What retro things have you done today?

Bought the 19" Hanns-G panel home today. Tucks nicely in corner of my work desk. With DVI and VGA inputs that means both of my current retro builds can be set up on it properly.

Still great picture quality too tbh.

Had a play with the Q6600 and managed to get an overclock upto 2.65ghz using the AI Overclock function in BIOS which was nice.

Also managed to find someone selling new old stock of the akasa Vortexx Neo GPU coolers so pick one up along with a PCI-E 6pin to 3x molex converter cable so I can get power properly to the X1950s 2x molex power connections. Reading up those cards get power starved easily and the artifact like nutters. Being so when I tested it I was using a non brand 500w test PSU I thought I should try it again now the 800w is in there!
 
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phatboy said:
Bought the 19" Hanns-G panel home today. Tucks nicely in corner of my work desk. With DVI and VGA inputs that means both of my current retro builds can be set up on it properly.

Still great picture quality too tbh.

Had a play with the Q6600 and managed to get an overclock upto 2.65ghz using the AI Overclock function in BIOS which was nice.

Also managed to find someone selling new old stock of the akasa Vortexx Neo GPU coolers so pick one up along with a PCI-E 6pin to 3x molex converter cable so I can get power properly to the X1950s 2x molex power connections. Reading up those cards get power starved easily and the artifact like nutters. Being so when I tested it I was using a non brand 500w test PSU I thought I should try it again now the 800w is in there!
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That's the great thing about LCD panels having two inputs, very useful

I'm actually messing around once again with a Q6700 but running it at 1333MHz FSB for a 3.3GHz clock speed. It's on a G41 board and seems stable with 1.34v input into the BIOS which in CPUz and HWmonitor comes out at 1.3 or so. Currently got a fairly modern 120mm tower hsf on it which is quite and keeps it under 55c.

One benchmark I've been meaning to do for ages is a comparison between the 2007 Q6700 and a 2015 AMD Pro A8 8650B 3.2 - 3.9GHz. The overclocked q6700 actually gets 329points on cinebench r15 whereas the AMD was maxing out at 280 best of 3 runs. Ouch.
 
Just had a frustrating fight all day trying to get the BIOS updated on the P5NE-SLI. That board is feature rich but makes me want to cry lol

FINALLY there and its up and running on latest bios version, but now it won't boot with both the gtx260s in it. Think it might be the data cable situation....another wonderful nuance of the board.....second card fouls them! So it's not sat quite flat. Time to rip the SLI setup out again and look what can be done lol
 
almoststew1990 said:
That's the great thing about LCD panels having two inputs, very useful

I'm actually messing around once again with a Q6700 but running it at 1333MHz FSB for a 3.3GHz clock speed. It's on a G41 board and seems stable with 1.34v input into the BIOS which in CPUz and HWmonitor comes out at 1.3 or so. Currently got a fairly modern 120mm tower hsf on it which is quite and keeps it under 55c.

One benchmark I've been meaning to do for ages is a comparison between the 2007 Q6700 and a 2015 AMD Pro A8 8650B 3.2 - 3.9GHz. The overclocked q6700 actually gets 329points on cinebench r15 whereas the AMD was maxing out at 280 best of 3 runs. Ouch.
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Intel really were streets ahead at that period!
 
phatboy said:
Just had a frustrating fight all day trying to get the BIOS updated on the P5NE-SLI. That board is feature rich but makes me want to cry lol

FINALLY there and its up and running on latest bios version, but now it won't boot with both the gtx260s in it. Think it might be the data cable situation....another wonderful nuance of the board.....second card fouls them! So it's not sat quite flat. Time to rip the SLI setup out again and look what can be done lol
Click to expand...

So, 2nd sata cable removed as appears it was pushing on 2nd card in the PCIE slot and was the cause of the failed boots. New BIOS has meant I can install an extra 2x 4gb 667mhz RAM I was given bringing me up to 8gb and it's overclocked perfectly to 800mhz inline with my original stuff. Seems to all now be Bob on

Now to install need for speed underground 2 :D
 
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LewisRaz said:
Been thinking about rebuilding what I used to call my "main" retro machine for a while which had been mostly sidelined because it was getting unstable and unreliable..
Stripped it down today and think I might have found the cause of that reliability issue:


Now to go shopping for one of those desoldering pumps.
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Its not pretty as the new caps are a bit bigger but they are in and working :D

 
Wow.
Out of interest (as I know nothing about caps) - I take it that like for like parts are not easily available ?
If I were to spot a swollen capacitor - how would I know what to replace it with as presumably it would need to conform to the correct voltage as the original (or can I just replace any cap with any cap :D)?
 
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You can get replacements for almost all common types. Some times the physical dimensions can vary depending on the manufacterer.
I dont know the full ins and outs of capacitors but I do know as long as you match the capacitance and the voltage rating is higher than what will be given to it then you "should" be good..
 
Did my usual fruitless "agp Nvidia" search on eBay this afternoon and was granted with a boxed XFX 7600GT 256mb 560mhz for £30 buy it now.....

SOLD!

Quite exciting, hope it works when it arrives after my diabolical luck with later AMD AGP cards
 
Ice Rich said:
Wow.
Out of interest (as I know nothing about caps) - I take it that like for like parts are not easily available ?
If I were to spot a swollen capacitor - how would I know what to replace it with as presumably it would need to conform to the correct voltage as the original (or can I just replace any cap with any cap :D)?
Click to expand...

Orientation is critical as well. See the white stripe on one side of the cap, that has to line up with the white half of the circle on the mobo. This is for the correct polarity.
 
The joys of owning too much retro gear, forgot about an AW9D-Max board with I think an E6600 in it I have in my wife's old case.....the temptation has begun, I have an SLI build.....do I now make a Crossfire one? HD4850's are SO cheap at the moment...... "sweats whilst looking on ebay"
 
After the succesful recap of the slot 1 board I set about building a new "main" rig that will cover everything I really play (late dos, early windows).

Specs:
P3 550mhz.
128mb ram
Diamond Viper V550(Riva TNT). Originally a TNT2 but the card is faulty.
Aureal vortex 2
50gb HDD.
Windows 98se.
Not super impressed by the midi on the vortex2 but am looking to buy a dreamblaster x2 one day so that should sort that.
 
LewisRaz said:
After the succesful recap of the slot 1 board I set about building a new "main" rig that will cover everything I really play (late dos, early windows).

Specs:
P3 550mhz.
128mb ram
Diamond Viper V550(Riva TNT). Originally a TNT2 but the card is faulty.
Aureal vortex 2
50gb HDD.
Windows 98se.
Not super impressed by the midi on the vortex2 but am looking to buy a dreamblaster x2 one day so that should sort that.
Click to expand...
 
Loving that Mesh case!

Spec wise that's a great little set up too :)

A bit of me wants to retire the old shuttle P3 machine I have and build a proper tower as it's just so limited cooling, GPU space and well, anything! Flexibility wise
 
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