** Acme's [Akagi's] Retro Odyssey! From Apple ][ to Pentium 4. Repair, modding, and more! **

[Akagi]

So I have been on a bit of a retro adventure lately. It all started when I got hold of an Apple ][ locally which had been in someone's attic for 35 years, and then things started to snowball...

These are my adventures so far, broken up into sections, and I'll make new posts with my progress on things moving forward! The initial posts are to bring you up to date on things so far!

 

[Akagi]

Apple ][ Europlus

This was a right place at the right time score. I saw it a few minutes after it was listed, local to me, just a picture of a cardboard box bearing the "Apple" branding, and the title "vintage Apple computer"

I went to collect it later the same day, and didn't open the box until I got home! I didn't get the CRT with it, and it didn't work at all without some repairs. Details in the spoilers below!

The one that started it all!

Collection and unboxing everything:

Spoiler

So begins the adventure, a mystery box on marketplace listed as "vintage Apple computer" - I go and collect it, knowing nothing of its contents!

I get it home, and holy heck, it is a box fresh Apple ][+ with a huge array of disks, documentation, and accessories!
Far too many pictures to post in one go, so here is a whole album of 50 images after I got it home:

imgur.com

Discover the magic of the internet at Imgur, a community powered entertainment destination. Lift your spirits with funny jokes, trending memes, entertaining gifs, inspiring stories, viral videos, and so much more from users.

imgur.com

Powering up, PSU failure & repair:

Spoiler

It powered up, but with no beep, meaning it did not boot correctly. Much like with much later machines, or even current ones if you connect a speaker!

In hindsight, powering up some old tech that hasn't had power for over 3 decades on top of a very flammable bed probably wasn't the best move! But there was no fire, so we're fine.

I went through re-seating the cards and a few chips

Unfortunately before I could get video output or a reliable beep from the machine, the RIFA mains filtering capacitor blew up in the PSU. A common issue which created a very odd smell, similar I imagine to an electrical fire in a popcorn factory!

The power supply removed:

The blown capacitor:

I found a retired electrical engineer who was happy enough to replace the capacitor for me, he had quite some kit! Everything was connected to power and cable managed around the back too!

The new capacitor installed:

The old one!

The green phosphor CRT:

Spoiler

I managed to pick up this green phosphor CRT locally, the wires had been cut so I had to connect new ones, and I got a new video cable from a company via eBay.

And wouldn't you know it, we have life! The Apple II didn't like the comparatively modern LCD screen using the composite input, it needed a CRT. I guess a CRT is a bit more loosey goosey about what it needs in order to display an image!

Not a perfect colour match, but good enough, and it fits atop it perfectly!

Fixing the 80 columns display card:

Spoiler

One of the cards in the machine is a clone of a Videx 80 column display card. The standard output of the machine is 40 columns, this allowed you to fit more on the screen at once. It has its own video output, and you have to manually switch between the two.

Unfortunately the card was initially completely non functional.

I did some troubleshooting by chip swapping, and by swapping the 4013 chips around, I managed to get a garbled display output from the card:

So I ordered a replacement 4013 chip. It arrived, I installed it, aaaaand, bingo! Working 80 column display output!

I then bought an A/V switching box pictured here atop the disk drives so I can switch video outputs without unplugging cables:

"Cold" booting issues, power problems, and troubleshooting:

Spoiler

I had quite a bit of trouble with the machine failing to boot when cold. It would just turn on to this, which is the output you get when the video circuit is active, but something/everything else is inactive.

If you switch it on, leave it for a few minutes, and then switch it off and back on, it will boot. But, not with the floppy drive connected.

This led me to think it might be a power related issue... The power supply, again!

I made some probe wires to put in the power connector to the motherboard so I could easily check the 5v and 12v rails in real time.

However the voltages seemed OK at all times... I also tested at the slots, and it seemed fine too. However it did take a second for the voltages to ramp up to where they need to be instead of being *instant*

Before concluding that it was probably the PSU still despite this, I dismantled and serviced the primary disk drive (that is a SLEEP MASK and a GEARKNOB, get your minds out of the gutter )

The disk drive PCB, for interest. I re-seated and cleaned the chips, as well as cleaning the heads and making sure the mechanism moved freely.

I also bought this brand new Disk II Interface Card clone from NKK Lab in Bulgaria because I thought the Disk II card was faulty, however it wasn't, I had just re-installed a chip one pin offset. Never mind. I have a spare now!

