VOGONS


First post, by windi

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I recently got a nice unused Nokia 19" flat crt monitor (supposedly manufactured by Viewsonic), so I wanted to put back together a dos/win3.11/win98 machine from parts I had laying around. Only a case was missing, and I was able to obtain a case with a fitting beige look, from an old Compaq Proliant. It was an ATX server computer and it didn't seem a best choice for my purposes, so I replaced most of the components.

The rear fan seems to keep the relatively huge CPU heat sink cool enough. I just threw in some 100mm fans, but I have been thinking of ordering new Noctua 100mm fans for extra quietness. Also I've been thinking about swapping one of the hard drives to SD memory instead. I don't like CF, because it's difficult to find a card compatible with bios and that is large enough. If you know a well working SD to IDE adapter, please recommend me a manufacturer/model. 😀

- Compaq Proliant ATX tower
- Abit Slot-1 & Socket 370 MB with two ISA slots
- 3com 10/100 ethernet card
- Voodoo 3 PCI card (16MB)
- Sound Blaster AWE32 (with real Yamaha OPL3 chip)
- Gravis Ultrasound (original model with 1MB expansion)
- two 120GB IDE hard drives
- original 1.44MB floppy drive (from Proliant)
- 360kB 5.25" floppy drive from my first PC
- 512MB memory (PC-100)
- 500MHz passively cooled Pentium 3 (from Proliant)
- beige LG dvd-rw drive from my early 2000 computer, with analog cd audio cable
- Nokia 930C 19" flat crt
- Beige Keytronic keyboard
- Microsoft Optical Wheel mouse (with PS/2 adapter, beige)

- External Yamaha MU-80 to AWE32 midi port (when not liking awe32 or gus pats)
- External Roland MT-32 to AWE32 midi port for that era of games (SOFTMPU fixed problems)

It seems great for both 486-Pentium era dos games and late windows 98 3D accelerated games. I have had great success with 8086-286 era games also, because the 2D part of Voodoo 3 is so compatible, and the CPU slows down enough with L1 & L2 disabled. In a pinch, Moslo and Throttle can be also used. It can even run DosBox in win98 with at least up to 3000 cycles, which is funny.

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Things to do:
- Connect PC speaker cable from mother board to AWE32
- Find and add a PCMCIA adapter card to use a win98 compatible 54M/WPA2 wi-fi card I've had success with on a win98 laptop
- Replace one or maybe even both hard drives with SD IDE adapters (can anyone recommend a reliable model?)
- Replace all fans with new Noctua fans

Reply 1 of 8, by melbar

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This would be nice... 😉

The attachment io shield.JPG is no longer available

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Reply 2 of 8, by Bancho

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I must say, that is a beautiful setup. The screen looks sublime!

Reply 3 of 8, by buckeye

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How in the world did you find an unused CRT? That thing is "to die for"!, very nice setup overall too.

Asus P5N-E Intel Core 2 Duo 3.33ghz. 4GB DDR2 Geforce 470 1GB SB X-Fi Titanium 650W XP SP3
Intel SE440BX P3 450 256MB 80GB SSD Asus V7700 GF2 64mb SB 32pnp 350W 98SE
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Reply 4 of 8, by windi

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It was stashed at work and they were like "please take it away if you want to." Apparently a bunch of hardware was ordered at one point in history, but many employees left at same time, so the hardware was not used after all. When business later increased, it was then already time for more modern computers and monitors.

Yes, the rear connector bracket would be nice, it actually came with the motherboard. But it did not fit well to the Compaq case, I guess they used slightly different measurements even though it basically is a standard ATX case. So I simply left it out because I didn't want to start cutting it.

The monitor is also interesting in that it has the Focus adjustment on OSD menu. It actually makes the picture blurry and then sharp again, just like tuning the knob on flyback transformer directly on a normal monitor. First time ever I see that available on OSD, and it is not even a service menu, just the normal menu. 😮

Reply 5 of 8, by melbar

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For my actual project, i have a slightly different problem with the I/O shield, but with the same result.
I cannot use a standard I/O shield, due to the little LED lights you can see between the serial port and the sound.
A standard I/O shield would not fit...

The attachment I_O_shield_QDI.JPG is no longer available

#1 K6-2/500, #2 Athlon1200, #3 Celeron1000A, #4 A64-3700, #5 P4HT-3200, #6 P4-2800, #7 Am486DX2-66

Reply 6 of 8, by PcBytes

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Can I ask about the wallpaper? 😀

"Enter at your own peril, past the bolted door..."
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Reply 7 of 8, by chinny22

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Actually by the looks of it the original motherboard is just a standard BX based motherboard if you wanted to use the original I/O shield.
https://www.cnet.com/products/compaq-proliant … tor-none-series

It is a pretty cool case though, You can turn the drives 90 degrees and get a desktop, Calling them was a bit of a stretch of Compaq's but it does mean you get top shelf parts and Compaq back then were quality even if not standard.

Reply 8 of 8, by oeuvre

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That case is a thing o' beauty!

HP Z420 Workstation Intel Xeon E5-1620, 32GB, RADEON HD7850 2GB, SSD + HD, XP/7
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