Got this Pentium Pro VRM today, I'm planning to modify it for a new dual Pentium build. The Asus board for it requires 3.3V power; AT P8-P9 style so I have some work to do.

H3nrik V! wrote on 2025-03-28, 07:28:

So, the 9700K and 980Ti, is basically my daily driver, you just described :lol: I do use an Asrock Z390 motherboard though, as I […]
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fosterwj03 wrote on 2025-03-26, 22:26:

I ordered an i7-9700K from eBay last night. While hardly retro in and of itself (shoot, I suspect many of these are still in ac […]
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I ordered an i7-9700K from eBay last night. While hardly retro in and of itself (shoot, I suspect many of these are still in active service today), I plan to use this for a retro purpose. I’m going to combine the i7-9700k with my recently acquired Asus Prime H310-Plus motherboard as the basis for my vanilla Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows Vista (32-bit), and Windows 7 (32 and 64-bit) retro rocket. The Windows 7 64-bit install will get the place of honor on the NVMe drive while all the other operating systems will continue to get individual SATA3 SSDs of various sizes. Here will be the baseline specs:

Processor: Intel i7-9700K (3.6 GHz Base, 4.9 GHz Turbo (4.6 GHz All-core), 8 Core, 8 Thread)
Motherboard: Asus Prime H310-Plus
RAM: 2x Corsair 8GB DDR4-3000
Graphics: Swap between a GTX 480 for Windows 2000 and a GTX 980 Ti for the rest
Sound 1: Creative Audigy 2ZS (OEM) for Windows 2000
Sound 2: Creative X-Fi Titanium (PCIe) for the rest
USB: Via-based PCI USB 1.1/2.0 Adapter for Windows 2000 and XP
Networking: Realtek RTL8169 PCI Network Adapter for Windows 2000
Optical: 2x LG DVD-RW Drives
HDD: 3.5” 1TB

I’m also considering adding Windows 10 (64-bit) to the mix, but I’ll need a good-size SSD for that since I could install a lot of software compatible with Windows 10. I’d also like to get an RTX 3080 for Windows 7 and newer, but used GPU prices will need to come down a lot more to justify adding a newer high-end GPU to a “just for fun” build.

So, the 9700K and 980Ti, is basically my daily driver, you just described 🤣 I do use an Asrock Z390 motherboard though, as I NEED to overclock 😎 The reason for changing from a 9700 to a 9700K was actually to hunt 100.000 3DMark2001SE 😉 running all 8 cores at 5.0 GHz no issue. 5.1 gets unstable ..

fosterwj03 wrote on 2025-03-26, 22:26:

I’m also shocked by the demand for i7-9700’s and i9-9900’s. I had the impression that they weren’t exactly loved by reviewers when Intel released them. Yet these processors still command a bit of a premium on the used market today. Shoot, you can get a brand-new, in-box i7-12700K for less than a used i9-9900K from eBay. Weird!

My personal opinion on the 8th an 9th gen core i is that they were the first really interesting, as it was where you first got more than 4C8T without going LGA2011/2066 and Extreme series CPUs i.e. paying an arm and a leg ...

And they are Win11 compatible, so the oldest officially supported platform might drive the prices a bit up, IDK. I got my 9700K for the equivalent of ~100 US$ a couple of months ago, but they're typically somewhere between 20 and 50% more expensive on Danish sites

I agree completely. Even with the heavily compromised H310 chipset, this would have been a beast of a machine in 2019-2020, and I would have felt tickled to have one at that time (I was still rocking an i5-4690 and GTX 750 Ti back then). In fact, this setup is going to upgrade my old rig from that time period.

I just figured the price of used CPUs older than 5 years would have dropped a lot more given the glut of current CPUs on the market. The price-to-performance value of used CPUs seems way off (and not just 9th gen Intel).

Of course, I’m trying to build the newest system possible to run old software. I figure that Intel 9th gen is the end of the line for Windows 2000 given my need for at least 1 legacy PCI slot and a working MPS table (until someone figures out how to compile a compatible ACPI driver for Windows 2000). If someone is thinking in reverse (oldest hardware that still supports newer software), than I can see the appeal of high-end but older hardware for that purpose as well.

