The Post Your Old/Retro Builds Thread

Dude... Been wanting to get one of these for nearly 15 years but I just never had the free extra money to get one, other stuff always took priority over a niche use item (in which I'd have to build the Pentium II 333MHz i440LX/BX/Voodoo2 12MB box to go with it first... Still pretty far down the totem pole, maybe someday before PII era stuff becomes too expensive if it hasn't already...)
 

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I have a Clumsy MIDI I still need to build. I bought all the parts but haven't soldered it together yet. It should get the same MIDI sound as an actual SoundCanvas device though.
 
t1k said:
A neighbor just gave me these for free. HP XE783 and HP V50 CRT. Windows ME machine LOL. Going to tinker with it and make it some sort of retro station.

I'm wondering if there is a linux distro I can install on it or something....or may just make it a DOS machine. Or keep ME for the lolz I don't know. Need to do some research. It feels good to have a CRT around again though.

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Modern linux distros that still support i686 are getting pretty scarce. You can try Debian, but I think you'll need more RAM.

https://cdimage.debian.org/debian-cd/current/i386/iso-cd/

I'd offer you a few sticks of PC-100 from my stash, but it looks like you can get it for basically shipping on Ebay. I think yours can take a max of 512 MB, which was pretty common for machines of the time.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/155376136124
 
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GiGaBiTe said:
Modern linux distros that still support i686 are getting pretty scarce. You can try Debian, but I think you'll need more RAM.

https://cdimage.debian.org/debian-cd/current/i386/iso-cd/

I'd offer you a few sticks of PC-100 from my stash, but it looks like you can get it for basically shipping on Ebay. I think yours can take a max of 512 MB, which was pretty common for machines of the time.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/155376136124
Click to expand...

Thank you. I will just stick to XP for now then. I found a 128MBx2 PC100 kit last week for $15 shipped and ended up pulling the trigger on it. I should be picking it up in a few hours actually. If I was going to update the PSU and GPU of the system I might have spent more for 512mb, but a PSU/GPU would be a little pricey and this isn't really a system I want to invest too much into. I figure it will be a good bang for the buck upgrade. $15 is actually less than I paid for the full expansion set of Diablo/DII/LOD. I'm also not completely sure yet how well this machine will handle high density RAM.

Diablo II is playable, but I did have to increase the paging file size of Windows and turn down all settings and there is still some stutter. lodpatch_113d was the best patch to use since it was the latest patch to still allow for the ability of the game to switch to DirectDraw mode instead of Direct3D mode. I think quadrupling the RAM will help a lot. I'm pleased to have DII on the machine though. The fact that it doesn’t run perfectly smooth and is pushing the limits of the machine kind of adds to the nostalgic experience. A $15 RAM upgrade will be well worth it though if it eliminates the worst of the stutter.

I also installed Hydro Thunder, which runs ok enough at lowest settings and is fun. Shelby at Tech Tangents got me interested in this game. He does a lot of great retro preservation work.

I experimented with SNES emulation since Genesis emulation worked so well. ZSNES was the only emulator that would work straight out the gate, but unfortunately, audio in ZSNES sounds a little rough no matter the settings I use. And overall accuracy is probably not great. It was worth a try though...I figured I might start to hit the limitations of the machine. Perhaps the extra RAM will help.
 
So I got the RAM installed. No more stuttering in DII :^). Runs like a dream now. ZSNES still has popping audio so I think it is just some issue with the emulator itself. Things load and shut down quicker with the added RAM though so that is nice. No real difference in FPS in games like Quake and Hydro Thunder though, but that's not something I expected from the upgrade anyway. The main thing the upgrade did is make Diablo II run much smoother, which was worth it imo. Maybe I will try WCIII again just to see...

This RAM was dual density, so I think I should be able to put a 512mb kit in the system if I wanted too. If I wanted to max out the system I could put a geforce 2 pci, better PSU and 512mb of RAM in it. Maybe over time I will upgrade it if I can salvage the parts or find them at very low cost.
 
Welp, after going through everything 3 boards are MIA, with a 4th ruined by cat urine. Oh well... Easy come easy go, I suppose.
EDIT: I hope it is my pragmatic attitude you like, Format_C, not the fact I lost/had boards ruined...
 
