** Acme's [Akagi's] Retro Odyssey! From Apple ][ to Pentium 4. Repair, modding, and more! **
- Thread starter Akagi
- Start date
Over the years of owning ****box cars I've got pretty decent at it.
I was also considering painting it in Ford Purple Velvet Metallic.
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.
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.
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!
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!
Last edited:
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!
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!
Done and working, sound, video, etc!
It did decide to keep the fans going after I shut it down, but I wonder if that might just be a server thing.
I decided to install Windows 7 Ultimate in the end, instead of Vista.
It did decide to keep the fans going after I shut it down, but I wonder if that might just be a server thing.
I decided to install Windows 7 Ultimate in the end, instead of Vista.
Last edited:
Thanks!
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.
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.
Last edited:
I cannot be stopped... I bought some parts for the next system build.
I will be using the i7 920 and the Gigabyte GA-X58A-UD5 from the Casetek case, with 24GB of Corsair Vengeance DDR3, THREE GTX280s in SLI, and an 1100W Tagan PSU, in the bright green Chieftec Dragon...
This one is gonna be hot and hairy chested. Like Hugh Jackman.
I will be using the i7 920 and the Gigabyte GA-X58A-UD5 from the Casetek case, with 24GB of Corsair Vengeance DDR3, THREE GTX280s in SLI, and an 1100W Tagan PSU, in the bright green Chieftec Dragon...
This one is gonna be hot and hairy chested. Like Hugh Jackman.
Last edited:
Its a real ol' struggle to find a 1366 cooler 
One in B grade I've got my eye on, but it looks a bit too "new"
An Intel Extreme one on eBay but the guy is asking a bit too much for it...
No new ones support 1366 because it uses different mounting to 1156/55/51/50/1200...
One in B grade I've got my eye on, but it looks a bit too "new"
An Intel Extreme one on eBay but the guy is asking a bit too much for it...
No new ones support 1366 because it uses different mounting to 1156/55/51/50/1200...
Its a real ol' struggle to find a 1366 cooler
One in B grade I've got my eye on, but it looks a bit too "new"
An Intel Extreme one on eBay but the guy is asking a bit too much for it...
No new ones support 1366 because it uses different mounting to 1156/55/51/50/1200...
My basket at OcUK:
Total: £18.98 (includes delivery: £3.99)
Well well well... Thankyou!
Well well well... Thankyou!
Not sure how good it is (although in a case with reasonable air flow I'm not sure it matters too much), but reasonably cheap, supports 1366 and wouldn't look too out of place.
The case will have pretty poor airflow unfortunately (as most did back when this case was made
) But I've added it to the contenders list haha.
Cooler master 412R and 212 (although older version) were both period correct but depends what you want to spend
My basket at OcUK:
My basket at OcUK:
- 1 x Cooler Master Hyper H412R CPU Cooler - 92mm (SKU: HS-07T-CM) = £29.99
- 1 x Cooler Master Hyper 212 Black Edition V2 CPU Cooler - 120mm (SKU: HS-081-CM) = £36.95
Total: £74.93 (includes delivery: £7.99)
GTX480 arrived today, sadly some of the surface mount components on the back of the memory have come off. It "works" but after installing drivers, the drivers don't initialise.
It was only £10 so I'm not too bothered. I'm hopeful that it will work as a secondary card in SLI when I eventually find another.
Alpenfohn Brocken 3 and a few adapters and bits also arrived for the X58 build.
I have bought 2x GTX280s and an 1100W Tagan PSU, but the seller hasn't replied to me for a couple of days so I am slightly concerned he is going to scarper with my cash, but we'll see...
And I wont be using the Chieftec Dragon anymore, I have found an Antec P180 which I will use instead, which is a lot better suited for this. It has bits in it as well, but nothing hugely interesting as far as I know.
Also this is not the least bit retro, but making all these retro PCs so tidy inside made me feel bad about my main PC, so I took some time to tidy it up inside, and used cable combs for the first time... Its not perfect but its good enough!
It was only £10 so I'm not too bothered. I'm hopeful that it will work as a secondary card in SLI when I eventually find another.
Alpenfohn Brocken 3 and a few adapters and bits also arrived for the X58 build.
I have bought 2x GTX280s and an 1100W Tagan PSU, but the seller hasn't replied to me for a couple of days so I am slightly concerned he is going to scarper with my cash, but we'll see...
And I wont be using the Chieftec Dragon anymore, I have found an Antec P180 which I will use instead, which is a lot better suited for this. It has bits in it as well, but nothing hugely interesting as far as I know.
Also this is not the least bit retro, but making all these retro PCs so tidy inside made me feel bad about my main PC, so I took some time to tidy it up inside, and used cable combs for the first time... Its not perfect but its good enough!
Last edited: