VOGONS


First post, by Sly_Botts

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My brother had one of these old motherboard and CPU's in his closet for over 10 years. Fixed it up! New project! (Photo's are not my creations except for the Chassis)

Motherboard: Foxconn Winfast nf4uk8aa
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Chipset: Nforce4 Ultra

CPU: Athlon 64 3500+ Venice Socket 939 (I bid on an AMD Athlon 64 X2 4200+ Manchester)
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Memory: 2GB 2x 1GB PC3200 DDR 400Mhz 184Pin DIMM RAM Desktop Memory KVR400X64C3A/1G
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Sound: Creative Labs SB0460 X Fi PCI
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GPU: Ati Radeon x1900 xt 256mb pcie. I Will probably use Omega drivers based on Cat 7.1.
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Storage: Seagate BarraCuda 7200.10 ST3160815AS 160GB 7200 RPM 8MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5"
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Power: A 430w Power Supply (Thermaltake Smart 430) with A few SATA to Molex power adaptors for backwards compatibility.
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Chassis: FpsdUIgWcAAhqrQ?format=jpg&name=4096x4096 Fpsdb5_X0AEPLCh?format=jpg&name=4096x4096

Cooling Chassis: 92mm fan for the rear of the chassis. Noctua brand, 3 pin.
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Cooling CPU: Zalman CNPS9500AT
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I bought the Zalman CNPS9500AT last year because it was supposed to work with a Socket 478. Of course the parts no longer come with it. However I was able to jury-rigg this thing using parts from my stock 939 cooler for my Athlon 64. Temps went from 40 at cold start to 22-25.

Some oddities of note on the motherboard: The nforce4 ultimate chipset has a heatsink with a mounted fan. There is also an auxiliary Molex connector for pci-e. These quirky features where only around for a short time as far as I know.

It is possible to commit no errors and still lose. That is not a weakness, that is life.

Reply 2 of 13, by Sly_Botts

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kolderman wrote on 2023-02-26, 22:06:

Did you forget the photos?

No, I just don't have it all assembled yet. It was easier to use some of these stock photos, except for the chassis of course. If you can't see them, I don't know what to say, they're linked to my Twitter account.

Once I have it all in the chassis, I will take a photo.

It is possible to commit no errors and still lose. That is not a weakness, that is life.

Reply 3 of 13, by Almoststew1990

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Nice set up on the way! I have a similar Athlon 64x2 with 3GB of DDR1, an Audigy 2 ZS and various graphics cards including a 1950XT with the growling cooler. I stick mine in my modern case with loads of fans, an AM4 cooler left over from my 3700X build and Sata everything.

I get a bit confused when people go AGP on a system like this as an Athlon x2 is quite capable of powering faster GPUs than AGP allows for (especially for a reasonable price).

Enjoy when the parts come together!

Ryzen 3700X | 16GB 3600MHz RAM | AMD 6800XT | 2Tb NVME SSD | Windows 10
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I have a vacancy for a main Windows 98 PC

Reply 4 of 13, by Sly_Botts

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So all the parts are in now and the system is finished.

I did replace the CPU with an Athlon 64 4200+ Dual core which has pretty much the same performance of a 3500+. It was only 9.00 CAD so why not?

I also took out the slow IDE HDD and put in a SATA SDD Samsung 860.

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It is possible to commit no errors and still lose. That is not a weakness, that is life.

Reply 6 of 13, by gen_angry

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I would be careful of those sata -> molex adapters. They're known for being improperly made, arcing, and catching on fire. Would phase them out with newer drives or try to find/make crimped types rather than moulded.

Nice setup though 😀 I had a 939 system myself back in the day. Started with a 3500+ like yours and upgraded to an Opteron 180 (basically a cheaper FX-60). Thing lasted me till AM3.

Reply 7 of 13, by Sly_Botts

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gen_angry wrote on 2023-03-15, 21:29:

I would be careful of those sata -> molex adapters. They're known for being improperly made, arcing, and catching on fire. Would phase them out with newer drives or try to find/make crimped types rather than moulded.

Nice setup though 😀 I had a 939 system myself back in the day. Started with a 3500+ like yours and upgraded to an Opteron 180 (basically a cheaper FX-60). Thing lasted me till AM3.

Its ok, I didn't end up using them.

It is possible to commit no errors and still lose. That is not a weakness, that is life.

Reply 8 of 13, by Sly_Botts

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Weird issue with the optical drive. Works fine in Dos but has issues with autorun in windows and loading software.

It is possible to commit no errors and still lose. That is not a weakness, that is life.

Reply 9 of 13, by H3nrik V!

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Is that the correct memory slot occupation for dual channel operation?

Please use the "quote" option if asking questions to what I write - it will really up the chances of me noticing 😀

Reply 10 of 13, by TrashPanda

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H3nrik V! wrote on 2023-03-16, 06:57:

Is that the correct memory slot occupation for dual channel operation?

depends on the board honestly, but it looks correct.

Just looked up the manual.

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Reply 11 of 13, by Sly_Botts

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H3nrik V! wrote on 2023-03-16, 06:57:

Is that the correct memory slot occupation for dual channel operation?

Yes, back then you didn't have to keep a slot between them. They were side by side. Unlike now where you have Chip, slot, Chip configuration. Also I would have figured it out by now anyway since the post displays if memory is running in single or dual channel mode.

It is possible to commit no errors and still lose. That is not a weakness, that is life.

Reply 12 of 13, by ATi_Loyalist

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This is so choice! Nice specs! Did you find the right mouting hardware? I have some random Zalman hardware if you need something specific

P4/XP Rig: P4C800 | P4 3.4 | Radeon X850 Pro
A64/XP Rig : A8V | A64 X2 4400+ | X1950 Pro
Ancient Rig: Pentium 166 W | S3 Trio

Reply 13 of 13, by PcBytes

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I have a similar machine:

MB - Winfast NF4UK8AA
CPU - Athlon 64 3500+ Venice
RAM - 4x512MB
GPU - ASUS Geforce EN8500GT/HTP/256M/A (on which I slapped a Winfast/Gainward HSF contraption that keeps its temps at bay)
SPU - Audigy 2 ZS
PSU - recapped and rebuilt ANS LC-B400ATX - specifically did maintenance on it as it has a -5v rail
HDD - Hitachi Deskstar 164GB SATA
ODD - TSSTCorp SH-S182D
OS - XP SP3
Case is something Frontier I suspect - the front panel is similar to an older case I have here, but the chassis is slightly better built.
And yes, it's that Frontier company behind the "YOU WANNA PRAY GAME?" meme around the internet 🤣

"Enter at your own peril, past the bolted door..."
Main PC: i5 3470, GB B75M-D3H, 16GB RAM, 2x1TB
98SE : P3 650, Soyo SY-6BA+IV, 384MB RAM, 80GB