What retro things have you done today?

Oh Ed not again. · 23 May 2020 at 16:12

Yep, for sure.

I'd love to put an Athlon XP 2500+ build back into mine, Asus A7N8X and a Gainward Ti 4200. Think it was an Asetek Waterchill kit I had in there too.

hohum · 23 May 2020 at 16:30

Never managed to obtain an ATCS case, but always wanted one. Think by the time I had cash spare I couldn't find the one I wanted (Black Widow). They still look as smart as ever!

Oh Ed not again. · 23 May 2020 at 16:59

hohum said:
Never managed to obtain an ATCS case, but always wanted one. Think by the time I had cash spare I couldn't find the one I wanted (Black Widow). They still look as smart as ever!

Got one in the loft...

There's a couple of other ATCs on eBay at the moment too:

CM-200: https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Coolerma...060431?hash=item4b7a19d4cf:g:d0UAAOSw3rleWmGJ

Wavemaster: https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Cooler-M...448815?hash=item46ae44b3ef:g:3lwAAOSw9h5esGsh

This is interesting and a pretty rare find, looks like it might come with free innards too (wants to at that price):

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Quality-...582179?hash=item3b352363a3:g:sRsAAOSwj-BdB4sN

Edit - Looks like an Asus K8V-SE, Gainward Ti4200, Eye-T 550W PSU

paradigm · 23 May 2020 at 17:00

So as alluded to in a previous post about the shuttle and already having an XP project underway, here's my Sun Ultra 40 workstation. Originally I bought it (for a pittance, they seem to have gone up in value over the last few years) to be a donor case for one of my Dual PIII rigs as I figured the gigantic mesh front panel would be excellent for a radiator in a watercooled build, however when it arrived it was too nice to ruin, so it sat in the loft waiting for me to get around to. Today was the day it came down from the dark and into the light. It'll be getting SLI'd GTX 480s alongside its dual Opteron 280s and 8GB of ECC DDR. This thing is a weapon in more ways than one, built like a tank, weighs around 8.5 metric ****tonnes and has a PSU with incredibly strong rails (even the 3.3v rail will do 30A! the 5v rail 33A, alongside its 4 12V rails at 17A a piece).

To get an idea of how much this weighs, it came on a pallet!

Oh Ed not again. · 23 May 2020 at 17:08

I love old Sun hardware, before Oracle ruined them. Cut my Unix teeth on Solaris, Sparc stations on SunOS 2.5 then in Ultras and Blade 150s at home for mail servers and the like. Sun Fire 280Rs and V880s etc in the Data Centre. Mostly DB servers or heavy Java app servers etc.

That thing is an absolute lunker, would have cost about as much as a small country's GDP new!

LewisRaz · 23 May 2020 at 19:29

Sometimes when you randomly bid £1 on things you actually win them =/

Oh Ed not again. · 23 May 2020 at 20:25

A78NX Deluxe?

paradigm · 23 May 2020 at 20:36

Popped into the loft to retrieve the DDR2 in prep for the AN2 Shuttle arriving. Found it!

LewisRaz · 23 May 2020 at 20:43

randal said:
A78NX Deluxe?

A7N8X-E Deluxe

Close

A bit of a odd thing as its too fast for 98 but slow for XP. Still an interest of mine as that ERA was the first time I was actually building my own PCs.

paradigm · 24 May 2020 at 08:50

So, the service manual for this Sun Ultra 40 is as clear as mud. I was scouring eBay for ECC Registered PC3200 DDR as I don’t have any additional sticks for this thing and I want to max it.

The service manual states:

Eight PC3200 DIMM slots

Sure 8 slots, thats correct.

512 MB, 1 GB, or 2 GB registered ECC modules supported

Ok so a max of 2GB per stick, simple enough. 2x8 is 16GB, not too shabby.

Up to 32 GB ECC memory

32GB max... erm. Confused. Do I blutac in an additional 8 sticks? Does it actually take 4GB modules? Does it really only support 16GB and the manual is wrong?

:confused:

Oh Ed not again. · 24 May 2020 at 10:19

Does it have an additional memory card riser somewhere? Sun always loved those.

paradigm · 24 May 2020 at 10:33

randal said:
Does it have an additional memory card riser somewhere? Sun always loved those.

Nope, the only expansion I could make is an additional SAS backplane for the extra 4 HDD bays, and the custom PCI/SSP slot for an additional HBA.

almoststew1990 · 24 May 2020 at 11:51

I've had no luck this weekend with my retro builds! So many issues with the AM2 build just getting an OS installed and and now my Windows 7 PC (set up to play through Halo 2) and software (e.g. display drivers) needing VCredist which needs Service Pack 1 which needs the Windows Update to be functioning which needs various updated to be applied manually otherwise WU will just say searching forever which needs downloading through a browser which barely functions because the build in certificates in Windows 7 are not up to date / sufficient in some way so I get privacy errors everywhere (which is fixed through an Windows Update update).

Now my HDD drive is doing this:

and I have a process (I'm just sitting on the desktop doing nothing) doing this

I disabled a bunch of Windows start up processes like Security Essentials and Windows Card Space and it's stopped. Not ideal but this PC doesn't really go on line or anything...

LewisRaz · 24 May 2020 at 12:21

Sounds like a lot of stressing about!

I seem to recall svchost being a real bother of a process in windows 7 especially on slower laptops. Used to destroy those slow 2.5" drives..

paradigm · 24 May 2020 at 12:21

Does Win7 have the Superfetch service? I think it does. Disable that.

It’s only for file indexing, useless on a machine you won’t be searching the content of files on!

hohum · 24 May 2020 at 12:29

@almoststew1990 Think I'd be starting from scratch, but use the following tool once reinstalled as it'll save a lot of hassle: https://download.wsusoffline.net/

You'll need the ESR release as the latest drops support for W7. You also need to make sure automatic updates are turned off before you use it! Gets around all the issues related to Windows Update not working/taking forever. As I recall you run update generator first (pulls all the files you need), then you can install the lot in one go using update installer in the client folder afterwards.

LewisRaz · 24 May 2020 at 12:39

Just got a 256mb 9600pro for £10.

Looks like a 2003 build is happening.

This monstrosity will be perfect for it

almoststew1990 · 24 May 2020 at 12:39

I don't really want to start again as Halo 2 has an activation limit so there is a risk it won't activate a second time (as it is second hand!)

hohum · 24 May 2020 at 12:45

Fair enough, but use that tool for updating anyway. As you've discovered it's been a nightmare to use WU on W7 for some time now, and this will bypass that completely.

paradigm · 24 May 2020 at 17:37

LewisRaz said:
Just got a 256mb 9600pro for £10.

Looks like a 2003 build is happening.

This monstrosity will be perfect for it

Is that to go with yesterday’s motherboard?

I’ve got an Athlon 64 X2 6000+ and 9800GT on the way for this new Shuttle. 16GB of RAM on the way for the Sun Ultra 40, and waterblocks on they way for my dual P3 machine!