Great video! Thanks!

Did you happen to notice the temps on your Athlon XP 3200+? I'm currently assembling a system with an Athlon XP 3000+ (333mhz FSB version), and this thing runs really hot. I'm used to my Athlon 1400s idling between 55 and 60 and getting up to the high 60s under load, but this is much worse. This 3000+ chip idles at 65 and has gotten up to 78 when I hit it with Prime95. I know that the temp sensors on some motherboards can be off by quite a lot, but this still seems very unusual. What were your experiences with the 3200+?

I actually had less temperature issues with the XP 3200+ compared to the P4. But this is purely because for the XP I had a brand new cooler: http://www.arctic.ac/worldwide_en/copper-silent-3.html

And for the P4 I used this one, which is not rated to handle the 3.2: http://www.startech.com/Computer-Parts/Fans/P … cket-478~FAN478

So the P4 would actually throttle after a while.

But I didn't really monitor the temps under load. I might keep that in the back of my head in case I revisit the XP in the future.

I use one of those Arctic Cooling units on one of my Athlon 1400s and it works very well.

I'm using a ThermalTake Volcano 10+ with the 3000+ CPU and it just doesn't seem like it can keep up. This is odd, because I used to use this very same cooler on an Athlon 1400 and it was just fine.

Update: I swapped the system to a different case with better airflow. I also swapped out the ThermalTake Volcano 10+ for a GlobalWin TAK-68. The CPU now idles at 62 and Prime95 couldn't get it past 72. Judging by that article at Tom's Hardware, this is consistent with their findings as well and the system is running normally. The Athlon XP 3000+ just runs really hot.

So I had a look into the Athlon XP having compatibility issues as discussed on youtube, hence I put together a quick Athlon XP build to test things.

the CPU is an Athlon XP 2800+ (Barton 333Mhz FSB) on an Nforce2 based Abit NF7-M, There are 2 GB of 400Mhz DDR RAM in dual channel mode.

I dont have a GF6600 , and this board doesnt support SATA (the NF7-S does) , so I got the closest replacement I do have, which is a GF6800GT 256Mb, and a 320GB SCSI hard drive, on an Adaptec 2100S (with 64mb of cache)
Also , Im using an Audigy as opposed to an Audigy 2ZS , though other than EAX4 support I dont think it will make a difference.

Windows XP SP3 , Nvidia 93.71 and Nforce 5.10 drivers, along with the latest official drivers for the Audigy.

As expected , 3DMark03 worked fine.

Some other test results

Morrowind , 1600X1200

Far Cry had various graphical glitches, and absurdly high contrast , though the problems disappeared once I patched the game to version 1.4
1024X768 , high settings. frame rate wasn't the most stable though at this detail level, scaling the settings to medium increased the frame rate by 10fps or so.

Doom 3 at 1600X1200 in high detail , got 57.1fps during demo1.

HDD benchmark

As far as temps, after running all of these benchmarks and games for a while, the CPU was at 39 C , though I am using a copper cooler, Arctic Silver Ceramique 2 , and its sitting in a Lian Li PC60 case.

Phill , have you tried a different VIA 4in1 ? seems like the VIA driver doesn't play nice with....well , anything.

Thanks for testing this!

Pretty obvious then that something in my setup is causing the crash, I will see if I have better luck with a nForce board.

If you're still looking for a Socket 478 cooler, Phil, see if you can get hold of a Scythe Shuriken RevB. I have one on my Northwood 3.2 and it cools exceptionally well, but it did take a while to find a second-hand one with the suitable S478 mounting hardware.

dexter311 wrote:

If you're still looking for a Socket 478 cooler, Phil, see if you can get hold of a Scythe Shuriken RevB. I have one on my Northwood 3.2 and it cools exceptionally well, but it did take a while to find a second-hand one with the suitable S478 mounting hardware.

Ah, yes, I remember that model. Scythe has a few other nice copper coolers too.

However, last week I got lucky and found a NIB Zalman cooler locally in Australia!

It's this model: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?It … N82E16835118115

I don't know what it's rated for, but it seems pretty big / powerful.

And here is my review on using an SD card to IDE adapter as hard drive substitute in older computers. I would happily recommend them in machines up to a Pentium III.

SD memory card to IDE adapter review

Cool video, I've just ordered one for my 486 machine.

You should also post this on http://retrocomputing.com.au :p 😀

mwdmeyer wrote:

Cool video, I've just ordered one for my 486 machine.

You should also post this on http://retrocomputing.com.au :p 😀

Will do, haven't registered yet, but will do 😀

I've considered these SD to IDE adaptors for awhile now, but stuck to the flash card adaptors for longevity reasons. I've had many a name brand SD type card (including regular thumb drives) die from regular/heavy use, but very few flash cards. I do buy industrial grade flash cards and that make a huge difference, but you can't really do that with SD cards.

It is getting harder and more expensive to get new flash cards though. They can still be found in stores near me, but only in small corners of the memory card sections and at two to three times the price for SD card and 1/3rd the capacity. I think I will have to try using these little SD adaptors in the near future. Thanks for the info and update us on the longevity of your cards after a good half year of use.

I don't think I use these storage devices enough to be honest.

I'm curious what things you do. I basically install the OS, maybe a few games, run some benchmarks. So not much copying back and forth to be honest

Something that might be worth checking out is an article I remember reading on PC perspective. They looked into SD cards and mentioned not to partition and format them with Windows, but to either use a camera or a SD formatting tool. Not sure what impact that has though.

Building the Fallout 3 Retro Gaming PC

Fallout 4 has been released, but check out the system requirements!

