkinsUK

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PC Hoarder Patrol wrote:

The Seagate SeaShield...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seagate_SeaShield

...was little more than a gimmick. I still have a few of the 20 / 30GB Barracuda ATA II drives with the same v1 as on your Medalist, plus some of the later U series drives with the v2 rubber one. Neither was really necessary (I've certainly never lost a 'bare' drive to improper handling) and in fact as the Wiki link implies, heat retention was a problem. I also found the v2 rubber shields tended to snag on certain case drive bays during insertion / removal.

Ah now you mention it i think i recall seeing the rubber v2 one, and wondering what that was all about! Thanks for the link!

chinny22 wrote:

If you ask me slot 1 is cooler then 370 anyway, not that you did 😜
Any plans to upgrade the CPU? I'm not familiar with the motherboard but you should be safe to go as far as a P3 600 Katmai.
What Video card did it have? going off the other post if it was a voicemail server I'm guessing it's need an upgrade.

I have had a couple of slot ones over the years, and i love the cartridge aspect of the design. Although this is the only one i have been excited about to date!
I have a 700mhz Celeron skt370 chip still hanging around so i could go down the socklet route, i may also be able to pull a Pentium iii skt370 out of a machine at work before it goes back to the client... although i may just find a nice pii or piii slot one like you mention...
No video card (or much else for that matter!), has onboard ATI Rage iic with 2mb VRAM although i will want to get something shortly for it.

oeuvre wrote:

optiplex GX1s were the best Optiplexes Dell made. Nice condition!

RobertJ wrote:

Love my G1. Nice save and great job.

Thanks, yes im very pleased with it 😁 definitely a keeper!

Hopefully tonight i can get windows 98 buttoned up and the Live! installed...

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Reply 7 of 15, by chinny22

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CarlHopkinsUK wrote:

i may also be able to pull a Pentium iii skt370 out of a machine at work before it goes back to the client

Hang on what? Where do you work where someone wants a P3 back!?

Reply 9 of 15, by CarlHopkinsUK

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chinny22 wrote:
CarlHopkinsUK wrote:

i may also be able to pull a Pentium iii skt370 out of a machine at work before it goes back to the client

Hang on what? Where do you work where someone wants a P3 back!?

Lol, i had a Dell GX110 desktop come in a few weeks ago for data recovery after running pretty much24/7 since new (BMS Headend). Trying to save it from landfill but UK is wrapped up in GDPR fever at the moment so they will likely want it back just to throw away...however as it is not working i may be able to at least strip it for parts

oeuvre wrote:

are they hiring?

Yes, http://www.total-control.co.uk but that is one heck of a commute for you i would imagine!

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Reply 10 of 15, by CarlHopkinsUK

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Up and running, quick spec shot...

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Will get the Live! in and running then run some baseline benchmarks for fun, and dont forget the games!

What would everyones video card recommendation be? It has to be PCI as i dont have AGP, and i dont really want a 3Dfx (dont shoot me, but been there and done that back in the day with a Voodoo 3 2000 PCI).

Preferably i would like it to be period ish...but im flexible, say no later than 2002/2003, as i had moved onto Socket A by this point in my past.

Thanks!

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Reply 11 of 15, by KCompRoom2000

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PC Hoarder Patrol wrote:

The Seagate SeaShield...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seagate_SeaShield

...was little more than a gimmick. I still have a few of the 20 / 30GB Barracuda ATA II drives with the same v1 as on your Medalist, plus some of the later U series drives with the v2 rubber one. Neither was really necessary (I've certainly never lost a 'bare' drive to improper handling) and in fact as the Wiki link implies, heat retention was a problem. I also found the v2 rubber shields tended to snag on certain case drive bays during insertion / removal.

I have a few Seagate hard drives (ranging in capacities from 20GB to 80GB) with the metal SeaShield. I actually thought it was helpful in the sense that it reduced static electricity damage when placed on a carpet, sometimes there aren't enough tables to place things. 🤣

CarlHopkinsUK wrote:

What would everyones video card recommendation be? It has to be PCI as i dont have AGP, and i dont really want a 3Dfx (dont shoot me, but been there and done that back in the day with a Voodoo 3 2000 PCI).

Preferably i would like it to be period ish...but im flexible, say no later than 2002/2003, as i had moved onto Socket A by this point in my past.

Thanks!

For what this machine is (a 400MHz Celeron), my first choice on a PCI video card would be an nVidia Riva TNT2, there are other options I can suggest if a TNT2 is out of reach. My suggested maximum range (since you've said no later than 2002/03) would be either an nVidia Geforce 4MX or an ATi Radeon 9250 with 128-bit memory (that is, if DX3-5 paletted textures aren't important to you).

Reply 12 of 15, by oeuvre

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you can also update the bios to A07 (do not go any later) and toss in a slocket and go oeuvre 1GHz

HP Z420 Workstation Intel Xeon E5-1620, 32GB, RADEON HD7850 2GB, SSD + HD, XP/7
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Reply 13 of 15, by CarlHopkinsUK

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KCompRoom2000 wrote:

For what this machine is (a 400MHz Celeron), my first choice on a PCI video card would be an nVidia Riva TNT2, there are other options I can suggest if a TNT2 is out of reach. My suggested maximum range (since you've said no later than 2002/03) would be either an nVidia Geforce 4MX or an ATi Radeon 9250 with 128-bit memory (that is, if DX3-5 paletted textures aren't important to you).

Ok thanks, I hadn't considered the TNT2. I have a dirt cheap Radeon 7000 32mb coming just to give me something better than the on-board to tide me by for now.

oeuvre wrote:

you can also update the bios to A07 (do not go any later) and toss in a slocket and go oeuvre 1GHz

As see now you are tempting me to see how far i can push this 🙄 good to know that the bios supports this!

Live! is installed so once the ATI arrives ok start doing some benchmarks and loading up the games.

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Reply 15 of 15, by oeuvre

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Find a suitable Socket 370... even a 1 or 1.1GHz Celeron would be quite the upgrade. This would let you play DOS games and even some early XP era ones too on the same machine.

HP Z420 Workstation Intel Xeon E5-1620, 32GB, RADEON HD7850 2GB, SSD + HD, XP/7
ws90Ts2.gif