Bought a i7 4700mq + GTX780M laptop with 32GB RAM and a 500GB SSD for $178 shipped with AC adapter.

My thought is this should be a great XP + 7 dual boot. I may even be able to tri-boot XP + 7 + 10 LTSC.

GTX 700, much as GeForceFX was the break away point for legacy DX6 graphics, is the break away point for 9.0c and XP era graphics in many ways. Its the last GPU to support CSAA and a few other technologies. Also the last series of GPUs to have proper Windows XP driver support.

CSAA was introduced with GeForce G80 and DX10?

MattRocks wrote on 2026-04-02, 11:22:

The 300W Mercury PSU might be suitable for my i430TX.

BANG!

No, that Mercury 300W PSU is not going onto my i430TX after all. It literally exploded and black smoke came out. Wow.. I really didn't have much luck at all with that mystery box.

Helloes !

So shall we "unbox" this mystery box together ?

Recently I saw someone here in this thread posting his recent poach and he gracefully guided us through the hardware reveal process and I was wondering if you guys like this kind of content

Yesterday I got this box from a local marketplace (for 20€) and will open it in the next few days .

So the case is a typical 90s AT minitower with a MHZ display ... in desperate need of a retrobright
No 5 1/4 drive (as always) and no CD-ROM.
The case is very light so I dont think there is a lot of "stuff" inside
In the back we can see the I/O ports and only a single VGA card ... no sound card with a volume wheel unfortunately
The keyboard port gives us a hint of the varta nightmare we are going to find inside very soon...

the logo and case badge point to "inforfoco" a known PC shop in my area what makes me believe that this might have a slight chance of being a private/home computer instead of a company machine

so... any guesses ?
I'll wait a few days and then will crack open the case and post the results here... that varta has already done all the damage it could do... a few more days will not make any difference

Alright here goes:
-AMD 486 DX2 66
-8MB RAM
-Trident 9000 VGA
-420 MB HDD [added after edit]

PD2JK wrote on 2026-04-10, 18:49:

Alright here goes: -AMD 486 DX2 66 -8MB RAM -Trident 9000 VGA […]
Show full quote

Alright here goes:
-AMD 486 DX2 66
-8MB RAM
-Trident 9000 VGA

And HD ? or no HD ?

Nunoalex wrote on 2026-04-10, 18:39:

Helloes ! […]
Show full quote

Helloes !

So shall we "unbox" this mystery box together ?

Recently I saw someone here in this thread posting his recent poach and he gracefully guided us through the hardware reveal process and I was wondering if you guys like this kind of content

Yesterday I got this box from a local marketplace (for 20€) and will open it in the next few days .

The attachment 20260410_093946.jpg is no longer available

The attachment 20260410_093919.jpg is no longer available

So the case is a typical 90s AT minitower with a MHZ display ... in desperate need of a retrobright
No 5 1/4 drive (as always) and no CD-ROM.
The case is very light so I dont think there is a lot of "stuff" inside
In the back we can see the I/O ports and only a single VGA card ... no sound card with a volume wheel unfortunately
The keyboard port gives us a hint of the varta nightmare we are going to find inside very soon...

the logo and case badge point to "inforfoco" a known PC shop in my area what makes me believe that this might have a slight chance of being a private/home computer instead of a company machine

so... any guesses ?
I'll wait a few days and then will crack open the case and post the results here... that varta has already done all the damage it could do... a few more days will not make any difference

It's before my time in PCs. I think the toggle switch + LEDs points to a late 386 or early 486. Strictly PS1 and Serial does not contradict late 386 or early 486. Single VGA, still no contradiction. No CD-ROM is inconclusive but leans more towards 386. And, note the VGA port is bang in the middle of the slot so it has to be a full height VGA card - not a later miniaturised model. And, check out the INFORFOMO logo on the back from an age when 5.25" was mainstream, which leans away from 486. And, no 5.25" installed so it's forward looking..

I'm going to plump for 386 DX-40, 4Mb EDO, full size Trident 8900 ISA, no sound card, some kind of 200Mb HDD.

MattRocks wrote on 2026-04-10, 16:19:

CSAA was introduced with GeForce G80 and DX10?

Correct, and it was dropped with Maxwell. Kepler GPUs are the last to support it.

I guess mid-2000s technology would have been a better description of what GTX 700 was the last of.

MattRocks wrote on 2026-04-10, 19:37:

Nunoalex wrote on 2026-04-10, 18:39:

Helloes ! […]
Show full quote

Helloes !

So shall we "unbox" this mystery box together ?

Recently I saw someone here in this thread posting his recent poach and he gracefully guided us through the hardware reveal process and I was wondering if you guys like this kind of content

Yesterday I got this box from a local marketplace (for 20€) and will open it in the next few days .

