Not sure about cost but that motherboard/CPU looks fine.
Carmageddon and Quake would benefit from a Voodoo but you'll still need a 2D card anyway, so would wait till you can find a Voodoo for not crazy expensive price which may take a while.

First thing to check for the 2D card is it's dos compatibility, Remember this list shows the trouble makers. If its not on this list your probably fine
https://gona.mactar.hu/DOS_TESTS/

Personally I like the idea of a S3 Virge It's common, compatible and gives you the opportunity to mess around with the S3D version of Whiplash
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wdhPe5max4E

Case your pretty limited to what you can find unless you mod an existing case for AT motherboard.

HDD CF cards are usually pretty trouble free. spinning rust gives that authentic sound. Most important is to find out the largest HDD supported by whichever motherboard you do end up getting. Again work arounds exist for this anyway.

CD drive. Any IDE optical drive is fine, CD, DVD, RW. earlier drives have trouble with CD-R's, faster drives can be annoying with spin up/down delay and noise but software exist to slow them down if it is an issue.

DOS sound is a highly debated subject, no 1 perfect device exists and people have strong opinions, typical things to look out for .
-Are you going to get an external MIDI device? Some Creative cards have a bug if you do intend to have one but non issue if you don't.
- OPL chip. Some people swear they need a true Yamaha OPL or clone, others are happy with different sounding chips like Creative CQM.
But overall AWE is fine IMHO, Yamaha and ESS are other popular alternatives, If you find a card at a good price just google it along with vogons and you'll find it's pros and cons.

CRT I'd just look for something local as they don't ship well. They are nice though if you have the space.

Network , 3Comm, Intel, even Realtek are good options for a dos/95 machine.

PSU you wont need much, these old PCs arent power hungry, What you may want is a AT to ATX power adapter to be able to use a nice modern PSU with your old hardware

Floppy. I really like Gotek Floppy emulator. Floppy disks in good condition are hard to find.

Hey there, thanks for the reply.

chinny22 wrote on 2021-06-18, 10:43:

Not sure about cost but that motherboard/CPU looks fine.

Sounds good.

chinny22 wrote on 2021-06-18, 10:43:

Carmageddon and Quake would benefit from a Voodoo but you'll still need a 2D card anyway, so would wait till you can find a Voo […]
Show full quote

Carmageddon and Quake would benefit from a Voodoo but you'll still need a 2D card anyway, so would wait till you can find a Voodoo for not crazy expensive price which may take a while.

First thing to check for the 2D card is it's dos compatibility, Remember this list shows the trouble makers. If its not on this list your probably fine
https://gona.mactar.hu/DOS_TESTS/

Personally I like the idea of a S3 Virge It's common, compatible and gives you the opportunity to mess around with the S3D version of Whiplash
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wdhPe5max4E

Thanks for the reference. Also, good to know about the Voodoo cards. I haven't look into pricing them yet and didn't realize they were expensive. I was looking at the S3 Verge as an option too. I like the idea of having 2D/3D on one card. From what I read it doesn't quite match the performance of the voodoo cards though. I guess they are still pretty decent though?

chinny22 wrote on 2021-06-18, 10:43:

Case your pretty limited to what you can find unless you mod an existing case for AT motherboard.

So basically look for a case that supports an AT motherboard. Any way to tell aside from the listinings mentioning it specifically?

chinny22 wrote on 2021-06-18, 10:43:

HDD CF cards are usually pretty trouble free. spinning rust gives that authentic sound. Most important is to find out the largest HDD supported by whichever motherboard you do end up getting. Again work arounds exist for this anyway.

CD drive. Any IDE optical drive is fine, CD, DVD, RW. earlier drives have trouble with CD-R's, faster drives can be annoying with spin up/down delay and noise but software exist to slow them down if it is an issue.