Ls-120 + disks
Sold as working, hoping it does for real.

Should be the USB version, without the dongle that plugs to the back.
Nice acquisition.

Are there any issues with disks, like they die for no reason?

Nexxen wrote on 2025-03-28, 18:21:

Ls-120 + disks Sold as working, hoping it does for real. […]
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Ls-120 + disks
Sold as working, hoping it does for real.

Should be the USB version, without the dongle that plugs to the back.
Nice acquisition.

Are there any issues with disks, like they die for no reason?

In my experience the drives usually kick the bucket before the disks do and with the drives it'll be the disk eject system that goes first.

Trashbytes wrote on 2025-03-28, 20:57:

Nexxen wrote on 2025-03-28, 18:21:

Ls-120 + disks Sold as working, hoping it does for real. […]
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Ls-120 + disks
Sold as working, hoping it does for real.

Should be the USB version, without the dongle that plugs to the back.
Nice acquisition.

Are there any issues with disks, like they die for no reason?

In my experience the drives usually kick the bucket before the disks do and with the drives it'll be the disk eject system that goes first.

Noted. Thanks!!
I'm glad we had CDs and usb keys.

Got a Unicorn ENDAT-486AL motherboard with a dx2-66, 16M of ram, 256Kb of cache, inside a NCR 3302 chassis. This is a very neat pizza box style small form factor PC. I'll post pictures later if anyone is interested.

EduBat wrote on 2025-03-29, 01:08:

Got a Unicorn ENDAT-486AL motherboard with a dx2-66, 16M of ram, 256Kb of cache, inside a NCR 3302 chassis. This is a very neat pizza box style small form factor PC. I'll post pictures later if anyone is interested.

https://theretroweb.com/motherboards/s/unicorn-endat-486al

I was hoping for pics. 😀

Did not have time to clean it yet. Here goes...

Swiss army knife for scale...

Today I got my first Kyro II, a Hercules 3D Prophet 4500 64MB with the original driver CD. After a clean and a repaste it works like a charm!

EduBat wrote on 2025-03-29, 16:46:

Did not have time to clean it yet. Here goes... […]
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Did not have time to clean it yet. Here goes...

Swiss army knife for scale...

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That machine is a swiss army knife too!
Both 30pin and 72pin RAM slots.
Both ISA and VLB available.
Supports 1MB L2 cache.
Has well known SIS471 chipset, that has many BIOSes available. (including one modified by me to enable proper writeback support for L2 cache) Unfortunately no MR-BIOS has been found for it. (It did exist)

What a beauty!

EduBat wrote on 2025-03-29, 16:46:

Did not have time to clean it yet. Here goes... […]
Show full quote

Did not have time to clean it yet. Here goes...

Swiss army knife for scale...

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Beautiful case, these half height horizontal cases are great. You got very lucky that battery didn't leak.

Today, I picked two Geforce PCI-e for a dollar each. One 9500GT and one 8600GT.

Also found some coolers. One NIB Zalman CNPS 5500-Cu and three slot 1/A coolers. Two are SECC1 and one SECC2. The silver one screams "Athlon".

I also grabbed some more DDR2 and a CPU to test a board I picked up last week.

I also have another "mystery machine": an AST. Quick look at the interior reveals Cyrix 486 and populated memory slots. It also reveals a battery acid horror-show. The battery is STILL in it, too... The exterior looks like it fell down some stairs. A few times...

Today I tried to buy but got outbid on...

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/396351001291

Only the 2nd time in many years that I've seen this board in the wild....

Random thrift stuff....

Got some sealed blank media...

Yeah it sayyyyys minidisks but it means mini floppies... which are? Bueller? Bueller? 5.25, full size are 8"

These might be slightly pre-PC but not sure, they're certainly not boasting IBM compatibility or format. I was actually hoping for DSDD, couldn't see the back as they were bagged faces out. Ah well, S(ame/ingle) S(hit/ided) D(ifferent/ouble) D(ay/ensity) it is.

