My selection of builds ‘97

My selection of builds ‘97 - ‘00!

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First post, by britain4

Posted on 2021-07-17, 15:37

britain4 Offline

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Hey all, now my builds are mostly in a state I’d call “finished” I thought I’d share some pics/specs 😀

The earliest computer I used was a Win95 AT model - one at home and they had them at school - don’t remember anything else about them. When I really got into building/messing around with them they had just about changed over to ATX so had a few PII and PIII machines mainly out of used parts. The P4 era was when I lost interest for a while so thats the period I’ve focused on trying to recreate some of the machines I’d used back in the day. Taken some license with the dates in some cases but generally they are designed to be “period correct” for the year.

OS wise they are all running 98SE with 98lite/95 Explorer. For the pre-‘98 systems I’ve gone further with replacing cosmetic elements with the ‘95 versions to get a really close “replica” 95 - no idea why, just experimentation and nostalgia 😂

Any thoughts and stuff welcome, just wanted to post some pics now they’re all “done”!

1997 - Pentium I 200 (wanted to throw a Winchip in there for something different but the board layout isn’t playing ball!), 128MB RAM, PCChips M598LMR (changed some bad caps on it this morning and now it’s nice and stable), Voodoo Graphics + onboard video and sound

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1997 - Pentium I 233, 64MB RAM, S3 Virge + Voodoo Graphics, FIC PA-2013 board, Yamaha LSI Audiowave (YMF718-S)

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Last edited by britain4 on 2021-07-19, 11:31. Edited 3 times in total.

- 486DX2-66, SoundBlaster 16, Crystal VLB graphics
- P-MMX 200MHZ, PCChips M598LMR, Voodoo 1, AD1816
- PIII 933MHz, MSI MS6119, Voodoo3 3000, SB Live!
- PIII 1400MHz, ECS P6IPAT, Voodoo5 5500, SB Audigy

Reply 1 of 7, by britain4

Posted on 2021-07-17, 15:38

britain4 Offline

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1998 - Pentium II 450, 128MB RAM, ATI Rage Pro Turbo + Voodoo2 12MB SLI, MSI MS6119 board, ESS ES1869 soundcard

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1999 - TBC - Pentium III 450, Biostar M6VBE board, Voodoo3

2000 - Pentium III 933, 256MB RAM, Voodoo5 5500, ECS P6IPAT board, Sound Blaster Live! sound card - possibly my favourite this one on account of the lovely Lian-Li aluminium case I found NOS for cheap

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Last edited by britain4 on 2021-07-19, 11:35. Edited 2 times in total.

Reply 2 of 7, by Snookeroo

Posted on 2021-07-17, 15:45

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Very nice builds. I can't believe you have a Voodoo5 5500! I can't even get my hands on a Voodoo2 or Voodoo3 where I'm from.

Can the Pentium III run Morrowind okay?

Reply 3 of 7, by britain4

Posted on 2021-07-17, 15:51

britain4 Offline

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Snookeroo wrote on 2021-07-17, 15:45:

Very nice builds. I can't believe you have a Voodoo5 5500! I can't even get my hands on a Voodoo2 or Voodoo3 where I'm from.

Can the Pentium III run Morrowind okay?

Cheers! I won’t say it was cheap but I did pick it up before eBay prices went 🤯

That’s a good question - if I do try it out I’ll let you know!

Reply 4 of 7, by chinny22

Posted on 2021-07-19, 10:22

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Nice builds.
I like how you have a different soundcard in each machine just to mix things up a bit, maybe Aureal Vortex 1 or 2 for the 1999 build?

Reply 5 of 7, by britain4

Posted on 2021-07-19, 11:45

britain4 Offline

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Thanks! yeah like to mix things up a bit. Thinking of adding a Dreamblaster wavetable card of some description to the P233 build as that's the main one I use for DOS. The P200 and '99 build are baby AT and mATX respectively so I may bring these into use more in future just being a more manageable size and the new caps sorting the stability issues on the old PCChips board.

No rush on the '99 system so I will take your recommendation on board as and when I find an Aureal for a decent price.

Last edited by britain4 on 2021-08-08, 09:47. Edited 1 time in total.

Reply 6 of 7, by britain4

Posted on 2021-07-20, 10:16

britain4 Offline

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Snookeroo wrote on 2021-07-17, 15:45:

Very nice builds. I can't believe you have a Voodoo5 5500! I can't even get my hands on a Voodoo2 or Voodoo3 where I'm from.

Can the Pentium III run Morrowind okay?

I haven't tried this yet and it isn't my video but this might give you some idea: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YUuKRxyFbkA

Reply 7 of 7, by britain4

Posted on 2021-08-08, 13:14

britain4 Offline

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Few changes to the setup, now focused the P200 and my other 486 pickup for DOS and the rest for Windows.

Switched around the sound cards a bit:

P933 - onboard AC’97 audio (also added a USB 2.0 card)
PII - SB Live
P233 - ESS Audiodrive
P200 - Yamaha LSI-Audio Wave

The P200 has onboard audio but PCI based which I just couldn’t get working properly in DOS- plenty of other issues with the same chipset and no solutions.

So now I have a nice P200 and 486 DOS builds and the others reserved for Windows. Also picked up a Dreamblaster X2GS for the DOS machines which I might try and put in an external case at some point.

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