RetroLizard wrote on 2026-04-10, 20:26:

Where else would I download it from?

Also the Athlon XP system is isolated. Not connected to any networks.

Best to avoid it altogether for the time being. Even if you get a working CPU-Z, it seems to be mixed with some weird malware. Same for HWMonitor.

It's in full detail here: https://x.com/vxunderground/status/2042499378233876715

I'm using CPU-Z 2.14, which was downloaded last year.

RetroLizard wrote on 2026-04-10, 20:43:

I'm using CPU-Z 2.14, which was downloaded last year.

Nevermind then.

I got my Athlon XP system set up with Windows 2000 Professional, SP3.

Unfortunately, with just 3DMark 2001 and UT2004 installed (besides DX9), I have only ~300MB left on an 8GB CF card. Gonna have to find a larger drive and redo it.

Grem Five wrote on 2026-04-10, 20:24:

I have that same front panel and yellow connector on my Geforce 3 Ti200, both were parted from a Medion PC.

Yes, on your card is used VIVO chip Philips SAA7108E (instead ATI Rage Theater on ATI) and the purpose of the connector is the same: composite video input connection from the front panel.

Pulled some industrial P4 S478 motherboards out of storage for inspection and testing.

First in an Advantech AIMB-742. Attempting to power it up, it had POST codes of 13-12. It also had a stuck reset line and soft power is also stuck on.

It does have a missing inductor (L23) on the back of the board and some minor scratches. None of the caps appear leaky, although that's no guarantee. I'll probably remove and test some of them to be safe.

I have a second Advantech AIMB-742 board which has a bunch of corrosion on it. The chokes are all rusty and there is further corrosion near the rear sockets, including on an IC sandwiched next to the PS/2 port. It also has a bunch of leaky caps. Not looking forward to trying to repair this one.

On the upside, it has L23 inductor that the other board is missing. So I'll probably transplant it to the other board.

Finally a DFI ITOX G4E620-N. It's in decently good shape except for a bunch of nasty looking caps. I'm going to look into replacing these with polymer caps. Haven't done that before, so I'll need to research what would be appropriate values.

I tried a cheap no-name sata ssd in my Athlon XP system, using the startech ide to sata adapter. SSD is 480 GB.

Somehow, the bios correctly identified all 480 GB. How? It's an old board!

Working on the Sears Tele-Games Atari 2600 (restoring and modding it) and picked up some more games, and a VTP for Star Raiders, today while out shopping with my daughter. My 2600 collection is expanding! Also broke down and ordered an Atari 7800+ to play with. Today was a good day to retro! All the way back to the 70's and my early childhood! 😜

Yesterday I made a quick video overview of the gateway 2000 e 3110 PC I got recently.
https://youtu.be/_howUmToQPE?si=4NmN30yaLlALj049

Still working on my project to make a system monitor with real analog vumeters.
It use an Arduino on the parallel port.
I finally have it working on FreeBSD 9.0.
So adapting the code for Linux and BeOS won't be a problem.
And of course Win98 / XP, but it will be a bit more difficult, I want to use an app that goes in the System Tray near the clock, and I'm very bad at programming.
Especially for Win 😀
Also getting cpu, ram, network speed and disk usage may not be easy on Win98 ..
Or even DOS.

nali wrote on 2026-04-12, 01:47:

Still working on my project to make a system monitor with real analog vumeters. It use an Arduino on the parallel port. I finall […]
Show full quote

Still working on my project to make a system monitor with real analog vumeters.
It use an Arduino on the parallel port.
I finally have it working on FreeBSD 9.0.
So adapting the code for Linux and BeOS won't be a problem.
And of course Win98 / XP, but it will be a bit more difficult, I want to use an app that goes in the System Tray near the clock, and I'm very bad at programming.
Especially for Win 😀
Also getting cpu, ram, network speed and disk usage may not be easy on Win98 ..
Or even DOS.

Awesome..

If I recall correctly one of the OG system monitor programs, the one that you could configure your own inputs and displays, had maybe a plugin or something for output to those crystal fontz LCD displays, in serial or parallel. So possibly that could be processed by the arduino. Speedfan, think that was the one.

BitWrangler wrote on 2026-04-12, 02:21:

maybe a plugin or something for output to those crystal fontz LCD displays, in serial or parallel. So possibly that could be processed by the arduino. Speedfan, think that was the one.

Of course.
The main job is getting the info from the OS, then send them to the Arduino with the parallel port.
Here how it works :
- the PC send the data on 8 bits with D0 to D7
- it send 2 bits on the control port ( LineFeed and Init). to indicate if those datas are for cpu usage, ram usage, network speed or disk space. It could send 3 bits, which gives 8 choices. But I'm not sure old computers have many sensors and/or information to give.
For temperatures it 's easier to use an analog temp sensor like a LM35.
- then the PC send a Strobe to tell the Arduino to read the datas via an Irq.