Converting the power supply to modern internals:

Spoiler

ATX4VC voltage conversion board by DekuNukem, a 7P VH 3.96 female connector, and some lengths of 18 gauge wire.

New motherboard connector suitable for Apple ][ series computers as well as Acorn BBC series computers sourced from eBay.

2 pin plug sourced from a Microserver power supply fan, soldered to some lengths of wire for the power switch.
And a piece of insulating plastic salvaged from an old power supply cut to shape and holepunched for the standoffs and power switch wire passthrough.

The original PSU contents.

And removed, almost completely non destructively. I had to cut one wire, and crimp on insulated spade connectors, essentially making this process easily reversible.

Mounted in the original PSU enclosure with 2mm PCB standoffs.
Wire passed through the casing using the original retainer.
Streacom Nano 120W PSU installed. (Overkill, but I got a good deal on one open-box)
Also a new power switch.

Cable management, and ends crimped on for the power switch.

New C14 connector cut so that the face plate can be used on the outside of the PSU.

Tufnol sheet to be cut to make the plate to mount the 12V barrel connector.

Installed, and finished.

Installed back in the machine.

vs. how it used to look.

How the power connector now looks.

vs. how it used to look.

This fixed my cold booting issue, and the unreliability with powering the disk drives. The machine is now almost entirely functional!

Vintage late 60's cassette player:

Spoiler

I bought a 1969 Bell & Howell Filmosound cassette recorder to go with the Apple:

With its original case, and microphone!

A bit dirty:

Cleaned up!

And sat where it will live.

I need to get an AC adapter for it, and test it. I will likely have to disassemble and clean it, and probably replace whatever belts are inside.

The only remaining issue at the time of posting is that the "1" key is intermittent. The machine has the rare Datanetics Rev. B mechanical keyboard, which uses a rather unique and sadly non-servicable keyswitch:

Datanetics DC-50 series - Deskthority wiki

deskthority.net

 

[Akagi]

Olivetti PCS-44

Another local pick-up, from a different person. In exceptional condition again, this has an 80386SX at 25MHz, 4MB of RAM, and a 125MB hard drive. It also has a Soundblaster!

Beauty shots, software, and my copy of Oils Well:

Spoiler

My copies of Oils Well by Sierra! The beige disks I have owned since I was a small child and had a Windows 95 Pentium 166 based PC, the boxed copy I bought later for nostalgic reasons. Now I have a machine to play it on!

Pictures of the Oils Well manual:

Spoiler

Trying out games and software:

Spoiler

Windows 3.1 installed!

Some kind of fairly terrible golf game, the main character looks like Trump. Very unfortunate!

Original Paint! Its called Paintbrush??

Repositioning the machine next to the Apple, and a floppy disk extravaganza!

Spoiler

I managed to squeeze the two machines together here to save space, and allow me to populate other surfaces with more retro stuff, lol!

I bought a huge number of floppies in a lockable case, still with keys!

This is just 1 disk of 4, but still cool to have.

All of these were bundles demos and software from magazines, unfortunately all were already formatted, and already had the X's drawn on them

These however, were not formatted! And include the full version of Wolfenstein 3D!

Trying out Wolfenstein 3D:

Spoiler

The full game?? Neat!

Runs perfectly! Although I did have to install a DOS mouse driver. I used CuteMouse: https://cutemouse.sourceforge.net

Someones old saves still on the disk, ha!

I have installed it on the hard drive now.

Does it have a VARTA barrel battery, and has it leaked? From post #22:

Spoiler

I opened up the Olivetti to remove the Varta barrel battery...

Only to discover it doesn't have one! So I put it back together.

Its very clean inside! It also seems to have a 125mb hard drive... So I'm not sure why I saw 20mb! I need to double check that.

 

[Akagi]

TI99/4A

I picked this up with the Olivetti. They said they think it works, but it is as dead as a doornail. I suspect the power supply, but we will see!

Books, cartridge/tapes and documentation:

Spoiler

It came with lots of manuals and paperwork, most of which was extremely bent up, but I have flattened most of it in a book press! These initial pics are from before.

And after some flattening

The larger books are still in the bookshelf getting squished!

This one is something I will focus on in the near future, I need to meter out the power supply brick to see if it works, because currently I have no LED and no beep/noise from the machine at all!

