Got some CPUs in the mail today:

From left to right:

2x Athlon XP 2600+ (Thoroughbred) 2133MHz 256kb L2 cache FSB 133 (266)
1x Athlon XP (Barton) 3200+ 2200MHz 512kb L2 cache FSB 200 (400)
1x P3 1.4S Tualatin 1400MHz 512kb L2 cache FSB 133

PhilsComputerLab wrote:

Finally got a decent S478 cooler. NIB too and it was cheap :) […]
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Finally got a decent S478 cooler. NIB too and it was cheap 😀

Heavy bugger, just under 1 Kg.

If you mod the 775 mounting bracket (the aluminum one) you can use it in a modern i5/i7 system. Not sure about the plastic version though...

nforce4max wrote:

If you mod the 775 mounting bracket (the aluminum one) you can use it in a modern i5/i7 system. Not sure about the plastic version though...

But why would I want to do that? There are so many decent coolers for these platforms around.

luckybob wrote:

happycube wrote:

What CD-R's didn't do, Iomega's quality *click* control *click* did them in. *click* (of death)

And they were so tone-deaf that they actually named a smaller version Clik!

Early cd burners SUCKED. It was always a gamble if you were making a coaster. Because if ANYTHING was running in the background it always seemed to pop up during the write process and cause a buffer under-run and ruin the disk. Under-run protection was the best thing to happen to cd-r

Oh and I also had the zip disk and they were AMAZING for the era they were in. Even had one that clicked. I wasn't allowed to install games on my dad's computer, so I ran everything off the zip drive. It was great, until the drive ate the disk.

By the time the 750MB Zip drives came around though, CD-Rs were well established. I still have CD-Rs burnt in 2003 that work perfectly - in fact, the only CD-Rs from then that have died were down to my mistreatment. No idea about things older than that, as I'm just too young to remember.

rein_ein wrote:

Probably best storage get for this week,behold a magneto optical scsi drive with disks(for my server needs ofc) :cool: http://i […]
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Probably best storage get for this week,behold a magneto optical scsi drive with disks(for my server needs ofc) 😎

Yummy, yummy... Nice.

kanecvr wrote:

Got some CPUs in the mail today: […]
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Got some CPUs in the mail today:

From left to right:

2x Athlon XP 2600+ (Thoroughbred) 2133MHz 256kb L2 cache FSB 133 (266)
1x Athlon XP (Barton) 3200+ 2200MHz 512kb L2 cache FSB 200 (400)
1x P3 1.4S Tualatin 1400MHz 512kb L2 cache FSB 133

Those are not on my radar..... Though allways nice to look at and read about.

I bought this Socket-7 system two months ago but I have not had the time to take a closer look at it until now. The system was sold as working and the price was ~50 euro. I mostly bought it because I needed more AT-cases and I really like the look of this one.

The motherboard is an QDI Explorer II i430VX board with 256KB cache, the CPU is a 3.5x multi capable Pentium MMX of unknown speed grade. The memory was 16MB but I upgraded it to 64MB at once after experiencing the first Windows 98 boot. The video card is a 1MB S3 Trio32 for now, the audio card is some random Opti card and the HDDs are 1.3GB + 4GB.

'
The case is a bit yellow, the disgustingly dirty (but nice) ICL keyboard was not included, this system came with a cheap noname keyboard.

It's a bit cramped inside. The CPU is fully stable at 233 MHz with the passive heat sink.

The system seems to work perfectly, at least Duke thinks so...

Oh my god, it's almost the color of cheddar. 😵

CelGen wrote:

Oh my god, it's almost the color of cheddar. 😵

Well the system has come pretty far in the aging process. I think it's nice to see that the floppy drive which I think is the original one hasnt yellowed a bit while the 12x noname CDROM-drive... Perhaps the floppy drive maker didnt think the drive needed fireproofing at all while the CDROM-drive needed alot of it before the manufacturer felt safe...

Skyscraper wrote:

The motherboard is an QDI Explorer II i430VX board with 256KB cache, the CPU is a 3.5x multi capable Pentium MMX of unknown speed grade.

66MHz x 3.5 = 233MHz I'd say. That motherboard seems to be pretty good. I have two of those and the automatic detection of CPU sucks (it tends to default to a much lower speed than the actual CPU is capable of), but by manually adjusting to the right speed they seem to be very stable. The VX got a lot of flak back then but nowadays it's a perfectly serviceable chipset for Socket 7 systems in my eyes.

devius wrote:

Skyscraper wrote:

The motherboard is an QDI Explorer II i430VX board with 256KB cache, the CPU is a 3.5x multi capable Pentium MMX of unknown speed grade.

