VOGONS


First post, by d3vilsadvocate

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Hey guys

I need some help finishing my upcoming build, which currently consists of the following parts:

-Asus P3B 440BX motherboard with Intel Pentium I 1Ghz CPU
-2x256MB RAM
-Geforce 4 Ti 4200 GPU
-Creative 5.1 Live Sound card
-NEC PCI USB Card

I plan to get:
- Voodoo 2 cards in SLI is something I might get as well later down the line
-Grotek Floppy emulator

I need help with the following:

1: Can you recommend a DVD Rom drive? Should I get a modern SATA drive and connect it with an IDE adapter? Or are there others seem the standard for a DOS/Win98 build?

2: Right now I’m considering a 1000W Seasonic PSU with 25A/125W on the 3V and 5V rails. Is that a recipe for disaster somehow or should it work? I’d prefer a new PSU since they would be running passively, i.e. no fan noise.

3: I intent to replace the CPU and GPU fans with noctua fans and somehow tinker them onto the heatsinks. I suppose connecting a 3 pin fan to a 2 pin fan is no problem at all, right?

4: Storage: I’m thinking about getting a standard 128GB SSD for Win98 and maybe a CF to IDE adapter to quickly add ISOs and other stuff to the system. Maybe I’ll install DOS 6.22 on a CF card as well.
Any specific devices that are considered must-haves? (I do not worry about disk wear at all btw)

5: I think I’d like to add a Yamaha sound card for DOS. Any specific models I should get?

6: Is there a recommended wavetable card that I should get for the Yamaha sound card?

7. Can I use my current USB mouse and keyboard with PS/2 adapters? Would that cause any issues? Maybe a Startech one?

8. Any recommendations for a good DVI to HDMI adapter?

9. What should I use to convert VGA to HDMI? I’ll continue to use my 1440p display which might be an issue. Will an adapter suffice at first? Should I get an upscaler or something more expensive?

Any help would be much appreciated. Can’t wait to post images of my build here 😀

Reply 1 of 13, by TrashPanda

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You don't need a 1000 watt PSU ..heck you wont even need a 500watt one, I suggest looking for a smaller one (350 - 400 watts is enough), Slot1 builds don't use much power at all and don't require specific amps on the rails.

Modern USB keyboards and mice don't have the legacy functions to work with older hardware, I suggest looking for PS2/USB keyboards and mice from around the same age or slightly newer than your build (1 - 2 years newer is ok). IIRC even modern USB keyboards and Mice dont have the legacy stuff to work with USB 1, I could be wrong here and its more to do with Win95/98 not having HID support for modern USB peripherals.

DVI to HDMI is as easy as an adapter, VGA to HDMI requires an active scaler/converter which is more expensive, if you can just stick with DVI to HDMI itll be less of a headache.

I recently got a YMF719E-S based sound card which is ISA (Model A151-A00 LWHA151A00) and paired it with a X2GS wavetable card from Serda shop, its a really solid combination. (Better than an AWE64 by far), you can also jump down the external MIDI devices rabbit hole with this setup, im sure many of the MIDI afficinadoes here can help with this but a Roland SC55 MKII might be a nice addition for the MT32 emulation.

For the DvD drive, just use an nice IDE PATA one (ASUS, LG, Sony and Plextor are good models. Plextor is pricey though), there really isn't any benefit to messing around with a SATA adapter for optical drives.

For my build I use a 1gb DOM unit as the Boot drive and a pair of 2gb CF cards for programs and games, the CF cards are in a drive bay unit that lets me swap them out as needed.

I also suggest grabbing a Gotek floppy emulator and ditch the floppy drive if you have one.

3 pin fan into a 2 pin connector shouldnt be an issue, just make sure you have it in the right way !

Reply 2 of 13, by chinny22

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Was just looking at your post asking about GPU's, while I've nothing to add on that post you do say your getting the dual CPU board so you should be looking at a 2nd CPU as well!
Not that a 2nd CPU is much use. Dos/Win98 will ignore it, games don't support it (Well Quake 3 does but doesn't really add anything) but install Win2k impress your friends all the more!
anyway on to your questions

1) I would stick with IDE optical drive, keep things simple and also gives you the CD audio cable connecter that runs direct to the sound card. Most SATA drives are missing this.
I've no preference with brands, truth is you probably wont use it much and still load iso's if you get a big enough hard drive.

