A little monitor upgrade Dell Ultrascan P780 (keeping both to interchange when i feel like some low quality 800x600 crt action)... Build log IBM APTIVA 2144-M63 BUILD - BIG UPGRADES

appiah4 wrote:

KSHIRZA1 wrote:

Latest setup - Build thread IBM APTIVA 2144-M63 BUILD - BIG UPGRADES

Dark Forces, AH64D Longbow, System Shock 2; I approve.

Thank you, but unfortunately i'm a poser with them... SS2 and AH64D still sealed...

Dark Forces is all there; The company store catalog is a trip back in time and i love flipping through it.

Was hoping that was some sort of Black Dahlia Murder album

So cool. Bonus points for all the TMNT toys. 😎 I have DF2: Jedi Knight boxed, but Dark Forces 1 I only have the jewel case version 🙁

Made a few upgrades to my Tualatin 1.4S Win98SE machine:
- replaced case with CoolerMaster N200 so I can fit the DVD-RW drive even with the larger ASUS TUSL-L motherboard I had to get after my TUSL2-M gave up the ghost
- new Corsair CX450M power supply - modular to clean up cable management
- replaced the GeForce 6600 with a PNY 7800GT (increased 3dMark 2001 score to 10650 from around 8500)
- replaced stock fan on 7800GT with Zalman VF700-AlCu - whisper quiet on 5V setting
- tried out a Plextor PX-716A DVD-RW since Plextor were supposedly the best back in the day .. no dice, wouldn’t read CD’s, just DVD’s, tried firmware updates, swapping jumpers etc .. back to my cheap but reliable LG !
- waiting now for a Promise Sata150 TX4 card to arrive from China to try out with that Kingston SSD
Cheers !

animal113 wrote:

Made a few upgrades to my Tualatin 1.4S Win98SE machine: - replaced case with CoolerMaster N200 so I can fit the DVD-RW drive ev […]
Show full quote

Made a few upgrades to my Tualatin 1.4S Win98SE machine:
- replaced case with CoolerMaster N200 so I can fit the DVD-RW drive even with the larger ASUS TUSL-L motherboard I had to get after my TUSL2-M gave up the ghost
- new Corsair CX450M power supply - modular to clean up cable management
- replaced the GeForce 6600 with a PNY 7800GT (increased 3dMark 2001 score to 10650 from around 8500)
- replaced stock fan on 7800GT with Zalman VF700-AlCu - whisper quiet on 5V setting
- tried out a Plextor PX-716A DVD-RW since Plextor were supposedly the best back in the day .. no dice, wouldn’t read CD’s, just DVD’s, tried firmware updates, swapping jumpers etc .. back to my cheap but reliable LG !
- waiting now for a Promise Sata150 TX4 card to arrive from China to try out with that Kingston SSD
Cheers !

Looks like a W98 rig on steroids! What games will you play on it?

That's wierd, the photo somehow got inverted. Good question as the Promise SATA150 card arrived and I ended up re-installing Win98 on the SSD and now have to re-install all the games .. my retro list circa 1999-2002 or so includes MDK2, Giants, Alice, Slave Zero, GTA3, NOLF2, Motocross Madness 2 and Rallisport Challenge .. anything newer I'll play on my new Windows 10 machine.

Cheers !

can you tell me what is that cpu cooler?

Thermalright SI-97, works fine without a fan

Some new edited photos of my trio of machines - finally moved and settled in. I've been getting them ready to do a series of Youtube videos under my channel - definatley time, I opened that channel a year ago and had not done anything on it but the monitor repair and a trailer of DOS games.

1985 Tandy 1000A

1989 GEM Computer Products 286

Creeping Net custom 486 DX4-100

kawaii creeping net, where is that name from?

i am looking for a more authentic case for my 486vlb - this case fits much for this rig:

1996 Q1 - Pentium
Mainboard Jetway J-656C Intel 430FX
CPU Intel Pentium 133 SY022
RAM Samsung 72 pin EDO 60ns 16M x2
VGA Diamond Stealth 64 Video 2001 2M PCI S3 Trio64V+
Soundcard Gravis Ultrasound 3.74 1M ISA
Soundcard Creative Sound Blaster AWE32 CT3910 rev 01 ISA DSP4.13, CT1747 OPL3
HDD Quantum Fireball 1280M IDE
ODD Sony CDU-77E 4x CD-ROM IDE
FDD Mitsumi
Case Baby AT (Pentium style)
PSU FSP SPI-250G

more info:
1996 Q1 - Pentium 133, S3 Trio64V+, Sound Blaster AWE32, Gravis Ultrasound (RIP)

233MHz Pentium MMX SBC

Whoa! Can't wait mine 😉
Interesting, should blocks internal drive fourth ISA slot or not? I see scratch in bottom near to power switch. You got it with or make himself?

aleksej wrote:

Whoa! Can't wait mine 😉
Interesting, should blocks internal drive fourth ISA slot or not? I see scratch in bottom near to power switch. You got it with or make himself?

4th ISA slot will be blocked with tall cards. The scratch was on it already. I plan on repainting it anyway since I don't like the Pantone gray color they used, which is a standard industrial pc color that I see on a daily basis at work.. It annoys me because it reminds me of being at work, 🤣.

Very strange, i see on your photo it is just.. ehm... white? I don't see industrial gray color. Wrong white balance in your cam? Can you compare whole quality between this chassis and IPC3SP which you bought earlier? Which is better in your opinion? Best is make photo of both togehter to compare color difference, please?

aleksej wrote:

Very strange, i see on your photo it is just.. ehm... white? I don't see industrial gray color. Wrong white balance in your cam? Can you compare whole quality between this chassis and IPC3SP which you bought earlier? Which is better in your opinion? Best is make photo of both togehter to compare color difference, please?

Camera white balance is off. I'll have to take a properly white balanced picture with a non-camera phone. If you look closer, the Gotek drive is a proper beige to match most retro computers. Also, the Ebay order for the IPC3SP got canceled and refunded, as the seller didn't really have it available for sale. I ordered another from Radwell of a different condition (new for twice as much money) and it got canceled as well. Soooo, I'm still on the look out for a IPC3SP case too.

I will get some more pictures if I get home from work before the sun goes down. Lol

Here's a small portion of the Alpha's I'll be saving from the scrap bin at work. These are just some spares for the in service units that are about to be retired soon. Plus I have a ton of new old stock parts for DS10's and DS20's... All vendor documentation, all rackmount hardware and full size Compaq racks w/ doors, CPU's, memory, hard drives, power supplies, tape drives, CD-ROMs, front panels, NICs (fiber and ethernet), keyboards (with Do key) and mice, monitors, etc. We also have a lot of older DECstation computers that I'll attempt to save, but they might need to go to low level radioactive waste scrap since they're used in a radiologically restricted area and might not pass as clean enough to remove.

Holy servers, Batman! Did those things run Windows NT 4.0 Server in their lives? Very interesting, and kudos to you for saving those servers. I remember back in October, 2012, I saved a Dell PowerEdge 6300 server from getting tossed out. I still have the hard drives and the processors (will be used as record holders) to this day.

bjwil1991 wrote:

Holy servers, Batman! Did those things run Windows NT 4.0 Server in their lives? Very interesting, and kudos to you for saving those servers. I remember back in October, 2012, I saved a Dell PowerEdge 6300 server from getting tossed out. I still have the hard drives and the processors (will be used as record holders) to this day.

They run OpenVMS.

wiretap wrote:

They run OpenVMS.

Interesting. I've never heard about that OS before.