Ah, awesome. Looks much better with a proper picture.
I think I'll get one of each and a new PSU for the Gateway machine.
I think I'll get one of each and a new PSU for the Gateway machine.
Retro Gaming Builds
- Thread starter MichaelAwkward
- Start date
So I finally got around to ordering the new PSU for the Gateway, went with a used original alternative to the one fitted - an Astec 200W with the same unusual shroud and non-ATX mounting holes. So long as it doesn't smell like the current Powertech and works, I'm happy for £11.
Also ordered a whole bunch of fans. 2x 60mm Gelid for the AMD stock cooler in the other machine, and the Voodoo 3 card, and 80mm and 92mm case fans for each respectively.
Was faffing around last night trying to get the front LEDs on the desktop case working with the ECS motherboard. Managed to get the HDD activity LED working but no look with the power LED. Even tried swapping the LED cable out with a spare I have, no luck. Must be an odd motherboard with a wierd pin arrangement.
Taking inspiration from the recent LGR video, I may attempt to plasticoat both of these cases in an attempt to cover over the various marks and scratches I've been unable to rectify.
Also ordered a whole bunch of fans. 2x 60mm Gelid for the AMD stock cooler in the other machine, and the Voodoo 3 card, and 80mm and 92mm case fans for each respectively.
Was faffing around last night trying to get the front LEDs on the desktop case working with the ECS motherboard. Managed to get the HDD activity LED working but no look with the power LED. Even tried swapping the LED cable out with a spare I have, no luck. Must be an odd motherboard with a wierd pin arrangement.
Taking inspiration from the recent LGR video, I may attempt to plasticoat both of these cases in an attempt to cover over the various marks and scratches I've been unable to rectify.
I did! Today in fact... along with another tower.
That's interesting that yours also has the zip drive - maybe that was factory fitted? Jealous of how nice yours is. I may plasticoat mine just to hide the scratches and marks that I couldn't clean off.
I just upgraded the fan on mine... thankfully I had a couple of screws that fit the heatsink just right.
That's interesting that yours also has the zip drive - maybe that was factory fitted? Jealous of how nice yours is. I may plasticoat mine just to hide the scratches and marks that I couldn't clean off.
I just upgraded the fan on mine... thankfully I had a couple of screws that fit the heatsink just right.
Picked these up today after winning an auction on eBay... for a whole £16. A Carrera PC Tower and Toshiba TekBright CRT monitor.
Gave the exteriors a quick clean but they need a proper going over as unfortunately they do smell a bit of cat wee :dead:
Inside is pretty tidy and surprisingly clean. It's got a Pentium II MMX 350MHz, 256MB PC133 SDRAM, 4GB Western Digital HDD, Floppy, CD-ROM, a network card and these two:
No idea about these cards.
Booted into someone else's Windows first time... I checked the last time any files were altered - 2004! The monitor was a bit crackly at first, but it seems fine now.
Gave the exteriors a quick clean but they need a proper going over as unfortunately they do smell a bit of cat wee :dead:
Inside is pretty tidy and surprisingly clean. It's got a Pentium II MMX 350MHz, 256MB PC133 SDRAM, 4GB Western Digital HDD, Floppy, CD-ROM, a network card and these two:
No idea about these cards.
Booted into someone else's Windows first time... I checked the last time any files were altered - 2004! The monitor was a bit crackly at first, but it seems fine now.
Oh, I know what they are I meant I didn’t know if they were any good and worth keeping
That is kinda the problem with this activity - once you pop you just can't stop. I think I will be going down to just two machines though since I would like to have them both setup with their own monitors and peripherals rather than switching between the two.
Which to keep... Pentium II 350MHz, Pentium III 500MHz, Athlon XP 2000+
Which to keep... Pentium II 350MHz, Pentium III 500MHz, Athlon XP 2000+
Decided to keep all three, but having problems with one of my graphics cards at the moment.
It's a GeForce 4 MX460 and I get long short short beep on boot with my Gateway G7-500 (Intel WS440BX motherboard). I've tested the card in my Athlon and my Pentium II machine (also a 440BX) - works fine. Tested my Radeon 9100 and Rage Turbo AGP in the Gateway, they work fine. I've tried it with a different PSU, same problem. I'm sure it's worked before with this motherboard but I can't see a reason why it wouldn't.
Anyway, I've ordered a £5 MX440 to replace it if it works. I want to use this machine for DirectX 7 games so that's plenty powerful enough.
It's a GeForce 4 MX460 and I get long short short beep on boot with my Gateway G7-500 (Intel WS440BX motherboard). I've tested the card in my Athlon and my Pentium II machine (also a 440BX) - works fine. Tested my Radeon 9100 and Rage Turbo AGP in the Gateway, they work fine. I've tried it with a different PSU, same problem. I'm sure it's worked before with this motherboard but I can't see a reason why it wouldn't.
Anyway, I've ordered a £5 MX440 to replace it if it works. I want to use this machine for DirectX 7 games so that's plenty powerful enough.
Quick update - I've gotten rid of most of my retro stuff. Down to one machine as we needed space in the spare room:
Had to get rid of the CRT too as it was crackling/fizzing constantly sadly.