 

[Akagi]

"2003 Gaming PC" - Pentium 4 based

A machine I pieced together and built a couple of years ago, but didn't get around to doing anything with until recently!

Specs at time of writing:

Pentium 4 Northwood HT 2.8GHz
QDI PlatiniX 2PE/800
2GB Corsair TwinX Pro Series
Sapphire ATI Radeon X1650 Pro 512MB
Creative Sound-Blaster XFi Fatal1ty
Western Digital WD2000 200GB
Tagan TG330 330W
Windows XP Pro SP3
CoolerMaster Praetorian 732 (with Mesh branding)

Building and first boot:

Spoiler

I had a few motherboards to choose from, the Asus (yellow PCB) would probably have been the best one, but this QDI is unusual and its the correct size, so I went with it!

None of these parts were tested, and all came from various places. Some I bought, some I already had from a long while ago.

So imagine my surprise when it fired right up.

And then that was it, it became a footrest for 2 years, and went through being stored in two attics, and a house move!

Lets install XP:

Spoiler

Picking up where I left off over 2 years prior, I finally installed XP and the drivers variously!

Hints that it is from another time...

Overclocking the GPU, and Half Life 2:

Spoiler

Wow, she liked the overclock this one! Almost maxed out the sliders!

Installing HL2

Had to turn a lot of things down to get it running decently. The X1650 Pro isn't the best, but it is better with the overclock! I would like an X1650 XT really.

Sound card death, replacement, Creative front panels:

Spoiler

This died, sadly. Probably capacitors. Though they do all look visually OK. It has gone in the box of shame for now!

I picked up this XFi Fatal1ty locally to replace it:

I already had two Fatal1ty front panels though, so I did what any sane person would!

Yeah this thing actually sounds pretty great! Also yes, XP on the internet. SHOCK!

Avast still update definitions for their XP compatible version.

I bought a load of old junk... And used a lot of it in the PC!

Spoiler

A disappointing haul from a dishonest person, but never mind! There are a few goodies!

Silver DVD multifunction card reader and a silver floppy!

Temperature control fan controller!

A nice Akasa CPU cooler with a copper base

Hmm yes, every damn time!

Just one Creative front panel now ha.

Jazzy!

Sexy RAM with LED activity lights:

Spoiler

Connecting up the non-standard front panel from post #18:

Spoiler

3AM and you can't sleep... What do you do? Yep, connect up your USB front devices to your non-standard pinout motherboard of course!

Little sanity diagram made in Paint so that I don't **** it up and set fire to it...

Some single pin connectors...

Connected to the motherboard...

And voila!

Re-cable-managed from post #43:

Spoiler

Put the funky not-ribbon cables in the P4 machine and re-did the cable management as best I could.

Little before/after side by side.

 

[Akagi]

Windows Me Sempron project

My current little project built from bits... I have had the case and the power supply for a couple of years, but hadn't done anything with it until now!

Updated specs:

AMD Sempron 2200+ 1.5GHz
MSI KM4M-V
256MB RAM
ATI Radeon 9550 256MB
WD800 80GB
Creative Soundblaster Live!
'Advance' "400W" PSU

Building:

Spoiler

What a damn mess...

Damn this is tight...

Sellotape cable management, just like the old days!

The modern fan in the front does look weird, but its not like you'll see it.

I'm not sure I've seen a beige run of the mill PC that looks this uncluttered inside. Its scary.

First power on fail:

Spoiler

Wellll, it was temperamental, and then stopped working altogether.

Turns out... The mystery PSU is dead.

Piggybacked a spare onto it, and it kicked right into life!

Power supply replacement from post #13:

Spoiler

Here we go again then...

The offending article. Clearly it is a very cheap PSU from back in the day judging by the lack of branding!

But I am a little sad because it has dual fans, which would have been neat... Never mind.

I briefly considered using this new PSU which I keep as a spare because it is so much smaller, but quickly decided against it because I'd have nowhere to put the mass of un-needed cables.

This is the replacement article...

Checking that it actually works...

Yep!

And there we go, like nothing ever happened...

Power supply carnage from post #14:

Spoiler

The broken power supply was very broken!

I salvaged things that might be useful and binned it.

Windows Me install process from post #14:

Spoiler

Windows Me was surprisingly smooth to install once I actually had a working disk!

They wouldn't lie to me would they?

Waow!

They wouldn't lie to me would they?

