The 'new' retro PC project

Very interesting build log, I always forget how much leg work was involved back in those days. Its all a bit too easy now!
 
A couple of small updates.

the various short cables have arrived for the HDMI converter now, what was initially quite a mess is fairly tidy now or at least as neat as it can be. Black wire is VGA, silver is power for the HDMI converter power and red wire is audio in from the sound card.



After scouring ebay for USB cards and turning up nothing suitable I eventually found on overclockers a 7 port USB PCI card, the last one of it's kind and has a drivers disk that works on XP and even 2000, don't think they will be getting more of these in anytime soon. Most importantly it has a front panel header.





I had another better quality USB2 to USB3 pin out converter and plugged this into the USB header on the card and now have 2 fully functional front USB ports.


Also looking through overclockers random cables I managed to find ATX2 to ATX1.0 converters. I don't really need this but it will stop putting stain on that capacitor near the motherboard connector from earlier. They are clearing them out, I think it was 97p so I bought a couple (never know for future projects)



Not particularly neat but clears the capacitor a lot more nicely, I'm going to have a hard time with cable management when I come to it. I actually have a couple of newer power supplies that don't split down on the plug for use with old boards so this is handy to have for the future anyway.


A small but very important retro detail :)






I have still not found a suitable PCI sound card with front USB header, still have to tidy the case wiring and getting problems with the PCI SATA Raid card. It doesn't seem to like booting with 4 drives attached and it keeps coming up with no bootable disk found. There doesn't seem to be a way to set the boot priority on it either, I suppose that's not too surprising as it is really intended for setting up a RAID.
There is a bunch of other cards on auction at the moment but they mostly seem to be the same silicon image 3118 chipset my card uses.

Not sure what to do at the moment, I'd really like to boot with 2 hard disks and 2 DVD drives. I did find some supposedly new sealed IDE hard disks about 180GB in size but they did not seem cheap.
I have also found these adaptors that plug straight into the motherboards IDE connector and you plug your SATA drive into it. No drivers required so that would resolve the no booting problem but from what I can tell you can't support a master and slave drive from a single IDE connector so I would have to buy 2 (one for each IDE header) and still retain the SATA PCI card for use with the DVD drives.

 
This is a great build, I was watching either this or a similar motherboard / CPU combo on eBay in April, so it is good that it's ended up in a nice build! A similar 600MHz Slot A cpu/board went for less than a tenner delivered!

I particularly like the case, it suits a retro PC build well. I might have to get some stickers for mine!
 
I managed to find a soundblaster XFi PCI sound card with front panel header support that has just arrived, managed to get it for 10 quid. I know this will work with Windows XP but I have read conflicting results as to if it will work with Windows 2000 as well.
From previous experience I know that some Win XP drivers work with 2000 also so I might be lucky but it just might be too new. Seems really hard to find cards with front panel support that run on both XP and 2K.



I ordered 2 of those startech IDE to sata adaptors, they seem fairly well made but annoyingly they do use floppy power connectors which will add to the case clutter when I get them installed.
I also found some IDE to sata adaptors on auction as on the previous page which seem to show they have both master and slave drive support, they were only £2 each so I ordered 5 of them but they have not arrived yet, I will see if I stick with these 2 adaptors and the SATA PCI card with the SATA DVD drives or the converters when they show up.


One extra thing I picked up, and I am not sure if I will use it in this build as I like the Kyro 2 card is this Matrox Millendium G550 card. It was brand new and sealed for just a tenner! :) I had to have it. I was also looking at the old Matrox parhelia cards for this build but they seem to be about £50 and up but maybe at the right price...









It's annoying with this boot issue I have with the SATA card as it is holding things up at the moment, hopefully when the adaptors arrive I can get the rest of this finish and finally decide what hardware I can use in this thing to support both operating systems.
 
/facepalm

The IDE to SATA converters work but only detect hard disks up to 137GB and wont read the windows installs that are currently on the drive due to this I am going to use the 2 converters for the DVD drives instead as that seems to work. Finally I should be able to install Windows if I need to without having to resort to an IDE DVD ROM drive or having to install raid card drivers from floppy. I seem to vaguely remember some ancient Seagate utility that sort of tricks the motherboard into detecting it's full size but can't remember much about it.

The X-FI card I installed works ok and I get my front panel audio, but nope! no drivers anywhere for it under Windows 2000, despite several dubious sites saying they have them.
 
The-Plethora said:
The X-FI card I installed works ok and I get my front panel audio, but nope! no drivers anywhere for it under Windows 2000, despite several dubious sites saying they have them.
Click to expand...

With the comparative lack of driver quality checking in 2k, it might be worth taking a working XP driver and checking the files for any references to OS version checks. This could be in the .inf or possibly the driver files themselves (for which you'd possibly have to decompile).
 
My main PCs water pump has died recently so I have been working on that but a couple of updates.

