Socket A, AGP; Anyone else with midieval rigs?

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SLiGuy

[H]ard|Gawd
Joined
Jan 20, 2006
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Just wondering if anyone else runs on super-old rigs. Sorry if there's a topic on this already or if it's in the wrong section, I really don't post often (more like just browse the [H]otDeals section).

Anyways since my S939 setup blew up, I never regained the determination (or money) to build a new rig so here's what I've been running ever since.

-AMD Athlon 2500+ XP @ 1.9 Ghz
-Shuttle AN35-N Ultra
-BFG 6800GS OC (died last week, sent in for RMA, awaiting new card)
-2x512MB Kingston HyperX DDR400 PC3200 RAM
-Coolermaster Real Power RS-450W
-Plus some random no-name case, a 120GB WD, and 2 Pioneer DVD-RW drives.

Originally built in fall 2004, with 512MB of RAM and an MX440 in it. Used it for a solid 2 and a half years until I built my S939 system which blew up in just under 2 months after building, after that I've been using it ever since. Painfully slow. Finally going to make the leap to a C2Q and PCIe again this fall.

Anyone else still using anything prehistoric as their main computer?
 
Currently I'm not but I have in the past and do feel your pain.

1992-1998 Acer 486DX2 66mhz
1998-2002 HP 400mhz PII
2002-2007 P4 2.8ghz <<< first system I built. Spent well over $3800 on it too.
2007-present C2D E4500 with a shitty hybrid board and still using a x1950pro AGP

I could just run out and build anything I want. Money isn't the issue. The issue is I hate spending it. I wasted god knows how much money upgrading old tech and jumping the gun on the latest and greatest only to have something new come out 3 months later.

I'm currently waiting for Nehalem to debut to make my decision on what I'm going to do. I have been reading there will be 3 Nehalem chips being released and I may bite on the cheapest one which has a rumored price tag of roughly $300. IMO that's not too bad for new tech. What may get me is the price of the RAM/MOBO. We shall see. If the price is a bit too high for my liking I'll pick myself up new mobo/ram/video card and OC the snot out of my E4500.
 
camelass said:
I could just run out and build anything I want. Money isn't the issue. The issue is I hate spending it. I wasted god knows how much money upgrading old tech and jumping the gun on the latest and greatest only to have something new come out 3 months later.
Click to expand...

I hate spending my money as well, and would rather put it work for me. However, I typically upgrade mobo/CPU/Memory every 1.5 years or so, depending on progress made in faster hardware and what my current demands/needs are. In the end it is all about knowing what you need and when you need it.

To get back on topic: I came from a 939 system before moving to what I have in my sig. Before that, I was rocking a P3-based Celeron with a MX440. Nevertheless, I tried to stay current in the games I played. Even Counter-Strike 1.6 was a painful experience when I had to record demos while playing CAL matches.

Now I enjoy cranking visual settings up and getting solid FPS.
 
yeah, I still have my old rig in the corner.
Athlon xp 2500
1 GB ddr
ecs n2u400a
120 gig maxtor
6800gs

Yeah, it was a great rig. Still runs fine. I let the boys play on it, and I use it for a spare for Starcraft Broodwar LAN parties. I'm about to sell it though.
 
Let's see here:

My main comp:
Intel Celeron 2.6GHz (socket 478)
HP MS-6755 2.1
1.25GB DDR400 (@ DDR266)
160GB WD
GeForce 6200 256MB AGP

Backup #1:
900MHz AMD Athlon --> (soon AMD Athlon XP-M 2200+)
Abit AT7 --> (Soon MSI KT4V)
256MB Corsair XMS
80GB Seagate
32MB nVidia GeForce2 MX440 [AGP]

Dad's rig:
Intel Celeron 700MHz
Asus TUW-AM
128MB PC100
12GB Maxtor
2MB MGA Matrox

Bro's rig:
AMD Athlon XP 2000+
Asus A7V-VM
1GB PC133
80GB WD
FX5500 PCI
 
My main email/web system at work is a P4 2.4Ghz w/ 512MB of RAM. Works fine with outlook and firefox, with the occasional winamp -- as long as I don't have too many tabs open, lol.
 
I grew up with a Tandy 1000 and still have that some where. It had a 7 MHz processor, 256k memory and 16 colors with MS-DOS.

