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Happy Days! Obtained my ultimate dream setup from my High School days!

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First post, by gn0me

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Back in high school I was very much into 3D modelling and Auto CAD but never had a high powered workstation. Flipping through the pages of PC Mag etc, I would always see the Asus CUV4X-DLS motherboard and lusted after it, along with a pair of 1 GHz Pentium III's.

Well as fortune would have it 22 years later I came across a listing here in Canada on eBay for this motherboard paired with two Pentium III 1 GHz CPUs and matching Thermaltake Dragon Orb 3 coolers for $180 USD or best offer. I submitted an offer of $150 USD and it was accepted.

I could have settled for my Supermicro dual slot 1 board, but slot 1 1GHz P3's are about 6x the price of the Socket 370's, but the deal breaker was the absence of an AGP Pro slot.

In addition to the motherboard combo, I also picked up a 3DLabs Wildcat III 6210 3D accelerator which should pair nicely with 3D Studio Max v2.5 and AutoCAD 2000, even if the card is about 2 years newer than the rest of the gear.

I have 2GB of PC133 SDRAM here to go on the board and I'll be able to build my dream workstation from Y2K. If I could have afforded it back in the day, the ultimate dream would have been a decked out SGI Octane2 but those were serious dollars back then.

The amount of hardware I have piled up here is ludicrous. I haven't assembled anything yet since we're packing up the house, waiting to take possession of our new under construction house which hopefully will be soon.

Can't wait! Until then here's some photos 😁

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Reply 1 of 16, by stamasd

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I assume you'll pair some UW SCSI drives with this monster. 😀
I have saved in my ebay wishlist a listing for some IBM 146GB 10K U320 SCSI drives which would pair well.

I/O, I/O,
It's off to disk I go,
With a bit and a byte
And a read and a write,
I/O, I/O

Reply 2 of 16, by luckybob

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As the defacto king of dual-cpu on Vogons, and regent SCSI master. I approve of this build.

Grab one of these before the seller runs out: https://www.ebay.com/itm/284308082851 (not my auction, but I did buy 3) They are NIB, and will allow you to run cheap 2nd hand SCA scsi drives. Not to mention it will keep them cool as well. That said, a SATA2 card would be *much* cheaper and *much* more quiet.

It is a mistake to think you can solve any major problems just with potatoes.

Reply 3 of 16, by stamasd

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Oh those racks look nice. I use something similar with my home server (only SAS not SCSI).

BTW these are the drives I mentioned: https://www.ebay.com/itm/151962539115 (not my listing either, I don't sell on ebay). I have purchased several of these in the past and had no problems with them.

I/O, I/O,
It's off to disk I go,
With a bit and a byte
And a read and a write,
I/O, I/O

Reply 5 of 16, by gn0me

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stamasd wrote on 2022-01-28, 17:53:

I assume you'll pair some UW SCSI drives with this monster. 😀
I have saved in my ebay wishlist a listing for some IBM 146GB 10K U320 SCSI drives which would pair well.

Got a link to the listing? 😁

1990-1997 DOS/W95: micron millennium mme/p200mmx/64mb/matrox millennium II 6mb/orchid righteous 3d 4mb/sb16 & dream blaster s2

Reply 6 of 16, by gn0me

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luckybob wrote on 2022-01-28, 18:01:

As the defacto king of dual-cpu on Vogons, and regent SCSI master. I approve of this build.

Grab one of these before the seller runs out: https://www.ebay.com/itm/284308082851 (not my auction, but I did buy 3) They are NIB, and will allow you to run cheap 2nd hand SCA scsi drives. Not to mention it will keep them cool as well. That said, a SATA2 card would be *much* cheaper and *much* more quiet.

Just purchased one, excellent find! Now I just need to pick up 5 scsi drives. 2x in RAID1 for system and 3x in RAID5 for data

1990-1997 DOS/W95: micron millennium mme/p200mmx/64mb/matrox millennium II 6mb/orchid righteous 3d 4mb/sb16 & dream blaster s2

Reply 7 of 16, by stamasd

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see my 2nd post above for the drives.

(edit) here it is again https://www.ebay.com/itm/151962539115

I/O, I/O,
It's off to disk I go,
With a bit and a byte
And a read and a write,
I/O, I/O

Reply 8 of 16, by zapbuzz

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luckybob wrote on 2022-01-28, 18:01:

As the defacto king of dual-cpu on Vogons, and regent SCSI master. I approve of this build.

Grab one of these before the seller runs out: https://www.ebay.com/itm/284308082851 (not my auction, but I did buy 3) They are NIB, and will allow you to run cheap 2nd hand SCA scsi drives. Not to mention it will keep them cool as well. That said, a SATA2 card would be *much* cheaper and *much* more quiet.

I have to agree SATA II is good my dual cpu system runs 4 x 250gb in RAID 0 and its cheaper, quieter and cables neater.

Reply 9 of 16, by gn0me

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zapbuzz wrote on 2022-01-28, 20:12:
luckybob wrote on 2022-01-28, 18:01:

As the defacto king of dual-cpu on Vogons, and regent SCSI master. I approve of this build.

Grab one of these before the seller runs out: https://www.ebay.com/itm/284308082851 (not my auction, but I did buy 3) They are NIB, and will allow you to run cheap 2nd hand SCA scsi drives. Not to mention it will keep them cool as well. That said, a SATA2 card would be *much* cheaper and *much* more quiet.

I have to agree SATA II is good my dual cpu system runs 4 x 250gb in RAID 0 and its cheaper, quieter and cables neater.