Got hold of a molex to twin floppy adaptor. Both those IDE to SATA converters come with 2 large molex connectors and a floppy connector each which is just more clutter so I should be able to power both from one connector using this.


I decided to mount the USB to LAN connector on the back of the case. Look at the state of this thing!, it's not even powered on and it looks like it is on life support! I mount lots of things using no more nails tape, it's really strong and stops things moving. This does not have drivers for Windows 2000 so I'll just set it to ignore device detection in that and use it in XP if I ever need it.


Made a start on tidying the case, I like using zip tie anchors, you can easily tidy stuff out of the way but also remove them easily enough. The vertical cables are the front mount motherboard cables for power, reset and power light.
The curved cable is front panel USB, audio and I have also had to route the hard drive activity connector here as well as this needs to connect to the SATA card to show hard disk activity on the front case LED.
This case is fairly decent for hiding cables.


Inside of case
I haven't installed the power supply yet but it's not going to be easy to hide cables.
The wire on the left is the HDD connector for activity and then the USB and audio connectors. The 2 SATA / IDE converters are plugged in which go to the 2 DVD drives.
Quick refresh of the current cards left to right, TP Link Wireles, SATA card, Soundblaster XFi (works on XP only). USB 2. card, voodoo 3, Kyro 2 AGP.


Front panel connectors, bit neater than before. Also used red electrical tape to tidy the HDD sata cables and black on the black DVD ROM sata cables, bit neater than using zip ties.


Again no PSU attached, I was hoping the floppy to molex splitter would be a bit longer so I could hide it a bit better but it's not to be. Twisted the CPU fan cable to make it neater and shorter, case fan plug hides behind the motherboard. The USB connector is a pain, it has that 5 inch connector before it connects to the cases front connector. I might see if I can extend the cable from the USB carrd and mount all that round the back of the case.


Even with the current Corsair PSU I had it was going to look a mess so I will have a rethink and maybe go for a cheap modular one, it doesn't need to be more than even 300w to drive this. Too many spare connectors, I would have to tie up a 4 pin PSU connector, 8 pin PSU connector, PCI express power connectors, stuff I will never use.
For now I'll just install a spare HP desktop PSU I have lying around, looks a mess though currently.

Nice and tidy from the front.


Cable spaghetti inside.
 
Neat project man. I really must call my cousin to see if he's still hoarding my old Celeron 300A rig.

I had a Matrox card like that. I remember playing Max Payne (original) over two monitors it was epic :D
 
Really enjoying this build. A great trip down memory lane - or a walk around my loft.

i think I could do the majority of this build from the parts in my loft, but using a Cooler Master Praetorian (loved that case). I had no idea these things commanded such prices - still keeping them for nostalgia or may do a similar project in a few years time as, clearly, it would be very enjoyable.

Great build log - i never used the stickers on the case (sacrilege :p), i used to stick them on my parts/tool box in order of my purchases.

Kudos.
 
We don't really use an internal PC speaker anymore as other than BIOS beeps they don't really do much. I found a PC beeper that came with a case, I think you are just supposed to hang this from a motherboard connector header and leave it dangling there. A zip tie and an anchor means I can tidy it up in the case.



My pals in China have sent through those IDE to SATA connectors I was looking at as an option previously (they were so cheap). Quick initial impressions looked good. Although it is a bare board it has the connectors and even a master / slave jumper selector so I could have 2 devices on each IDE channel if needed (hard disks would still be limited to 137GB max size though).




Looking a bit longer, ugh. Yeah, build quality not so great...

I'd say there is a fairly low chance of this one working, all the traces look damaged, these were packed pretty poorly in just a bit of bubble wrap.


Still it's nice that they let the work experience lad have a crack with the soldering iron.



So yeah, I think I will stick with my original choice of those Startech adapters. About 2 of them out of the 5 seem to be ok, handy to have as spares, might need them at some point.

I found an old screenshot in my archives that handily has the calendar showing so I can see what applications I would have been running at this time or just after. I'm going to try (within reason) to try and use some of these on the install.
I can still download mIRC and VNC and maybe some of the other apps like nero burning ROM and daemon tools. However applications like outlook express, MSN messenger, Kazaa, Trillian and IRC are likely of limited use these days :) Maybe install Napster for old times sake. I don't think I will be reinstalling Norton Anti Virus...


But don't worry, so far I have my awesome Cyberlink DVD player software and Winamp with the classic skin naturally :)


I will say though that the CPU and memory use whilst installing updates pretty made the system unusable. I can't believe I used to run this with just 64mb RAM. CPU use is maxed out (can't do much about that) and only about 70mb or so free.
I have given in and ordered 2 sticks of 256mb RAM which should give me a total of 640mb RAM, I might get a further 256mb stick to push the board to it's maximum of 768mb. Funny to think when I started this that I thought 2 sticks of 128 would be overkill, yeah not with Windows updates.

