badmojo wrote on 2025-10-01, 22:44:

Gold Leader-B747 wrote on 2025-09-30, 15:54:

Hey all!

Well I have three main Retro PC's at the moment, always hooping to build more, but making more room for that is always a challenge I am sure many are familiar with.

I love those crazy paint jobs! Great specs too.

Hey many thanks, yea I dd them paint jobs for the FKI FK-6043 Midi Tower, the Addtronics 6896A Entry Level Server/High Tower in December of 1999 and the larger Addtronics 7896A Server Tower in May of 2008. It's for me too hard to let things go, so I decided to keep these and now I am glad I did, some things are impossible to replace, like these three towers that I left my personal artworks on them likewise.

Gold Leader-B747 wrote on 2025-09-30, 15:54:

Sveta 2002

AMD AthlonXP 2200+ Thoroughbred-A, 1 Core @ 1.8Ghz

I like athlon XP and have a couple of machines and a few boards and cpus in waiting. Even lower range athlon XP machines are often such a great pairing with windows xp. Even if only given 512 of ram and a budget agp a machine like that can feel pretty good for early 2000's gaming. Your spec is excellent and probably allows the machine to range to later games too

gerry wrote on 2025-10-02, 10:31:

Gold Leader-B747 wrote on 2025-09-30, 15:54:

Sveta 2002

AMD AthlonXP 2200+ Thoroughbred-A, 1 Core @ 1.8Ghz

I like athlon XP and have a couple of machines and a few boards and cpus in waiting. Even lower range Athlon XP machines are often such a great pairing with windows xp. Even if only given 512 of ram and a budget agp a machine like that can feel pretty good for early 2000's gaming. Your spec is excellent and probably allows the machine to range to later games too

Yea this build was my first come back to retro computers this build I started in 2016 and it took a long painstaking 4 years and 2 months to complete so around March of 2020 it entered service and has become the mainstay of all my retro builds I still use CD-eX 1.5.1 to convert my CD's to 320 Kbps MP3 quality, albums by Sting, +The Police, Dire Straits,. Midnight Oil, Icehouse, Supertramp things like that and all my Zillion albums from 1997 - 2001, I always use the Quad Speed CD Read mode for the best stable results it takes time but it does pay off and it's a nice way to make good use of this system for the workstation side of it.

Gaming wise, I just love playing Freelancer with it's Matrox Parhelia AGP 256MB 256Bit DDR, that with C&C Red Alert 2 + Yuri's Revenge with Purple Alert Mod 4.10.28, I also play Descent 1 &2 with DXX Rebirth 0.58.1 ( this also goes well with the V5 PCI Mac)

All in all I am more of a retro gamer in general, even that this system can be very capable for newer gen games, I mostly use it to play the old ones at great frame rates.
Freelancer is newest game that I play on it, this game gets the max out of the Parhelia's P512 512Bit Hybrid GPU as it uses Pixel Shader 1.3 for the 3D objects and Vertex Shader 2.0a for the Nebula's, it's one of very few games that runs very well with a Matrox Parhelia graphics card even the Parlhelia LX based P750 does a good job in this game likewise.

Maybe I should make a thread with all my builds in it but in full detail, not sure where to do that yet though, as I don't want to go too far off topic here.

aieros wrote on 2025-09-27, 07:33:

Hello, Long time lurker. I see that several other members are posting their XP retro builds. I thought I'd post mine: For the ma […]
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Hello,
Long time lurker. I see that several other members are posting their XP retro builds. I thought I'd post mine:
For the machine, it's a combination of old parts that I kept from back in the day combined with new (modern) parts:
Specs are:
CPU: Intel Core 2 QX6700 Extreme OC @3.20 GHz Quad Core Processor / Artic Silver MX-6
CPU Cooler: Cooler Master 212 LED with upgraded fan (Thermal Right 120MM)
Motherboard: Intel D975XBX2KR (Bad Axe 2) Socket 775
RAM: Mushkin Enhanced 2x2GB (4GB Total) PC6400 DDR2 (With Heat Spreaders)
Hard drive: Toshiba 2.5 Mechanical 500GB Hard Drive SATA3
GPU: EVGA NVIDI​A GeForce ​GTX 570 1280MB PCIe
PSU: Corsair 1000HX (1000W) Modular Power Supply
Soundcard: Creative S​SoundBlaster​ Audigy 2​ ZS
Case: Be Quiet! Base 501 // Sound Dampening Case
Case Fans: 3x 140MM (2x140MM Noctua Redux 1x140 Pure Wings 3)
Other: Ageia PhysX P100 Processor

That's one very overpowered build man 😁 can't imagine anything from the XP era it won't play on max. The PhysX processor in particular is a very interesting thing, I wanted to get one to play with, but couldn't find for reasonable price and gave up.

sunkindly wrote on 2025-09-15, 20:37:

Thanks! […]
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Thanks!

The 386 build is coming along now! Here's the behemoth Syscon Consulting / Northgate Elegance AT board and how the cable management is going. Had to move the speaker to accommodate it.

CPU: Intel 386DX-25 w/ 387 coprocessor
RAM: 8MB
Cache: 256KB
ISA: GoldStar Prime-2
ISA: Video Seven VEGA VGA-16
ISA: Sound Blaster 16
HDD: 140MB Western Digital Caviar 2170

The attachment IMG_6658.jpg is no longer available

The attachment IMG_6700.jpg is no longer available

Looks majestic and really retro to me.

The 386/486 systems always look mystical to me. I grew up in the XP era and never knew experienced DOS systems except for a few Win 98 dos PCs my friends had on their P3 or Celerons. I think it was here on this forum and on Phil`s channel where I learnt about the 286/386/486 computers.

Hans Tork wrote on 2025-10-04, 20:27:

sunkindly wrote on 2025-09-15, 20:37:

Thanks! […]
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Thanks!

The 386 build is coming along now! Here's the behemoth Syscon Consulting / Northgate Elegance AT board and how the cable management is going. Had to move the speaker to accommodate it.

CPU: Intel 386DX-25 w/ 387 coprocessor
RAM: 8MB
Cache: 256KB
ISA: GoldStar Prime-2
ISA: Video Seven VEGA VGA-16
ISA: Sound Blaster 16
HDD: 140MB Western Digital Caviar 2170

The attachment IMG_6658.jpg is no longer available

The attachment IMG_6700.jpg is no longer available

Looks majestic and really retro to me.

The 386/486 systems always look mystical to me. I grew up in the XP era and never knew experienced DOS systems except for a few Win 98 dos PCs my friends had on their P3 or Celerons. I think it was here on this forum and on Phil`s channel where I learnt about the 286/386/486 computers.

I agree and yeah same, the 386 / 486 was before my time so I've learned a lot through lurking the forum and watching videos from Phil / Tech Tangents / etc.

Interestingly that it's totally unfamiliar to me is what makes me enjoy the 386 build more than the Pentium III that I remember more of.

First of all, many thanks to the Vogons community ! Without you, I wouldn’t have been able to rebuild this machine so easily, especially when it came to installing the audio drivers or OS properly. And without the community, I wouldn’t have felt the excitement of doing it 😀

This machine was built entirely with parts I’ve kept over the years. The only two thing I repurchased was the power supply, for extra safety and a PicoGus for fun ans discovery. The goal is to have a roughly ‘period-correct’ system that lets me run everything from DOS 6.22 to Windows 98SE, while taking advantage of the specific hardware features of the different cards from that era. It’s really my only retro build designed to be mostly good for everything relating for games prior WinXP.

For convenience, I enable and disable the different sound cards depending on the OS I load via my CF cards. So I’ve got about five or six cards, even a BeOS one 😀

CPU : Pentium III Katmai 550Mhz (Will be upgrade to a 700 or 1000 that i’have in stock , but need a slocket adapter
Motherboard: ABIT BH6
RAM: 320MB
Storage: CF Cards
Drive: Pioneer DVD
Networks : USB Ethernet dongle

Cards in order of the photo :
AGP GPU: Geforce 3 ti500 3D Prophet
PCI: Monster Sound MX300
PCI: Voodoo2 12 MB Creative Labs
PCI: Voodoo2 12 MB Creative Labs
PCI: Audigy 2 ZS
ISA: An incoming PicoGus 😀
ISA: Sound Blaster AWE 64

Next Step for this baby is to find a cooler for the CPU (Fanless is good but i prefer having an active cooling) and find another aluminium Case (This one is too big (E-ATX) , it’s from my old Dual Athlon MP2800+. If you have proposal, i get it !

Cheers !

