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chris-red |
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chris-red Have you considered a TDM?
Joined: 21 Sep 2005 Karma :
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Posted: 12:09 - 05 Jul 2017 Post subject: Retro Gaming PC Project |
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For a while now I've wanted a Legacy System to run old games/software that cannot run on modern systems.
I had been keeping an eye open at boot sales/ebay for anything Win95/98.
Yesterday I pulled the trigger on one on ebay and went to pick it up...
https://img.photobucket.com/albums/v295/chris-red/Mobile%20Uploads/IMG_20170704_190626_zpsvq5z69xw.jpg
* I love those bungies apart from one thing which REALLY fucks me off, their are 3 different sizes but the colours to do relate to the size It makes me so angry every time I use them.
Anyway I liberated some ancient peripherals from work (all brand new!)
And got to work setting it up, this is the spec.
https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/IlUAAOSwpONZT7H2/s-l1600.jpg
I imagine there is a fair bit of eye rolling by people in the know at the moment but bear with me
This PC is new. I mean it, BRAND new. It also happens to be more or less the same as my first PC. Mine was a 366 celeron, with a 4.3gb HDD and had a CD rather than a DVD. The case is identical. The memories are strong!
I was hoping to upgrade it it abit whilst still keeping it period (ish)
https://img.photobucket.com/albums/v295/chris-red/Mobile%20Uploads/IMG_20170704_191856_zpsm81qiyea.jpg
https://img.photobucket.com/albums/v295/chris-red/Mobile%20Uploads/IMG_20170704_192120_zps9xcrhnp9.jpg
https://img.photobucket.com/albums/v295/chris-red/Mobile%20Uploads/IMG_20170704_192259_zps1jd7hjzj.jpg
See brand new!
Note no Ethernet port, I Had forgoted they weren't standard on Motherboard back them (a common theme of this project)
Thankfully it is Y2K compliant.
https://img.photobucket.com/albums/v295/chris-red/Mobile%20Uploads/IMG_20170704_192234_zpsmo1rzt7d.jpg
I booted it up, aside from some dodgy cmos stuff it went straight into the last part of Windows set up (name, Local settings, Licence Key etc.)
https://img.photobucket.com/albums/v295/chris-red/Mobile%20Uploads/IMG_20170704_192833_zpsfsx41gfg.jpg
https://img.photobucket.com/albums/v295/chris-red/Mobile%20Uploads/IMG_20170704_193010_zpsd39we0wa.jpg
I love the windows detail in the side of the case
It loads surprisingly quick, I remember my PC being far slower, however it did only have the 366 celeron (and probably a fuck load of crap and viruses downloaded from Kazaa) It is also VERY noisy the CPU fan seems to be on 100% all the time and the harddrive is LOUD, I had forgot they used to sound like a Geiger counter in Pripyat.
I imagine the Thermal paste probably isn't great and could do with being reapplied but I'm not actually sure whether the fans in this are gradiated or if they are just on 100% all the time.
https://img.photobucket.com/albums/v295/chris-red/Mobile%20Uploads/IMG_20170704_193841_zpsptsy02y2.jpg
It sure felt like it...
I took it apart as I wanted to install 98SE however I want to Leave the existing drive in it alone I would like it to remain original.
I had 1 IDE drive. A 160gb jobby from my second ever PC. However this didn't detect in the bios at first. I assumed it wasn't compatible with the motherboard I noticed there was a jumper (Jumpers remember them!) setting to limit the drive to 32gb, however this required 2 and I think I binned my little pot of jumpers about 10 years ago. I scavenged one from the drive that came with the PC and had success with it being detected in the POST.
https://img.photobucket.com/albums/v295/chris-red/Mobile%20Uploads/IMG_20170704_215214_zpssviugxfh.jpg
I then bunged in the Windows SE CD and tried to install Windows. I had forgotten you cannot partition a hard drive from Windows Setup you have to use a boot disc! Fortunately you can boot from CD in this model so I downloaded a 98 boot disc and ran FDISK however it only detected the drive as 8gb. I fucked about for a few hours trying various things. But I still could not partition the drive bigger than 8gb. I had no way of linking it to a newer machine and I couldn't get the drive to be detected in Windows as a secondary master. I tried Hirens however that bombed one when it tried to create a 64mb RAM disc
In the end I gave up and just installed SE to the 8gb partition. It was surprisingly easy and quick. Only the on board sound wasn't installed as part of the set up.
