Caporegime
Lovely condition!Some lovely machines in that lot there.
I have one of those cases, that actually was my first ever pc. Still have it.
Caporegime
Put my hazmat gear on and tackled the most disgusting keyboard I've ever laid eyes on.
Full tear down. The keycaps all had a soak in warm water with a mixture of dish soap, flash, and bleach in it, and I agitated it fairly frequently. Upper casing I used fairy liquid and an old nailbrush. The cord I cleaned with windex on a microfibre.
Then I built this out of a couple of the machines I picked up, and some of the spare parts!
It has an AMD K6-2 3D 400 (at 416MHz because of jumper limitations, yay free overclock!)
A PC Chips M571, which despite the reputation PC Chips boards apparently have, is actually very good, and it has a modded BIOS to allow use of the K6 chips. (originally just for Pentium up to 233MHz I believe)
96MB of SIMM RAM
Guillemot Maxi Gamer Phoenix 3DFX Voodoo Banshee with 16MB of memory
A 6GB Quantum Fireball which is trying to burst my eardrums with its high pitched seek noises
And then just a TEAC 5.25", NEC 3.5", LG CD-ROM, AT PSU, and that black case.
Just finished installing W98SE on it.
The case had been messed about with to fit a janky ATX setup inside, so I have a hole in the back cover which was for a fan that I am going to plate and fill, and then I'll wrap the back cover black to hide it. Also had to take the power switch from one of the other AT cases because the one that was in there had been messed about with.
Full tear down. The keycaps all had a soak in warm water with a mixture of dish soap, flash, and bleach in it, and I agitated it fairly frequently. Upper casing I used fairy liquid and an old nailbrush. The cord I cleaned with windex on a microfibre.
Then I built this out of a couple of the machines I picked up, and some of the spare parts!
It has an AMD K6-2 3D 400 (at 416MHz because of jumper limitations, yay free overclock!)
A PC Chips M571, which despite the reputation PC Chips boards apparently have, is actually very good, and it has a modded BIOS to allow use of the K6 chips. (originally just for Pentium up to 233MHz I believe)
96MB of SIMM RAM
Guillemot Maxi Gamer Phoenix 3DFX Voodoo Banshee with 16MB of memory
A 6GB Quantum Fireball which is trying to burst my eardrums with its high pitched seek noises
And then just a TEAC 5.25", NEC 3.5", LG CD-ROM, AT PSU, and that black case.
Just finished installing W98SE on it.
The case had been messed about with to fit a janky ATX setup inside, so I have a hole in the back cover which was for a fan that I am going to plate and fill, and then I'll wrap the back cover black to hide it. Also had to take the power switch from one of the other AT cases because the one that was in there had been messed about with.
Soldato
I'm currently out of action (housebound) for a while with multiple bilateral pulmonary embolisms and then this comes up on Gumtree!
Amstrad 9512 Computer and accessories ,
www.gumtree.com
Price: £ 30
Amstrad 9512 Computer and accessories ,
Used Desktop & Workstation Computers for Sale in Hook, Hampshire | Gumtree
Discover amazing local deals on used desktop & workstation computers for sale in Hook, Hampshire ✅ Shop hassle-free with Gumtree, your local buying & selling community.
Price: £ 30
Caporegime
I'm currently out of action (housebound) for a while with multiple bilateral pulmonary embolisms and then this comes up on Gumtree!
Amstrad 9512 Computer and accessories ,
Used Desktop & Workstation Computers for Sale in Hook, Hampshire | Gumtree
Discover amazing local deals on used desktop & workstation computers for sale in Hook, Hampshire ✅ Shop hassle-free with Gumtree, your local buying & selling community.
Price: £ 30
Amstrad systems aren't worth a great deal. It seems that because they were unpopular (some might say hated!) back in the day by all and sundry, most people still don't like them now. And those 9512s are ugly and cheap feeling, so they don't have a lot going for them!
Still well worth the 30 quid for that mono CRT to the left of the picture though! I'd buy it for that and then move the rest on haha.
I have an older one!
Hope you're doing a bit better soon bud, thats rough...
Last edited:
Soldato
@Acme I see amstrad 'electronic typewriters' come up on GT fairly often. Having googled it seems that this is what these 9512s are. Well now I'm glad I'm not missing out!
I'm a few weeks into the PEs now, signed off from work, pretty rough at first but now I'm able to move about a bit. So of course I've set up an XP system and I'm finally watching all the star wars films! Sadly the gog version of Dark Forces doesn't work great but JKDF2 works great.
So everyone keep buying new retro stuff and posting in this Thread so I can live through you lol
I'm a few weeks into the PEs now, signed off from work, pretty rough at first but now I'm able to move about a bit. So of course I've set up an XP system and I'm finally watching all the star wars films! Sadly the gog version of Dark Forces doesn't work great but JKDF2 works great.
So everyone keep buying new retro stuff and posting in this Thread so I can live through you lol
Caporegime
Assuming they are similar to my 8512, they are proper computers, they were just marketed primarily for word processing. They have software and games available.
Last edited:
Soldato
Something slightly less retro than normal for me this week. Over on the OCUK classifieds, there was a dual Xeon server going for free. It's a SuperMicro unit from 2013.