66MHz x 3.5 = 233MHz I'd say. That motherboard seems to be pretty good. I have two of those and the automatic detection of CPU sucks (it tends to default to a much lower speed than the actual CPU is capable of), but by manually adjusting to the right speed they seem to be very stable. The VX got a lot of flak back then but nowadays it's a perfectly serviceable chipset for Socket 7 systems in my eyes.

I wrote unknown speed grade as many Pentium MMX 166 and 200 also supports the 3.5x multiplier and there is no way for the motherboard to know whats what, it defaults to 2x50 MHz. 😀

It dosnt matter at all though, my only 300 MHz (3x100) capable Pentium MMX is a 166 MHz one while my 200 and 233 MHz ones wont even do 292 MHz without 3.3V.

50€ for Pentium MMX 😕 ... that is a lot of money, considering it only includes lowend VX board and the rest of components is more or less worthless.
Maybe if it was dual-CPU board, or at least i430HX, then the price would be justified. But this, I bet the seller was happy. 😀

havli wrote:

50€ for Pentium MMX 😕 ... that is a lot of money, considering it only includes lowend VX board and the rest of components is more or less worthless.
Maybe if it was dual-CPU board, or at least i430HX, then the price would be justified. But this, I bet the seller was happy. 😀

AT-cases sadly dosnt grow on trees around here. Sourcing a case through Ebay or AMIbay is 40-50 euro with shipping so for me it seemed a good deal, especially as the drives worked and I got yet another Windows 98 licence.

True, AT cases are not that common these days. For me it is not an issue, since I prefer ATX systems - AT is just too crowded, bad airflow, difficult to route cables, issues with PS/2, etc.
But I understand for 486 and older AT is the only option.

My first wavetable card ever. Sound Blaster 32 PnP CT3600 with 2MB RAM installed. Skyscraper might recognize this one. 😎

havli wrote:

True, AT cases are not that common these days. For me it is not an issue, since I prefer ATX systems - AT is just too crowded, bad airflow, difficult to route cables, issues with PS/2, etc.
But I understand for 486 and older AT is the only option.

Converters are available.

PhilsComputerLab wrote:

nforce4max wrote:

If you mod the 775 mounting bracket (the aluminum one) you can use it in a modern i5/i7 system. Not sure about the plastic version though...

But why would I want to do that? There are so many decent coolers for these platforms around.

I had several of these coolers on hand and I knew that it would perform very well plus they are so Easy to clean that for me it was a no brainier but sadly that was back in 2012. Lost the rig and the rest of the collection in an arson fire. On the cheap $10-15 a pop they are fantastic when you need something that works plus that kind of weight is something one doesn't see these days. 755 grams of straight copper 😎

Now days coolers are almost all aluminum and while they do work greet most of are a very generic design that is showing its age. Pretty much everything without a vapor chamber isn't cutting edge and isn't exciting.

havli wrote:

True, AT cases are not that common these days. For me it is not an issue, since I prefer ATX systems - AT is just too crowded, bad airflow, difficult to route cables, issues with PS/2, etc.
But I understand for 486 and older AT is the only option.

You can still 486 rigs with modern power supplies and cases but you have to be careful to not get a board that is too large for the case. The more expensive ATX to AT adapters provide the missing -5v needed for ISA to work correctly so it is worth the money. If you go cheaper you will need and older atx psu that has the -5v rail.

Here is a video guide.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YHIVGxNnkbA

Api wrote:

My first wavetable card ever. Sound Blaster 32 PnP CT3600 with 2MB RAM installed. Skyscraper might recognize this one. :cool: […]
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My first wavetable card ever. Sound Blaster 32 PnP CT3600 with 2MB RAM installed. Skyscraper might recognize this one. 😎

Nice! That is a very nice (without beeing expensive) Sound Blaster, 2MB memory is enough to load this 2MB soundbank for better General MIDI emulation in Windows and real mode DOS.

In Protected Mode in DOS you cant use the EMU8000 synth to emulate GM but later DOS games often support the EMU8000 (AWE32/AWE64/SB32) synth directly.

http://www.vogonsdrivers.com/getfile.php?file … &menustate=51,0

The DOS command to emulate General MIDI with the EMU8000 synth is "aweutil /em:gm" with the 2MB soundfont renamed to synthgm.sbk and put in the same directory as aweutil.com.

Nothing in the second hand shops here, but I did get an IDE DVD rewriter with white bezel, looks to be in excellent condition.