Hmm no keyboard or mouse...

There's no way this is going to work...

Whaaaaaaaat!

Nearly...

Heck yeah! Just drivers and such now.

Soundblaster now installed! From post #38:

Spoiler

Windows 98SE drivers worked perfectly, and now I have sound!

Also installed a fan grille in the rear to tidy it up.

 

[Akagi]

Dual socket 771 system. Initially T5400 based, and then re-built into a custom machine.

Introducing another of my systems, which has been in the loft for quite some time, and I have owned for probably 10 years! A Dell Precision T5400.

I used to use this for Folding@Home back when I did it for the OcUK team, because it has two PCI-E X16 slots and a fairly beefy power supply. It also acted as my backup server during that time, and I don't think I ever dusted it.

It originally had a 2.00GHz Xeon E5405 (LGA771) and 4GB of ECC DDR2.

Specs in this image:

2x Xeon X5460 3.16GHz quad core CPUs
32GB (8x 4GB) ECC DDR2 667MHz
Gainward GTX260 Core 216 896MB
120GB Gigabyte SSD
875W PSU
Windows Vista Business X64

Due to motherboard issues, I undertook the project of turning it into a custom build using an Intel server-board and a new old stock Casetek chassis. All details in spoilers below!

Specs in this image:

2x Xeon X5460 3.16GHz (quad core, LGA771)
Intel S5000PSL (SASR) Server Board
Mac Pro 1.1 heatsinks
32GB 667MHz DDR2 FB-ECC
Gainward GTX260 Core 216 896MB
Xonar DGX (server board has no onboard audio)
Corsair CV650
Crucial BX500 120GB
Casetek CK-1020 Blue (New Old Stock from 2003)
Windows 7 Ultimate X64

T5400:

Spoiler

Cleaning it up, from post #23:

Spoiler

Disgusting...

The boot drive is a 120GB SSD which I had just shoved in an antistatic bag and let sit loosely in one of the hard drive bays

When I upgraded the CPUs, I couldn't find an original heatsink, so I bought that Akasa one. Hence the mismatch.

Yuck.

Drive cage, facia, and all the fans removed...

After a good brushing and dusting!

Upgrades, from post #23:

Spoiler

A period correct GPU, thanks to @rare for sending me this!

A lovely Gainward GTX260 Core 216. I think its one of the ones with 3/4 of a GB because they wanted to be awkward.

And also a network adapter, because the onboard NIC in the machine doesn't work.

Slight problem with the card retention mechanism...

Solved... *cough*

I have also mounted the SSD to the bottom of the DVD drive, and re-routed the cabling as best I can. I have also opted not to re-install the HDD cages, but I may reconsider because it also integrates the RAM cooling fan.

And done!

First power on and RAM issues, from post #23:

Spoiler

Poxy hell, just a few complaints then! Its like one of my famous car purchases... Its fine honest!

Looking in the BIOS, it seems a few sticks are not happy...

The cards are detected properly though, which is good!

And also the system time and date are correct after all this time! Nice.

First I tried re-seating it all...

That worked! But it did show off a bug in this BIOS revision... Can you spot the problem?

After some removing and power cycling and re-inserting and power cycling...

All is not yet fine and dandy though... It did not want to boot into Windows!

I am hoping that a fresh OS install will fix it...........

There were some issues with the network card which I wasted a bunch of time trying to fix, but that aside, it is now done, from post #38:

Spoiler

Oh and I upgraded the CPUs from E5430s to X5460s, from post #38:

Spoiler

Casetek CK-1020 re-build:

Spoiler

The case for the re-build from post #41:

Spoiler

This Casetek CK-1020 arrived today! Many thanks to Kurgen for offering to ship it to me.

It has some goodies still inside too. The RAM is nice to have, but please message me if you'd like me to send it back, as I'm not sure you intended to leave it in there...

Further pictures and info!

Spoiler

It is apparently new old stock, and it is in pretty nice shape overall!

It has a lockable front door with the bays and the buttons behind it. I don't have the key, but its easy enough to get one for this sort of lock if I feel the need!

And behind that another door hinges open to allow removal and installation of the drives using plastic skids (very cool), cleaning the intake fan filter, and also locking the side panel!
There is one retention clip missing in here that the door is meant to snap into, so I'll have to see what I can do about that...

Contents wise it has half an X58 system, which I'm sure I can find a use for at some point.