The attachment 20260410_093946.jpg is no longer available

The attachment 20260410_093919.jpg is no longer available

So the case is a typical 90s AT minitower with a MHZ display ... in desperate need of a retrobright
No 5 1/4 drive (as always) and no CD-ROM.
The case is very light so I dont think there is a lot of "stuff" inside
In the back we can see the I/O ports and only a single VGA card ... no sound card with a volume wheel unfortunately
The keyboard port gives us a hint of the varta nightmare we are going to find inside very soon...

the logo and case badge point to "inforfoco" a known PC shop in my area what makes me believe that this might have a slight chance of being a private/home computer instead of a company machine

so... any guesses ?
I'll wait a few days and then will crack open the case and post the results here... that varta has already done all the damage it could do... a few more days will not make any difference

It's before my time in PCs. I think the toggle switch + LEDs points to a late 386 or early 486. Strictly PS1 and Serial does not contradict late 386 or early 486. Single VGA, still no contradiction. No CD-ROM is inconclusive but leans more towards 386. And, note the VGA port is bang in the middle of the slot so it has to be a full height VGA card - not a later miniaturised model. And, check out the INFORFOMO logo on the back from an age when 5.25" was mainstream, which leans away from 486. And, no 5.25" installed so it's forward looking..

I'm going to plump for 386 DX-40, 4Mb EDO, full size Trident 8900 ISA, no sound card, some kind of 200Mb HDD.

lack of CD-ROM and sound card doesn't mean this is not a 386... it probably means this was some boring office machine just to do excel or word ...

lets see... in the next few days we will open the hood 😀

PD2JK wrote on 2026-04-10, 18:49:

Alright here goes: -AMD 486 DX2 66 -8MB RAM -Trident 9000 VGA -420 MB HDD [added after edit] […]
Show full quote

Alright here goes:
-AMD 486 DX2 66
-8MB RAM
-Trident 9000 VGA
-420 MB HDD [added after edit]

Some of that yellowing will come off with soap and water and a dish scrubber.

Nunoalex wrote on 2026-04-10, 18:39:

Helloes ! […]
Show full quote

Helloes !

So shall we "unbox" this mystery box together ?

Recently I saw someone here in this thread posting his recent poach and he gracefully guided us through the hardware reveal process and I was wondering if you guys like this kind of content

Yesterday I got this box from a local marketplace (for 20€) and will open it in the next few days .

The attachment 20260410_093946.jpg is no longer available

The attachment 20260410_093919.jpg is no longer available

So the case is a typical 90s AT minitower with a MHZ display ... in desperate need of a retrobright
No 5 1/4 drive (as always) and no CD-ROM.
The case is very light so I dont think there is a lot of "stuff" inside
In the back we can see the I/O ports and only a single VGA card ... no sound card with a volume wheel unfortunately
The keyboard port gives us a hint of the varta nightmare we are going to find inside very soon...

the logo and case badge point to "inforfoco" a known PC shop in my area what makes me believe that this might have a slight chance of being a private/home computer instead of a company machine

so... any guesses ?
I'll wait a few days and then will crack open the case and post the results here... that varta has already done all the damage it could do... a few more days will not make any difference

Heh, I got the exact same case (mine is dated late '93) and it was just as yellow as that one. I had to paint it because no amount of retrobrighting would make the piss yellow color go away! Turned out pretty good I think.

My guess is:
- 386SX on PCChips M396F or similar ultra-budget motherboard
- Generic I/O card
- Realtek VGA
- 200MB HDD

Nunoalex wrote on 2026-04-10, 18:39:

Helloes ! […]
Show full quote

Helloes !

So shall we "unbox" this mystery box together ?

Recently I saw someone here in this thread posting his recent poach and he gracefully guided us through the hardware reveal process and I was wondering if you guys like this kind of content

Yesterday I got this box from a local marketplace (for 20€) and will open it in the next few days .

The attachment 20260410_093946.jpg is no longer available

The attachment 20260410_093919.jpg is no longer available

So the case is a typical 90s AT minitower with a MHZ display ... in desperate need of a retrobright
No 5 1/4 drive (as always) and no CD-ROM.
The case is very light so I dont think there is a lot of "stuff" inside
In the back we can see the I/O ports and only a single VGA card ... no sound card with a volume wheel unfortunately
The keyboard port gives us a hint of the varta nightmare we are going to find inside very soon...

the logo and case badge point to "inforfoco" a known PC shop in my area what makes me believe that this might have a slight chance of being a private/home computer instead of a company machine

so... any guesses ?
I'll wait a few days and then will crack open the case and post the results here... that varta has already done all the damage it could do... a few more days will not make any difference

My guess is that it will be one of these cheap boards with an ibm slc2 CPU, and a battery right next to the keyboard port!

https://theretroweb.com/motherboards/s/ibm-486slc2

Nunoalex wrote on 2026-04-10, 18:39:

Helloes ! […]
Show full quote

Helloes !