In 1999 I bought my first computer, a laptop:

Compaq Presario
Pentium II 333 MHz
4 MB video RAM
128 MB RAM
4 GB hard drve
Windows 98 SE

My next computer was a desktop which I built sometime in 2001:

Epox 8KHA+ motherboard
AMD Athlon XP 1600+ @ 1.4 GHz
768 MB Crucial PC2100 DDR
GeForce 3 Ti200 (64 MB)
80 GB Western Digital 7200 RPM hard drive
Soundblaster X-Gamer 5.1 sound card
Acer 52x CD-ROM
32x/10x/40x Sony CD-RW
Windows XP Home Edition
 
Would you consider getting rid of any of the parts of the desktop built in 2001?? :p
 
I just finally upgraded to the multiple core bandwagon. My old rig:

AMD Athlon 64, 2.0ghz
512 Kingston SDRAM DDR 3200
Some random PSU
Gigabyte K8NS mobo
Gigabyte GeForce 6800 (the neat one with an all passive heat sink)
Some random case

My sister still runs the same system, but with a new psu, motherboard and a Geforce 7300
 
I'm currently running my state of the art (well, I bought it September 2003...) system. Still playing BF2 and the such.

P4 2.6C
2 GB RAM
6600 GT
Audigy 2
ASUS P4C800 something-or-another


This is off the original 1GB RAM, 9500 Pro.


I love reading about people who have computers several years newer than mine that are ditching them because they're too old and sucky...
 
I've just received a phone call from my brother, who finally upgraded the RAM for the computer that I gave him a few years ago for college -- and it still runs great. If I remember the specs correctly....

Kingwin KT-424-BK black mid-tower ATX case
Intel Pentium 4 2.4C
Abit IC7 motherboard
2x1GB DDR 400 (recently upgraded)
(forgot the rest... maybe he upgraded them?)

The sad thing is that I've gone through five different computers (including two laptops, one of which died on me) since I gave him that one.
 
still rockin' the:

p4 2.6c @ 3.0
asus p4c800-e DELUXE
radeon 9800pro

boooyaaaaah lol

my motherboard is the pimp daddy of all the i875p boards, baby
 
lol

My Main rig
Motherboard - PCChips M848A (v5.0) SiS Socket A ATX
Processor - 2.2GHz AMD Athlon XP 3200+ Socket-A
Ram - 2048 Meg of DDR 3200
Harddrive - 2 80 Gig Westerndigital Drives
Video - Radeon HD 2600 XT - 512MB GDDR3, AGP 8X
Monitor - TWO 19" I-INC AG191D TFT Flat Panel
Sound Card - Onboard Realtek AC'97 ALC655 6-channel audio
OS - Windows XP Pro SP3

My "old" backup rig
Motherboard - Micro-star K7T Pro2-A Socket A ATX
Processor - 1.1GHZ AMD Athlon 1100 200MHZ FSB Socket-A
Ram - 512 plus 256 for 768 Meg of PC-133 sdram
Harddrive - 2 80 Gig Maxtor Drives.
Video - NVidia GeForce FX 5500 256Meg AGP (4X)
Monitor - IBM 17 inch CRT
OS - Windows XP Pro SP3

There is another old Duron 800 rig kicking around here somewhere too. Not in service at the moment but will be as a file server at some point. I don't have much money to spend on PC parts so I have to make em last. :)
 
Lol, I built my second system somewhere in 2001 probably and it's still my main gaming system :p, it has
-a Prescott (!) CPU oc@2,7ghz in 478 socket
-crappy MSI mainbiard
-original VGA was Radeon 9200SE, man how much abuse did that card take! It finally gave up a few years ago in my brother's PC oc'ed to something like 150% 8-o Now I have x1650pro, its overkill for the system but it was in sale for very cheap.
-RAM kingston HyperX 2x512mb (original 1x256MB)
-noname case with noname 300W psu, surprisingly works till today
-17" CRT, $8 keyboard, free mouse and free speakers! xD
and I forgot, original HDD was some prehistoric 4GB drive :)

-But whats important, it still plays Trackmania nations forever (online) with medium details and 2x FSAA @1024x768 and around 40fps , I'm really surprised it works that well... it was even able to run Doom3 back then with moderate details.

The oldest PC in our house is an Atari ST w/4mhz CPU, 12" B/W monitor and the whole computer is embedded into the keyboard :D There is no HDD and the system is written in a ROM memory.
 
