Very nice! Like that slot 1 cooler 😀

JayCeeBee64 wrote:

The Enermax PSU was fully recapped recently by a neighbor's acquaintance; he doesn't recap motherboards though (and no pics of the inside, sorry).

Awwww... I just re-capped this exact PSU for a motherboard that needed a -5V rail.

Curious as to what he used... Maybe I'll show you mine, I've got to open it up anyways, since I noticed while testing it that I put the exhaust fan in backwards. Used mainly Rubycon ZLS series. Also had to scrape away a lot of the nasty low-quality glue they used that becomes conductive when it dries out.

The motherboard needs no re-capping. Gotta love Asus boards from that era. All Rubycon. I think they started using inferior caps in the next generation 815 boards, like CUSL2.

Nice system BTW 😀

Ok, I finally got a chance to open the thing up, because I had to switch back the left fan pointing outwards...

The 80mm fan model is B01138812H-3M
the 90mm model is B071B8812M

All the 12.5mm and 10mm caps were replaced with Rubycon ZLS I believe, and the smaller caps are a mix of Panasonic, UCC, Rubycon, Nichicon, and Panasonic.

Nice supply. Had it running so far for a week or so.

How loud are the CPU cooler and GPU cooler fans? They look like maybe 40mm or 60mm, but they also look like they'd be fairly loud under load. Any issues with them yet?

@mockingbird: I talked to the guy over the phone, said he used the same capacitor brands but in a different way - Panasonic, Nichicon and UCC for the large secondaries, UCC and Rubycon for the smaller caps. The primaries are Rubycon. I did get a look inside the PSU when I went to pick it up and it looks very different; instead of all black caps, now there is a mix of blue, brown, black and gold. The old glue was also removed and fresh white glue was applied in its place, just like yours. Also, my Enermax only has an 80mm exhaust fan, but its thermally controlled (revs up to around 4000rpm at max speed). It's not very loud, however.

@AlphaDangerDen: The P3 CPU fan is a 60mm, the GF2 fan is a 45mm; no problems with them so far, and believe it or not they are not the loudest. The two 80mm case fans are - they have this distinctive whine when running at full speed (around 3800rpm) and drown even the PSU fan with it. Still, a loud PC doesn't really bother me; I grew up in a very noisy neighborhood back in my native Ecuador (my family lived very close to a shipyard and a furniture factory with a loading dock and warehouse for a number of years) and nothing short of an earthquake or very loud thunder would wake me up or startle me. Even my Core i5 PC with six 120mm fans is no match for me; I frequently leave it on all night, doing whatever task I need done while I'm asleep. I don't mind peace and quiet, but I also don't mind loud noises 😊

@everyone: Sorry for not updating my build threads as of late, but as I said before my personal life has taken an unexpected turn. The feud that has plagued my relatives for years has reached an inevitable and sad climax, and now local law enforcement and the legal system are involved as well. Maybe now they will realize the kind of ugly and dangerous game they were playing with each other, and see how silly and stupid it really was to do so 😐

JayCeeBee64 wrote:

@mockingbird: I talked to the guy over the phone, said he used the same capacitor brands but in a different way - Panasonic, Nichicon and UCC for the large secondaries, UCC and Rubycon for the smaller caps. The primaries are Rubycon. I did get a look inside the PSU when I went to pick it up and it looks very different; instead of all black caps, now there is a mix of blue, brown, black and gold. The old glue was also removed and fresh white glue was applied in its place, just like yours. Also, my Enermax only has an 80mm exhaust fan, but its thermally controlled (revs up to around 4000rpm at max speed). It's not very loud, however.

Sounds good. Your guy sounds like he knows what he's doing.

My fans barely ramp up. One of the fans are meant to be connected to the motherboard (at least in my case). IIRC, HWMonitor was displaying it in the low or mid 2000s.

@everyone: Sorry for not updating my build threads as of late, but as I said before my personal life has taken an unexpected turn. The feud that has plagued my relatives for years has reached an inevitable and sad climax, and now local law enforcement and the legal system are involved as well. Maybe now they will realize the kind of ugly and dangerous game they were playing with each other, and see how silly and stupid it really was to do so 😐

Sorry to hear about that. Ultimately it's people who are important. Greed and avarice only lead to that sort of thing in the end.

