if I'm not mistaken athlon XP has fixed multi, only the mobile XP-M had unlocked multi? So if the multi is higher, I won't need to push the fsb as much to get a good oc?

most AXPs were unlocked, some later ones were locked, all the ones that I owned were unlocked.

2nd WD 36gb Raptor that I bought with the refund from the first one, arrived today, this one seems to be working fine, hd sentinel detects 100% health and 530 days power-on time. Interestingly, this new one is not being detected on my main PC where I tried to test it first, unlike the previous one I can feel this one spinning up, it just isnt detected. But an older core 2 quad PC detected it fine. Probably since it's an early sata 1 hdd, what's more using ide to sata bridge internally, I guess it doesn't like modern sata 3 controllers. Well, let's hope it works on the 2003 pc's built in Silicon Image sata controller, will be a shame if I have to add a pci controller 😀

p.s. I now have basically everything I need to complete the build. I won't be home till monday so I'll build it then. I only lack two more 250gb HDDs so its 4 in total to fill all the 3.5" slots, a 2003 floppy drive, and a properly working 2003 dvd drive (I think it has to be plextor px-708a as those were supposedly best 2003 dvd burners, but I bought 3 of these and all 3 came broken 🙁 )

very nice I'm glad you found a working one. I can't wait to see the finished system!!!

Can I get a little bit of assistance, I'm trying to finalize the build now, and, Win98SE install does not see the Raptor, says no hard drives detected. On drivers site https://soggi.org/motherboards/asus/A7N8X-Deluxe-2.0.htm I see theres a RAID driver for win9x, but, unlike win2k/XP where I know how to use these (press F6 during setup to load driver from floppy) I have no idea how to do it for win98 setup, as win98 setup does not have the F6 prompt. The readme included in the driver download says to install win98 first and then update the driver in the device manager, but I cant install win98 if it doesnt see the hard drive, can I 😀 Any idea how to go about this?

p.s. forget that, mobo had jumper to enable sata controller and it was set to disabled, after moving it win98 was able to detect the hdd and start the setup, but after it rebooted its now stuck on "getting ready to start windows for the first time" and idk why, fml

p.s.2 figured it out, turned out badass 😀

My April 2003 dream PC build finally complete!

case: Antec SLK3700AMB
mobo: Asus A7N8X Deluxe v2.0
cpu: AMD Athlon XP 3000+ (barton)
ram: 3x1gb running at ddr333 2.5-3-3-7
gpu: Sapphire ATi Radeon 9800 Pro 128mb
system drive: WD Raptor 36gb 10000rpm
data drives: 2x 250gb WD Caviar SE 250gb 7200rpm
psu: Enermax.... EG365 was it?
+Teac something-or-another CD burner
+Plextor PX-708A DVD burner
+some Teac floppy
quadroboot of win98se + win2000 sp3 + winXP sp1 + win server 2003 enterprise
all software installed period correct
ready to game

oh, has an Asus TV FM Card as well, not sure what Id use it for but may as well have it
if you wonder why I didn't add an Audigy 2, I wanted to try out the onboard nvidia soundstorm as its rather interesting

todo: Get two more wd caviar se 250gb drives to fill all 5 slots, also an extra ide controller for them. Get corsair ram with better timings. Get better cpu cooler than this zalman, temps give me no oc headroom. Get period-correct peripherals

That is a very nice socket A system. It should perform very well as your gaming rig

As it turned out not quite as well as I expected it to. I tried running Serious Sam completely maxed out and at 1600x1200 with 16x AF and 6x AA, and fps was not great, had to lower to 4xAA and reduce a couple of game settings to get avg 60. Gee, was that game the Crysis of its time or what, a top of the line PC 2 years newer cant best it 😀

Yeah that game was a blast but it wasn't the most optimized game engine.

Very nice configuration! I like your Antec.

How is the overall noise? I assume the 10000 rpm raptor is the inside the top 3 of all audible part, isn't?

Raptor made an audible noise while it was hanging outside the case as I was setting things up, but now that its inside, really some fan noise is all I can hear... honestly its not a particularly loud machine, its probably comparable to my main PC actually. BTW I feel the AXP 3000+ may be holding things back a bit, but even tho it seems to be unlocked multiplier, I'm unable to overclock it as even for just a slight boost it asks for plenty of vcore increase, and the temps go too high. This zalman cooler was supposed to be good, so I bet people back in the day were only overclocking this chip on water. I should probably also buy the period-correct mobile thorougbred XP-M 2600+ and see if it overclocks anywhere near as good as the mobile bartons do, perhaps I will be able to get more performance out of that than out of the 3k+

This is unexpected, the first raptor that came dead... looks like a friend was somehow able to fix it... so I now have 2... what to do, sell? Probably no one other than me buys old hard drives tho... How about add it to this build to set up a RAID array with the other one 😁

Definitely do a raid array. They really fly when used in a raid.

so I now have 2.