I see there are quite a few fellow pentium users! Love live the socket 478! woot!

Mine runs fine for me, and I don't get people (TPU), they read your specs.. "dude you need to upgrade" then they list a whole bunch of parts you should get lol.

I'm in the process of an entirely new rig buildup though, can't really consider it "mideval"

XFX MG63Mi7109
e7200
2GB DDR2
320gb WS
XFX 8800GT G92
etc
 
Yes i've got my old rig working as my mom's computer, she is always complaining about the rigs speed but i believe it still works well, although for me the loading times are unberable. The specs are:

Athlon XP 1800+
MSI KT3 Ultra Mainboard
384 MB of RAM PC-133 I think ( I had 512 MB on it once but i encountered a faulty stick )
60 GB Seagate Barracuda Drive
ATI Radeon 8500 LE 128 mb Video Card
Thermaltake PSU.

Ive been thinking of putting a bit more RAM on it and reinstalling Windows XP, or trying Xubuntu on it and seeing if it works well. The computer is capable of runnning many games and it has worked very well for about 7 years now.
MSI CD Burner
 
Odd.. I put in a mobile T-Bred 2200+ in my MSI KV4T.. OC'd it to 166FSB (stock 133), and BIOS recognized it as a 2800+. So did CPU-Z. Oh, and usually most bios's will read a mobile chip "AMD Mobile Athlon 600MHz" (for me at least), but my Bios reads "mobile AMD Athlon XP-M 2800+"
 
Fun read seeing what's still out there...

My daughter has one of my old game rigs. I removed it from the old massive In-Win Q500 full-tower and threw it in a new case. It still runs great. Definitely one of my favorite systems of all time.

Asus A7V8X motherboard
AMD Athlon XP 2800+ (Barton) CPU
2x512MB Corsair XMS PC2700 DDR
WD Caviar 40GB ATA100 7200rpm HDD
Lite-On 16X IDE DVDRW
ATI Radeon 9800 Pro AGP 128MB DDR
Creative Sound Blaster Audigy 2 ZS PCI
Antec SLK3000B case
Sparkle 350w power supply
MS WinXP
 
camelass said:
The issue is I hate spending it. I wasted god knows how much money upgrading old tech and jumping the gun on the latest and greatest only to have something new come out 3 months later.
Click to expand...
That's the way computers work. Unless you want to spend 5 grand at time of purchase to have the best of everything, something new will be out in 6 months. Maybe you should stick with consoles ;)
 
SLiGuy said:
Just wondering if anyone else runs on super-old rigs. . .
Click to expand...

Mine is an old rig, though I've upgraded a few parts over the past couple of years...
Asus A7N8X Deluxe
AMD Athlon XP 2600+
2X512MB Kingston PC2700
BFG Tech Geforce 7600GS OC (new component)
Antec PerformancePlus1080 - with 430W Power supply
320GB WD IDE HDD (newer component)
LG L227WTG 22" Monitor (newest component)

I'm planning to get a completely new system by the end of the month to finally replace this old workhorse. Mainly 'cause it can't play a lot the latest games even at lower settings ;)
 
This thing will be getting replaced as soon as I can get over the stage fright of new components coming out. Probably end up waiting until October/November.

A64 2800+
1 Gig DDR
Radeon 9800SE
80+20 Gig (the 20 is an old WD that has been running strong since a 1 Ghz T-bird system)
Gigabyte mobo
2x DVD drive(!) (I eventually had to get a second drive it was so slow and it stopped burning CDs)

Currently posting on my laptop because I am afraid of putting my huge CRT on my new glass top desk. 24" LCD soon!
 
2004 Dell Dimension 8400 (still using)

Buying a new PC soon though.

Power Supply - 400w
Motherboard - Some generic Intel one
Processor - P4 3.2Ghz
CPU & GPU Cooling - None
Memory - 1GB DDR2 533Mhz
HD - 150GB
Optical Drive - Asus 16x DVD±RW Drive
Video Card - GeForce 6800 256MB PCIe (my first GeForce was a FX5200 and previous was an ATI 9200)
Sound Card - Creative Labs Sound Blaster Live! 24-bit
Speakers - Logitech X-230 (will use for new rig)
Monitor - Dell 19" LCD Analog
OS - Microsoft Windows Home Basic 32-bit
Keyboard & Mouse - Logitech Cordless MX 3200 Laser
 
Poweredge sc420 with the motherboard mod to fit pcie video card running at 4x
p4 2.8
4GB ddr2 800 installed 3.25 shows up
just upgrade from the original 80 Samsung to a 320aaks
radeon x1300
USB card
Firewire card
sound card
running vista ultimate
stock psu
dvd rom

drooling at the chance to upgrade to a multicore 64bit system sometime soon.
 