Instead, let us go back in time, play Fallout 3 and save some money.

The game costs just a few dollars, is fully patched and comes with all the add-on packs.

But beware, it is not optimised for Windows 7 or later.

Therefore I am building the Fallout 3 Retro Gaming PC with custom BIOS screen and game play!

Enjoy this video.

Roland Sound Canvas VA Software Synthesizer with DOSBox and ScummVM

Finally!

Roland has released a Sound Canvas software synthesizer which faithfully simulates the SC-55, SC-88, SC=88 Pro and SC-8820.

In this video I am showing you how you can use Roland Sound Canvas VA with DOSBox or ScummVM for improved General MIDI music.

Covered are:

- How to install Roland Sound Canvas VA
- How to configure ScummVM with Roland Sound Canvas VA
- How to configure DOSBox with Roland Sound Canvas VA

There are some issues at this point, best to check in this thread, lots of details: Heads Up: Roland Sound Canvas VA VSTi Plugin!

PhilsComputerLab wrote:

I actually had less temperature issues with the XP 3200+ compared to the P4. But this is purely because for the XP I had a brand […]
Show full quote

I actually had less temperature issues with the XP 3200+ compared to the P4. But this is purely because for the XP I had a brand new cooler: http://www.arctic.ac/worldwide_en/copper-silent-3.html

And for the P4 I used this one, which is not rated to handle the 3.2: http://www.startech.com/Computer-Parts/Fans/P … cket-478~FAN478

So the P4 would actually throttle after a while.

But I didn't really monitor the temps under load. I might keep that in the back of my head in case I revisit the XP in the future.

KT7AGuy wrote:

I use one of those Arctic Cooling units on one of my Athlon 1400s and it works very well.

I'm using a ThermalTake Volcano 10+ with the 3000+ CPU and it just doesn't seem like it can keep up. This is odd, because I used to use this very same cooler on an Athlon 1400 and it was just fine.

Update: I swapped the system to a different case with better airflow. I also swapped out the ThermalTake Volcano 10+ for a GlobalWin TAK-68. The CPU now idles at 62 and Prime95 couldn't get it past 72. Judging by that article at Tom's Hardware, this is consistent with their findings as well and the system is running normally. The Athlon XP 3000+ just runs really hot.

The Copper Silent 3 is actually my favorite sA HSF. Back when I upgraded my own Barton 3200+, I decided to add the Copper Silent 3 to my basket mostly based on favorable reviews, it's relatively low weight (I didn't want to crush my Barton 😢 ), it's triple socket tabs, it's low noise CPU fan and because of it's price.

While the stock HSF would do it's job alright, the case was a FS case with only a single 8cm fan exhaust and with this configuration, the stock HSF had the tendency to build up dust and make the system unstable. I wanted to get rid of that and added a 8cm case fan along with the new HSF (I also upgraded the graphics card so extra cooling for the system was needed anyway).

After a couple years I ended so satisfied with the Copper Silent 3 that I bought at least 10 more! 😁

My own (limited) experience with i865 and KT600 is also very similar to yours. s478 was basically idiot proof, it just worked. Barton 3200+ on KT600 was quite sensitive. I did increase stability by adding a 3rd party sound card to replace the onboard realtek as this was giving me issues which I just couldn't get solved. The other returning crash problem with my Barton rig was overheating, but you shouldn't have had any of these 2 problems, so your crash must've come from somewhere else. If it's always the exact same spot, that should tell something but I don't know what as afair I never used 3Dmark03

And cheers about your good explanation about sA's 5v power requirements and how to deal with this problem (you specifically mentioned using an old PSU, which is correct), but I do wonder which PSU you exactly used for your Barton build?

Nice vid! 😀

I thought I made a photo of the PSU, if not, I'll make one soon 😀

I have an update on the issue with 3DMark03. Another user on OCAU had the exact same issue! He also used an AGP 6600GT. Using an older driver got the benchmark to complete 😀

Still, the P4 works with the same card and driver. But yea, it's something that was bugging me and good to know!

There will be more Athlon XP action on my YT channel at some point 😁

PhilsComputerLab wrote:

Building the Fallout 3 Retro Gaming PC […]
Show full quote

Building the Fallout 3 Retro Gaming PC

Fallout 4 has been released, but check out the system requirements!

Instead, let us go back in time, play Fallout 3 and save some money.

The game costs just a few dollars, is fully patched and comes with all the add-on packs.

But beware, it is not optimised for Windows 7 or later.

Therefore I am building the Fallout 3 Retro Gaming PC with custom BIOS screen and game play!

Enjoy this video.

Nice video of era parts, working on my own Fallout 3 retro machine a bit older than the one you built

Cool!

Please share some info when you are done 😀

The Tomb Raider Time Machine: 20 years of Tomb Raider on 1 PC

The goal:

1 PC that runs all Tomb Raider games from 1996 to 2016.

It has been 20 years since Tomb Raider launched in 1996. Many of us have good memories playing it on consoles, especially the PlayStation, or on the PC, maybe even with a 3dfx Voodoo card.

So I built a PC and try out all the Tomb Raider games. Will I run into any issues? Will all games work? Let's find out together!

I talk about the parts and why I chose them. Every game has been captured and I mention any software issues I encountered.

PhilsComputerLab wrote:

The Tomb Raider Time Machine: 20 years of Tomb Raider on 1 PC

The goal:

1 PC that runs all Tomb Raider games from 1996 to 2016.

That sounds like fun.
Thanks for the video, Phil.