Some very nice components in there!

Back in the day, Plextor drives were renown for burning CDs flawlessly and the Abit GeForce3 is among the best ones. Nice to see an Audigy2 complete with the front panel. Those seem to be getting rare nowadays.

You've got to watch the fans on those old GeForce3 cards. They will burn up in seconds if the fan fails. I had two fans fail on mine. The first time I shut the computer down in time. The second time I didn't and lost the card.

How is the reception on that TV Tuner ?
I use the Moho leaf antenna and can get about 80 channels.
I found this antenna works best.
You can find cheap used ones on eBay.

Errius wrote on 2021-10-07, 13:35:

You've got to watch the fans on those old GeForce3 cards. They will burn up in seconds if the fan fails. I had two fans fail on mine. The first time I shut the computer down in time. The second time I didn't and lost the card.

The card is NOS and so is the fan. I also have 6 spares just in case.

Intel486dx33 wrote on 2021-10-07, 13:46:

How is the reception on that TV Tuner ?

There's no television reception. The tuner is analog. I use it to view 8mm VCR and other analog video sources. The FM radio section does get reception, still.

Joseph_Joestar wrote on 2021-10-07, 13:17:

Some very nice components in there!

Back in the day, Plextor drives were renown for burning CDs flawlessly and the Abit GeForce3 is among the best ones. Nice to see an Audigy2 complete with the front panel. Those seem to be getting rare nowadays.

Thank you! Yeah, I'm a bit obsessed with Plextor drives and have a full collection of them up to when they stopped making them themselves and started selling rebadged OEM drives.

I really love the Abit cards, I have a bunch of their GeForce 3's and a few GeForce 4's. And yeah, the Audigy 2 Platinum is really nice, I made custom MIDI cables for it so I can plug in MIDI devices into the front panel.

SBLive wrote on 2021-10-07, 12:56:

Here's my main Vintage Gaming Rig - I call it The VGR. […]
Show full quote

Here's my main Vintage Gaming Rig - I call it The VGR.

Specs:

• Dual-boots Windows 98SE and Windows 2000 SP4 with all updates
• Intel Pentium III 1GHz SL5QV
• ASUS CUBX motherboard
• 512MB ECC PC133 Micron SDRAM
• Abit Siluro GeForce 3 Ti500 64MB VIVO AGP graphics card
• 2x Western Digital Caviar SE 120GB 7200RPM hard disk drives
• TEAC FD-235HF-B291 floppy drive
• Imation/Matsushita LKH-M934-1 SuperDisk (LS-120) drive
• Plextor PX-W4824TA CDRW drive
• Pioneer DVD-119 16x DVD-ROM drive
• Creative Audigy 2 Platinum sound card (for Windows games)
• Creative Sound Blaster 16 CT2290 with ASP sound card (for DOS games)
• AverMedia UltraTV Studio TV+FM tuner with remote
• Adaptec AHA-2940UW Pro SCSI adapter
• 3Com Etherlink 3C905TX-M Ethernet adapter
• Enermax EG-P465VE power supply
• Pretty cool case

there's a lot going on there! the fans too, nice airflow, imagine what impression it would have made 20 years ago let alone now!

This must be good for just about anything of the era, and then some

What? No Turbo button?!?!?

PoetLaureate wrote on 2021-10-07, 14:34:

What? No Turbo button?!?!?

Too modern for that.

gerry wrote on 2021-10-07, 14:31:

there's a lot going on there! the fans too, nice airflow, imagine what impression it would have made 20 years ago let alone now!

This must be good for just about anything of the era, and then some

Thank you! It plays virtually every DOS and Windows game from 1990 all the way to 2004 with no problems.
Of course there are exceptions, like DOS games that are speed-sensitive and those that have the Borland Pascal Error 200 bug, but I have my Pentium MMX and 486DX4 rigs for those. 😀

Very nice! I especially like the case, it's a good representative of the early '00s but also looks very elegant, no cheesy/funky colors or other ridiculous trends of that time. I also like the golden fan grills matching the one on the PSU.

I see you managed to fill every available expansion slot/bay with cards and components without any of them looking out of place!

TheMobRules wrote on 2021-10-07, 16:16:

Very nice! I especially like the case, it's a good representative of the early '00s but also looks very elegant, no cheesy/funky colors or other ridiculous trends of that time. I also like the golden fan grills matching the one on the PSU.

I see you managed to fill every available expansion slot/bay with cards and components without any of them looking out of place!

Thank you. I think the case plus the choice of components and their arrangement makes it look properly thought out and designed, which I really like. I'm not really into the gimmicky cases of the era, though my Pentium MMX system is in a pretty cool case with an iMac-style translucent piece on the front panel: https://i.imgur.com/pFZQQFr.jpg. It goes well with the translucent clear/green SuperDisk drive that sits on top of it.

I don't build systems just to stuff them with random parts I have laying around. Rather than have 50 "random junker" machines, I only have three and each is my personal "work of art." 😀 Every component has a purpose and the system is thought-out as a whole so that everything works together.

null

SBLive wrote on 2021-10-07, 12:56:

Here's my main Vintage Gaming Rig - I call it The VGR.

You should have called it Brute Force 😉

This is why I shouldn't be reading Vogons on a highish DPI display set to 100% without my glasses. I read your title as Behold the VCR and was totally expecting to find a PIII rig stuffed into an Xbox One inspired black desktop case. 😜

I absolutely love it though. The LiveDrive, Plextor burner, case window and GeForce 3 is totally Cover of Maximum PC, Summer 2001 material. That machine is just begging you to play Max Payne on it.

What a beautiful build! The case is perfect and all of these 5,25 devices, just love it!

Terrific!
Besides the top hardware pieces picked, I love how all white parts are the same tone (no beige, greyish, other darker white tones mismatching)

Anders- wrote on 2021-10-07, 16:46:

SBLive wrote on 2021-10-07, 16:38:

TheMobRules wrote on 2021-10-07, 16:16:

Very nice! I especially like the case, it's a good representative of the early '00s but also looks very elegant, no cheesy/funky colors or other ridiculous trends of that time. I also like the golden fan grills matching the one on the PSU.

I see you managed to fill every available expansion slot/bay with cards and components without any of them looking out of place!

Thank you. I think the case plus the choice of components and their arrangement makes it look properly thought out and designed, which I really like. I'm not really into the gimmicky cases of the era, though my Pentium MMX system is in a pretty cool on the front panel: https://i.imgur.com/pFZQQFr.jpg. It goes well with the translucent clear/green SuperDisk drive that sits on top of it.

I don't build systems just to stuff them with random parts I have laying around. Rather than have 50 "random junker" machines, I only have three and each is my personal "work of art." 😀 Every component has a purpose and the system is thought-out as a whole so that everything works together.

That's some serious iMac style (bondi blue!) to the superdrive cover 😀

Very 1998 iMac, ain't it? 😁

Con 2 botones wrote on 2021-10-07, 17:33:

Terrific!
Besides the top hardware pieces picked, I love how all white parts are the same tone (no beige, greyish, other darker white tones mismatching)

Thank you! It took a while to get everything NOS, and even then, in person you can actually see the different manufacturers used different shades of beige/grey... it doesn't match 100%, more like 99%. 😀