For $5 is a good buy. Can you post a picture ?
Actually it is a very good example of an XP era system (XP came out 2001, that board came out 2005, Win7 in 2009).
added: I would change the vid card, it is the major setback at 64mb as it is an "entry level" card used mostly for 2D desktop apps..... just my opinion.

You missed the OS between 98 and XP.
Win2k actually makes a real good alternative to Win98 and alot less hanging, blue screens, etc.

chinny22 wrote on 2024-01-29, 04:45:

You missed the OS between 98 and XP.
Win2k actually makes a real good alternative to Win98 and alot less hanging, blue screens, etc.

I loved Win2000 back in the day, and I probably would even go as far as to label it the greatest version of Windows I've ever used (7 would be a close second, pre-SP1 XP was not that great). But... what is the appeal of Win2000 from a retro perspective? Is there any software that runs on it that won't run on XP? Especially if your focus is games... there were still a lot of developers who were like "I'm not touching this weird NT thing" at the time of Win2000...

It's funny, I've now been hanging around here long enough that, despite my dreadful memories of 98SE, I've warmed up to it as a retro OS. 98SE's strength was compatibility for games, DOS things, etc; its weakness was reliability, the pesky system resources limitations, etc, basically just a dreadful OS for multitasking with always-on Internet around 2000. But for a retro system, I don't think you need to run an email client + ICQ + AIM + Winamp + a web browser + a productivity app + 2 IRC clients at the same time... in fact, you probably don't want to have it online in the first place, so 98SE's limitations don't really matter anymore, while it opens the door to a wide range of games from the pre-NT era. And Win2000's strengths and weaknesses are exactly the opposite of 98SE's...

Also, one last thought - the OP has a more than capable XP machine. If the OP was running a <700MHz machine with <512 megs of RAM, then there are obvious performance benefits to Win2000 over XP. Last (and worst) machine I ran Win2000 on was a lousy IBM-nee-Acer K6 266 with... I forget how much RAM at the end... that my family gave to my aunt circa 2002 and she kept it around two years, now that machine wouldn't have gotten anywhere near XP, but Win2000 delivered decent results. But a 3GHz P4 is plenty for XP, maybe not for late-XP-era software, but certainly plenty for the OS itself.

(But hey, if your objective is to show your kids the greatest OS to ever come out of Redmond, then... yes... Win2000 wins.)

Horun wrote on 2024-01-29, 04:12:

For $5 is a good buy. Can you post a picture ?
Actually it is a very good example of an XP era system (XP came out 2001, that board came out 2005, Win7 in 2009).
added: I would change the vid card, it is the major setback at 64mb as it is an "entry level" card used mostly for 2D desktop apps..... just my opinion.

I can get a pic tomorrow. It's pretty generic TBH.

I was thinking the same thing re the GPU, but what card to put in? I have a R7 250 lying around I'm not doing anything with, which of course will perform completely differently to the point of being overkill. That works in XP but of course not in 98 (I don't know about 2K). The PSU doesn't seem to have PCI-E power connectors fwiw.

chinny22 wrote on 2024-01-29, 04:45:

You missed the OS between 98 and XP.
Win2k actually makes a real good alternative to Win98 and alot less hanging, blue screens, etc.

I used 2K when it was new. Not a terrible idea I guess - I don't really remember it well and would be a fun experience. But like VivienM says, is there really a retro purpose? Isn't XP just a friendlier and more compatible version of 2K?

I should comment that I already have a P2 Win 98 setup with a Voodoo 3 and a Core 2 Duo XP box with a 750ti. So yes, I really didn't need this machine. But it was $5 cash to walk it out the door...

No one needs a Win2k machine but like the OP I already had Win98 covered with a P3 and XP with a 775 PC and didn't see the point of duplicating OS's unnecessarily either.

Win98's strong point is dos and compatibility. Dos isn't really going to be used on this PC and I was surprised to find out of my games library only 2 Win95 games (Road Rash and Return Fire) didn't work. (Need for Speed series also struggles but community patches exist)

Win2k is also more responsive then 9x, I agree with VivienM in that retro PC's are only lightly used, gone are the days of multitasking but even simple things like coping files behaves better in 2k.

This is all true for XP as well but 2k just feels a bit more retro and if someone already owns a faster/better XP rig then how often are you going to use the 2nd one?
This way the pc now has a purpose and you may be like me and actually prefer it then your actual 9x rig (which still gets plenty of use in dos though)

Attached a few pictures. Really isn't that cool of a computer, but why not.

It does have a XP license sticker on the side, but I guess that doesn't really matter. You guys have convinced me to put Win2K on it 😀

That's probably a pain to use with SATA, right? I guess I can put the SATA driver onto a floppy during install like in days of yore?

ubertrout wrote on 2024-01-30, 03:54:

That's probably a pain to use with SATA, right? I guess I can put the SATA driver onto a floppy during install like in days of yore?

IIRC, at least with XP (but I would presume it would be the same for 2000), you only need a floppy driver if you're planning to run your SATA controller in AHCI mode... (who knows if this board even supports AHCI mode, a number of early SATA controllers didn't)

The Asus website has Win2k drivers RAID (as well as Audio and Lan) So you could use the RAID driver if you wanted even if just using 1 HDD.
I've done that before, just for the hell of it

This is a really early board with two SATA ports, I suspect AHCI isn't even offered. I'll give it a look.