2) New PSU's are good ideas for many reasons but you don't need much wattage. Even my 2 dual slot 1 rigs originally came with ~320W PSU's. I prefer modular PSU's so you can remove the PCI-E and SATA cables and replace with Molex cables rather then using converters.

3) See how you go with the fan noise at first, unless the PC is sitting on the desk next to you you may not even notice the noise with a game playing? case fans sure but I've never had the need to replace CPU/GPU fans.

4) For storage adapters I always recommend ones with a master/slave jumper. These seem to have a better success rate then the ones missing the jumper.

5) As you have an ISA slot just stick with the ISA variants. Not much difference between different brands, models, etc now that you have decided to go Yamaha.
Only possible exception to this is cards based off the YMF719 which apparently support XG Midi? but I've not confirmed this.

6) MIDI cards come down to personal choice and cost . If the YMF719 does support XG Midi then you already have a cut down Yamaha MU10 or DB50XG which alot of people prefer over Roland.
Not saying NOT to get something, it's fun to compare but I'd probably look at doing this upgrade down the track and comparing a few devices for yourself and what suits you best.

7) Only one way to find out! Newer keyboards have better success then newer mice and the more "fancy" your devices the less chance you have.

8/9) Pass I picked screens that still had vga inputs, one thing to keep in mind though. Newer screens are better at supporting aspect ratio for 800x600 or above which is fine for windows but not many games in dos support that so they become a stretched blocky mess. I haven't invested any time in looking for a fix as my currant arrangement is only temporary so someone may have a quick or cheap fix though

Reply 3 of 13, by Shponglefan

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d3vilsadvocate wrote on 2023-02-06, 12:53:

2: Right now I’m considering a 1000W Seasonic PSU with 25A/125W on the 3V and 5V rails. Is that a recipe for disaster somehow or should it work? I’d prefer a new PSU since they would be running passively, i.e. no fan noise.

I have that exact PSU (Seasonic Focus GX-1000) specifically for that reason: available amps on the 5V rail. While the overall wattage is overkill, the 5V amperage is important for older builds. As I'm sure you've seen, lower wattage modern power supplies have fewer amps available @ 5V.

I use this PSU with my Athlon XP 2000+ build and it has worked perfectly fine. As you say, it runs extremely quiet, especially bottom mounted in a modern ATX case.

Last edited by Shponglefan on 2023-02-06, 14:12. Edited 2 times in total.

Pentium 4 Multi-OS Build
486 DX4-100 with 6 sound cards
486 DX-33 with 5 sound cards

Reply 4 of 13, by HanSolo

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I wouldn't recommend a Gotek. On such a machine you won't use disks very often anyway and for data transfer a USB thumbdrive is a lot more comfortable. Besides the Gotek looks pretty ugly compared to a floppy drive.
(Edit: Of course I mean using a USB thumbdrive in the mainboard's USB port 😀 )

Last edited by HanSolo on 2023-02-06, 14:05. Edited 1 time in total.

Reply 5 of 13, by Sombrero

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An old IDE CD/DVD drive gets my vote too, something like a 16x speed might have a good balance with speed and noise for DOS/Win98. Drive with 52x cd speed is nice when installing Windows or a game but you don't want your cd drive go bananas at billion rpm when playing a game with redbook audio or something. There are tools to force cd drive to certain speed for both windows and DOS but the only DOS tool I know isn't compatible with every drive out there.

Note also that while some of the later IDE drives had the 2 pin digital out connector they didn't actually send anything out from there, so if you'd like to use completely noise free SPDIF for CD audio you might want to find an older IDE drive even if the 52x speed doesn't bother you.

Reply 6 of 13, by d3vilsadvocate

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Thanks for the valuable input so far

Does the 440BX board use the 12V rail to some extend so that some of the load can be offloaded to that?

I didn‘t see any reference to that in the manual. However, the manual suggests 10AMP as a minimum on the 5V rail, so I think that having 25A/125W on the 3.3V and 5v together isn‘t such a bad choice, even if it means that I have to get a „1000W“ PSU to get.