When they sold them in double packs like this I think they cost about $10 or so. A whole BOX was something you saved up for, besides, who needed that much, you could get like 20 documents on a disk!

edit: hahaarrr, a brochure/spec sheet from 1983, so at least that old https://classic.technology/wp-content/uploads … h-minidisks.pdf

Lostdotfish wrote on 2025-03-29, 20:11:

Today I tried to buy but got outbid on... […]
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Today I tried to buy but got outbid on...

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/396351001291

Only the 2nd time in many years that I've seen this board in the wild....

The attachment Screenshot 2025-03-29 201108.png is no longer available

That would be an awesome board to have ... what did it end up selling for?

G-X wrote on 2025-03-29, 21:07:

Lostdotfish wrote on 2025-03-29, 20:11:

Today I tried to buy but got outbid on... […]
Show full quote

Today I tried to buy but got outbid on...

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/396351001291

Only the 2nd time in many years that I've seen this board in the wild....

The attachment Screenshot 2025-03-29 201108.png is no longer available

That would be an awesome board to have ... what did it end up selling for?

about £150 - I sniped in at that and was outbid by a couple of pounds...

EduBat wrote on 2025-03-29, 16:46:

Did not have time to clean it yet. Here goes... […]
Show full quote

Did not have time to clean it yet. Here goes...

Swiss army knife for scale...

The attachment 20250329_123614.jpg is no longer available

The attachment 20250329_123751.jpg is no longer available

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Cute compact authentic DOS system. I suspect you would have liked room for a CDROM, but there are always backpacks etc. The "CDROM emulator" possibilities are just opening up.

ePay pictures for now. For about $25 this seemed perfectly worth snagging. 4 floppy drive support, and up 64mb cache for scsi devices? yes please. I'll be sure to backup the disk and manual too. ^.^ I think some of the caps are starting to loose their juice, but I'm well equipped to rectify that situation.

BitWrangler wrote on 2025-03-29, 23:02:

Cute compact authentic DOS system. I suspect you would have liked room for a CDROM, but there are always backpacks etc. The "CDROM emulator" possibilities are just opening up.

Indeed. The lack of space for the CDROM is a bit of a problem. I'm thinking of buying an ISA network card now...

dominusprog wrote on 2025-03-29, 19:36:

Beautiful case, these half height horizontal cases are great. You got very lucky that battery didn't leak.

Not only that, the battery held the charge. When I switched it on it showed me I was back to the 29th of March 1925 (LOL, BIOS has the year 2000 bug.) The latest file on the hard drive was from 1999 ?!?!? No one used the computer since then ?!?

GigAHerZ wrote on 2025-03-29, 17:20:

That machine is a swiss army knife too! Both 30pin and 72pin RAM slots. Both ISA and VLB available. Supports 1MB L2 cache. Has w […]
Show full quote

That machine is a swiss army knife too!
Both 30pin and 72pin RAM slots.
Both ISA and VLB available.
Supports 1MB L2 cache.
Has well known SIS471 chipset, that has many BIOSes available. (including one modified by me to enable proper writeback support for L2 cache) Unfortunately no MR-BIOS has been found for it. (It did exist)

What a beauty!

Since It has 16MB of RAM I will not be upgrading that just yet. The manual says that it can go up to 128MB, which is just crazy.
Last time I bought cache chips I was sent fakes. Does anyone have any tips on how not to get scammed? 😀
I don't have an EEPROM programmer, so I will not be risking changing the BIOS for now. The standard AMI BIOS recognized my 6GB hard drive and for now I'm happy with it. I will eventually look at all the options available to improve performance but it will take time...

The computer has a few more issues, besides the dirt and dead bugs. The fans are very noisy, particular the one from the 1989 power supply, which I really need to check and probably replace.

Another option for CDROM is an Adaptec 1542 or similar SCSI card and external enclosure.