First post, by CharlieFoxtrot
- Rank
- Oldbie
Just got this pretty damn nice Octek 430HX machine. There was one computer shop here in southern Finland which imported and sold Octek based systems. When I was getting my Pentium machine in autumn 1995, it was close that I didn't get a computer from there, but ended up buying it through my father's workplace. This system is without a doubt bought from this very same store in 1996, as I don't know any other store selling Octek systems specifically.
What makes this clone interesting is that so much of its parts can be traced back due to its origins. I already also dug up few reviews from local computer mags which have practically the same computer, with some options such as different CPU, graphics card or sound card having been reviewed during 1996.
The case is pretty neat looking with those led strips. I looked up old Octek site and it is Octek D60 series case. It has both that mid 90s look, but also somehow a bit more modern feeling. It stands out from many baby AT cases of the era and one of the reviews also noticed this. Some cases from the era have very flimsy chassis, but this is definitely one of the more well built ones. It has removable mb tray which is extremely good feature.
Case is overall in good condition, metal has just few scratches on top and one side and front panel is yellowed (next summer it will get some retrobright treatment):
Insides are pretty unremarkable. It has P120 CPU, 48 MB EDO (clearly 16MB originally, 32MB added later), Seagate HDD around 1.2GB and, S3Trio64, some PCI SCSI controller with external connector and underwhelming CT4180 (I have buttload of CT4170 and 4180 cards just sitting in my bin forever). CDROM drive is 4x Sanyo FX410A and I consider those to be of good quality:
Graphics card is indeed very typical for the era, but it is at least Diamond Stealth 64 DRAM (S3Trio64) with full memory. I find Diamond cards generally of decent quality and I'm always glad to have one instead of some no-name bulk card:
And here is the motherboard, Octek Rhino 9 Ver 1.4.:
I have one other Octek MB before this, orginal Jaguar 386 and I find it high quality. It has SiS "Rabbit" chipset with 64kB L2 and it is pretty much from the high point of 386s in 1990 until 386 started to become more like a budget offering under 486. It is fast and well built mobo. It has zero Varta damage as it only uses external battery, which makes it almost a rare breed among 386 motherboards of the same era.
And my plans for the system are as follows: I already swapped the CPU for 200MMX to give it a bit more oomph. I will most likely give it Mystique 220 as I don't require the best DOS compatibilty (I have plenty of systems for that). But, Mystique has fast 2D, has a good image quality and I want to test few of those MSI games out. I have one extra Voodoo 1 in my bin and this will have that one too. For sound I'm most likely going to go with AWE64 CT4520 with SIMCONN Revival, although I have some other options too, so we'll see.
I already flashed the latest Unicore BIOS to this which should give this board 128GB HDD limit and compatiblity with pretty much any S7 CPU. So, I will probably install around 120GB SSD in this. CPU voltages can be adjusted down to 2.5V, so K6-2 might be little iffy with this, but so does probably the voltage regulator. I was about to swap the heatsink for much larger one, but those are absolutely pain to remove. I didn't want to blast hot air with all those caps around the regulator, so I probably just settle with this CPU which is also specced for the board. Anyways, I have SS7 ATX mobo to go with and faster win9x boxes, so I really don't need more power. Recent years I have focused more on period or close to period correct builds in any case as I find them more interesting. When you have enough of systems overlapping each other, you really don't need to squeeze them and you can take every system just as they comfortably can go.
I will probably post some of my shenanigans and tests with the system. Next it needs little bit cleaning and getting all the new parts installed, but what I posted above is pretty much what it will most likely turn out to be: A high end Pentium MMX gaming rig from around 1997.
