VOGONS


Beige-Beast

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First post, by Soap

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Long story but was visiting parents and the old "we still got things of yours in the loft" was dropped in again, so I decided to go up and take a look.

Found the old family PC and a box with components I forgot all about (the case is from 1997 when it was originally purchased) and the specs are
P3 700mhz Coppermine
ECS P6BAP-ME MB
768MB PC133 Samsung RAM (3x256MB)
10 Gb HDD
52x CDROM
Soundblaster Live 1024
ATI Radeon R6 SG32M PCI
230 WATT PSU
Win 98SE

Stripped it cleaned it and inspected all parts, reassembled, new BIOS battery and switched on to the sound of lots of beeping and no display.

Case fans were busted and not spinning and the graphics card was not displaying in any PCI port which I was gutted about as it was a beast and a relic.

Checked the box of goodies to find a Geforce 2 GTS Pro AGP, Gigabyte GA 60XT MB, P3 Celeron 1.3GHz, P3 Tualatin 1.4GHz, now I remember that these was parts left from first system I built myself in 2000-2001.

I thought oh well why not and after maintenance on the parts from the box I assembled the below in the case.

P3 1.4Ghz Tualatin
Gigabyte GA-60XT MB
512MB RAM PC133 Samsung RAM, CAS 2,Tras/TRC 5/7, Ras to Cas 2, Ras precharge 2(I still believe intel gimped the 815 chipset to push you into P4)
Colorful Geforce2 GTS Pro AGP 32MB
10GB hard Drive (formatted)
52x CDROM
Soundblaster Live 1024
Win 98SE USP 2.1A (clean install)

Fired it up and CPU cooler was dead as different for Tualatin, bought a new CPU cooler and two new 80mm case fans slapped them in and it fired up no problem.

Set the BIOS settings, ran Memtest86 (RAM passed BTW) clean windows install and lots of benchmarking and Retro gaming and not a single BSOD.

I'll post some benchmark results when I find where to post them, now to refresh myself on gaming in DOS with Win 98 installed, I already suspect the soundcard needs to be ISA for DOS?

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Reply 2 of 14, by Joakim

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Nice system! I especially like the cable management, even though the red colour is maybe a little crazy hehe.

You don't have to have Isa sound card according to some members here but I'd personally get a sb16 non pnp to conserve the conventional memory. If you dual boot you can make use of the SB live too though, just disable the sb16 in windows.

Reply 3 of 14, by Soap

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Joakim wrote on 2021-06-05, 17:44:

Nice system! I especially like the cable management, even though the red colour is maybe a little crazy hehe.

You don't have to have Isa sound card according to some members here but I'd personally get a sb16 non pnp to conserve the conventional memory. If you dual boot you can make use of the SB live too though, just disable the sb16 in windows.

Well the Gigabyte board has no ISA slots so there goes that idea 🤣, oh and I love the red 🤣.

Last edited by Stiletto on 2021-06-08, 01:07. Edited 1 time in total.

Reply 5 of 14, by melbar

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These 8 silver, really big capacitors on the Geforce 2 GTS...

Do you if they are original or they have been replaced the last years ? They are looking little strange...

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Reply 6 of 14, by Soap

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melbar wrote on 2021-06-06, 04:30:

These 8 silver, really big capacitors on the Geforce 2 GTS...

Do you if they are original or they have been replaced the last years ? They are looking little strange...

They are all original, the PCB is a strange one compared to other variants especially around the the power delivery, also has the Samsung VRAM as oppose to the ASCEND VRAM which seemed popular back then.

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Reply 8 of 14, by Soap

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Joakim wrote on 2021-06-06, 09:08:

They look like they are bulging to me on the Geforce2 GTS Pro. Need of recap I'd guess.

Ah right I understand now, i'll whip it out shortly and take a look.

Reply 9 of 14, by chinny22

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Always nice to game on the actual hardware you did back in the day.
Makes it more enjoyable then having best of the best IMHO

Reply 10 of 14, by Soap

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chinny22 wrote on 2021-06-07, 14:13:

Always nice to game on the actual hardware you did back in the day.
Makes it more enjoyable then having best of the best IMHO

I completely agree and it's not just my nostalgia glasses, I've had a few days now with this relic and its holding up also I'm loving the old games forgot how they pioneered.

Reply 11 of 14, by gex85

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That's a great system, especially the motherboard. Tualatin-capable boards are not easy (or at least not cheap) to find nowadays, let alone the Gigabyte ones.
I have a soft spot for Tualatin systems, which is why I just can't stop building them (I have like 7 or so).
If you feel the need for more gaming horsepower you can easily upgrade to something in the range of a Geforce 4 Ti 4200, which is a great match for a system like this.

My retro computers

Reply 12 of 14, by Soap

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gex85 wrote on 2021-06-08, 19:34:

That's a great system, especially the motherboard. Tualatin-capable boards are not easy (or at least not cheap) to find nowadays, let alone the Gigabyte ones.
I have a soft spot for Tualatin systems, which is why I just can't stop building them (I have like 7 or so).
If you feel the need for more gaming horsepower you can easily upgrade to something in the range of a Geforce 4 Ti 4200, which is a great match for a system like this.

Thanks for the kind words, I have my Gainward 4200 Ti on the desk now, taken a while to find in the loft and is filthy so giving it a good clean tomorrow and hopefully it works.

After joining Vogons and perusing the forums I noticed this board is very very rare as you said.

Reply 13 of 14, by Hezus

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Turned out to be a nice system. Well done!

Can't say I dig that case design, tough. That front panel with the weird extrusion and the gray plate in the middle... makes it one ugly duckling. But yeah, it was the late 90s 🤣

My pentium II system used to be housed in such a late 90s case. All the oddly shaped and rounded bits.. I really disliked looking at it even though it had nice specs.

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Reply 14 of 14, by Grem Five

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Soap wrote on 2021-06-06, 08:41:
melbar wrote on 2021-06-06, 04:30:

These 8 silver, really big capacitors on the Geforce 2 GTS...

Do you if they are original or they have been replaced the last years ? They are looking little strange...

They are all original, the PCB is a strange one compared to other variants especially around the the power delivery, also has the Samsung VRAM as oppose to the ASCEND VRAM which seemed popular back then.

What is that card's memory clocked at? I see it has 5.5ns chips on it which normally clock in at 183Mhz.