I would just leave it in storage, in case the one installed die someday.

Crap, while being in hurry to 100% complete at least one of my retro builds, I've missed on some crucial details... This is NOT an ultimate PC as of april 2003 as I wished it was. April 2003 saw the release of P4 HT 3.0 and the new i875P chipset, and that combo outperforms AXP 3000+ on nF2. April also saw the release of the first Opterons, maxing out at only 1.8ghz, but with 1mb L2 and vastly improved ipc, theres a good chance those outperform the barton as well (cant find any benchmarks). So no, this is not ultimate for april 2003. It could be ultimate for march 2003, nothing faster than AXP 3000+ on nf2 existed in march, but the 9800 pro was released in april, so to make this an ultimate march 2003 pc, I will need a... FX 5800 Ultra... which is unobtanium today... sigh...

Had some fun beating a bunch of 2003 games on this build till I realised my mistake. Damn, I need to fix this before I continue using it

Man I would of loved to have that system back in the day. I was still using my Abit kt7a-raid with 1200 mhz Thunderbird at that time.

Hello,
My very first message on the forum and I made it in your topic.
I'm reacting here just to know where the project was in 2024?

I am currently working on my 2003 dream-machine project with the best equipment as of December 31, 2003.
I have a total of 4 machines in 2003 I am sure to cover all the possibilities and combinations that it was possible to have at the end of 2003.

The machine that gives me the most difficulty is my socket 940 platform with an Athlon 64 FX-51 where parts are very difficult to find but not impossible.

Wait to see more.

eviledeath wrote on 2024-07-17, 12:50:

Hello, My very first message on the forum and I made it in your topic. I'm reacting here just to know where the project was in 2 […]
Show full quote

Hello,
My very first message on the forum and I made it in your topic.
I'm reacting here just to know where the project was in 2024?

I am currently working on my 2003 dream-machine project with the best equipment as of December 31, 2003.
I have a total of 4 machines in 2003 I am sure to cover all the possibilities and combinations that it was possible to have at the end of 2003.

The machine that gives me the most difficulty is my socket 940 platform with an Athlon 64 FX-51 where parts are very difficult to find but not impossible.

Wait to see more.

Hello eviledeath and welcome to the forum,

The 2003 build in its old form is currently inactive since the Asus A7N8X Deluxe 2.0 motherboard decided to randomly die about an year ago. Seems like it has developed some sort of degradation in the north bridge or something. Won't post at all with the nice corsair ddr400 cl2 ram I had in it previously. It posts with a generic kit after a cmos reset, but as soon as I save bios and restart it wont post anymore again...

I have some new different plans for what this build is going to be so there will be a change, but I'm first working on some other builds so this will wait.

I also managed to obtain after a long time searching a socket 940 board, the Asus SK8V, but any athlon FX be it for 940 or 939 just seems to be unobtanium now

Thank you for the welcome here.

What a shame for the motherboard, but from your explanations it would indeed seem that the northbridge would have had something wrong.
The Nforce-2 Ultra is already quite difficult with memory, and as it gets older it's even worse.
I also have a dream machine partly assembled with an Athlon XP 3200+ and an Abit AN7.

I'm excited to read that you managed to find an Ultra RARE SK8V.
I also have one bought on ebay 4 years ago I must have been missing something when I bid on this motherboard because it was sold very expensive.
Since then it no longer starts for I don't know what reason, I restarted the system normally and it never started again.
I'm considering flashing the bios to see if the problem is there.

In the meantime I managed to find a new Asus SK8N which works very well.

Yes the Athlon 64 FX on socket 940 & 939 regardless of the model have become very expensive, if you want it I have 2 FX-51 in my stock.
The socket 940 hardware I can only find on ebay USA.
A Corsair XMS REG kit is on the way.

eviledeath wrote on 2024-07-18, 09:13:

Yes the Athlon 64 FX on socket 940 & 939 regardless of the model have become very expensive, if you want it I have 2 FX-51 in my stock.

I was honestly surprised, from 3000+ to 3600+ it's still cheap but everything else is hard to come by and more expensive, i couldn't find a single FX chip so i ended up going for a 4000+ which is nonetheless hard to come by too.