Sounds good.

chinny22 wrote on 2021-06-18, 10:43:

DOS sound is a highly debated subject, no 1 perfect device exists and people have strong opinions, typical things to look out fo […]
Show full quote

DOS sound is a highly debated subject, no 1 perfect device exists and people have strong opinions, typical things to look out for .
-Are you going to get an external MIDI device? Some Creative cards have a bug if you do intend to have one but non issue if you don't.
- OPL chip. Some people swear they need a true Yamaha OPL or clone, others are happy with different sounding chips like Creative CQM.
But overall AWE is fine IMHO, Yamaha and ESS are other popular alternatives, If you find a card at a good price just google it along with vogons and you'll find it's pros and cons.

I came across this in my preliminary research and listened to both the OPL3 and CQM. They both sound good to me.

chinny22 wrote on 2021-06-18, 10:43:

CRT I'd just look for something local as they don't ship well. They are nice though if you have the space. […]
Show full quote

CRT I'd just look for something local as they don't ship well. They are nice though if you have the space.

Network , 3Comm, Intel, even Realtek are good options for a dos/95 machine.

PSU you wont need much, these old PCs arent power hungry, What you may want is a AT to ATX power adapter to be able to use a nice modern PSU with your old hardware

Floppy. I really like Gotek Floppy emulator. Floppy disks in good condition are hard to find.

Noted.

LUCASX95 wrote on 2021-06-19, 04:06:

I was looking at the S3 Verge as an option too. I like the idea of having 2D/3D on one card. From what I read it doesn't quite match the performance of the voodoo cards though. I guess they are still pretty decent though?

The strong point of the Virge cards is their excellent compatibility with 2D DOS games. But they are lacking in the 3D department, to put it mildly.

They can be used with early 3D DOS games which utilize their proprietary S3D API. Even then, performance is fairly weak, averaging at around 15 FPS at 640x480. Windows 3D games will fare even worse. Also, there is no official OpenGL ICD, so it can't normally run Quake 2 with 3D acceleration. Some third party wrappers may be able to help with that.

That said, a VirgeDX running an S3D game can still outperform software rendering on a contemporary CPU (such as a Pentium 133) when using the same resolution. It also provides improved visual fidelity by including perspective correction, bilinear filtering and a 16-bit color palette.

Hey Joseph, thanks for the reply. Luckily a was able to snag a Voodoo card on ebay today, I'm really excited about that! 😁 I also ended up getting a cheap Sound blaster AWE64. Relevant links:
https://www.ebay.com/itm/114859324145
https://www.ebay.com/itm/284339299776
I still need to pick a 2d card and of course get the rest of the parts. I've been looking at the Matrox Mystique/Millenium 2 cards as well as the S3 virge/trio. They all seem to be pretty good and inexpensive, but it looks like the virge probably has better compatibility.

I have a few more parts ordered. I ordered an old NEC keyboard that's in great shape. I'm not sure if it's the exact model my old machine had, but it seems to be close to what I remember. I think it has a really nice look regardless.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/184650703039
I also ordered this motherboard.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/383911894925?hash=it … XsAAOSwAvFgCL8J
I got it because during my research, i found that the 430TX was a solid well supported board for the socket 7. It also fits with my RAM requirements and has the CPU I wanted. I couldn't figure out what model it was at first. The listing doesn't really say anything in that regard. Going back and forth between googling and looking at the listing, I found the answer in the pictures attached to the listing. It was easy once I figured out the brand and naming conventions for their motherboards. It's a
DTK PAM-0057I. Here's a quick look for anyone interested: https://stason.org/TULARC/pc/motherboards/D/D … I-VER-5-01.html . I'm not familiar with the brand at all, so hopefully it's a decent motherboard. Just from looking around, seems like they might have been popular in Europe. Not entirely sure though.

That keyboard looks to be in great shape and probably saw very little use and that's a good deal on the motherboard bundle. That will make a great base for a windows 95 system.