Wouldn‘t mind buying only a 500W one though…

Reply 7 of 13, by dionb

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d3vilsadvocate wrote on 2023-02-06, 14:31:

Thanks for the valuable input so far

Does the 440BX board use the 12V rail to some extend so that some of the load can be offloaded to that?

To some extent, although pre-2002, the 12V line was mostly used for motors (e.g. on drives). But we're talking 29W per P3-1000E(B) CPU, total 58W for two, then 33W for the Ti4200. So the three heaviest together will draw 91W and the rest won't add up to >9W. So if it does all that from 5V line (worst case) will stay under 20A to do it. That's not hogely challenging and no reason for an insane PSU. I have an Antec EA-500D here that can deliver 20A on 5V and 130W total over 3.3V+5V. That's more than enough.

I didn‘t see any reference to that in the manual. However, the manual suggests 10AMP as a minimum on the 5V rail, so I think that having 25A/125W on the 3.3V and 5v together isn‘t such a bad choice, even if it means that I have to get a „1000W“ PSU to get.

Would be a good idea, but I'd suggest looking for a decent period PSU and if necessary refurb its capacitors, rather than buying an overkill new PSU and loading it inefficiently. Your average 2001-era 300W PSU can deliver >30A on the 5V line. I have an AOpen-branded FSP supply rated 350W that can deliver 50A on 5V line. That's the sort of monster that can handle dual AthlonMP and do dual P3 for breakfast with its attention elsewhere.

Wouldn‘t mind buying only a 500W one though…

Definitely. Don't buy this EA-500D though, it's here because its caps are dying and need replacing. If you need to do that, you might as well just get an old one to start with.

3: I intent to replace the CPU and GPU fans with noctua fans and somehow tinker them onto the heatsinks. I suppose connecting a 3 pin fan to a 2 pin fan is no problem at all, right?

Can do, but why not just use 3-pin fans? You can still buy them and the board has 3 3-pin headers.

Is your P3-1000 a native slot 1 model, or is it an So370 CPU mounted via a Slocket? The latter makes custom heatsinks a lot easier. I run a Tualatin P3-1400S on another BX board with a big 'flower' style Zalman CNPS-3000 passive heatsink connected by regular So370 clip on the slocket - and a big 120mm Noctua Redux fan blowing on it from above.

7. Can I use my current USB mouse and keyboard with PS/2 adapters? Would that cause any issues? Maybe a Startech one?

Why use PS/2 adapters? The P2B-series has legacy keyboard and mouse support for USB.

If that isn't working for you, you may have an early version of the board with a bug in the current limiter. Fix is described here:
https://web.archive.org/web/20171213042908/ht … html#USB_issues

8. Any recommendations for a good DVI to HDMI adapter?

HDMI 1.0 video == Single-link DVI-D (as far as signalling is concerned).

Any passive adapter will work fine up to resolutions of 1920x1200.

9. What should I use to convert VGA to HDMI? I’ll continue to use my 1440p display which might be an issue. Will an adapter suffice at first? Should I get an upscaler or something more expensive?

Not. HDMI is digital-only, VGA is analog-only. If your monitor has VGA in, try that. If it has DVI-I in (as oppsoed to DVI-D) you can try a VGA-DVI-A/DVI-I passive adapter. Note that new monitors don't always play nice with legacy DOS display modes over analog input.

I'd recommend using DVI-D from that Ti4200 only if you have a recent TFT screen.

Reply 8 of 13, by Joseph_Joestar

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d3vilsadvocate wrote on 2023-02-06, 12:53:

-NEC PCI USB Card

If the main purpose of this is to transfer data via USB sticks, I would suggest getting a network card instead.

Some USB 2.0 cards can cause slowdowns and IRQ conflicts, depending on the model and/or the motherboard where they are installed. NEC branded cards are usually well regarded, but you might still need to be careful with that. See this thread for more details: Which USB 2.0 cards for old motherboards

PC#1: Pentium MMX 166 / Soyo SY-5BT / S3 Trio64V+ / Voodoo1 / YMF719 / AWE64 Gold / SC-155
PC#2: AthlonXP 2100+ / ECS K7VTA3 / Voodoo3 / Audigy2 / Vortex2
PC#3: Athlon64 3400+ / Asus K8V-MX / 5900XT / Audigy2
PC#4: i5-3570K / MSI Z77A-G43 / GTX 970 / X-Fi

Reply 9 of 13, by Shponglefan

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chinny22 wrote on 2023-02-06, 13:55:

2) New PSU's are good ideas for many reasons but you don't need much wattage. Even my 2 dual slot 1 rigs originally came with ~320W PSU's. I prefer modular PSU's so you can remove the PCI-E and SATA cables and replace with Molex cables rather then using converters.

