Hi All
So... I have decided to share within the project logs sub-forum a nostalgic driven journey (which has borderline become an obsession) for collecting old skool hardware components, over say the past 18 months or so, with the view to one day doing some epic old skool builds, with original cases / mods / air & water cooling and of course componetry from the 2000-2006 era. Well that day has come, and it's started. There's a huge way to go yet, but thats just the reason to start the thread now.
My effort and dedication for obsolete hardware (by todays standards) is driven by a motivation to re-create builds that i could only have dreamt of affording 10+ years ago, when i first got into building pc's.
All components have been selected for their at the time top-of-the-range specs, and what enthusiasts at the time were plumping for and demanding. This includes of course a variety of DFI Lanparty motherboards, BH-5 / TCCD DDR Ram and various graphics cards such as 9800 Pro / 9800XT to name but a few.
I actually have at this moment in time 1 pc built and complete. This is fully working, has Windows XP installed, and has a host of old skool games installed such as Return to Castle Wolfenstein, C&C Generals, Unreal Tournament GOTY, CS 1.6, Medal of Honour, Quake etc basically all games which were fitting for it's period. This particular pc pays tribute to a lan cafe my uncle had during the years of approx. 2000-2003. However in late 2003 i think it was, broadband finally made it to the town where the lan cafe existed, and within a matter of months it was out of business as people could now game in the comfort of their own homes and with decent pings. However, more on this build and its background to follow.
I have another which is built, and is in the process of having windows etc installed.
So, you might be wondering what's the end outcome to all of this? I don't actually know to be honest... all i know is i am going to build around 8 nostalgic PC's, overclock them all to buggery, and re-create the excitement of doing all this as if they were brand new, then probably get bored when i realise they aren't much good for anything else these days, and so i will probably just admire them whilst they sit there looking all pretty.
By the way, this isn't just going to be a slap it all together type thing. Everything is literally going to be stripped down to the barebones, thoroughly cleaned and polished (I have an air compressor), modified (i have a dremel) and all the internal wires sorted, sleeved & routed in the most OCD driven way. There will also be LED's and neons and UV reactive stuff along the way. Again the principle is to re-create the modding scene relevant to that period. I even have a load of all watercooling kits from the likes of Asetek, Thermaltake (Big Water's etc) and a couple of the original Zalman Reserators, which is fitting for the period where watercooling was just starting to make it on the scene in a big way and get wide acceptance, basically when decent kits that weren't a bodge with Eheim pumps started to surface!
Some may call be crazy, but the motivation and dedication required to keep a build log thread such as this going, is to give others satisfaction and the chance to reminisce on the exciting glory days of enthusiast hardware and overclocking.
So, without much further a-do, let's start with a couple of pictures of the spare room shall we, to get an idea of the sheer epic nature and extent of the collection of hardware and cases which i've managed to get hold of thus far (and still looking for more bits too!)
The stack of various motherboards i've got (ignore what's on the boxes, most of whats inside is different)
http://s1073.photobucket.com/user/xplo00/media/IMG_0462_1.jpg.html?sort=3&o=4
Boxes and bits everywhere. The storage boxes are FULL up with GFX cards, Ram, CPU's, sound cards, various hardware of all nature.
http://s1073.photobucket.com/user/xplo00/media/IMG_0464_1.jpg.html
An overview of all the cases i've collected. Bare in mind, with the exception of a couple of these cases, these all have builds already inside of them in addition to everything else you can see!
http://s1073.photobucket.com/user/xplo00/media/IMG_0465_1.jpg.html
Finally, it would only be fitting to give a breakdown of *some* of the list of parts i've got.... not exhaustive but what will get the attention enthusiasts from this period...