I went to pick it up. I upgraded the 2403 v2 dual 4c4t CPUs from to 10c20t, 2670 v2 ones. I increased the RAM to 64 GB from 32 GB. This was a smidge over £60 for CPUs and RAM.
The power supply gave up on me. Fortunately, I had a large capacity branded spare from another breaking unit I'd come by.
I was dicing with machine death. The CPUs didn't work. I knew I had to update the BIOS, but there was very little official information on the matter. Anyway, I found a BIOS and went for it. Thankfully, it worked.
Also, one bank of RAM sockets weren't working. Reseating the CPU seemed to fix this issue.
I put an SSD in for the boot drive. Installed Windows 11 Pro and:
This machine would have cost ££ back in the day. It's by no means a daily driver, but it's great for my collection.
I went to pick it up. I upgraded the 2403 v2 dual 4c4t CPUs from to 10c20t, 2670 v2 ones. I increased the RAM to 64 GB from 32 GB. This was a smidge over £60 for CPUs and RAM.
The power supply gave up on me. Fortunately, I had a large capacity branded spare from another breaking unit I'd come by.
I was dicing with machine death. The CPUs didn't work. I knew I had to update the BIOS, but there was very little official information on the matter. Anyway, I found a BIOS and went for it. Thankfully, it worked.
Also, one bank of RAM sockets weren't working. Reseating the CPU seemed to fix this issue.
I put an SSD in for the boot drive. Installed Windows 11 Pro and:
This machine would have cost ££ back in the day. It's by no means a daily driver, but it's great for my collection.
Caporegime
Nice! I have a little Lenovo workstation with a 2690 and 128GB of RAM in it. I wanted to fit a 2690 V2 but its the wrong motherboard revision, so only 8 cores for me.
I'm not sure I consider it 'retro' though as it will be in use as my actual home server at some point.
I'm not sure I consider it 'retro' though as it will be in use as my actual home server at some point.
Last edited:
Soldato
Next job done. This was replacing a noisy 80mm 12v fan on a PSU for my P200mmx.
I don't normally delve into PSUs, but I blew the dust away with my blow-vac. I'm conscious that it's ancient and could go pop. The capacitors look good. So hopefully it will give a few more years of service.
I was also going to fit a CD-ROM to sound card cable in it, but I'd ordered the wrong one. I'm sure I have loads, but can never remember where..
It's a great machine. The next game I've got ready to load is Star Wars Jedi Knight Dark Forces 2.
I don't normally delve into PSUs, but I blew the dust away with my blow-vac. I'm conscious that it's ancient and could go pop. The capacitors look good. So hopefully it will give a few more years of service.
I was also going to fit a CD-ROM to sound card cable in it, but I'd ordered the wrong one. I'm sure I have loads, but can never remember where..
It's a great machine. The next game I've got ready to load is Star Wars Jedi Knight Dark Forces 2.
![[HB]Rugrat](/styles/overclockers/avatars/4.png){kind=avatar}
Associate
- Joined
- 29 Jan 2003
- Posts
- 1,121
I had one of those but mine had lots of holes drilled into the front of itSome lovely machines in that lot there.
I have one of those cases, that actually was my first ever pc. Still have it.
Fitted a cheap aftermarket fan to my original Abit Siluro GF4 Ti4400 as the fan was super noisy and I think it was over heating as was causing some instability,
Seems to be running fine now under Win 98SE in my P3 Tualatin 1.4 build using the Omega 43.45 drivers,
Chris
Seems to be running fine now under Win 98SE in my P3 Tualatin 1.4 build using the Omega 43.45 drivers,
Chris
Nice system Chris. I Have a similar system although mines a BX Board. Is that a Asus TUSL2? I too changed the cooler on my Ti4600. I was lucky to pick up a Zalman cooler from less than a tenner brand new, which was so much better than the tiny whiney stock cooler! I Spot a Monster MX300 too! Is that a X2 or S2 Wavetable board?
This is the Card with the Zalman attached
This is the Card with the Zalman attached
Hi cee-S-dee
I wish I could have found one of those, I have a Saphire 9800 Pro with something very similar fitted and it works great,
Yes your eye is spot on, the motherboard is an Asus TUSL2-C and the soundcard is a Diamond MX300 with an X2GS fitted,
Just wish I could find some nice 38mm Copper heatsinks for my Voodoo 5 or a cheaper place to get some Enzotech CNB-S1L Northbridge Heatsinks which should also work. £70 inc shipping for the 2 seems excessive
Chris
I wish I could have found one of those, I have a Saphire 9800 Pro with something very similar fitted and it works great,
Yes your eye is spot on, the motherboard is an Asus TUSL2-C and the soundcard is a Diamond MX300 with an X2GS fitted,
Just wish I could find some nice 38mm Copper heatsinks for my Voodoo 5 or a cheaper place to get some Enzotech CNB-S1L Northbridge Heatsinks which should also work. £70 inc shipping for the 2 seems excessive
Chris
Last edited:
Read a bit of this. Page 6 of 164
'End of the line for the A500' The beginning of the end of Commadore. The A500 was the best machine they made for the cost, the A600 was a massive failure.
IMO Commadore could have been Apple if they had not messed up so badly
'End of the line for the A500' The beginning of the end of Commadore. The A500 was the best machine they made for the cost, the A600 was a massive failure.
IMO Commadore could have been Apple if they had not messed up so badly