Okay, got some benchmarks done.

3DMark 99

3DMark 2000

3DMark 2001SE

SiSoft Sandra 99

Final Reality, GL Excess & SuperPI

CPU-Z Info

I like the results I've got so far 😀 . And I must say that when I was watching the Final Reality end credits a wave of nostalgia came over me - all those names from that time period, yet some are gone for good 😢 . In case the FR results look a bit confusing, the top purple bar is the V2 SLI and the bottom green bar is the GF2.

Now to continue at a slow pace. Aaahh yes, patience is indeed a virtue 😊

A very minor update. Got a Turtle Beach Montego A3DXstream and two 256mb PC133 ram sticks a few days ago:

Since I never had an Aureal Vortex sound card before I went ahead and attempted to switch the Santa Cruz with the Montego; unfortunately I botched up the Santa Cruz drivers uninstall and Win98SE refused to boot, even in safe mode. In the end I went ahead and erased the Seagate hard drive to restore the Norton Ghost image and start from scratch again. The memory switch went painlessly.

It will take me some time to bring Win98SE back to where it was. I'll use the 1189 Aureal drivers for the Montego as well.

Now that Win98SE is up and ready to go again (and Real Life is giving me a significant break as well) I went ahead with my next task: play the original retail version of Unreal with the V2 SLI 😊

Back in late 1998 I only had a Pentium 233MMX and Voodoo 1; Unreal was playable at 512x384 only (640x480 was too painfully slow 😵 ). I didn't get a Pentium III 700MHz and Voodoo 2 until 2000, and never had a working SLI setup (even though I got a second Voodoo 2 a year later). Now I can experience Unreal at 1024x768 in full Voodoo 2 SLI glory once again (first time was with my P4 Northwood 😁 ).

This is my original retail copy of Unreal, version 2.05 (click on pics for large size):

This version is Software/Glide/PowerVR rendering only. No Direct3D, no OpenGL, no S3 MeTaL.

To make things even more interesting, I installed my Gravis Gamepad Pro as well (click on pics for large size):

This is the same gamepad I used in 1998; worked really well back then, and still works well today ^^.

Installing Unreal was uneventful; setting it up so that it works properly took some doing (it's been quite a while since I've played around with this old version), but once I figured out what to change/add/delete everything fell in place very quickly 😊 . I also added a timedemo script and a Voodoo 2 Multi-Texture Support patch.

Here are some timedemo results I got with the added script:

640x480=48.57 fps

800x600=43.06 fps

1024x768=37.91 fps

Of course the idea is to play the game at 1024x768 with Glide, and it does that much better than I expected. Here are some screenshots (click on pics for large size):

So far Unreal looks and plays great. Time to continue and see if the V2 SLI can keep up 😎

I have now reached the point where I believe this Pentium III 600 Katmai/ASUS P3B-F build is complete. Windows 98 SE is just cruising along, all the applications and games I wanted to install work without any major problems or issues, and the hardware I used gets along really well. Couldn't ask for anything more 😀

I will admit the TB Montego A3DXstream is a much better overall sound card than the Santa Cruz (which has some quirky issues in Win98SE); still, I'm not impressed with its 3D audio capabilities, and I doubt that an A3D 2.0 capable sound card will do any better to change that. I was not a fan of 3D audio back in the late 90's and I'm still not a fan today - I only use stereo speakers on all my PCs and never use headphones for gaming (they're too distracting for me anyway).

One thing I did notice while installing CD games is that their auto play splash screens can sometimes be quite well done. Blizzard in particular has some that are very nice to look at:

Now that I have a good, reliable PC for Win9x games I will keep it as is for the time being, especially since I've made the decision to have my ASUS CUSL2-C recapped in the near future (nothing wrong with it, I just want the black OST caps replaced with a more reliable brand ^^); I may do some minor changes to it but only if I feel it's warranted. There are some things I will not do, however:

- No network card. I have no room for a local network and no need for Internet access on this PC anyway (all my data transfers are done with USB thumb drives or DVD-RWs).