You can also see a mounting point for two fans, so they can draw air from... The... Solid side panel? Righty-o Casetek.
And the side panel has an optional intrusion detection switch, which is pretty neato.

The paint is going a little iffy from age and storage, but if thats the worst of its condition, being 20 years old, thats pretty amazing if you ask me!

You can barely tell in normal lighting, so it looks basically immaculate unless you scrutinise!

Love them or hate them it also has this IDE cable inside, which I think I'll use in the Pentium 4 machine, along with the silver one I salvaged from the last machine I posted!

Plans wise I haven't quite decided what to do with it, but I have a few ideas floating around...

Option 1 is to find a dual socket 771 E-ATX motherboard and use parts from the Dell to make a custom dual socket Core 2 era machine.
Option 2 is to build a Core 2 Quad or Phenom X4 system, but that will have to be down the road when I have the funds to find some nice parts.
Option 3 is to fit the missing parts of the X58 system that is already installed. I just need an IO shield, a CPU cooler and a GPU!

Things are starting to get out of hand...

Watch this space I guess!

Fiddling with it to try and get better airflow from posts #49 & #53:

Spoiler

In preparation, because this case won't have nearly enough airflow for this application (this is a stupid idea, after all) - I made an adjustment to the front of the case.

I spaced out the blue section of the front panel using longer screws and spacers:

So that some air can be drawn in around the sides as well as more being able to come from above and below...

It still looks OK.

I'll remove the lowest three 5.25" blanks, and mount a fan in here as an intake, which will blow directly onto the CPU heatsinks.

I really don't think this is going to work well enough but ah, we'll see.

A revelation, TWO 120mm fans fit in the drive bay area stacked atop each other. I have bought some fan grille mesh filter stuff to attach to the back of the door.

Playing around with where stuff might go... It is going to need a lot of cooling to keep up with a pair of 120W chips, 80W of burning hot fully-buffered RAM, and a GPU dumping heat into the case...

I'll probably set the rear fan and the top fan to be exhaust, and add another little fan to the IO area...

I am also considering modifying the case to have an additional 120mm intake at the front where the current 80mm is, but I'll see how it is first...

The more I look at this thing, the more I'm sure it was originally some kind of server/workstation chassis that got modified for sale as a gaming case. It even has holes for server grade motherboards, and the general construction and weight of it, as well as the styling, the expansion card supports, etc...

Mocking up, build, and first test from post #63:

Spoiler

Had some deliveries today!

3x Intel S5000PSL server boards, here is one of them (bottom) compared with the board from the T5400 (top)

A pair of Mac Pro 1.1 heatsinks, which are HEFTY compared to the Dell ones.

T5400 left, Mac Pro 1.1 right.

The Casetek case doesn't have the integrated standoffs for the CPU mounting, so I used nuts and lock washers.

The heatsinks fit with less than 1mm to spare... I'd love to say this is because of excellent planning but...

Cobbled together with both CPUs, all the RAM, and the GPU, going for broke!! No barebones testing here!

And would you look at that...

Few teething issues, the board beeps at me fairly frequently complaining of a CPU 1 overheat but I have no way of seeing what the temperature is from the BIOS. I have work still to do in the cooling department anyway so I'm not worried just yet.

And no USB keyboard support pre-OS it seems, so I had to mix my vintage with my retro and plug the Olivetti keyboard in because its the only PS/2 keyboard I have right now!

Cooling wise I have two 120mm fans in the drive bay area, and have made a fan filter.

The fans will get changed for different / matching ones soon.

Cable management from post #64:

Spoiler

How it was for testing...

4 hours and lots of cable ties, an extra fan, a sound card, and a SATA cable later...

This case has no way to pass cables through behind the motherboard tray, so making it look neat took some serious thought.

Fingers crossed everything else goes well. But I do at least have two spare motherboards if there are any issues!

Changing out the motherboard and realising I didn't need to from post #65:

Spoiler

Was having issues with USB devices, absolutely nothing was detected on any port, front, rear, or internal.

I assumed there was a fault with the board since I bought them all as untested returns, so I swapped in another of the boards.

Here's the case empty:

It was really easy because of how I managed the cables out of the way of everything. Unplug things, remove cards, undo 3 screws (the rest of the motherboard standoffs are clips), and lift out.

A better look at the fan I mounted on the CPU heatsinks.