Spec:
Pentium II 350MHz
256MB PC100 SDRAM
Voodoo 3 3000 16MB PCI
Supermicro P6SBA Intel 440BX
Seagate 10GB 5400rpm IDE HDD
Windows 98SE
Recently ordered a GeForce 2 MX400 64MB and 3D Prophet 4000XT 32MB (the first graphics card I ever bought) to try in it. Will post some benchmarks. Might order a slot 1 Pentium III at some point to throw in it too.
Had to get rid of the CRT too as it was crackling/fizzing constantly sadly.
Spec:
Pentium II 350MHz
256MB PC100 SDRAM
Voodoo 3 3000 16MB PCI
Supermicro P6SBA Intel 440BX
Seagate 10GB 5400rpm IDE HDD
Windows 98SE
Recently ordered a GeForce 2 MX400 64MB and 3D Prophet 4000XT 32MB (the first graphics card I ever bought) to try in it. Will post some benchmarks. Might order a slot 1 Pentium III at some point to throw in it too.
That’s great. I really tried to educate the boy, but he loves Macs and plays on consoles. It breaks my heart
Eww. Just eww.
Thanks for the comments guys. Perhaps a mod could move this thread over to the Retro gaming sub forum? Seems more appropriate over there now. Don't think it existed when I started this.
Was contemplating buying some appropriate graphics cards today (GeForce 2 MX, 3D Prophet 4000XT, Matrox G450, Savage 4 Pro S540) to benchmark on it but came to the conclusion I have the best card already (Voodoo 3) and my CPU isn't really powerful enough for anything better. Ordered just the 4000XT (needs a new heatsink/fan so was quite cheap) as that was the first video card I ever bought and will be good to see what improvements it offers over the Voodoo.
Have ordered some more blank CD-Rs and an SD to IDE adapter though, as nice as the hard drive noises are.
Last edited:
Casually browsing eBay for retro bargains...
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Vintage-1990s-Beige-AMD-ATX-Windows-98-Computer-Tower-AGP-Retro-Gaming/223596839345?_trkparms=aid=777001&algo=DISCO.FEED&ao=1&asc=20170615105047&meid=2b64df74fa3a4398a21c65f7c19b3471&pid=100656&rk=1&rkt=1&&itm=223596839345&pg=2481888&_trksid=p2481888.c100656.m5063&_trkparms=pageci:9b821ee9-b057-11e9-ba36-74dbd1804765|parentrq:32ee975116c0aad9a21d0674fffef35c|iid:3
Is that an OcUK sticker on the case?
Not impressed by the PCChips motherboard though...
In other news, I got a Pentium II 450MHz off eBay for £8 but it appears to be faulty (either L2 cache or temperature related) so the seller has refunded me but I might as well try and get it working anyway, as it's a MASSIVE 28.5% increase in clockspeed. Decided to stick with the Voodoo 3 in the end over the 4000XT.
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Vintage-1990s-Beige-AMD-ATX-Windows-98-Computer-Tower-AGP-Retro-Gaming/223596839345?_trkparms=aid=777001&algo=DISCO.FEED&ao=1&asc=20170615105047&meid=2b64df74fa3a4398a21c65f7c19b3471&pid=100656&rk=1&rkt=1&&itm=223596839345&pg=2481888&_trksid=p2481888.c100656.m5063&_trkparms=pageci:9b821ee9-b057-11e9-ba36-74dbd1804765|parentrq:32ee975116c0aad9a21d0674fffef35c|iid:3
Is that an OcUK sticker on the case?
Not impressed by the PCChips motherboard though...
In other news, I got a Pentium II 450MHz off eBay for £8 but it appears to be faulty (either L2 cache or temperature related) so the seller has refunded me but I might as well try and get it working anyway, as it's a MASSIVE 28.5% increase in clockspeed. Decided to stick with the Voodoo 3 in the end over the 4000XT.
Looks like it. Onboard video probably.
Can't get the Pentium II 450 to work no matter what I do - must be faulty.
Can't get the Pentium II 450 to work no matter what I do - must be faulty.
Been a while since I updated this -
I got another Pentium II 450MHz which worked first time, and replaced the HDD with an SD to IDE adapter and a 32GB SD Card - maxes out at 25MB/s due to the chipset but that's plenty fast enough:
Was trying to get Age of Mythology to run on it yesterday to no avail - kept getting an XML parsing error so there was no fonts in the game menus. Tried installing MSXML4.0 but didn't fix it. Think it's a bit too new sadly for this machine anyway, even in the menu it was struggling with the 3D backgrounds.
I got another Pentium II 450MHz which worked first time, and replaced the HDD with an SD to IDE adapter and a 32GB SD Card - maxes out at 25MB/s due to the chipset but that's plenty fast enough:
Was trying to get Age of Mythology to run on it yesterday to no avail - kept getting an XML parsing error so there was no fonts in the game menus. Tried installing MSXML4.0 but didn't fix it. Think it's a bit too new sadly for this machine anyway, even in the menu it was struggling with the 3D backgrounds.