- No overclocking of any components whatsoever. I don't mind if others want to do this with their computer hardware, but not me - I prefer to stay in the conservative side, thankyouverymuch *_*

- No case modifications/alterations. I do realize the Enermax case has a severe lack of proper cooling, but I wanted a beige mid-tower case for this build and it's the only one I have available (most cases from the late 90's and early 2000's do have airflow issues anyway). Besides, I don't have any proper tools or skills with metalworking (no time to learn at present and I definitely don't want any big, ugly holes 😵 ). I'll just remove the side panels when I want to use it on a hot day.

- No SATA drives/adapters, CF/SSD cards or floppy emulators. I just don't find them appropriate for a retro PC - I want real, noisy IDE and floppy drives. No quiet fans or DVD-ROMs either (I really like noisy computers 😜 ).

With this build done, it's time to put it aside and get back to my P4 Northwood/Soyo P4I-845PE rig and continue its rebuild into a WinXP/Linux PC. I also need to give my neglected P166MMX/ASUS TX97-XE rig some much needed attention - it's sitting inside the closet, looking at me with big puppy eyes and holding a sign that says "Please, use me! I feel lonely and abandoned 🙁 ".

Very nice machine!

Love the screenshots. Such good games. Shame you're packing it away already.

One thing we'll have to disagree on is A3D and surround over headphones. You should really try it out. Of course you aren't going to get surround over stereo speakers, what did you expect 🤣

If you have some time, here are a few recordings with A3D in games: https://www.youtube.com/user/philscomputerlab … earch?query=a3d

This one is the best one to showcase what it can do: https://youtu.be/7Yc2pODiZgU

In a lot of ways the technology is better than what some games produce today 😢

Well Phil, I gave your videos a try with an old pair of Aiwa headphones I have. And all I can say is that while they're nice to watch and listen to, I don't see myself playing a PC game like this. The A3D Rooms in particular had me confused and disoriented at times, not what I want to experience while playing Half-Life or Unreal (and the videos from these same two games did the same thing 😵 ). In the end, let's just agree to disagree about 3D audio and move on. I do appreciate the time and effort you took in making and sharing them and want to thank you for that 😀

And don't worry about this Slot 1 PC, it won't stay idle for too long; I do have plans to get back to it and continue. It's just that I also want to give my other two retro builds some time to work on and/or use them as well, while keeping my main Core i5 PC in good shape (I recently gave this one a minor upgrade with a Seasonic 620W full modular PSU replacing the Antec 550W semi-modular unit). I also plan to keep it assembled like this, I won't take it apart; as soon as my CUSL2-C board is recapped, I will probably build a fourth retro PC with it - and hope that I don't drive myself berserk in the process 🤣 😁 😅

Confused and disoriented? Is this a fake video? 🤣

Very odd. But I guess it's possible that this doesn't work for everyone. Just like 3D glasses don't work for everyone.

One obvious thing to check is if L and R are swapped. That happened to me once playing Battle Field 4. I used a different audio lead, and the sound was just off. Couldn't work out why. Then noticed that L and R were swapped 😊

philscomputerlab wrote:

Confused and disoriented? Is this a fake video? 🤣

🤣 🤣 🤣

Very odd. But I guess it's possible that this doesn't work for everyone. Just like 3D glasses don't work for everyone.

Funny that you mention this Phil, I can't use 3D glasses either - I get a nasty headache and blurry vision after a few minutes 😵

One obvious thing to check is if L and R are swapped. That happened to me once playing Battle Field 4. I used a different audio lead, and the sound was just off. Couldn't work out why. Then noticed that L and R were swapped 😊

I'm sure the audio channels are not reversed (I have an ASUS Xonar DG sound card in my Core i5). Nevertheless, I'll grab my Pentium 4/XP SP3 PC and try the videos there (that one has a Dynex DX-SC51 PCI sound card with a hardwired headphone jack) along with Sony earphones from my portable MP3 player.

Finished watching the videos on my Pentium 4 PC, and no change. Still ended up confused and disoriented 😐

Looks like 3D audio doesn't work for me at all. Sorry Phil, I just can't see/hear what you and other A3D fans are seeing/hearing; the TB Montego is still a very good sound card though (with a working wavetable header to boot) and will keep it in this build ^^.

I recently got a Pentium III 1000E Coppermine CPU (Socket 370, 100MHz FSB) from eBay; since I also have a slocket and CPU cooler to match I figured it was time to try a nifty upgrade 😀

This is how the slocket looks with the CPU and cooler in place.