There is more to it than just overall wattage. It depends on the distribution of current between the different rails.

Older systems had greater draw on the 5V rail, whereas modern systems are heavier on the 12V rail. Thus modern PSUs tend to have lower available current for the 5V rail compared to older PSUs, even if the overall wattage is higher on the modern PSU.

Pentium 4 Multi-OS Build
486 DX4-100 with 6 sound cards
486 DX-33 with 5 sound cards

Reply 10 of 13, by acl

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I would go for 2 systems instead of one.
I'm a period correctness junkie. But I think there is a huge gap between the era you want to cover here.

If you can afford a voodoo 2 sli, you can probably also get a second motherboard (Like a Socket 7 or Slot 1) to cover the late dos early Win9x era.

Then keep the P3 for late W98 games.

For dos, you sometimes need floppies, but not that much once the games are installed. I don't have a gotek but a small pile of floppies + floppy drives i got for free + one relatively recent USB floppy drive. This covers most of my needs.

You also need a CD drive for Dos. Just a cheap one.
For music.

If i install the system in a case, (rare, is mostly use a test bench) then i install an ide cd drive.
If it's on the test bench, then i use a USB CD/DVD drive for W98 and later systems. It's well supported. It's the same drive i use on my modern PC that don't have drive bays.

"Hello, my friend. Stay awhile and listen..."
My collection (not up to date)

Reply 11 of 13, by Gmlb256

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d3vilsadvocate wrote on 2023-02-06, 12:53:

5: I think I’d like to add a Yamaha sound card for DOS. Any specific models I should get?

Any YMF-71x based sound card will do it. Keep in mind that the SBPro mode doesn't have the low-pass filter without modding, which IMO is a must for older games, and has a dry output without it.

6: Is there a recommended wavetable card that I should get for the Yamaha sound card?

Yes, the DreamBlaster X2GS which sounds pretty close to the Roland SC-55.

VIA C3 Nehemiah 1.2A @ 1.46 GHz | ASUS P2-99 | 256 MB PC133 SDRAM | GeForce3 Ti 200 64 MB | Voodoo2 12 MB | SBLive! | AWE64 | SBPro2 | GUS

Reply 12 of 13, by d3vilsadvocate

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I'll answer some more questions that came up:

@ chinny22
I'll check out the fan noise first before switching fans, makes sense. I'll get adapters with master/slave jumpers as well.

@Shponglefan
What's also nice about newer PSUs is that they are not only modular but also a whole lot less ugly with their cables... usually.

@dionb
I'm not overly familiar with soldering (in fact, almost zero experience). While I'd want to get into it I kinda just wanna finish this build before the end of the year xD
The P3 is mounted via a Slocket and already has a fan that I may or may not change depending on noise. Should be easy to replace somehow.
My monitor only has HDMI and DP in, so no VGA. It's an issue right now if I wanna get these Voodoos later.

@Joseph Joestar
Makes sense. I think I will use the CF card for that purpose as well. Might wait with the installation of the USB card then.

@acl
I might get a second system later if this turns out to be too annoying. Money is slightly less of a problem but space certainly is...

Reply 13 of 13, by TheMobRules

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One word of warning when using 1000W monsters and such to power retro systems: keep in mind that these units are rated to deliver large amounts of current on the 12V rail in particular. So if there are problems with say, a HDD or fan connector that causes it to draw a lot of current then the overcurrent protection will kick in later than it would do on a lower wattage unit (or it may not even kick in at all if the current draw is below the limit), this can result in things melting due to the large amounts of heat that are generated.

At the very least make sure all power connectors are properly seated and avoid using stuff like dodgy SATA to IDE adapters with thinner wire gauge that tend to be the first things to melt (alongside whatever they are connected to).