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So to replace my MSI K8N Neo Platinum, I was thinking about a Neo2 Platinum (s939 instead of 754) instead if I can find any more Opteron 180s floating about - if not, an FX-55 or FX-57 would be fun.
As for the ABit NF7-S RAID, if anyone has one they are willing to part with, shoot me a PM- let's talk...
I cannot remember the third board, and the fourth was an Intel P35 reference board, I am sure I can find another in time.
 
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Mr. Bluntman said:
So to replace my MSI K8N Neo Platinum, I was thinking about a Neo2 Platinum (s939 instead of 754) instead if I can find any more Opteron 180s floating about - if not, an FX-55 or FX-57 would be fun.
As for the ABit NF7-S RAID, if anyone has one they are willing to part with, shoot me a PM- let's talk...
I cannot remember the third board, and the fourth was an Intel P35 reference board, I am sure I can find another in time.
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not sure how the 180's clock, but my 165 runs at 300Mhz/2.7Ghz on my Abit AN8-SLI and has ran that way since I got it. While it spends most if it's time these days in the closet, it's a fun flashback form time to time.
 
Format _C: said:
Yes I was liking the "Easy come easy go, I suppose" part not the lost and damaged boards.
Sorry for the confusion.
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No worries lol - I have found in this day and age, sadly, you can't always be sure. Trolls take many forms and guises... :ninja:
 
To further add: this, while is painful to an extent, does clear some room for better boards I may or may not have otherwise known about before...
 
I have another system to post some pics of, after tearing apart my horde looking for my R520 video card. It is one of my Lian-Li PC-60 with the window. It has a MSI 694D Pro P3 duallie board in it. It has a pair of 933 pentium 3's, and used to have 768MB of PC133 ECC memory in it until I pillaged 2 of the sticks for one of my other duallies, so now it has 256MB. It also has one of my voodoo 5 cards in it along with a 3Com network card.

Back in the old days it was used as a FTP server for many years, before getting retired in favor of a newer system that was much faster. It did run windows 2k, although not sure what is currently on it as its been some time since I last fired it up. Now I wonder if it still has all the old FTP stuff still on it....hmmm maybe that will be a hunt for another day when I see whats there.
 

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GiGaBiTe said:
Modern linux distros that still support i686 are getting pretty scarce. You can try Debian, but I think you'll need more RAM.

https://cdimage.debian.org/debian-cd/current/i386/iso-cd/

I'd offer you a few sticks of PC-100 from my stash, but it looks like you can get it for basically shipping on Ebay. I think yours can take a max of 512 MB, which was pretty common for machines of the time.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/155376136124
Click to expand...
That would have been from circa 1998-2000, so 64MB to 128MB RAM would have been average for that time.
Some of those smaller systems from that era aren't even capable of addressing over 256MB, so make sure to double-check the specs.

512MB RAM wasn't average in systems until around 2003-2004.
 
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Starfalcon said:
I have another system to post some pics of, after tearing apart my horde looking for my R520 video card. It is one of my Lian-Li PC-60 with the window. It has a MSI 694D Pro P3 duallie board in it. It has a pair of 933 pentium 3's, and used to have 768MB of PC133 ECC memory in it until I pillaged 2 of the sticks for one of my other duallies, so now it has 256MB. It also has one of my voodoo 5 cards in it along with a 3Com network card.

Back in the old days it was used as a FTP server for many years, before getting retired in favor of a newer system that was much faster. It did run windows 2k, although not sure what is currently on it as its been some time since I last fired it up. Now I wonder if it still has all the old FTP stuff still on it....hmmm maybe that will be a hunt for another day when I see whats there.
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Nice! I always drooled over 2P systems even then, but lamented the lack of general support outside of WinNT and 2000...
 
Red Falcon said:
That would have been from circa 1998-2000, so 64MB to 128MB RAM would have been average for that time.
Some of those smaller systems from that era aren't even capable of addressing over 256MB, so make sure to double-check the specs.

512MB RAM wasn't average in systems until around 2003-2004.
Click to expand...
Yep, 256MB would have been high end, but not out of place in a dual PIII 933MHz system.
 
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