Anyway it turns out that the reason the USB wasn't working at all was because I had plugged the USB front panel in offset by one pin... But I wouldn't have found it without doing this so, no great loss. Seems to work now!

Beauty shots from post #67:

Spoiler

"Final" pictures!

I may change the mismatched fans and I may also pass the gray cables behind the motherboard if I get bored... But otherwise its done!

Yes I did polish the heatsinks, why do you ask?

Improved cable management from post #70:

Spoiler

I made an adjustment... Spot the difference (there are 6!) but only 1 is important.

And a picture of the front with the door open.

No power or HDD activity lights because the board uses a ribbon cable front panel connector arrangement for servers and none of the pins are where they need to be. I'll sort that somewhen.

 

[Akagi]

Placeholder 2 in case of more retro stuff.

 

[Akagi]

Placeholder 3 in case of more retro stuff.

 

[Akagi]

Ah finally, the thread is up to date. This took SO LONG!

Nice thread
i like reading and looking at the pics of old pcs
Elite was one of my favourite games back in the day on my C64

Thanks! I've added a bunch more stuff to the posts now, which brings us up to date!

I haven't actually played Elite yet, I was having some issues with it.

 

[Akagi]

You've amassed a pretty good collection considering you don't / didn't use to hang around this part of the forums much!

I've got the same case as your Windows ME build and find it works really well with a SFX PSU as the disk drive then has a bit more space for existing and cables. I also got a 5.25 to 3.5" bracket and put the HDD up the top too as I was having RAM clearance issues where the HDD cage is, but I kind of like it out of the way regardless. Finally I put a 80 or 92mm fan in the front and drilled holes like you did! I'm now pretty happy using XP/7 hardware in the case as a *sigh* sleeper PC. It makes a great MATX Slot 1 Windows 98 PC with just about enough space for an AGP card, PCI soundcard and ISA soundcard.

I spent quite a while away from the forums in general to be honest!

But this has become the latest little obsession. ADHD is wild like that. These things just spark out of nowhere and then its all you can think about for a while!

I actually got the case from a friend who did the modifications so he could use it as a sleeper PC, so I can't take credit for mounting the 140mm fan in the front!

A little update on the Me machine then - It is back together with a replacement PSU!

How I got there:

Spoiler

Here we go again then...

The offending article. Clearly it is a very cheap PSU from back in the day judging by the lack of branding!

But I am a little sad because it has dual fans, which would have been neat... Never mind.

I briefly considered using this new PSU which I keep as a spare because it is so much smaller, but quickly decided against it because I'd have nowhere to put the mass of un-needed cables.

This is the replacement article...

Checking that it actually works...

Yep!

And there we go, like nothing ever happened...

Having some issues installing Me. I burned a retail ISO onto a CD-R and it wouldn't boot from it. It would keep skipping the "boot from CD" step, and try booting into the last OS installed on the hard drive, which was Windows 7 lol.

And then when I changed the BIOS settings to only try and boot from CD and no other source, I got this error...

I also tried a USB DVD drive and got the same result, however my XP install disk seems to work.

So now I am burning a different Me ISO onto another CD-R... Fingers crossed!

 

[Akagi]

We have some success!

The Me machine now actually has Me on it, and is all buttoned up.

The broken power supply was very broken!

I salvaged things that might be useful and binned it.

Windows Me was surprisingly smooth to install once I actually had a working disk!

Me install:

Spoiler

They wouldn't lie to me would they?

Waow!

They wouldn't lie to me would they?

Hmm no keyboard or mouse...

There's no way this is going to work...

Whaaaaaaaat!

Nearly...

Heck yeah! Just drivers and such now.

 

[Akagi]

Thanks!

Hmm... The Windows ME LAN drivers I downloaded straight from the MSI website, listed as being for Windows ME, don't work with Windows ME...

It just throws an error saying its for "98SE Only"

Is there a way to force it to try and install it? Because I think it should work...

 

[Akagi]

Sorted it. I tried my darndest to post a reply in here from Windows Me, but the closest I got was being able to view the thread. I couldn't make the reply box appear or work no matter how hard I tried.

I bet it would have worked if we still had the old vbulletin forum software... *shakes fist*

Also have no sound output, which sucks... A machine I have on the way has a sound card in it though, so I will rob that from it and see if I can get that to work under Me instead.