Well, looks like I have just about everything ordered, and the parts are starting to trickle in. Here's an update since last time:
Optical drives:
https://www.ebay.com/itm/153230078107
https://www.ebay.com/itm/123893544690
I got the CDR drive for writing and reading CDs. The DVD drive I got just for giggles. I thought it would be fun to see how this computer would handle trying to run DVD movies. I don't have much in the way of expectations, but it should be a fun experiment.
A few hard drives:
https://www.ebay.com/itm/383357697797
https://www.ebay.com/itm/234062411454
I got a few to fool around with. Out of the 3 I should have at least one good one I figure. I wanted to try a 30GB since that is close to the max size windows 95 can support. I opted to go this way instead of a compact flash reader for now because i read they can be finicky. Sometimes they don't like to be daisy chained with other drives, and they can be picky about which compact flash card they like. I also heard they can be kind of slow in Windows. I'll probably try messing with them down the line, but for now I just want something I'm familiar with and I know should work.
New old stock Monitor:
https://www.ebay.com/itm/184865530139
Since it's still new in its original box it *should* survive shipping. Also, should be nice and bright, no worn out crt. Obviously newer than this era, but eh... what you gonna do? *shrug* Couldn't find any NOS period correct ones.
Also got a NOS logitech optical usb mouse with the ps2 adapter. It's old, but obviously a bit newer than the build era. I did have one like this later on, and I really don't want to go back to and old school mouse. I really like the optical ones. Plus, it looks pretty similar to a period correct one, so I don't feel to bad cheating on this one. 😜
Last but not least, the case:
https://www.ebay.com/itm/254890056544
I had a really hard time finding a good one. After several days of searching I came upon this system. I really liked it, but it was priced a bit out of my remaining budget. I really just wanted the case and psu. I sent an offer in that was probably too low and got rejected immediately. I kept looking for a few more days and nothing came up. I sent the seller a message asking if he'd just part it out as a case and psu... No luck. I sent a revised offer and let him know my interest. I told him about my budget and asked him to send me a counter offer or let me know if we were just too far apart. He accepted the offer later that day. I'm really happy with the case. It really screams 90's to me even down to the name (cybermax). It's probably a bit older than the rest of the build, but I think it fits perfectly. I have some extra parts now though that I have no idea what to do with. 🤣

I decided to wait on the network card for now as well. I need to research it more. I'm not really sure what all you can do with them or if it would really have much use. I'll probablly look into getting a usb port for thumb drives and stuff. I think it has to be USB 1.1 for Windows 95... Anyhow, that's about it. Anything I forgot or anything else that would be cool to add?

For a network card you can't go wrong with a 3com card. I network all of my retro PC's it makes file transfer so much easier and alot more convenient.

You can't go past an ESS for sound... here's a well priced 1869F!

https://www.ebay.com.au/itm/ESS-AudioDrive-ES … 4.m46890.l49286

@ Chrismeyer6: Good to know, I'll keep that in mind.

@MotoPete: I already have a Sound blaster Awe64 for this build. What's the benefit of the ESS sound card over a Sound blaster?

DVD rom isn't as crazy as you may think.
Dos can read DVD's just fine should you need a disc with 700MB, say creating a "recovery CD" Although I haven't had this need yet either.

yeh I agree. For Win9x I like spinning rust. It's all part of the experience. I've enough IDE drives stockpiled to last a while but even ofter then I intend to still use "real" SATA drives with an adapter.

CRT's did improve as years went on. I'd prefer later then period correct which I doubt anyone but yourself could tell the difference anyway. Most people will just think old as they see CRT in general.
Just about all of us stick with a optical mouse so wouldn't even call that cheating.

It's a good looking case and seems to have some interesting hardware of its own.
The Cyrix 6x86 120 would suggest a socket 7 motherboard and the soundcard looks to be a Ensoniq Vivo, Not a very popular card but interesting from a technical point of view.