I have 3 older systems here that I keep running as a server for backup or F@H...

XP3000+ Barton on A7N8X
1GB DDR-400
128MB ATI 9600XT video card
SB Audigy sound
160GB PATA drive.
Lite-On CD burner up to 48X
Antec SOHO1030 case.

------------------------

Athlon XP-M 2600+ Barton on Biostar M7VIG400Pro
1GB DDR-333
nvidia Quadro ?270? video
2x 40GB hard drives
everything else onboard, in a cheap $5 zipzoomfly case

---------------------------

Dell dimension 1.8GHz P4
512MB RDRAM 800
nvidia MX440 video, AGP 4x
SB Live 5.1 sound card
80GB HD
Dell case/PSU
 
Cant say enough good things about my xp2500 barton. Loved being clocked and has run for 4 years at 3200 and 45c even when pressed hard. It going to be retired soon as SP3 has stopped it being able to run games. Also some games like the witcher wont work on a native 32 bit core. tried loads of fixs which didnt so I am building an intriem rig based on a E7200 and a ASrock 4 core dual-sata mobo which takes both agp and pci express, ddr1 and ddr2. So my GS7800 should slot in nice as will my 2 gig ram. this will get me back gaming.

Now to plan a ball busting rig which can play crysis etc at 1200 x 1600 on highest. :)
 
I have a tertiary gaming computer here (the Athlon 64 is hooked to the 65" Toshiba DLP) that runs just fine

Athlon XP 2600+ (1.9GHz)
1.5GB misc. DDR
60GB IDE HDD
nVidia 5900FX AGP
WinXP

Plays BF2 and other games around that time just fine
 
I have an old system I use for goofing off on:

Athlon XP 3000+
1GB DDR-333
ECS K7VTA3 ver 8.0
GeForce 3 Ti200
80 GB Maxtor
Tekram 390-U SCSI Card (oh yeah!)
Plextor 32x SCSI CD-Rom, best CD->MP3 ripper EVAR!
Had a Yamaha CD-Burner 4x4x16 SCSI also but it died so I replaced it with a NEC IDE DVD-burner
More ribbon cables in the case than you've ever seen on a single hard drive system! Floppy, IDE DVD, IDE HDD, SCSI CD
XP/98 dual boot (I can't remember the last time I booted into 98)
 
My moms main rig:
Intel board (i forget the model)
Intel P4 1.7ghz socket 478
640MB (2x256, 1x 128MB) PC133
Maxtor 6E040L0 40GB
ATI Rage 128 Pro
XP Pro
19inch Cicero CRT running at 1280x1024
Some compaq case

My server:
AMD Sempron 3200+ 1.8GHz lapped s939
Generic Compaq mother board (the cpu and motherboard came from my moms pc)
4x256MB DDR
Seagate 120GB Sata
WD 500GB Sata
Samsung dvd-rw dl ide
XP Pro (soon to be Windows home server)
2x D-link DFE530TX 100mbit
Some old HP p3 case
and im gonna be adding another 500GB or even a 1TB soon
 
I just recently built the system in my sig & gave the following to my wife for Email/Web surfing/etc:

Shuttle SN85G4
Athlon XP 3400+
BFG 6800GT OC
LiteOn 4X DVD Burner
1 GB Corsair DDR PC3200
Viewsonic VG191B 19" LCD

Looking back, I can't believe I spent close to $1000 for that Viewsonic 19" 4:3 monitor. :eek:

It's not as old as some folks have posted, but it felt pretty slow for gaming to me...

EDIT: I had the wrong monitor make/model posted...
 
I've got one runnning under my desk as a main rig. It's kinda sucky though, it likes to crash after about 10 minutes of CS:S for absolutely no reason at all.

Athlon 2800+ (not sure on core)
1GB Kingston Hyper X
160GB IDE Seagate
2 DVD drives
Some random HP board with an Nvidia 2 chipset
ATI X800 with Accelero (damn these things run hot)
Soud Blaster Audigy


I've also got an Athlon dual board waiting on an HSF and a couple hard drive controllers.

Specs as of right now:

Asus A7M266-D
Athlon 2200+ (Holy shit the MP's are expensive)
1GB Corsair XMS (the lighty kind)
Nvidia TNT video card
3com network card
Abit Hotrod ATA100 IDE controller (waitin to get some SATA controllers)
 
intel celeron 1.8 ghz
geforce fx 5200
1gig ddr400 ram
250mb ddr400 ram
2x40gig hdd
14" crt monitor
asus mobo 845pe chipset

this is my main rig up to now
 
Ok, I win this contest. I have a 386 33MHz. Trident video card. 128 KB of RAM if I remember right. Haven't played on it in a bit.
 
Yep. You're not alone, except I never even went to 939! I'm still on A/AGP with the rig in my sig below. It is my main and only PC and does everything from serve media, to digital artwork (wacom tablet), to photoshop, to gaming, to 24x7 server/torrents.

Honestly I never had much reason to upgrade as cpus and memory kind of stagnated for a long time and no software was utilizing it much. Just recently have I even felt a desire to upgrade, and really it could probably handle the upcoming Warhammer MMO and Diablo III with a few tweaks and touches.

Consumerism and latest/greatest is an illusion, I'm never afraid to do my part to buck the trend.
 
SLiGuy said:
-BFG 6800GS OC (died last week, sent in for RMA, awaiting new card)
Click to expand...
After reading stories about BFG's RMA service, I was hoping to get a 7800 or something. Received my card today and it was another 6800GS OC.

Oh well, at least I got a free t-shirt.
 
i got a free copy of windows server 2003 from dreamspark..

and i had an old socket A computer similar to the OPs..

so i figured why not ^^ works suprisingly well and is now used by my fraternity house for bit torrent and filesharing between computers..

god i love my Socket A
 
SLiGuy said:
After reading stories about BFG's RMA service, I was hoping to get a 7800 or something. Received my card today and it was another 6800GS OC.

Oh well, at least I got a free t-shirt.
Click to expand...
Anddddddd the card I received is artifacting as well...

Can't wait until Christmas rolls around when I'll have enough funs for a new rig.
 
I thought I was the only one here that ever bought a pcchips board. Bought it almost two years ago to replace an ASUS board that let the smoke out in violent fashion. uses an XP 2400+ socket A, 1 meg pc2700, winXP SP3, and still the one mainly used.

edit: oops, 1 gig pc2700, it's been a while since I had a computer with 1meg memory. Nobody will ever need more than 640K anyhow, and don't even think about needing a 10 meg hard drive.

alphanumeric said:
lol

My Main rig
Motherboard - PCChips M848A (v5.0) SiS Socket A ATX
Processor - 2.2GHz AMD Athlon XP 3200+ Socket-A
Ram - 2048 Meg of DDR 3200
Harddrive - 2 80 Gig Westerndigital Drives
Video - Radeon HD 2600 XT - 512MB GDDR3, AGP 8X
Monitor - TWO 19" I-INC AG191D TFT Flat Panel
Sound Card - Onboard Realtek AC'97 ALC655 6-channel audio
OS - Windows XP Pro SP3

My "old" backup rig
Motherboard - Micro-star K7T Pro2-A Socket A ATX
Processor - 1.1GHZ AMD Athlon 1100 200MHZ FSB Socket-A
Ram - 512 plus 256 for 768 Meg of PC-133 sdram
Harddrive - 2 80 Gig Maxtor Drives.
Video - NVidia GeForce FX 5500 256Meg AGP (4X)
Monitor - IBM 17 inch CRT
OS - Windows XP Pro SP3

There is another old Duron 800 rig kicking around here somewhere too. Not in service at the moment but will be as a file server at some point. I don't have much money to spend on PC parts so I have to make em last. :)
Click to expand...
 
mtrupi said:
I thought I was the only one here that ever bought a pcchips board. Bought it almost two years ago to replace an ASUS board that let the smoke out in violent fashion. uses an XP 2400+ socket A, 1 meg pc2700, winXP SP3, and still the one mainly used.
Click to expand...

wow... how'd u get xp installed with only 1 "meg" of pc2700? i didn't even know they made modules that small. :p
 
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