Since the data are now in the Arduino, you can do whetever you want with them.
I use PWM to activate mechanical vumeters, and also draw a curve on an Oled (I will try 3 small Oled 128x64), but it can be whatever can be connected to an Arduino. As long as there are enough pins available.
But Crystal Fontz use serial or i2c, so it won't be a problem.
I just don't have any to try this.

nali wrote on 2026-04-12, 04:53:

Of course. The main job is getting the info from the OS, then send them to the Arduino with the parallel port. Here how it works […]
Show full quote

BitWrangler wrote on 2026-04-12, 02:21:

maybe a plugin or something for output to those crystal fontz LCD displays, in serial or parallel. So possibly that could be processed by the arduino. Speedfan, think that was the one.

Of course.
The main job is getting the info from the OS, then send them to the Arduino with the parallel port.
Here how it works :
- the PC send the data on 8 bits with D0 to D7
- it send 2 bits on the control port ( LineFeed and Init). to indicate if those datas are for cpu usage, ram usage, network speed or disk space. It could send 3 bits, which gives 8 choices. But I'm not sure old computers have many sensors and/or information to give.
For temperatures it 's easier to use an analog temp sensor like a LM35.
- then the PC send a Strobe to tell the Arduino to read the datas via an Irq.

Since the data are now in the Arduino, you can do whetever you want with them.
I use PWM to activate mechanical vumeters, and also draw a curve on an Oled (I will try 3 small Oled 128x64), but it can be whatever can be connected to an Arduino. As long as there are enough pins available.
But Crystal Fontz use serial or i2c, so it won't be a problem.
I just don't have any to try this.

You don't actually need Crystalfontz hardware, it was enthusiast driven development back in the day and they allowed their tools to be used with 3rd party and homebrew displays. The CrystalControl 2 utility can be configured for a generic LCD display, and they give instructions for that..
https://www.crystalfontz.com/software/crystal … up-hd44780.html

So you could reverse engineer from that. Maybe you have already used too many pins, unless you are using a Mega, to read all the data as if it was a HD44780 on the arduino, so might have to use a second cheapie board to read the parallel port output and SPI it over to your meter control arduino.

I think it's that CC2 that speedfan interacts with in 9x and XP. Also another older util Motherboard Monitor "MBM" will work with that too.

Initially, early noughts they only supported a few BX boards, but as sensor chips were added, almost every motherboard where you could see temperatures in the BIOS screen was able to be supported. I guess it's mainly Pentium 3 and socket A up, not sure there were many systems older than that which had SMB temperature monitoring... if they did it was only one thermistor and one fan with PWM control.

So if you are making a "universal" one, yes you will probably need to add sensors for everything older than about 1999, but for systems from then and into the 2000s you can do a lot with speedfan and motherboard monitor. At least if you want to see anything in 98/XP

If it's compatible with a HD44780 there's no problem. I use one for another project.
It can use SPI, so very few pins are necessary.
And I think I have to modify my vumeter to use the serial port instead of parallel, so it will free 10 pins. And be more compatible even for modern systems with a USB adapter.
The problem with integrated sensors is you need a software different for each mainboard. Or make something very complicated.
Easier to use a sensor for temp. That's what I use on my Pentium 4 to regulate fan speed automatically, just a CTN and an Attiny 85.
Fan rpm are universal.
But my main goal is building something "retro", that's why I use analog vumeters with needles 😀 I like the Art Deco style.

Today, I installed Windows 2000 on the 480GB drive. 2k only saw 128GB of it, which is still more then enough space.

I tried out three games:

Unreal Tournament 2004 (unpatched)
Halo CE (PC; unpatched)
Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time

Of the three, the first two crashed more then once. I have no idea what caused the crashes, but I'm gonna try applying game updates and see if that changes anything.

I also tried out a YMF724 card I got fairly recently for compatibility with UT2004, and it didn't have any noticeable problems.

Out of curiosity, I gave 3DMark a try. 2001SE ran as normal, and I'll provide the benchmark score later. 3DMark03, on the other hand, failed to initialize Direct3D. DXDiag gave no errors in regards to the video card, so I don't know what the problem could be.

Found my childhood 3310. 😀

It got a good wash and it works beautifully.

Where's the action shots from an intense game of snake?

Are there any good options for quiet Socket A/462 coolers?

Zalman flower is you want passive. Or overclock overkill ones with fans swapped out.

What about something like this?

https://www.ebay.com/itm/257443149817