Overall though looks to be coming together quite nicely, although I'd still grab a network card but I do love my networking 😀

Update!
The case arrived today. As of right now I'm only waiting on the mouse. It survived shipping and looks even better in person than in the listing. I got to cleaning it right away. I started off using some windex to clean off the light dirt. Aside from the black marks, (pictures attached below) it really wasn't that dirty. The windex unsurprisingly didn't get much off. Next, I broke out the Mr. Clean Magic eraser. After investing a good amount of time and elbow grease, pretty much all the black marks came off. The last thing I attended to was some tape residue. The case arrived with a few strips of clear shipping tape one it. I peeled them off right away. I used some Goo Gone and did a bit of scrubbing and removed 95% of the residue. There's still a bit stubbornly hanging on. I may go back and tackle it later. Overall I'm really happy with how it turned out. The before and after pictures are attached below. I appologize for the lighting in the after pictures. It was much later in the day and I end up using the flash on my camera to help illuminate them a bit better.

chinny22 wrote on 2021-06-28, 09:51:

DVD rom isn't as crazy as you may think.
Dos can read DVD's just fine should you need a disc with 700MB, say creating a "recovery CD" Although I haven't had this need yet either.

I was more curious about movie playback, the large capacity was just an extra. 😜

chinny22 wrote on 2021-06-28, 09:51:

yeh I agree. For Win9x I like spinning rust. It's all part of the experience. I've enough IDE drives stockpiled to last a while but even ofter then I intend to still use "real" SATA drives with an adapter.

Over the next week or so I'm going to work on getting it up an running. Wish me luck!

chinny22 wrote on 2021-06-28, 09:51:

CRT's did improve as years went on. I'd prefer later then period correct which I doubt anyone but yourself could tell the difference anyway. Most people will just think old as they see CRT in general.
Just about all of us stick with a optical mouse so wouldn't even call that cheating.

Yea, I get what you mean. The monitor arrived yesterday and I was able to test it out on my modern PC. I has a really pretty picture. I'm pretty happy with it so far. I really can't imagine going back to an old mouse tbh. That's one thing I don't miss. 😜

chinny22 wrote on 2021-06-28, 09:51:

It's a good looking case and seems to have some interesting hardware of its own.
The Cyrix 6x86 120 would suggest a socket 7 motherboard and the soundcard looks to be a Ensoniq Vivo, Not a very popular card but interesting from a technical point of view.

Looking at everything I think this might be all original. The case is badged for a Cyrix 6x86, and the CD drive looks like it was made for it ( it probably was). I almost don't want to take it out because it fits the case so perfectly. I just assumed it was a socket 7 anyways.

chinny22 wrote on 2021-06-28, 09:51:

Overall though looks to be coming together quite nicely, although I'd still grab a network card but I do love my networking 😀

In regards to networking, do you use it solely for file transfers or do you use it for something else? What kind of software do you use for the file transfer stuff? Also, I assume a wired card?

LUCASX95 wrote on 2021-07-04, 01:45:

In regards to networking, do you use it solely for file transfers or do you use it for something else? What kind of software do you use for the file transfer stuff? Also, I assume a wired card?

It's main job is file transfers. I've a number of retro rigs running just about every Windows version starting from WFW 3.11
Small HDD partition with the OS and network drivers, then everything else I can just keep on the network somewhere.
For me its just 100 times more convenient then trying to find Disks, CD's, USB's which you can guarantee I didn't put away properly when last used 😜

It does allow for network LAN games as well which I may use about once a year.

I just use the networking built into Windows, feels a bit more Authentic? retro? something anyway.
I fully admit FTP is the better option if just using for file transfers though

It's alive! 😁 Aside from a couple minor hitches this machine is up and running. I started removing the old components from the case last night and getting the new ones installed. I checked the motherboard manual because I wanted to make sure all the jumpers were set correctly. The seller already showed the system booting up, but I wanted to be sure. Looking over the manual I found that the jumpers had different configurations from what was on my board. I kept trying to make sense of it and decided to do some more digging online. Apparently even if you have the correct model number for a motherboard there are different revisions and they can be set up quite differently... I found what I assume is the correct one. The jumpers were set up the same way the seller had it set up, and the layout was the same.

