devius wrote on 2021-10-29, 10:27:

I like the detail of the scanner underneath the speaker where you can't open the lid 😆

When I used it, I'd slide it forward to the front of the desk. When I didn't need it (which was most of the time), it tucked away nicely underneath the speaker shelf.

zapbuzz wrote on 2021-10-20, 11:13:

My multimedia system its on its way I'll put some more photos up in my own bragging thread after playing with it when it arrives […]
Show full quote

My multimedia system its on its way I'll put some more photos up in my own bragging thread after playing with it when it arrives.
I got it for the rare tower mainly but the specs are great as well may swap out the ram and PSU for my new ones.
Also may add a RAID array.
Brand new black floppy drive goes into it can't wait to buzz it.
Foxconn seems to have completly dissapeared so it'll be a challenge to get its drivers!

Intel P4 - 3.06 GHz running Windows 7 x64 (Prescott)
Motherboard Foxconn P4M80007MA
1 TB HDD
Two DVD burners
ATI Radeon 9600 Graphics card
2 GB Ram
550 Watt Power supply
Led lit tower and front display panel
Front USB ports
TV card

So far pulled out the GPU and put thermal on it and upgraded os to latest patch for it to run stable swapped the DDR2 ram for DDR400 (they weren't matching and half advertised capacity) so now it runs great and in x64 very cool temperature its quite literally a new motherboard put in a tower used stuff all, and forgotten possibly due to poor gpu / memory conditions. GPU is back to life with heatsink compund.
Lights are cool I may pimp this old sucker with LED DDR modules 🤣 Practically new through out.
2 DVD burners are IDE both pioneer great brand
I watched the temps for 2 hours compressing a dvd image into a ultra compressed 7zip archive fell asleep watching never reached over 43 oC thats a damn good cpu. cpu fan practically silent spoiled by PSU fan that unit gets replaced today.

Here is my first "retro" build

Board: msi p6n sli platinum
Cpu: intel core 2 quad q6600 oc 3.3ghz
Ram: 8gb ocz ddr2 800 mhz
Sound card: sound blaster audigy 2 zs platinum
Gpu: 2 Asus geforce 8800 gt in SLI
HDD: hitachi hdd 750gb sata
Optical drive: LG dvd rw
Cooler: thermaltake bigwater 760is custom Water cooler
Psu: thermaltake tr2 600w
Chasis : thermaltake armor plus full tower

Darktabris wrote on 2021-11-02, 05:51:

Here is my first "retro" build […]
Show full quote

Here is my first "retro" build

Board: msi p6n sli platinum
Cpu: intel core 2 quad q6600 oc 3.3ghz
Ram: 8gb ocz ddr2 800 mhz
Sound card: sound blaster audigy 2 zs platinum
Gpu: 2 Asus geforce 8800 gt in SLI
HDD: hitachi hdd 750gb sata
Optical drive: LG dvd rw
Cooler: thermaltake bigwater 760is custom Water cooler
Psu: thermaltake tr2 600w
Chasis : thermaltake armor plus full tower

that's a powerhouse and has Windows 7 written all over it! Actually it'd be fine with win 10 too. As you say it's "retro" 😀

it would run pretty much anything from the 1980' (dosbox and VMs) all the up to about 2013/14 i'd guess, especially if you like gog for games and thus sidestep the problems that can occur with older window games

Yeah, it's similar to mine, but with twice the RAM and twice the 8800GT. At first the one with the raiser card confused me and I thought there is a motherboard with on-board Geforce 8. Depth perception at its finest. 🤣

RandomStranger wrote on 2021-11-02, 08:41:

Yeah, it's similar to mine, but with twice the RAM and twice the 8800GT. At first the one with the raiser card confused me and I thought there is a motherboard with on-board Geforce 8. Depth perception at its finest. 🤣

😂😂😂

Anyone else familiar with these Ambra computers? This one is in its original configuration with 486SX 25MHz, 4MB RAM and 210MB Harddrive. I Added Sound Blaster 16 and 3COM networking card since the onboard controller does not seem to like CF adapters paired with a hard drive.