Also having never used Windows Me before, I realise from using it that it is basically just Windows 98SE with some extra bits tacked on.

 

[Akagi]

3AM and you can't sleep... What do you do? Yep, connect up your USB front devices to your non-standard pinout motherboard of course!

Little sanity diagram made in Paint so that I don't **** it up and set fire to it...

Some single pin connectors...

Connected to the motherboard...

And voila!

 

[Akagi]

I only have bad memories of Windows ME - somewhere I worked back then had a few PCs with it on which should never have shipped with it - would take a horrendously long time to boot and it was hit and miss if they'd even boot up successfully first time.

A lot of people do, but I think 9 times out of 10 it was because of bad implementations, or people trying to make it do things it isn't supposed to do. I'm not sure why it is so universally hated. So far it just seems like Windows 98 but tarted up a little. You can't drop out of it into MS-DOS like you could with 98 though, which is another reason some people didn't like it, but the majority of people wouldn't have been fussed about that. (and I can use my 386 machine if I want to use MS-DOS)

The components used in my ME rig are from 3 - 4 years after its release, so it actually boots up super fast! From clicking restart to being back at the fully loaded desktop again takes 30 seconds.

I had intended to rebuild it with older parts when I have them, but I might just leave it like this because it is pleasant to use.

 

[Akagi]

I have these cases, both feel fairly cheap, but they are definitely of their time.

Put in the loft for now... I have other cases coming, so I may end up giving these away.

The one on the left is a RAIDMAX Scorpio 868W, the one on the right is an Inter-Tech IT-2399.

 

[Akagi]

I connected the fans to the fan controller thing, and it turns out it isn't a manual controller, it has a temperature target. And the LEDs on the fans blink when the speed is too low, so I wont use that part of it.

I connected up the temperature probes, and they seem to work at least! I'm calling it "done" now, so I treated it to a gel "Pentium 4" badge.

I also discovered that the front fan hasn't been spinning, because the air filter foam in the front was stuck in the blades... So I removed it, which means you can now see the fan support braces through the grille... I quite like it!

I need to put a screw in the other side of the top disk drive to straighten it, but its always safe to leave one job to do, otherwise something will break.

And I opened up the Olivetti to remove the Varta barrel battery...

Only to discover it doesn't have one! So I put it back together.

Its very clean inside! It also seems to have a 125mb hard drive... So I'm not sure why I saw 20mb! I need to double check that.

 

[Akagi]

Introducing another of my systems, which has been in the loft for quite some time. A Dell Precision T5400.

I used to use this for Folding@Home back when I did it for the OcUK team, because it has two PCI-E X16 slots and a fairly beefy power supply. It also acted as my backup server during that time, and I don't think I ever dusted it.

It originally had a dual core Xeon and 4GB of ECC DDR2, and it has for a long time been sporting a pair of quad core Xeons and 32GB of ECC DDR2. I think it also has a GT210 in this picture.

A before and after of todays work!

Cleaning it up:

Spoiler

Disgusting...

The boot drive is a 120GB SSD which I had just shoved in an antistatic bag and let sit loosely in one of the hard drive bays

When I upgraded the CPUs, I couldn't find an original heatsink, so I bought that Akasa one. Hence the mismatch.

Yuck.

Drive cage, facia, and all the fans removed...

After a good brushing and dusting!

Upgrades:

Spoiler

A period correct GPU, thanks to @rare for sending me this!

A lovely Gainward GTX260 Core 216. I think its one of the ones with 3/4 of a GB because they wanted to be awkward.

And also a network adapter, because the onboard NIC in the machine doesn't work.

Slight problem with the card retention mechanism...

Solved... *cough*

I have also mounted the SSD to the bottom of the DVD drive, and re-routed the cabling as best I can. I have also opted not to re-install the HDD cages, but I may reconsider because it also integrates the RAM cooling fan.

And done!

First power on and RAM issues:

Spoiler

Poxy hell, just a few complaints then! Its like one of my famous car purchases... Its fine honest!

Looking in the BIOS, it seems a few sticks are not happy...

The cards are detected properly though, which is good!

And also the system time and date are correct after all this time! Nice.

First I tried re-seating it all...

That worked! But it did show off a bug in this BIOS revision... Can you spot the problem?

After some removing and power cycling and re-inserting and power cycling...

 

[Akagi]

I can't believe I'm doing this but... My Windows ME machine is going to be good friends with this Dell.