I moved forward and got the floppy drive, cdrom drive the front panel, and the ps2 mouse connection to the motherboard hooked up. It was getting late, so I quit for the night.

The next morning(today) I got the sound card, graphics card and accelerator hooked up, and swapped out the hard drive. I left the stock cd drive in for now as I need to find a smaller screwdriver to remove the stock one. Went to hook up the keyboard only to realize the connector on the mother board was not ps2, but was one of the larger older style ones. Luckily, the seller shipped the case with a keyboard that used the old style connector. I'll have to look into getting an adapter or getting a ps2 port to install for the keyboard. Opened up the mouse... It has a usb to ps2 adapter but it's a ball mouse. Not the optical one that was advertised. 🤣 It works poorly as I have no mousepad and I'll have to see about returning that.

So earlier I had removed the CMOS battery to make sure it was good and wasn't leaking. That obviously wiped the settings. I booted up the Windows 95 boot disc in the PC not thinking about it. It couldn't recognize the floppy drive. Rebooted and tried again, no luck. Went into BIOS and told the machine that it had a 1.44mb floppy disc drive installed. Forgot to save settings... Went into BIOS again saved settings, and Windows setup started running.

Got partway through the setup only to realize that the CD drive was identifying as the C drive. Powered down and swapped the IDE cables on the motherboard for the HD and the CDrom drive. It worked! Setup went on without a hitch and Windows 95 is up and running. The 8gb hard drive I put in was recognized, but Window setup made me do a minimum of 1gb install for Windows. Then it made me partition the rest of the drive out into 2gb sections. I know there's a way to delete them and reformat the unused space as one large partition, I'm just not sure what software to use. I couldn't find anything in Windows just doing a bit of poking around. Also, the sound card isn't working yet. Not sure what's going on with that exactly, but I haven't had the time to investigate yet. Also, I don't seem to have any games installed. I expected Windows would at least come with Solitaire, and Minesweeper. Maybe I have to install them separately?

It appears that the version of Windows I bought was OSR 2.5. There really isn't much information out there about how to identify what version you are buying (that I could see). I bought a CD that said Windows with USB support on it assuming it was OSR 2.1, but when I got it installed, it prompted me to install IE 4.0, so I realized it was OSR 2.5. I wasn't sure how to skip installing IE 4, so I just uninstalled it afterwards. So that's where I am right now.

To do:
Get voodoo card working
Get sound card working
Install CD RW
Install DVD drive
Purchase and install network card

Sounds like your enjoying relearning installing good old Win95. It's funny what you forget what was once second nature but dont worry it'll all start flooding back the more you play.

As you have Win95 installed now you can simply hit Shift F5 to bypass windows and run fdisk to partiton the drives as you wish.
Alot of us prefur 2 partitions either a large primary partition (c:\) and small extended partition for "recovery files" like the windows install files, drivers, etc
or a small c:\ just for windows and programs and a large extended for the recovery files but also games meaning if you need to reinstall windows all your games are untouched.

It'll wipe the HDD so I'd try getting the rest of the hardware working first under this "test install" I find I have to install windows 2-3 times on a new system just getting everything right.

If you choose the custom Win95 install it'll let you pick and choose what you want to install including games. If you are going to get a network card I'd install a modem during setup which will allow you to install the networking component. It doesnt matter if you don't actually have one hooked up.