Hi everyone 😀 I wanted to show off my retro rig
All components are up to 1999 except for monitor and Pc case.
Pc runs on Windows 98 SE and i tried to have all the programs up to 1999 as well
the composition lasted about 9 months

I want to thank you for the advice I received here. 😀

Motherboard- MSI MS-6163 Pro V:2
Processor- Intel Pentium III SL3NA Slot 1 600 MHz
Graphics Card- Voodoo 3 3000 16MB AGP
Sound card- Creative Sound Blaster Live! CT4830
Hard Drive- Western Caviar 3.5"WD100AA ATA 10 GB
Memory- Apacer 128MB PC100 CL2
Power Supply- Emko JS-200/ATX 200W
CD-RW Drive- Yamaha CRW6416S-NB
DVD Drive- TOSHIBA SD-M1202
Controller Board SCSI- Adaptec AHA 2940U
Floppy Drive- Sony MPF520-M 1.44MB 3.5in
Cable- HDD ATA-33, 40-PIN x3,SCSI 50pin
Windows- Windows 98 Second Edition
Case- Micase middle tower NRML51/WR350P4
Speaker- db Boeder 50W,model F967224
Mouse- Microsoft IntelliMouse
Keyboard- Chicony KB-2961 Standard Wired PS2
Monitor- Philips CRT 17" 107S61/00 white

@ Allanar:
Very nice case!
What are its dimensions? And are that 80mm or 92mm case fans?

ChrisK wrote on 2021-11-04, 10:15:

@ Allanar:
Very nice case!
What are its dimensions? And are that 80mm or 92mm case fans?

It is 92mm,it was quite warm in the pc, so I preferred to put them there.

where did you found an ftp site for the theme iMac Theme for Windows by PeZKinG?

vellu wrote on 2021-11-04, 07:03:

Anyone else familiar with these Ambra computers? This one is in its original configuration with 486SX 25MHz, 4MB RAM and 210MB Harddrive. I Added Sound Blaster 16 and 3COM networking card since the onboard controller does not seem to like CF adapters paired with a hard drive.

Yeah I got one but its the 386 version.

Love that setup. Very nice looking

Allanar wrote on 2021-11-04, 09:54:

Motherboard- MSI MS-6163 Pro V:2

Nice machine.
But the capacitor next to the power supply slot seems in bad shape.

And next to the mainboard model number, a CPU hsf protection sticker? 😁

PD2JK wrote on 2021-11-15, 21:18:

And next to the mainboard model number, a CPU hsf protection sticker? 😁

It's a plastic shield thingy like you can sometimes find around cpu sockets.

zapbuzz wrote on 2021-10-29, 20:54:

So far pulled out the GPU and put thermal on it and upgraded os to latest sp for it to run stable swapped the DDR2 ram for DDR40 […]
Show full quote

zapbuzz wrote on 2021-10-20, 11:13:

My multimedia system its on its way I'll put some more photos up in my own bragging thread after playing with it when it arrives […]
Show full quote

My multimedia system its on its way I'll put some more photos up in my own bragging thread after playing with it when it arrives.
I got it for the rare tower mainly but the specs are great as well may swap out the ram and PSU for my new ones.
Also may add a RAID array.
Brand new black floppy drive goes into it can't wait to buzz it.
Foxconn seems to have completly dissapeared so it'll be a challenge to get its drivers!

Intel P4 - 3.06 GHz running Windows 7 x64 (Prescott)
Motherboard Foxconn P4M80007MA
1 TB HDD
Two DVD burners
ATI Radeon 9600 Graphics card
2 GB Ram
550 Watt Power supply
Led lit tower and front display panel
Front USB ports
TV card

So far pulled out the GPU and put thermal on it and upgraded os to latest sp for it to run stable swapped the DDR2 ram for DDR400 (they weren't matching and half advertised capacity) so now it runs great and in x64 very cool temperature its quite literally a new motherboard put in a tower used stuff all, and forgotten possibly due to poor gpu / memory conditions. GPU is back to life with heatsink compund.
Lights are cool I may pimp this old sucker with LED DDR modules 🤣 dude got 4 star rating for it due souly the old small fan PSU had 0 dust at all in it practically new through out. As for the memory and GPU if I based it on those it'd get 3 star.
Found usb 1.1 card that got pulled so did the old analogue tv card.
DVD burners are IDE both pioneer great brand ones got a cooling fan in it likely upgrade the 40 way ide cable to 80 to get DMA 66 mode which practically as fast as ide bus goes for dvd burners (or maybe 100 too.)
I watched the temps for 2 hours compressing a dvd image into a ultra compressed 7zip archive fell asleep watching never reached over 43 oC thats a damn good cpu. cpu fan practically silent spoiled by PSU fan that unit gets replaced today new thread coming with full story.