Motherboards
2x ABIT NF7-S V2.0 (one's going to get VDD modded for hopefully 250fsb)
2x ASUS A7N8X-E Deluxe
2x DFI Lanparty NF4 Ultra-D SLI (S939)
DFI Lanparty NFII Ultra B (currently faulty...
looking for another board)
DFI Lanparty UT NF3 250Gb (S754)
DFI Lanparty PRO875B (S478)
DFI Lanparty RDX200 CF-DR (S939 - Crossfire version of SLI Ultra-D)
DFI Lanparty 875P-T (S775 - AGP & DDR support)
ABIT IC7 (S478 - looking for the MAX3 version)
Asrock 939Dual-Sata2
RAM
Corsair XMS3200XLPT (TCCD)
Corsair XMS3200XLPRO (TCCD with flashing lights
)
Mushkin Level II PC3500 (BH-5awesome)
Corsair XMS3200XL (more TCCD)
Corsair XMS3500LLPRO (Infineon Rev B)
OCZ Gold PC3200 EL 2-2-2-5 (BH-5)
2GB Mushkin Redline XP4000 Red Heatspreaders (Infineon Rev C & Brainpower PCB)
2GB Mushkin Redline XP4000 Black Heatspreaders (Infineon Rev C & Brainpower PCB)
2x 2GB kits G.Skill F1 2GBHZ PC4000 (Infineon Rev C)
And.... the best bit, a brand new OCZ DDR Booster that was still for sale as brand new from the states start of this year
GFX & CPU's
Far far too many to list but some classics and some of my faves
Geforce 3 Ti500
Geforce 4 Ti4200
9800 Pro
ASUS 9800XT
Loads Athlon XP Barton Mobiles, various steppings, inc. 3x ultra rare 1.35v 35w models, which *should* be top quality die and do some awesome overclocks. One of them is from 2005 so one of the last, so hopefully yield and die should be even better for clocking.
Loads of Athlon 64 X2's (Toledo cores)
And the daddy.... FX-60, which still has its original box.
Opteron 175 / 180 / 185
I think that's about it for now, my brain is frazzled. Look forward to more updates soon, inc. the 2x builds i have completed.
If a couple people find this awesome and it brings back some nostalgic memories from the glory days of overclocking and attending lanparty's, then it was worth doing this threa
BTW - if anybody has some hardware laying around that you think might will be useful to keep this project going, and is relevant to the theme/the above (as if i don't have enough already) then please let me know, because if you also have access to MM (in keeping with forum rules) i'm sure you could post it up there and you will have some interest (me!) - this is assuming this thread doesn't motivate people into firing up old rigs!
Anywho - thanks and bye for now
P.s. i can't seem to get thumbnail previews working for the images, any tips, or can somebody give me the correct code?
So... I have decided to share within the project logs sub-forum a nostalgic driven journey (which has borderline become an obsession) for collecting old skool hardware components, over say the past 18 months or so, with the view to one day doing some epic old skool builds, with original cases / mods / air & water cooling and of course componetry from the 2000-2006 era. Well that day has come, and it's started. There's a huge way to go yet, but thats just the reason to start the thread now.
My effort and dedication for obsolete hardware (by todays standards) is driven by a motivation to re-create builds that i could only have dreamt of affording 10+ years ago, when i first got into building pc's.
All components have been selected for their at the time top-of-the-range specs, and what enthusiasts at the time were plumping for and demanding. This includes of course a variety of DFI Lanparty motherboards, BH-5 / TCCD DDR Ram and various graphics cards such as 9800 Pro / 9800XT to name but a few.
I actually have at this moment in time 1 pc built and complete. This is fully working, has Windows XP installed, and has a host of old skool games installed such as Return to Castle Wolfenstein, C&C Generals, Unreal Tournament GOTY, CS 1.6, Medal of Honour, Quake etc basically all games which were fitting for it's period. This particular pc pays tribute to a lan cafe my uncle had during the years of approx. 2000-2003. However in late 2003 i think it was, broadband finally made it to the town where the lan cafe existed, and within a matter of months it was out of business as people could now game in the comfort of their own homes and with decent pings. However, more on this build and its background to follow.
I have another which is built, and is in the process of having windows etc installed.
So, you might be wondering what's the end outcome to all of this? I don't actually know to be honest... all i know is i am going to build around 8 nostalgic PC's, overclock them all to buggery, and re-create the excitement of doing all this as if they were brand new, then probably get bored when i realise they aren't much good for anything else these days, and so i will probably just admire them whilst they sit there looking all pretty.
By the way, this isn't just going to be a slap it all together type thing. Everything is literally going to be stripped down to the barebones, thoroughly cleaned and polished (I have an air compressor), modified (i have a dremel) and all the internal wires sorted, sleeved & routed in the most OCD driven way. There will also be LED's and neons and UV reactive stuff along the way. Again the principle is to re-create the modding scene relevant to that period. I even have a load of all watercooling kits from the likes of Asetek, Thermaltake (Big Water's etc) and a couple of the original Zalman Reserators, which is fitting for the period where watercooling was just starting to make it on the scene in a big way and get wide acceptance, basically when decent kits that weren't a bodge with Eheim pumps started to surface!