You can bypass the IE4 install by removing the CD as the PC is doing the 2nd? reboot. I think its just after you get the screen about rember to register. Windows wall ill load to the desktop and ask for the CD but just hit cancel, all it wants the CD for is the IE install.
Or you can copy the Win95 folder to your HDD and delete the IE*.cab files and setup will also skip the IE install. If you want a really clean install you can delete all the files from this page under the Win95 section
http://toastytech.com/evil/lab.html

for the AWE you can get the full CD from here
http://vogonsdrivers.com/getfile.php?fileid=832&menustate=0
or just for the basic driver you can grab it from Phils site
https://www.philscomputerlab.com/creative-drivers.html

For the Voodoo, Phils got you covered again. go with the latest unless you run into game incompatablility
https://www.philscomputerlab.com/drivers-for-voodoo.html

Hey Chinny, thanks for all your suggestions and help. I really do appreciate it. Honestly, I don't have many memories of installing Windows 95. I don't think I've ever done one completely fresh like this. I've done XP many a times though. 95 feels familiar, but at the same time quite different. ^^ So basically, if I go the fdisk route, I have to nuke everything and reinstall windows, but then it'll be Fat32 and I can set up the partitions as I like?

I'm sure the software I used for managing partitions before was something in Windows, and certainly much later than Windows 95. That said, I have found some vintage software that is able to manage partitions without nuking everything. I'm going to see if I can find a copy on ebay. I'll update here and let you know how that goes. Good to know if it doesn't work I can default to fdisk though. I'd probably go for a small(ish) partiton for windows and a larger one for everything else. Any idea about what size windows needs ?

Also, I think i did do custom setup, but it just gave me barebone options. No minesweeper or solitare listed there. Maybe I misclicked though. I have a 3com network card on the way new for ~$12 shipped. Hopefully it's still easy to get networking setup post Windows install. I've heard the 3com cards are really easy to work with though.

Thanks for linking those setups for the sound card and video card. Those will be super helpful!

Didn't get much done today on the actual build. The old CD-ROM drive did NOT want to leave this computer... The 20 odd year old screws were nearly stuck in place. After fighting with 3 of them I managed to get them out. The fourth one would... not... budge. I had a small narrow screw driver, so that wasn't helping much. I got a pair of pliers and used it to apply more force and only succeeded in stripping the screw head. I went out to my shed to get a (very small)hacksaw to try and cut the head off. I didn't have enough room to maneuver and get flush with the case to try to cut it off. I finally tried a pair of needle nose pliers. I was going to try to break it off. I pulled and pulled, but was having trouble getting the pliers under the screw head. I then tried putting it in a death grip and turning it a bit. It moved! I was able to the the screw turning and it finally came free. I imagine this must be how a dentist feels after pulling out a stubborn wisdom tooth. 😁 So the old drive is free now, and I'll work on getting the new ones installed and set up tomorrow.

I also ordered another logitech mouse, same model as the previous one. This one is new,and is supposed to be unopened. Also ordered a cheap converter for the keyboard so I can use my ps2 keyboard with this. I really don't see the use in taking up another valuable slot in the case otherwise.

Yeh Fdisk will nuke the disk, Not a big deal on a fresh build IMHO, but you can use tools like GParted without wiping the drive.
I just like Fdisk as its with official one for Win9x so guaranteed to work.
Fdisk You'll know if FAT32 is enabled when you start it'll ask if you want Large Disk support (Yes=Fat32, No =Fat16)
While GParted is GUI driven

Win95 doesn't need much space. My Win95 box has a 800MB drive and even after installing a few programs and files dumped in c:\temp I still have 400MB free.
On a 8GB card I'd probably give it 1GB, plenty of space and nice round number 😉

You can Install games, etc after Windows is installed, just go to Control Panel, Add Remove Programs, Windows Setup. Maybe you went Compact rather then Custom? Whatever it doesn't matter this will bring up the list that should have shown during Windows Setup so no big deal.

For networking you should be ok with the drivers from here.
http://vogonsdrivers.com/getfile.php?fileid=9 … &menustate=34,0
It's a self extracting zip file so if Windows complains about the exe you can manually unzip 3c90x1-ethercd_v5.4-disk1.exe to a floppy or CD.

To install networking go Into Control Panel, Networking.
Install Adapter and when is asks for a disk point it to a:\ (or wherever) it should pick it up.
You may also have to go to Add and install
Client, Client for Microsoft Networks
Protocol, Microsoft, TCP/IP
Protocol, Microsoft, IPX-SPX-compatible (only needed for LAN games)
..and then you should at least get an IP address.

hehe I'd of just given up and said fine, I'll just use the CD drive already in the case 😉

UPDATE!

