Fastforward to lastweek. I made a trade with another member to acquire a suitable PCI "Mystery card". Yes. I trust you all. 100% assume GPU problem is gone. I found my other pile of memory and combined piles, finding 2x512 266Mhz sticks:

Sweet! I tested them one at a time in the system and... They're good! Huzzah! I was also having problems with the crappy sound, so I put a Sound Blaster Live in there:

I used the OEM disk to install and I noticed the BIOS automatically disabled the on-board (there isn't even an option in the BIOS, but it's not even in device manager anymore). I was just waiting on my mystery man.

Back to today. I got my mystery package today. I was absolutely blown away and made my wife scared, 🤣 After I shook the shook off, I opened the "mystery GPU" and inspected it:

A GeForce 5200 Ahhh. Perfect for this rig, though! I cleaned it and compound, then installed. It booted, video BIOS, very cool. Windows: fan slows down (normal), but no video... Hmmm. I sence bullsh8t. I plugged the monitor back into the on-board just to catch the tail-end of windows finishing installing Microsoft drivers for it. Figuring it was the drivers, I restarted. Same thing. Back to the onboard, I instally drivers for the GPU from THIS disk:

I like using what I have already, whenever possible and I think this version of nvidia drivers was perfect! It was 147.xx
Restart the computer (switch to GPU) and I get video BIOS, regular BIOS, and then.... Nothing. Yes. yes. Do me like that Windows, 🤣 I remember this happening way back. I disabled the on-board in device manager and then restarted. BIOS, BIOS, WINDOWS, Woot! I immediately cracked open Quake3! Then immediately closed it, 🤣 I was too excited. I like to check temps before doing anything. The GPU was a bit warm. Too warm, so I pointed a 120mm at it. Immediate frost. Alrighty NOW to Quake, 🤣 1024x768 with high setting, as you would expect: Flawless. Same for UT. I feel like I was on FIRE with the bots for a while, 🤣
Better run a benchmark, to check them numbers:

I just need to find the side panel (or make one) and this'll be one SOLID unit.

Here's the whole thing:

OH MAN what a relief! I went through 2 boxes of PCI video cards and I quickly came to the realization, i had almost nothing PCI that would be good for Q3. For some reason once I get to ~16mb vram era cards, my selection just goes to practically zero. I saw how much memory was on it, and the limited selection I had, and picked it. I didn't realize until after I shipped the package, how the 5200 doesn't have a great reputation.

That said I did see a common thread for people with the PCI version - It seemed like a great card for PCI and win98. case in point: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hht42vJ-IfM While most people lampooned the performance, they always seemed to have AGP ones, and were playing newer games from like 04/05.

it seems like everyone wants to just latch onto "TEH BEST" cards and totally ignore anything else. But people have really forgotten how 9/10 computer users of the time had these Compaq machines. (or Emachines, or dell, or whatever) Just having a dedicated GFX card, even PCI, puts you into a whole new tax bracket of PC gaming. Do you know how many hours I played SC2k on a 68030 cpu looking wistfully at the PowerPc line coming out?

This system feels authentic.

I've nothing against OEM machines, in fact I have a soft spot for them but Presario's nah! they always just felt cheap.

but now that they are borderline retro I've come to appreciate the challenge in it's limitations like the lack of AGP so installing something like a Matrox and having a rig dedicated to EMBM

The sliding panel over the front ports is also kinda cool

luckybob wrote on 2024-09-11, 04:23:

This system feels authentic

I was building computers out of dumpster scraps when I was growing up, so I could never run ANYTHING new. The first motherboard/CPU/RAM combo I bought (not from a dumpster) was a CeleronD 2.4 with a red mATX 478 board (I think it was an MSI?) and Patriot DDR 400 (still in use). It put it in one of these era silver Compaqs. It was generic enough to take an aftermarket board with out doing much modification, which would've been tricky for a 9-10 year old. Lots of the computers we had were evil like Optiplex(s), Deskpro(s), etc. and needed special EVERYTHING to put any other computer in the case. This now has that "dumpster gamer" vibe again, 🤣 Nothing but good memories. That dumpster was the best.
Thanks again, too!!

chinny22 wrote on 2024-09-11, 05:57:

The sliding panel over the front ports is also kinda cool

I'm glad that sliding panel cleaned up! It was pretty scratched and didn't move well. Completely disassembled it, buffed the lens and it looks new*.

Very nice! I like this type of system, it's very honest and representative of what the average person had in 2003, even if they wanted something faster. I have a Pentium 4 Dell Dimension 2350 which is also PCI-only with a Radeon 9200, similar to your Compaq!

I like the Pentium 4. P4 systems are so reliable and much faster than people give them credit for. Vogons needs a dedicated P4 build thread. 🤣