Retro Gaming Builds

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.
 
I hadn't seen this thread before. You have some nice builds there.

I have a very similar Gateway machine. It also has a 500MHz Pentium III and a Voodoo3 3000. I need to add a fan to mine.

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Did you end up finding a CRT?
 
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.

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Picked these up today after winning an auction on eBay... for a whole £16. A Carrera PC Tower and Toshiba TekBright CRT monitor.

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Gave the exteriors a quick clean but they need a proper going over as unfortunately they do smell a bit of cat wee :dead:

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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:

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No idea about these cards.

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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.
 
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+
 
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.
 
Been doing a bit of re-configuring of my machines of late. Housed my 200MMX machine into an ATX case as I picked up a Asus TX97-XE motherboard and Rebuilt my AT Machine into a Pentium Time machine with Working Turbo (50/66hz). Can get the Time Machine down to 386 DX 40 levels currently!

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Quick update - I've gotten rid of most of my retro stuff. Down to one machine as we needed space in the spare room:

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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.
 
God I love this.

I remember building my first ‘dream PC’ around this era, I had a Athlon XP (Barton?) 2800+ and a Radeon 9800 (pro?). I think I built it in a brushed black Lian Li case, though I can’t remember if that came later.

I’d been into computers for a long time and it was the first opportunity I had to save, and spend, some serious dollar on a PC. I still have it somewhere I think, it was an absolute beast.

Thanks for sharing mate.
 
MichaelAwkward said:
Quick update - I've gotten rid of most of my retro stuff. Down to one machine as we needed space in the spare room:

KN0qjmA.jpg


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.
Click to expand...

Thats a lovely setup mate!
 
WantoN said:
God I love this.

I remember building my first ‘dream PC’ around this era, I had a Athlon XP (Barton?) 2800+ and a Radeon 9800 ...
Click to expand...

I've just stripped down my old pc to educate my son. Has a Athlon XP 3000 and 350w Tagan psu, both still going strong. He's going to rebuild it while I build a new setup next week.
 
Whitebear said:
I've just stripped down my old pc to educate my son. Has a Athlon XP 3000 and 350w Tagan psu, both still going strong. He's going to rebuild it while I build a new setup next week.
Click to expand...

That’s great. I really tried to educate the boy, but he loves Macs and plays on consoles. It breaks my heart :p
 
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