One annoyance was 98's inability to detect USB drives without drivers. I gave up after the drivers I burnt to CD wouldn't read in the old machine.
My plans for upgrades where to make it something I would have creamed my pants over as a kid.
Originally I had planned to replace the CPU with a Pentium 2/3, that was before I knew what the Mobo/Chipset was. Being so old I could find next to no information about the PC or the Mobo.
I have since learned it is a 440LX chipset which isn't great it is limited to a 66mhz FSB which means the celeron 500 is the best it can have. I'm a little bummed about that as were it the BX chipset I could have fitted a P3 up to about 1ghz they sell for less than £10 on ebay too.
Anyway 366 did me fine back in the day so I can live with 500.
I started the upgrade by removing the 56k modem.
https://img.photobucket.com/albums/v295/chris-red/Mobile%20Uploads/IMG_20170705_092731_zpsp2y1atlg.jpg
The size of the board is impressive.
The Graphics card seemed unhappy about this.
It sliced me good, old PCBs are SHARP.
https://img.photobucket.com/albums/v295/chris-red/Mobile%20Uploads/IMG_20170705_104443_zpsnuytddnd.jpg
Whats next, RAM Upgrade, Ethernet, Graphics, IDE-CF. ____________________ Well, you know what they say. If you want to save the world, you have to push a few old ladies down the stairs.
Skudd:- Perhaps she just thinks you are a window licker and is being nice just in case she becomes another Jill Dando.
WANTED:- Fujinon (Fuji) M42 (Screw on) lenses, let me know if you have anything. |
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CaNsA |
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CaNsA Super Spammer
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M.C |
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M.C Super Spammer
Joined: 29 Sep 2015 Karma :
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Posted: 12:33 - 05 Jul 2017 Post subject: |
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I too have a load of old bits. I have an old SFF system for when I (very rarely) need it:
https://id3416.securedata.net/megsales/sff.jpg
It has Win98se on a 500MB hard drive
Edit: fairly certain I used to use these drivers for USB devices (the top link) https://www.jessops.com/ucr
Your partition problems I seem to remember having the same problem on a Pentium 1, maybe the solution will come back to me...
Last edited by M.C on 12:39 - 05 Jul 2017; edited 1 time in total |
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chris-red |
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chris-red Have you considered a TDM?
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Posted: 12:34 - 05 Jul 2017 Post subject: |
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chris-red |
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chris-red Have you considered a TDM?
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CaNsA |
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CaNsA Super Spammer
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chris-red |
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chris-red Have you considered a TDM?
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RhynoCZ |
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RhynoCZ Super Spammer
Joined: 09 Mar 2012 Karma :
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Posted: 14:15 - 05 Jul 2017 Post subject: |
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Cool Project!
I still have my Celeron 433MHz, Riva TNT2, IBM 8GB ATA-HDD and some RAM. Unfortunately my motherboard is dead. I was fiddling around with it a few years back, even had a discussion with some BCF members about it. There is a slight chance my issues were due to a new PSU. Modern PSUs don't supply enough current through the leads to the MB/CPU as modern MB/CPUs got more efficient and therefore less power hungry. But I don't think that was the reason of my failure. The MB is just dead and I'm done trying.
https://cdn.cpu-world.com/CPUs/Celeron/S_Intel-Celeron%20433%20(ES%20front).jpg ____________________ '87 Honda XBR 500, '96 Kawasaki ZX7R P1, '90 Honda CB-1, '88 Kawasaki GPz550, MZ 150 ETZ
'95 Mercedes-Benz w202 C200 CGI, '98 Mercedes-Benz w210 E200 Kompressor |
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M.C |
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M.C Super Spammer
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RhynoCZ |
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RhynoCZ Super Spammer
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Posted: 18:38 - 05 Jul 2017 Post subject: |
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Yes, capacitors do dry out and/or leak, but looking at the board, there's quite a few of them and I can't be arsed to identify and replace them all. The odds are they are fine and my issue is cracked solder somewhere on the board or a modern PSU just can't power the board/cpu up properly. I could get the green power LED on, but that's about all I could do with it. I tried to reset the BIOS with the jumpers, read a lot about it online, but all that was no good. ____________________ '87 Honda XBR 500, '96 Kawasaki ZX7R P1, '90 Honda CB-1, '88 Kawasaki GPz550, MZ 150 ETZ
'95 Mercedes-Benz w202 C200 CGI, '98 Mercedes-Benz w210 E200 Kompressor |
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CaNsA |
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CaNsA Super Spammer
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fatjames |
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fatjames World Chat Champion
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chris-red |
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chris-red Have you considered a TDM?