A couple of Images finally after heaps of work last thing to do is cable management replacing the 40 way IDE cable with an 80 way gave the DVD drives UDMA trnafer capability one is UDMA 33, other is 66 so I am looking to replace the 33 with another 66 to keep the original 66 from running at 33. (i have spares) I know I have 2 IDE buses but that means another 80 way cable and they are a premium. I am not sure the best purpose of the included heat sensor is but it works . Has an old school floppy red plasma that glows really well in the dark from its new old stock packaging from 2003 and a brand new black floppy drive installed that has the new drive sound seeking at boot (or recently greased spindle after a barn/ dumpster find).
Added a 1tb WD blue i won at auction a year ago for $38.00 AU (Ex Postage)
floppy drive + cable = $45.00 AU
80 way IDE cable = $5.00 AU
Heatsink compund = $3.50 AU
Multimedia system = $170.00 AU Inc postage.

Maybe touch up all the scratches now 🤣

PARKE wrote on 2021-11-15, 13:21:

Nice machine. But the capacitor next to the power supply slot seems in bad shape. CAP.jpg […]
Show full quote

Allanar wrote on 2021-11-04, 09:54:

Motherboard- MSI MS-6163 Pro V:2

Nice machine.
But the capacitor next to the power supply slot seems in bad shape.
CAP.jpg

Yes, you have good eyes 😀,I saw it too but he hasn't solved it yet,I hope it lasts.
I've been using it for 4 months and so far everything works

Allanar wrote on 2021-11-20, 23:09:

ooooo But the capacitor next to the power supply slot seems in bad shape. ooooo I saw it too but he hasn't solved it yet,I hope […]
Show full quote

ooooo
But the capacitor next to the power supply slot seems in bad shape.
ooooo
I saw it too but he hasn't solved it yet,I hope it lasts.
I've been using it for 4 months and so far everything works

It may not be a good idea to run it like that. Opinions here seem to differ. Personally I would have it changed asap.

Back when I was younger, a 486 Packard Bell was my first computer. My parents bought it because our bank offered it with a discount here in Spain. Hence the reason why I own one and why I just love old Packard Bells!!!
So, this is my beauty! Love PB!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

A Packard Bell Pulsar 16.

Here are the Specs:

Motherboard: Packard Bell 685 M/Board / Bus Architecture : PCI 2.1/ISA based system bus.66MHz maximum bus speed / Cache : 16K level 1 cache.May have 256KB Pipelined Burst Cache soldered on board
Chipset : Intel 82437VX PCI set
CPU : Intel MMX Pentium 166 MHz
Sound Card: Orpheus
Keyboard: Packard Bell 5131C
Mouse: PS2 Mitsumi Optic Mouse
PCI Chipset : Intel Triton 82430VX PCI chipset
RAM : 16MB EDO
Video: S3 Trio64V+ motherboards have 1MB expandable to 2MB.S
CD-ROM: Hemlett Packard CD-Writer Plus 8200 Series
Extra: Compact Flash to IDE adapter with 1GB CF card

The insides of the computer:

An Intel MMX Pentium 166Mhz is perfect for playing mid-late 90s DOS games such as Blood or Duke Nukem while also being able to play 386 era DOS games. For such task I just disable Cache in the BIOS options and the Packard Bell transforms into a fast 386. More than enough for my needs!

I use solely MS-DOS 6.22. For rapid data copying from my main PC to the Packard Bell I use a 1GB Compact Flash as I have installed a CF to IDE adapter in the back of the computer. This is one of the easiest ways to copy games or programs into the system.

As for the sound, this computer had an Aztech Sound Blaster 16 compatible card. I swaped it for an Orpheus Sound Card. What a difference! Amazing sound card with great quality sound and 0 noise.
I bought the standard version as I'm only interested in using the OPL3 FM. Sorry, I'm not that fan of MIDI music!!!! Yes I know.....😬
I would like to comment that the purchase of the card went perfectly! Leo really made everything super easy for me. I ordered the Sound Card and received it in less than a month. Really impressed with the service. Top Quality!

Here's the sound card installed in the Packard Bell in all its beauty:

For typing I also use a Packard Bell branded keyboard model 5131C. I just love this keyboard! It is not a mechanical keyboard but it feels really nice when typing with it. Really, really nice.
I bought it second hand, it was quite yellowy. I disassembled it, cleaned it and used Hydrogen peroxide to whiten it.

I bought a new PS2 Optic Mouse in white colour to much the rest of the components. "Mitsumi" Anybody knows this brand???? 🤷‍♂️

I also bought some stickers to "decorate" the case. In the following picture we can see a Sound Blaster logo, and MS-DOS logo and a Intel Inside MMX logo as well.

In regards to the MOBO, I couldn't find much info about it so here are some pictures at least:

So that's about it! The computer runs flawlesly and I'm very happy with it! This is the only retro computer I use at the moment. Hope you enjoy the post!