Time to remove the P3 Katmai and insert the assembled slocket.

It actually went in without much trouble; the plastic retainer clips snapped in place securely. I did have to remove the GF2, 20 pin power cable and 3 pin PSU fan cable so I could have enough room to work inside the case and avoid any kind of damage.

This is how it looks with everything back in place. As usual, cable management is nonexistent 😜

Time to power the PC back up. Will this work?

YES! It does! Que maravilla! (How wonderful!) 😁 . I did have to go into the BIOS and setup the new CPU speed, but that was it. Windows 98 SE booted right up without any apparent issues 😎

This is as far as I got for now, it's getting late and I have an early morning work shift. I'll continue as soon as I can with some benchmarks and timedemos to see how much of an improvement this CPU upgrade brings.

P.S.: A big thank you goes to Artex, I got the same CPU cooler used in his Altered Beast build and it works great! I also don't mind the fan noise - I really do like noisy computers 🤣 😈

Noise is not for me, though I wouldn't have minded if it didn't bother me as much as it does. Fan noise I can live with, but when things get whining (coils, harddrives and some very high RPM fans), that's not for me 😜

I see the ASUS P3B-F is a very popular BX board, even though it only has 1 ISA slot. It does have 4 DIMM slots which is a nice feature.

What surprises me though is that the Chaintech 6BTM seems to have similar features, except maybe for overclocking (never tried it, I suppose the ASUS P3B-F may be better in this regard as it is perhaps a more mature design), but the 6BTM comes with 3 ISA slots and also has 4 DIMM slots.

A little story here: Back at where I used to work (we overhauled old computers, rebuilding them), we got basically 2 large batches of motherboards: A batch of ASUS A7V133 boards along with some A7V boards (sA SDRAM, the A7V is 100MHz FSB only, no ISA) and a batch of Chaintech 6BTM boards (some supported Coppermine and some didn't).
The A7Vs and A7V133s were very picky about RAM and were quite the challenge to get stable with more than 1 RAM module, 2 or more was quite hopeless and we ended up swapping memory modules around till we found something that was reasonably stable.
The 6BTMs otoh were remarkably easy to work with, we could basically put any type of RAM in there and even mix em up a bit, so we used those a lot to 'ditch' our large supply of 64MB SDRAMs.

But at some time my boss decided the Chaintech boards were simply too old to work with and the ASUS boards simply took too much time to get stable, and since my boss knew I always wanted to bring stuff home that would otherwise end up in the bin, he thought it was a good idea to ask me if I had any interest in having all the remaining boards, and I said "yes". To him, this only meant one less trip to the disposal and I got 12 or 14 boards or so for free and after testing only 1 or 2 seemed to have some hardware problem, the rest worked fine.

These Chaintech boards...I really like them a lot!

JayCeeBee64 wrote:

@mockingbird:....... The old glue was also removed and fresh white glue was applied in its place .........

Just FYI for the general population. - A public service announcement?

The usual purpose of the glue is to hold the parts in place until the soldering is complete.
It's presence is actually a bad thing as it reduces component cooling. (Reduces exposure to air flow.)
It doesn't need to be replaced EXCEPT in the case where components may move and short each other out.

~~~~~~~

That Enermax PSU looks like a winner post an easy recap.
.

PCBONEZ wrote:

Just FYI for the general population. - A public service announcement? […]
Show full quote

JayCeeBee64 wrote:

@mockingbird:....... The old glue was also removed and fresh white glue was applied in its place .........

Just FYI for the general population. - A public service announcement?

The usual purpose of the glue is to hold the parts in place until the soldering is complete.
It's presence is actually a bad thing as it reduces component cooling. (Reduces exposure to air flow.)
It doesn't need to be replaced EXCEPT in the case where components may move and short each other out.

~~~~~~~

That Enermax PSU looks like a winner post an easy recap.
.

I think you are the right person to answer my next question:
I somehow remember that sometimes the glue was used to lessen excess sounds, preventing parts from vibrating and/or lessen or dampen the noise of coil whine. Is this correct, or have I just been misinformed or have I just made a wrong assumption? I can't remember how I got that bit of memory in my head though, but I might as well ask right now and "update" my own memory 😉