omgfoz wrote on 2021-02-18, 14:11:

Tetrium wrote on 2021-02-18, 07:33:

Ah, the Asus A7V. In a way it's A7V133's little brother :P I worked with these boards as well, though to a bit lesser extent tha […]
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Ah, the Asus A7V. In a way it's A7V133's little brother 😜
I worked with these boards as well, though to a bit lesser extent than the A7V133, mostly because the max 100MHz FSB makes it much more limited but otherwise these boards seemed to work perfectly fine once we got the odd quirks ironed out.

Personally I wouldn't install XP on this machine. Sure it will work, but something like ME will probably work much better.

I would definitely check the condition of that PSU (but remember that it's not totally risk free if you have no idea what you are doing).
These boards are made for use with PSUs with beefier 5v lines, but the Thunderbird 1000MHz consumes less power than a 1400MHz one. Still more powerhungry than a Tualatin 1400. Btw, the part number (A1000AMT3B) denotes this is a 100MHz FSB part. 133MHz FSB parts would end with a C instead of the B. These CPUs can be unlocked using the pencil trick (google it if you're interested) but had some issues with multipliers above 12x or something (I don't remember the details anymore but I do remember that the pencil trick worked for me during testing). If you really wanted to, you could use the freed up multiplier to lower the multiplier to, say, 8x, netting 800MHz and reducing power consumption even further that way.

Thank you for the information! In the last two months I've collected almost everything I need to properly set up this rig. The only thing I'm missing is a desk to set it up on. Once I have it all set up I'll post new pics and the updated specs (a few small upgrades were made).

yw 😀

As I ended up with way more rigs than I have space to set up for, I ended up using 1 space and having a stack of tower cases (or 2 stacks 🤣) which I would switch the cables around if I wanted to switch rigs. I did make use of extension cables to save some wear and tear of the rig's port connections.

I envy the state and appearance of that processor, I have two processors like that working but they have broken corners, something very common. One is overclocked to 1333mhz and I like it a lot.

So here are a few latest pictures of the battle station. It's a little cobbled together but it's almost ready to be formatted and have windows 98se installed on it.

The monitor is a Gateway EV910 for those curious.

I purchased a Radeon AIW 9800 to install but it arrived with a broken cap (and thus, a full refund). My electrical engineer father-in-law is repairing it for me so I can install it.

Also the power strip is temporary. I bought this one on ebay but the faceplate was broken in transit. I have an identical replacement in storage in my family's cabin 250 miles away. Once I get a monitor riser I'll put that one in use.

Last thing I want to do is get a new case. Any recommendations? I want to retain the drives I currently have and also want to appear fairly period correct.

I found a case! This is a Coolermaster Wavemaster. It needed a thorough cleaning but otherwise it's in great shape. Any suggestions for a good late 90s/2000ish ps2 keyboard? I got one of off ebay but it doesn't work with this rig for some reason.

Ohhh I love the Wavemaster case.

matze79 wrote on 2021-01-14, 10:27:

Really lol Sorry but XP already runs very well with a PII CPU and 256Mb (Optimal 512Mb for SP3) […]
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Warlord wrote on 2020-12-20, 22:20:

go with your goal becasue XP will be so slow on this system, and games of the XP era will be too slow.

idk anything about that power supply. Suppose you could open it up and check for damage, and leaking caps.

It looks like a nice enough motherboard, I don't want to comment much. As long as it plays the games you want to play, than it works fine for you.

Really 🤣
Sorry but XP already runs very well with a PII CPU and 256Mb (Optimal 512Mb for SP3)

RTM ran on 64Mb and Pentium MMX CPU...

Specially for gaming I wouldn’t consider 2000.
Also software compatibility is not so good.

I would go for windows 98 for maximum performance just my 2 cents
With a Radeon 7000 you wonˋt anyway not get in a performance class where you need 2k or XP

We have very differing opinions of very well. "very" and "well" Very generally means to a high degree in the English dictionary. Well usually means good and satisfactory. Id hardly consider that hardware to run XP in a high degree of good and satisfactory or as in better than average or even optimal.
I'm glad we agree that 98 is a better fit though.

The 9800 is a little bit "overpowered" to a descent 1Ghz Thunderbird ?
Board + cpu are from 2000 , the 9800 is from 2003.
3 years during that time is like 9 years today ???

Personally i would combine this card to a cpu like Athlon XP or P4 with 2Ghz+

So after getting Windows 98se running and installing and running many games, I decided to install Morrowind.

I forgot how demanding that game is. I thought my 1ghz Thunderbird and Radeon 9800 would be sufficient... but oh it is not.

After putting about 10 hours into it at only 10-15fps in town and 20-30 elsewhere, I decided it was time for an upgrade. Pictures attached. Assuming the board, CPU, and RAM are not DOA I will start a new thread with the current system specs and thoughts about it.

XP SP3 already runs fine on PII 300 with at least 512Mb RAM.
Not sure why some one would say XP is slow with such a beast.
If you install modern software yes, it will exhaust resources..
But that happens on 9x too.

XP is from 2001…

Then something else is wrong we played it on P3 450 with GeForce 4MX and it was running fine.
Sure morrowind runs on slower systems.
Maybe you set too high Resolution for such a system.

1
2Here are the The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind System Requirements (Minimum)
3CPU: 500 MHz Intel Pentium III, Celeron, or AMD Athlon.
4CPU SPEED: 500 MHz.
5RAM: 256 MB.
6OS: Windows ME/98/XP/2000.
7VIDEO CARD: 32 MB Direct3D Compatible video card with 32-bit color support and DirectX 8.1.
8SOUND CARD: Yes.
9FREE DISK SPACE: 1 GB.