Played around with Matrox TurboGL in Quake 2 and got some surprisingly decent results.

My G400 was pretty much on pair with my Voodoo3, sometimes even faster. The Voodoo3 was using its own MiniGL here to provide a fair fight. I don't plan on doing a full comparison across all resolutions and such, but it was interesting to see just how competitive the G400 was at the time.

If you wanted to build the best possible PC of September 1999, it maybe had the G400 and a PII-667, but best PC of October 1999 would probably have the Geforce 256 and a PII-733, so King for about as long as Cyrix MX or AMD K6-3 kept the fastest CPU title.

Replaced a micro switch beneath the power "button" (just an extension rod) of that Acer Aspire X1800 retired by a friend of mine. Took only 5 minutes to solder the new switch, but putting back the entire front panel assembly took me a couple of hours and several attempts due to the following reasons:

1. While the new micro switch has the same maximum dimensions, the design is completely different from the old, broken one (yeah, I didn't search hard enough for the same model). Didn't want to use epoxy glue as it would be permanent; in the end I fastened the switch with some double sided tapes and electrical tapes.

   

2. Some of those plastic clips wouldn't close firmly; took several tries.
3. The DVD tray button extender rod on the front panel has an unique mechanism including a strangely-shaped piece of curved metal that became loose when I took the front panel apart. Took me a while to figure out the correct way to assemble it back.

Fortunately it's now fixed.

Ended up getting the $5 RE PC Voodoo 3 working. Seems fine so far! Definitely a find I'll never forget.

On a sidenote. Why do Voodoo 3s get so friggen hot!? Its like a mini fire place. I only had the computer on for a few minutes before i could feel the case getting mega toasty.

Dude not even a Voodoo 2 SLI setup without fans got this hot so quickly. Yikes

Spending the last couple days finally sorting all of my games. It's an off and on project as I decide how I'm going to approach this (what do I sort with what as there's too many to just keep in the livingroom). I've always had all of my hardware sorta neatly sorted, but the games often just ended up in large shopping bags largely at random, but now the time has come to finally set things right (and to do a headcount as I otherwise have no idea how many boxed games I even have laying around).

I'm taking my time with it, enjoying every minute of it due to the nostalgia 🤣.

Claris wrote on 2021-11-19, 05:24:

Ended up getting the $5 RE PC Voodoo 3 working. Seems fine so far! Definitely a find I'll never forget.

On a sidenote. Why do Voodoo 3s get so friggen hot!? Its like a mini fire place. I only had the computer on for a few minutes before i could feel the case getting mega toasty.

Dude not even a Voodoo 2 SLI setup without fans got this hot so quickly. Yikes

Interesting observation. I've never checked because I wouldn't expect them to get hot. Maybe I can connect my Voodoo 3 machine up soon and measure it using an infrared meauring tool.

On the other hand, could it be that the thermal paste has dried up? I have a GeForce 2 GTS that clearly benefited from a new layer of paste.

Finished up hydro-dipping my SBC MS-DOS build.. 233MHz Pentium MMX SBC, AWE64 Gold, Gotek, 4-ISA SBC case.

Impressive, does that kind of finish scratch up easily, or do you do multiple clear coats on top to protect it or what?

You realise now though that you'll have to do a Mulder case to complete the pair with Skully 🤣

haha. The hydro-dip film goes on like paint, so it can scratch. I put clear coat on it for protection.

wiretap wrote on 2021-11-19, 16:27:

Finished up hydro-dipping my SBC MS-DOS build.. 233MHz Pentium MMX SBC, AWE64 Gold, Gotek, 4-ISA SBC case. […]
Show full quote

Finished up hydro-dipping my SBC MS-DOS build.. 233MHz Pentium MMX SBC, AWE64 Gold, Gotek, 4-ISA SBC case.

Did you use any vinyl or stickers at all for the logo? Or was that all hydrodipped?

Iv been wanting to get into case wrapping, iv seen hydrodipping but never really understood how it worked.

It's kind of a fancier version of putting decals on your airfix kit Spitfire.

Claris wrote on 2021-11-19, 19:35:

wiretap wrote on 2021-11-19, 16:27:

Finished up hydro-dipping my SBC MS-DOS build.. 233MHz Pentium MMX SBC, AWE64 Gold, Gotek, 4-ISA SBC case. […]
Show full quote

Finished up hydro-dipping my SBC MS-DOS build.. 233MHz Pentium MMX SBC, AWE64 Gold, Gotek, 4-ISA SBC case.

Did you use any vinyl or stickers at all for the logo? Or was that all hydrodipped?

Iv been wanting to get into case wrapping, iv seen hydrodipping but never really understood how it worked.

The Doom sticker is a vinyl decal.