So, lots has happened sinc my last post. I had Windows 95 up and running and everything but USB and the network card were working. The machine was super zippy though. 😁 I was unable to get USB working at all in Windows 95C despite installing the required items on the Windows 95 disc. I tried multiple times and still didn't have any luck. I decided to give Windows 98SE a shot. It came in about a week ago. I installed it and the installation was as smooth as butter. It found all the hardware I had installed and already had the correct drivers for everything (minus a 6in one card reader). The only thing it didn't have a driver for was no problem to install. I found 6 in one card reader that also has 2 front side usb ports and a fire wire port. I popped in the CD for it and it worked right off the bat after a reboot. I only have two usb headers on the mother board, and each part of the device uses one ( the card reader one, each usb port one, and the fire wire port one.) Needless to say, I have a working card reader now and a single front usb port. I only have SD cards at the house, so I tested that and it works like a champ. The front side usb port I only tested with a usb mouse so far, which did work. More testing will be forthcoming.

The partition program I wrote about in my last post is called Partition Magic 7.0. It woks wonderfully and is pretty easy to use. You have an interface in windows where you select what you want to do, and then it reboots the pc into dos and executes the changes. Quite happy with it. I've only used it in Windows 95 so far, will probably give it a run in 98 and put the OS on it's own partition.

Another reason I switched to 98 is that some programs just didn't want to work. Nero was complaining about needing never versions of some thing or another in win 95, but on win 98, it installed no problem. I ran it through some testing and it works great. I had a counterstrike 4 pack that failed halfway through installation as well. Haven't had a chance to try it on 98 yet.

DVD drives... Oh boy. I got the second new old stock one in after returning the first. I open this one only to find.... Yet another used CD-ROM drive. 🤣 I contacted the seller about it asap and sent pictures. They were very understanding and refunded me immediately. The told me not to worry about sending it back, so I now have yet another old CD-ROM drive. This one is used and pretty ugly though, 🤣. At least I got some mounting screws out of it. So, the third DVD ROM drive came in today. My computer hates it. At first it was showing up as a drive on the card reader. I reassigned the driver letters in windows and then it was kind of working as the J Drive. It was intermittent, and had trouble reading some stuff though. I thought having it on J was maybe the problem, and assumed this drive wanted to be set as the master in order to function properly. So, I set it as the master and then it caused my system to freeze up. I figured I must have caused some conflict or something. Several reboots and safe modes later I've tried removing all the devices from the hardware settings, booting with one or the other connected, booting with none of the connected. No luck. It's probably my fault, and I'd guess there is a way to fix it, but I just ended up reinstalling Windows.

I also decided to try and run two hard drives. I figured since I was reinstalling Windows, I might as well go ahead. I put the 30GB in as well. I set the 7GB as master and the 30 as slave. Windows couldn't find any hard drive at all... So, I said the heck with it. I'll just go back to the single IDE and use the 30GB. Well the 30GB worked, but it was pretty loud. It was also emiting a slight whistle type sound. I had my doubts about its longevity and my sanity if I left that noisy drive in, so after it finished installing Windows. I pulled it back out and put the 7GB back in and reinstalled Windows on that. That's now working.

That's pretty much where I am right now. I have some nice Creative labs speakers I got at a flea market about 4years ago for $5 hooked up to it. I also got a speaker system with a subwoofer today. The speakers that came with it are absolute garbage, but the sub pairs pretty decently with the Creative speakers. I have an internal zip drive, but I don't know if I'll bother with it. Since I have the SD card reader it's kind of a moot point. Aside from a few minor things, this build is more or less done. I hope to have some pictures of the finished build up soonish. I still need to figure out networking, but that isn't really a priority either as I have an easy way to transfer files over now.