Some may call be crazy, but the motivation and dedication required to keep a build log thread such as this going, is to give others satisfaction and the chance to reminisce on the exciting glory days of enthusiast hardware and overclocking.
So, without much further a-do, let's start with a couple of pictures of the spare room shall we, to get an idea of the sheer epic nature and extent of the collection of hardware and cases which i've managed to get hold of thus far (and still looking for more bits too!)
The stack of various motherboards i've got (ignore what's on the boxes, most of whats inside is different)
http://s1073.photobucket.com/user/xplo00/media/IMG_0462_1.jpg.html?sort=3&o=4
Boxes and bits everywhere. The storage boxes are FULL up with GFX cards, Ram, CPU's, sound cards, various hardware of all nature.
http://s1073.photobucket.com/user/xplo00/media/IMG_0464_1.jpg.html
An overview of all the cases i've collected. Bare in mind, with the exception of a couple of these cases, these all have builds already inside of them in addition to everything else you can see!
http://s1073.photobucket.com/user/xplo00/media/IMG_0465_1.jpg.html
Finally, it would only be fitting to give a breakdown of *some* of the list of parts i've got.... not exhaustive but what will get the attention enthusiasts from this period...
Motherboards
2x ABIT NF7-S V2.0 (one's going to get VDD modded for hopefully 250fsb)
2x ASUS A7N8X-E Deluxe
2x DFI Lanparty NF4 Ultra-D SLI (S939)
DFI Lanparty NFII Ultra B (currently faulty...
looking for another board)DFI Lanparty UT NF3 250Gb (S754)
DFI Lanparty PRO875B (S478)
DFI Lanparty RDX200 CF-DR (S939 - Crossfire version of SLI Ultra-D)
DFI Lanparty 875P-T (S775 - AGP & DDR support)
ABIT IC7 (S478 - looking for the MAX3 version)
Asrock 939Dual-Sata2
RAM
Corsair XMS3200XLPT (TCCD)
Corsair XMS3200XLPRO (TCCD with flashing lights
)Mushkin Level II PC3500 (BH-5
awesome)Corsair XMS3200XL (more TCCD)
Corsair XMS3500LLPRO (Infineon Rev B)
OCZ Gold PC3200 EL 2-2-2-5 (BH-5)
2GB Mushkin Redline XP4000 Red Heatspreaders (Infineon Rev C & Brainpower PCB)
2GB Mushkin Redline XP4000 Black Heatspreaders (Infineon Rev C & Brainpower PCB)
2x 2GB kits G.Skill F1 2GBHZ PC4000 (Infineon Rev C)
And.... the best bit, a brand new OCZ DDR Booster
that was still for sale as brand new from the states start of this yearGFX & CPU's
Far far too many to list but some classics and some of my faves
Geforce 3 Ti500
Geforce 4 Ti4200
9800 Pro
ASUS 9800XT
Loads Athlon XP Barton Mobiles, various steppings, inc. 3x ultra rare 1.35v 35w models, which *should* be top quality die and do some awesome overclocks. One of them is from 2005 so one of the last, so hopefully yield and die should be even better for clocking.
Loads of Athlon 64 X2's (Toledo cores)
And the daddy.... FX-60, which still has its original box.
Opteron 175 / 180 / 185
I think that's about it for now, my brain is frazzled. Look forward to more updates soon, inc. the 2x builds i have completed.
If a couple people find this awesome and it brings back some nostalgic memories from the glory days of overclocking and attending lanparty's, then it was worth doing this threa
BTW - if anybody has some hardware laying around that you think might will be useful to keep this project going, and is relevant to the theme/the above (as if i don't have enough already) then please let me know, because if you also have access to MM (in keeping with forum rules) i'm sure you could post it up there and you will have some interest (me!) - this is assuming this thread doesn't motivate people into firing up old rigs!
Anywho - thanks and bye for now
P.s. i can't seem to get thumbnail previews working for the images, any tips, or can somebody give me the correct code?