Cleaning a couple of old AT PSUs (Tosin & Elna caps) - https://web.archive.org/web/19970618170748/ht … ply/008/008.htm

I spend a whole $17.95 to obtain 1MB of L2 Cache for my 486 DX2! KICKASS
I was trying to figure out what the price for that would have been back when the board was released.

Before internet commerce really got going in last half of late 90s, cache always seemed very difficult to source at all. The 256K chips were $10 a chip if you could get them. It may have been more practical at the time to order a new motherboard with the required amount installed than try to install it in the board you already had.

Tested an unknown PCI-EX video card built 2008 and ended up being an oem AMD HD4650 (RV730 PRO) 1GB (probably) that needed a good heatsink and fan cleaning. It works perfectly and ended up into a new test build I'm trying a Pentium 4 HT 3,6Ghz (SSSE3@65nm), 4GB DDR2, G31 chipset and latest Linux o.s.
Open Radeon kernel module works incredibly well and the card runs cool and ironically it seems even faster than the GT610 I have on the Core2 machine, thing I wasn't expecting on a Pentium4 machine. I wanted to see how such an old machine but with enough compatible cheap components might works as an everyday machine and I can say it does perfectly its job.
I don't know if it's better to use a pentium4 clock module or the generic acpi one to save power demand. At the wall the system pass from 85 watts to 150 watts and more. Already enabled the radeon dynamic power management in the kernel.

Tracked down an Altec Lancing speaker set on FB marketplace for $15 and then bought a Roland SC-55mkii from Japan on eBay.

Caluser2000 wrote on 2021-11-21, 03:55:

Welcome to the P4 HT appreciation society. .

Are these cpu not appreciated or just the HT function itself? In the far past I was more an Athlon XP fan myself and never really followed the Pentium IV evolution until some years ago testing the Socket 478/775 many options with SSE2 supported cpus, SSE3 and even SSSE3 as a last improvement for that brand. I wish I could rebuild a Socket 478 high end Prescott but I need a new mainboard; now I'm using this last core version and feel quite powerful on this full atx G31 Asus board on a very old 2000 full atx case.
Speaking of YouTube VP9 codec videos while not accelerated by the GPU (beside maybe the basic support I suppose), seems anyway running @480p quite well and with high cpu usage even 720p VP9 encoded videos.
What really impressed me was running the Unigine Valley benchmark on linux better than a more modern config. Also the o.s. with most sw runs quite well. The video card costed me like 5 euros untested and not even understanding which model it was without any brand names or numbers indication. Other components I had are really old too, a 54Mbps WiFi adapter, an XGA 15" LCD and I was thinking even using a Creative Audigy on this but the Realtek onboard audio seems more than enough. Added IDE DVD/CD readers and only a "modern" SSD to boost the whole config and the 4x1GB DDR2 800 Dual Channel modules. 😉

386SX wrote on 2021-11-21, 15:32:

Are these cpu not appreciated or just the HT function itself? In the far past I was more an Athlon XP fan myself and never reall […]
Show full quote

Caluser2000 wrote on 2021-11-21, 03:55:

Welcome to the P4 HT appreciation society. .

Are these cpu not appreciated or just the HT function itself? In the far past I was more an Athlon XP fan myself and never really followed the Pentium IV evolution until some years ago testing the Socket 478/775 many options with SSE2 supported cpus, SSE3 and even SSSE3 as a last improvement for that brand. I wish I could rebuild a Socket 478 high end Prescott but I need a new mainboard; now I'm using this last core version and feel quite powerful on this full atx G31 Asus board on a very old 2000 full atx case.
Speaking of YouTube VP9 codec videos while not accelerated by the GPU (beside maybe the basic support I suppose), seems anyway running @480p quite well and with high cpu usage even 720p VP9 encoded videos.
What really impressed me was running the Unigine Valley benchmark on linux better than a more modern config. Also the o.s. with most sw runs quite well. The video card costed me like 5 euros untested and not even understanding which model it was without any brand names or numbers indication. Other components I had are really old too, a 54Mbps WiFi adapter, an XGA 15" LCD and I was thinking even using a Creative Audigy on this but the Realtek onboard audio seems more than enough. Added IDE DVD/CD readers and only a "modern" SSD to boost the whole config and the 4x1GB DDR2 800 Dual Channel modules. 😉

P4s in general. Post something about them and duck for cover immediately 😉 Especially if Linux is involved he he .

It's not very often that these two cards get to sit together nowadays, or at least as much as I'd like them to. So, I thought I should take a photo opportunity while they are.
They've spent a few days in my Dell Dimension XPS M200s, playing some classic MS-DOS games that take full advantage of their native 3D APIs.