Agreed, I do have a stack of 250 GB SSD's sitting here not doing a thing, but for some reason I'm a glutton for punishment and prefer to have the hardware as authentic as possible. I know HDDs can be a sketchy thing as time passes, but if I can find some NOS drives they should last.

1990-1997 DOS/W95: micron millennium mme/p200mmx/64mb/matrox millennium II 6mb/orchid righteous 3d 4mb/sb16 & dream blaster s2

Reply 10 of 16, by stamasd

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HDDs, depending on quality can be surprisingly reliable. I have a stack of SAS2 drives in a raidZ array going very strong for several years 24/7. 8 active drives plus 2 spares just in case, none of the spares needed to be swapped in so far. Not new drives, they were at 50000 hours when I got them, now they're close to 75000 hours.

I/O, I/O,
It's off to disk I go,
With a bit and a byte
And a read and a write,
I/O, I/O

Reply 11 of 16, by gn0me

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stamasd wrote on 2022-01-28, 20:00:

see my 2nd post above for the drives.

(edit) here it is again https://www.ebay.com/itm/151962539115

Thanks. Better act quick, I just bought 7 of the remaining 12 drives they have 🤣. Figured I'd get 5 for the hotswap cage + 2 spares to have on hand

1990-1997 DOS/W95: micron millennium mme/p200mmx/64mb/matrox millennium II 6mb/orchid righteous 3d 4mb/sb16 & dream blaster s2

Reply 12 of 16, by gn0me

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stamasd wrote on 2022-01-28, 20:21:

HDDs, depending on quality can be surprisingly reliable. I have a stack of SAS2 drives in a raidZ array going very strong for several years 24/7. 8 active drives plus 2 spares just in case, none of the spares needed to be swapped in so far. Not new drives, they were at 50000 hours when I got them, now they're close to 75000 hours.

Yeah, when I bought my DS4246 I loaded it up with used 4TB SAS drives. 3 were DOA but otherwise all of the other drives have been rock solid. I'm going to begin replacing the 4TB drives with 10TB SATA drives eventually as I need additional expansion

1990-1997 DOS/W95: micron millennium mme/p200mmx/64mb/matrox millennium II 6mb/orchid righteous 3d 4mb/sb16 & dream blaster s2

Reply 15 of 16, by dionb

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luckybob wrote on 2022-01-28, 18:01:

As the defacto king of dual-cpu on Vogons, and regent SCSI master. I approve of this build.

Grab one of these before the seller runs out: https://www.ebay.com/itm/284308082851 (not my auction, but I did buy 3) They are NIB, and will allow you to run cheap 2nd hand SCA scsi drives. Not to mention it will keep them cool as well. That said, a SATA2 card would be *much* cheaper and *much* more quiet.

Great tip!

Seller doesn't ship across the Atlantic and even if he did, prices would be horrendous, but was able to find a similar one (only 3 bays, but half the price) locally. Beats the hell out of those flimsy SCA-68p adapters.

Now the dilemma as to whether I pair it with my CUV4X-DLS or my P3C-D or my Compaq AP550 (i840 dual slot 1 with onboard SCSI)...

Reply 16 of 16, by gn0me

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Figured I'd share what I have been able to work on, which is 3D modelling my office. Since the basement will be unfinished when we take possession, I get to customize how my office will be built. As you can see I'll be physically placing my retro PCs away from the desk and opposite to the Monitor, keyboard and mouse etc. The placement of the monitor specifically is within the 25 foot limit for highest video signal integrity for the VGA standard.

The TV will have a framemeister hooked up to a retro console emulator for 240p scaling and will also have an HTPC for movie/music playback. Soundbar is a Klipsch passive and will have in wall rear speakers.

Shelving: Ikea Kallax
Other Storage: Ikea Besta
Desk: Ikea Karlby, Alex Drawers, Support Legs

https://imgur.com/a/mgt4AiN

PCs are as follows (left to right)

1996 Gaming PC - DOS/Win95
Pentium 233 MMX
64mb EDO SIMM
SCSI-2 Controller
Matrox Millennium 4mb PCI
InnoVision Voodoo1 3D Accelerator
Sound Blaster AWE64 Gold
10/100 NIC
5-Disc Nakamichi SCSI CD Changer
Yamaha SCSI CDRW
Iomega Zip 250mb
1.44 FDD
IDE to CFlash Adapter, 32GB CFlash card
Techmedia AT Tower Case

1998 Gaming PC - Win98
Pentium III 600 MHz
128mb PC-100 SDRAM
Asus P3B-F
SCSI-2 Controller
ATI Rage 128 GL
STB Blackmagic Voodoo2 (2) SLI
USB 2.0 Hub Adapter
10/100 NIC
Turtle Beach Montego A3D Xstream
Yamaha SCSI CDRW
Pioneer SCSI DVD ROM
Iomega Zip 250mb
1.44 FDD
IDE to CFlash Adapter, 128GB CFlash card
Dell Dimension XPS T600r Tower Case

2001 Workstation/Development PC - Win 2000
Dual Pentium III 1 GHz Socket 370
2GB PC133 SDRAM
Asus CUV4X-DLS Motherboard
3DLabs Wildcat III 6210 AGP-Pro 3D Accelerator
USB 2.0 Hub Adapter
Sound Blaster Audigy 2ZS
Audigy Live Drive
Toshiba IDE DVD-RW
Iomega Zip 250mb
5x IBM 146GB 10K UW320 SCSI HDD
3x 5.25" to 5x 3.5" SCSI Hotswap Cage
Full Tower ATX Case

1990-1997 DOS/W95: micron millennium mme/p200mmx/64mb/matrox millennium II 6mb/orchid righteous 3d 4mb/sb16 & dream blaster s2

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