So shall we "unbox" this mystery box together ?

Recently I saw someone here in this thread posting his recent poach and he gracefully guided us through the hardware reveal process and I was wondering if you guys like this kind of content

Yesterday I got this box from a local marketplace (for 20€) and will open it in the next few days .

The attachment 20260410_093946.jpg is no longer available

The attachment 20260410_093919.jpg is no longer available

So the case is a typical 90s AT minitower with a MHZ display ... in desperate need of a retrobright
No 5 1/4 drive (as always) and no CD-ROM.
The case is very light so I dont think there is a lot of "stuff" inside
In the back we can see the I/O ports and only a single VGA card ... no sound card with a volume wheel unfortunately
The keyboard port gives us a hint of the varta nightmare we are going to find inside very soon...

the logo and case badge point to "inforfoco" a known PC shop in my area what makes me believe that this might have a slight chance of being a private/home computer instead of a company machine

so... any guesses ?
I'll wait a few days and then will crack open the case and post the results here... that varta has already done all the damage it could do... a few more days will not make any difference

Interesting, another mystery box. 😁

This one is older than the machines that I am most familiar with, but I'll take a random stab.

Cyrix 486 DX2 66Mhz
Sad looking corroded motherboard with VLB
Cirrus Logic CL-GD5426 1MB VLB
8MB RAM
~500MB Hard Drive

Basing this on almost nothing, other than the VGA card being down in one of the bottom slots makes me think VLB.

Also, I don't think double-posting this in another thread would be a terribly huge deal, but someone made a dedicated thread for these PC-detective posts. If you want to even just post there with a link to your post in this thread that would be fine. The follow up post when you get the machine could go in that thread. 🙂

I let an S3 805 VLB get away from me ☹️ I thought I would have a couple of days to get to it as it was mis-described... but got snapped up out of a local listing. I know it's not allll that special but never had an S3 VLB before so wanted to sample it's questionable delights. Particularly because I've never found a CL win 3.11 driver I have been totally happy with.

Bought a lot of 8 AGP video cards on eBay to add to my collection. Should be here in a couple weeks hopefully!
Any ideas on what cards could be in the lot? I've included pics in this post and the next of the cards included in the lot!

Other 2 cards

Also bought a couple motherboards as I needed to replace my one socket 939 board as it had bad caps and it was cheaper to buy these 2 boards as a lot than to have someone to fix my old board ($150 plus Shipping there and back). Got a Gigabyte GA-M57SLI-S4 & an MSI MS-7094 Ver1.4 both with CPU's and heatsinks! Also was able to find this Radeon 9250 PCI for a really good price to stick in my K6-2 system that doesn't have an AGP slot.

s-l1606.jpg looks to me like a GeForce4 MX with 128bit DDR 5ns VRAM - if I'm right then that's a sleeper.
s-l1604.jpg is a slow office M64 - but many M64s had fuzzy displays from weak analogue stage and an ASUS one might behave better.
s-l1601.jpg is a later GeForce with PCIe-to-AGP bridge - I find them prone to premature failure. Good luck!

johnvosh wrote on Yesterday, 20:04:

Bought a lot of 8 AGP video cards on eBay to add to my collection. Should be here in a couple weeks hopefully!
Any ideas on what cards could be in the lot? I've included pics in this post and the next of the cards included in the lot!

1.) HIS Radeon 9250 128MB
2.) TNT2 M64
3.) Matrox G450LP https://www.techpowerup.com/gpu-specs/millenn … m-g450-lp.c3529
4.) Can't tell, there is a part number on that barcode I am pretty sure tho. My guess is that its an MX4000 or an SIS 315
5.) Pretty sure this is another low end Radeon 9000 series.
6.) GeForce 6600 or 7600
7.) GeForce2 MX-400 with SD-RAM (https://www.alldatasheet.com/datasheet-pdf/pd … 7V641620HG.html)
8.) Another TNT2 M64

That orange sticker on that one bodes ill in my opinion, thats a common way to mark a defective item. I think you got conned into buying someones broken stuff and garbage cards. The x600 AGP and the GeForce2 are the only cards here of note. The rest is eWaste in my opinion. The Radeons are too slow to be useful in DX8 or DX9 games and Radeons lack critical legacy rendering features that NVIDIA kept support for up through GeForceFX. TNT2 M64s are roughly as fast as an original TNT, they would pair nice with a early Pentium II system but I'd never go out of my way to acquire one.

6.) is BFG 6600GT OC