Joined: 21 Sep 2005 Karma :
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Posted: 12:29 - 06 Jul 2017 Post subject: |
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It's just drivers for flash drives I sorted it now I found my old USB floppy disc and wrote the driver to that and installed it, flash drives work and I have updated my Graphics Chipset and Sound Drivers.
I actually forgot how good win98 is. I thought it would be horrible it's quite usable it seems nippy too
Also 8.3 is more than enough when the games you install essentially run from the CD, I installed A10 cuba last night, 30mb install! ____________________ Well, you know what they say. If you want to save the world, you have to push a few old ladies down the stairs.
Skudd:- Perhaps she just thinks you are a window licker and is being nice just in case she becomes another Jill Dando.
WANTED:- Fujinon (Fuji) M42 (Screw on) lenses, let me know if you have anything. |
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M.C |
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M.C Super Spammer
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Jayy |
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Jayy Mr. Ponzi
Joined: 08 Jun 2009 Karma :
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Posted: 17:16 - 06 Jul 2017 Post subject: |
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Had that card myself in my 2nd PC serial linked to my main PC which ran a Voodoo 3000 AGP |
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M.C |
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M.C Super Spammer
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Posted: 17:25 - 06 Jul 2017 Post subject: |
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Jayy wrote: |
Had that card myself in my 2nd PC serial linked to my main PC which ran a Voodoo 3000 AGP |
Got that in the Sempron system currently. It's the recently retired 'family' computer, that'll probably end up in the bin soon. |
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P. |
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P. Red Rocket
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M.C |
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M.C Super Spammer
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RhynoCZ |
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RhynoCZ Super Spammer
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Posted: 18:24 - 06 Jul 2017 Post subject: |
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Jayy wrote: |
Had that card myself in my 2nd PC serial linked to my main PC which ran a Voodoo 3000 AGP |
Voodoo did only 16-bit colour, that's why I insisted on getting the TNT2, the true 32-bit colour card! I was just a stupid child, that read PC magazines where they made it clear, that 32-bit colour is a must have feature. It's quite funny, as back then I wouldn't have noticed. It's only now, watching some youtube comparison videos, where you can tell the difference in picture quality and performance.
The downside of my choice was no 3dfx support, obviously. But back then I didn't care much about such things. OpenGL and Direct3D worked well enough.
I recently started to watch some youtube channels about retro gaming and hardware and I find it as fascinating as when this HW was the cutting edge technology.
Check: PhilsComputerLab (youbook, retro HW reviews: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCj9IJ2QvygoBJKSOnUgXIRA NOT SPAM) ____________________ '87 Honda XBR 500, '96 Kawasaki ZX7R P1, '90 Honda CB-1, '88 Kawasaki GPz550, MZ 150 ETZ
'95 Mercedes-Benz w202 C200 CGI, '98 Mercedes-Benz w210 E200 Kompressor |
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Serendipity |
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Serendipity World Chat Champion
Joined: 07 Jun 2006 Karma :
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Posted: 12:37 - 09 Jul 2017 Post subject: |
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Interesting stuff. What sort of games are you planning to run? I find that most of my favourite nostalgic PC games will still run on my current PC. The main thing I have issues with is widescreen support for some old titles. So you can't beat a good old 4:3 monitor for max compatibility, unless you can put up with a bit of stretching.
I also had a Tiny, purchased around 1999. A 600Mhz Pentium III that I still have in the loft. I upgraded it a little until it had 128MB of ram and a PCI graphics card (no AGP slot) and it was just about up to running Quake III on a LAN.
After I started working in IT I kept it running as part of a lab and games machine, imaging it with Ghost for whatever role was required until around 2006 when I moved house and started using virtual machines rather than having a spare room full of PCs. ____________________ 2016 CBF1000F - Commuter heaven | 1994 CBR600FR - Awaiting defibrillation |
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M.C |
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M.C Super Spammer
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chris-red |
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chris-red Have you considered a TDM?
Joined: 21 Sep 2005 Karma :
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Hahadumball |
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Hahadumball World Chat Champion
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M.C |
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M.C Super Spammer
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Posted: 15:16 - 13 Jul 2017 Post subject: |
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Still got a load as well |
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chris-red |
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chris-red Have you considered a TDM?
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Old Thread Alert!
The last post was made 6 years, 330 days ago. Instead of replying here, would creating a new thread be more useful? |
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