Bonus: 2 Screenshots of running quake 3 on both graphics cards. Ignore the FPS counter. Kyro was at 32bit settings and 3DFX on 16bit. Personally I can't tell much difference...

Power VR Kyro 2 Prophet 4500 64mb AGP


3DFX Voodoo 3 2000 PCI 16mb PCI


Edit: Actually the shading on the white and orange ammo and health text looks smoother on Power VR.
 
Last edited:
The-Plethora said:
Bonus: 2 Screenshots of running quake 3 on both graphics cards. Ignore the FPS counter. Kyro was at 32bit settings and 3DFX on 16bit. Personally I can't tell much difference...

Kyro 2 Prophet 4500 64mb AGP


3DFX Voodoo 3 2000 PCI 16mb PCI
Click to expand...

Jesus - that takes me back. Did you play Q3 online back in the day - if so what was your player tag?

I played as Plectr@m/Plec in KoTR - used to use Wireplay, Jolt and Barrysworld etc servers for CTF clan games. Great community...

This build really is a blast from the past for me - great stuff!
 
My real love was Team Fortress classic and Half-life multiplayer. These days I have progressed to mainly playing Team Fortress 2 :).
I remember looking for games using gamespy, I think that has long since died.

2 sticks of memory turned up today (512 Total). Annoying that it doesn't seem to be a matched pair but I will try it out, one more stick on the way (Kingston). Seems to be hard to get 3 or 4 matching sticks these days.


Another impulse buy that may or may not make it to the final build. A brand new sealed Geforce FX 5200 AGP, this also has DVI out which might help (remember I said there seemed to be some resolutions that the DSUB to HDMI converter could not display?) this might solve that problem. Again I am likely to stick with the Kyro 2 but want to try this out. One downside with the Kyro 2 is that it didn't last very long. As such I can remember that other than the drivers that came on the CD when you bought it there only seemed to be 1 or 2 further releases of drivers on the web after that.
The Kyros performance in Deus Ex seems pretty poor (around 15FPS) and in Quake 3 it's anything from 30 - 100. Not sure if it's a CPU limit I am hitting, missing motherboard drivers, lack of memory or something else.


Wow one day graphics will look this good! :)


An unboxing!


It looks to have a fairly decent heatsink on it as well. I am under no illusion though, this card was pretty underpowered even back in the day I think the Radeon 8000 was a better performer. However it does fully support Direct X 9 (Albeit slowly) and the Kyro is Direct X 7. I can run things like Morrowind on the Kyro but it has bugs like when you first step out of the boat to go outside you are fully underwater, no fancy pixel shaded water either.


I think I have worked out a workaround for the soundcard issue for Windows 2000 also but will need to wait and see.
 
I suspect one of those sticks of RAM won't work as it has 9 chips on the front which means it's ECC. Not sure what the deal with ECC support was back in those days but I imagine the mobo/chipset had to support it specifically.
 
Phemo said:
I suspect one of those sticks of RAM won't work as it has 9 chips on the front which means it's ECC. Not sure what the deal with ECC support was back in those days but I imagine the mobo/chipset had to support it specifically.
Click to expand...
It is indeed an ECC stick. The "N" in the model number of the top-stick denotes NON-ECC.
 
Ha ha, yes it is a bit of a rubbish card and it likely won't be staying.

I'm just using it as the HDMI converter doesn't display some things like the BIOS screen and so messing about with it is a real pain. With the 5200 I can simply plug in a DVI to HDMI cable and run it straight in to my TV without any messing about in the meantime.
Regarding the memory, it seems to work fine even if one stick does seem to be ECC (advert specifically said non EEC though). I'll run CPUID at some point as that lets you detail the specifics of the memory modules.
The last 256mb stick turned up recently but I'm having trouble with the SATA card again and I have given up on that one, it's stopped even being detected in the boot sequence even though I have it set as first boot device SCSI as before. Not to be deterred I have bought another...3 in fact that are on the way :) 2 from OCUK and another from ebay, they are fairly cheap but hopefully one of them will work the way I want.
 
I checked my Epox's BIOS last night, seems I can turn on or off ECC at will, so if the modules (all) support it, I can turn it on, which is nice.

I've got some ECC modules in the giant bundle of sticks I received, I'll see if I have any matching pairs.
 
Pay day tomorrow so if you have matching 256mb sticks I'd be more than happy to paypal you :)

2 out of the 3 SATA cards have arrived (the 2 from OCUK) hopefully one these will do the job. With my original card I think it used the sil3114 chipset and I had read that some people had great success with these cards, some people saying they needed to update the BIOS etc. This time though I chose cards that had different chipsets, maybe I will enjoy better luck.

One card uses sil3112 and the other sil3512.







I notice only one of them seems to have a HD LED header so I will probably start off with that one and see how I get on, hopefully i don't need to re-image the disks again.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom