Looks pretty good to me. 😁

ApolloBoy wrote:

Hi everyone, just registered here and I thought I'd put up the DOS PC that I'm currently building. I've never been much of a PC […]
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Hi everyone, just registered here and I thought I'd put up the DOS PC that I'm currently building. I've never been much of a PC gamer, but I've always loved DOS games since I was a kid. Lately I've been thinking of putting together an actual DOS PC instead of using DOSbox, and so earlier today I bought a few parts so I could get started on building one. So far I have most of the parts I need, save for some cables, a case, power supply and a heatsink. Here's my setup so far:

CPU: Pentium 133
Motherboard: Intel PBA 658580-206 (Socket 7, ATX)
Video: S3 ViRGE DX 4M
Sound: Sound Blaster Pro 2.0 (I also have an AWE64 and SB-16 WavEffects)
RAM: 32 MB
Hard Drive: 2.5 GB Seagate ST32531A
Drives: 32x TEAC CD, 3.5" floppy

I plan to run both MS-DOS 6.22 and Windows 3.11 when I'm done building it. What do you guys think?

Hi and welcome to Vogons, where newer does not always equal better! 😁
Pics are always welcome and if you have any questions, feel free to create a new topic as pretty much any question over here has a self-proclaimed expert capable of providing you with an answer 😉
And feel free to answer questions posted by fellow Vononers as well 😉
If you happen to spot any spammers, be sure to inform the Vogons Anti-spammer Away Team about it, we always set our phasers to "Extra Crispy!" 😁

If you want to, feel free to click the link at the end of this post for some reading about retro computing and have a happy stay!

Edit: And as you can see, I'm addicted to smileys 😁

That's pretty nice 😀. Any special reason you used the Pentium 133 though? For example I'd use it because it was my first CPU ever 😀

P133 was my very first Pentium as well.

I upgraded from an AMD 486DX4-100 and I was quite surprised how much faster the P133 was. I got a 3DFX Voodoo soon and it was a wonderful card with that CPU. Tomb Raider, Forsaken, Wing Commander Prophecy, G-Police.

I remember it was a time when some games came out for DOS, and some for Windows 98 with Glide or DirectX support.

F2bnp wrote:

That's pretty nice 😀. Any special reason you used the Pentium 133 though? For example I'd use it because it was my first CPU ever 😀

I thought the Pentium 133 was a good place to start, considering that I plan to run somewhat demanding stuff like Doom II and Duke Nukem 3D on it. Plus, the oldest motherboards I could find were Socket 7s and the shop where I bought a lot of my parts from was selling Pentium 133s for $5 a pop.

Well, Doom 2 and Duke3D aren't really demanding for a Pentium 133, so if you want to play games like these, it's a perfectly fine CPU. If you want to run something newer though like Quake or other 3D stuff, especially in SVGA, you might see slowdowns.
Have fun 😁

Yep, just nice and sweet. It'll be nice to run any DOS based CD games, even the last ones on it, (except maybe the most demanding flight sims).

I have a special attachment to Pentium 133 system - it's my first "Protected-Mode" based PC. The first PC of mine which started running CD games when the cd based computer games were beginning to appear. (I made a huge jump from IBM PC XT and AT, directly to Pentium).

Just one thing though, - the CD drive may be a bit noisy, and if using dos games, esspecially adventure games, and those that frequently access the CD during gameplay, there will be a pause from the time it takes to spin up till the sequence where the speech starts, which may be distracting.

Usually 12x CDROM drives and above are noisy, and there is a spin-up delay. Even some 8x drive are noisy.

I prefer the 4x & 6x drives. Quiet and most do not have the spin-up delay, since they're always spinning at a constant speed. (CLV- Constant Linear Velocity), rather than those newer drives, which spin faster towards the outer rings of the cd to speed up the read, (and hence noisier.)

(I bought a few used 2x, 4x and 6x drives from ebay.)

This can be circumvented though, by using cd spin control utilies,

or, using specific cd drivers (like that of the TEAC CD-56E driver), where you can set the speed of the of the spin in the config.sys file as a parameter for the driver. Such drivers can also be used with the latest DVD drives (almost all) to control the speed too. I'm using in my faster Win9x based system to load the DVD re-writer for use in DOS.

Only problem with 8x and below drives is that the older the drives are, the greater the chances are it will have trouble reading burned disks.
Btw, aren't the most modern CDROM drives quieter anyway?

Malik wrote:

Just one thing though, - the CD drive may be a bit noisy, and if using dos games, esspecially adventure games, and those that frequently access the CD during gameplay, there will be a pause from the time it takes to spin up till the sequence where the speech starts, which may be distracting. .

That's alright, I'm still used to that from when I was a kid! The CD drive I'm using is from 1999, so it should be fine in terms of noise.

I've got some fast cd drives that range from 40 to 52x and they're rather quiet....depends on the brand/ model perhaps? They're virtually throwaway items now so you can get a bunch and test them out. Then use the quietest ones in your retro rigs.

Yup, here in The Netherlands CDROM readers have reached their lowest value, even DVD drives are like €2 each second hand now, if you manage to find a place selling them. DVD burners I don't find as much though, but prolly because those get picked by other hardware collectors as well 😜

Not a problem for me though, I hardly ever use a burner these days, only now and again if I need to burn some custom Windows setup disk or in case a friend of mine forgot his flash drive 😜

Got some more parts today including a 5.25" HD floppy drive. I'm almost ready to go except for the RAM, which I'm still waiting on.

So after much frustration, I finally got this system working. Two of the RAM sticks that I got turned out to be bad, so now I have it running with 16 MB instead of the 32 MB I wanted. I've managed to install a few games and I'm actually pretty impressed with the performance; Dark Forces runs buttery smooth, Doom runs flawlessly and even Quake works fine, if a bit choppy.

I gotta say, this is the most fun I've had with a computer in a while (after getting it running)!

ApolloBoy wrote:

So after much frustration, I finally got this system working. Two of the RAM sticks that I got turned out to be bad, so now I have it running with 16 MB instead of the 32 MB I wanted. I've managed to install a few games and I'm actually pretty impressed with the performance; Dark Forces runs buttery smooth, Doom runs flawlessly and even Quake works fine, if a bit choppy.

I gotta say, this is the most fun I've had with a computer in a while (after getting it running)!

Getting it running is half the fun 😀

SavantStrike wrote:

ApolloBoy wrote:

So after much frustration, I finally got this system working. Two of the RAM sticks that I got turned out to be bad, so now I have it running with 16 MB instead of the 32 MB I wanted. I've managed to install a few games and I'm actually pretty impressed with the performance; Dark Forces runs buttery smooth, Doom runs flawlessly and even Quake works fine, if a bit choppy.

I gotta say, this is the most fun I've had with a computer in a while (after getting it running)!

Getting it running is half the fun 😀

Most of the time was spent actually getting the motherboard to POST, which was perhaps the most frustrating part of it all next to getting the CD drivers to work. The latter was only because I hooked up a PCMCIA card reader to the same IDE cable and the computer thought ifshlp.sys was the driver for that... 😜

Needless to say this has been a rather interesting learning experience.

ApolloBoy wrote:

So after much frustration, I finally got this system working. Two of the RAM sticks that I got turned out to be bad, so now I have it running with 16 MB instead of the 32 MB I wanted. I've managed to install a few games and I'm actually pretty impressed with the performance; Dark Forces runs buttery smooth, Doom runs flawlessly and even Quake works fine, if a bit choppy.

I gotta say, this is the most fun I've had with a computer in a while (after getting it running)!

Theres a chance your "defective" RAM may not be broken after all.
Several Vogoners (including myself) have successfully rezzed "dead" RAM, Slot 1 CPU's and even things like graphics cards by cleaning the contacts 😉
I've personally cleaned a couple hundred PCB's with contatcs and you wouldn't believe the dirt that comes off of thos contacts even though they may appear to be perfectly clean!

We've had success using either a paper cloth/towel + some rubbing alcohol and some others even used a simple pencil eraser!!
I'd say, give it a try (and let us know if it worked for you 😉 ).

Tetrium wrote:

Theres a chance your "defective" RAM may not be broken after all. Several Vogoners (including myself) have successfully rezzed " […]
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ApolloBoy wrote:

So after much frustration, I finally got this system working. Two of the RAM sticks that I got turned out to be bad, so now I have it running with 16 MB instead of the 32 MB I wanted. I've managed to install a few games and I'm actually pretty impressed with the performance; Dark Forces runs buttery smooth, Doom runs flawlessly and even Quake works fine, if a bit choppy.

I gotta say, this is the most fun I've had with a computer in a while (after getting it running)!

Theres a chance your "defective" RAM may not be broken after all.
Several Vogoners (including myself) have successfully rezzed "dead" RAM, Slot 1 CPU's and even things like graphics cards by cleaning the contacts 😉
I've personally cleaned a couple hundred PCB's with contatcs and you wouldn't believe the dirt that comes off of thos contacts even though they may appear to be perfectly clean!

We've had success using either a paper cloth/towel + some rubbing alcohol and some others even used a simple pencil eraser!!
I'd say, give it a try (and let us know if it worked for you 😉 ).

Yeah, that technique works wonders.

I've found that for really bad oxidation, the eraser works best, especially a polymer eraser that won't leave a bunch of residue. Follow up with the q-tip with alcohol (the purer the better, I use 99 percent isopropyl).

If you're worried about any further oxidation, I use a product called Deoxit Shield. I use the regular Deoxit as well as a cleaner if I don't feel like using isopropyl, and it does leave a protective film, but the shield just adds further protection. Usually I save the money and use the alcohol and only use the shield.

I actually cleaned all the RAM sticks before I installed them in the motherboard (I'm a console game collector so this is like second nature to me), and the two sticks still didn't work. I'm not too concerned about it now that I have the system up and running. Most of the stuff I've tried runs very smooth (Dark Forces and Duke3D in particular) so I'm happy now.

PICTURES! 😁 Oh wait, did you find a descent case yet?