Elta wrote on 2025-11-03, 15:16:

First of all, many thanks to the Vogons community ! Without you, I wouldn’t have been able to rebuild this machine so easily, e […]
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First of all, many thanks to the Vogons community ! Without you, I wouldn’t have been able to rebuild this machine so easily, especially when it came to installing the audio drivers or OS properly. And without the community, I wouldn’t have felt the excitement of doing it 😀

This machine was built entirely with parts I’ve kept over the years. The only two thing I repurchased was the power supply, for extra safety and a PicoGus for fun ans discovery. The goal is to have a roughly ‘period-correct’ system that lets me run everything from DOS 6.22 to Windows 98SE, while taking advantage of the specific hardware features of the different cards from that era. It’s really my only retro build designed to be mostly good for everything relating for games prior WinXP.

For convenience, I enable and disable the different sound cards depending on the OS I load via my CF cards. So I’ve got about five or six cards, even a BeOS one 😀

CPU : Pentium III Katmai 550Mhz (Will be upgrade to a 700 or 1000 that i’have in stock , but need a slocket adapter
Motherboard: ABIT BH6
RAM: 320MB
Storage: CF Cards
Drive: Pioneer DVD
Networks : USB Ethernet dongle

Cards in order of the photo :
AGP GPU: Geforce 3 ti500 3D Prophet
PCI: Monster Sound MX300
PCI: Voodoo2 12 MB Creative Labs
PCI: Voodoo2 12 MB Creative Labs
PCI: Audigy 2 ZS
ISA: An incoming PicoGus 😀
ISA: Sound Blaster AWE 64

Next Step for this baby is to find a cooler for the CPU (Fanless is good but i prefer having an active cooling) and find another aluminium Case (This one is too big (E-ATX) , it’s from my old Dual Athlon MP2800+. If you have proposal, i get it !

Cheers !

sounds like a good machine, geforce 3 will run most games of the era with full settings and that katmai is equal to most too, like CF idea for quick OS swaps. As it is I like it for all things 9x, so with 98se and dos mode it would do just about anything.
Could do with a pic really 😀

Thanks Gerry !

Here it is.

Elta wrote on 2025-11-05, 14:29:

Thanks Gerry ! […]
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Thanks Gerry !

Here it is.

Ancient Lian-Li for the win ! 🤣🥰

Wonder what the front looks like and which model it is.

Elta wrote on 2025-11-05, 14:29:

Thanks Gerry ! […]
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Thanks Gerry !

Here it is.

Nice build.
I love these Lian Li computer cases.
Once you build in a Lian Li Aluminum case you NEVER go back to Metal cases.
I have a few of these and a NEW boxed one in my Garage.

Omg, HOW could you tell what case it was from that picture??
😒

An early PII oddity:

Awesome Slot 1 motherboard, never seen one with SIMMS! What board is that?

Quite modestly named, the Pentium II Commander III. There are quite a few similar boards but as they hold little practical value and were rapidly replaced with newer chipsets, they're not commonly used.

A001 wrote on 2025-11-11, 16:46:

Quite modestly named, the Pentium II Commander III. There are quite a few similar boards but as they hold little practical value and were rapidly replaced with newer chipsets, they're not commonly used.

What chipset does it have?

AndrettiGTO wrote on 2025-11-05, 17:54:

Omg, HOW could you tell what case it was from that picture??
😒

Like Intel486dx33 said, once you build Lian-Li, hard to come back. I could still identify the case after setting off a grenade in it, 🤣
Looks like a plain PC60 from the picture.

CC-Adam wrote on 2025-11-10, 22:28:

Awesome Slot 1 motherboard, never seen one with SIMMS! What board is that?

I have one of said boards, and was equally amazed by it's existence. I have Intel PD440FX. Indeed a unusual-looking combo; Slot CPU and SIMMs

One of my older Win95 systems has an Intel PD440FX with a PII/266. They’re well built, heavy copper boards.

Those early Pentium II motherboards seem more like Pentium Pro boards with Slot 1.

H3nrik V! wrote on 2025-11-11, 22:05:

A001 wrote on 2025-11-11, 16:46:

Quite modestly named, the Pentium II Commander III. There are quite a few similar boards but as they hold little practical value and were rapidly replaced with newer chipsets, they're not commonly used.

What chipset does it have?

It is 440FX, the same chipset used for the Pentium Pro. Basically they changed the Socket 8 with Slot 1.
Since the Pentium II was launched in May 1997 and the 440LX (the first chipset specifically designed for Pentium II) was lanched in August 1997 this was the only solution.