Windows 98 Gaming PC: The Beige Build

almoststew1990

almoststew1990

almoststew1990

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Joined
12 May 2011
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Southampton
I've been tempted for a while (since I watched Clint from Lazy Game Reviews built a 1994 era DOS PC) to build a Windows 98 PC for some "big box" gaming and, well, just for the fun/challenge! I was aiming for the following spec:
  • Socket 1 Motherboard
  • Pentium II or III
  • 128MB or so of SDRAM
  • ??? AGP Graphics card
This was kickstarted by an alcohol-enhanced purchase of a Slot 1 motherboard, an ASUS P2B for £20 from ebay. It seems I got lucky as boards seem to vary in price, even for what appear to be OEM boards, and the ASUS seems this to be quite a good spec (especially with supporting ATX power supplies) and reviewed very well (http://www.anandtech.com/show/113).

Whilst I've got lots of spares for building modern PCs, I really didn't have any old school kit such as:
  • PS/2 Keyboard and Mouse
  • IDE Drives or cables
  • Floppy Drive
  • Soundcard
  • Sufficiently beige PC case
I had a look on ebay and saw these drives and cables etc would quickly add up in cost. I thought I could pillage an old PC from Gumtree for the parts, after a quick search I found an 'ancient office clearout' style PC for £7.50! This is what I came home with:

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What a beaut! It even included a PS/2 keyboard and mouse! The blue text on top says "P4 2.4GHz 512MB", and it had a sticker saying built in 2003. Around the back was a GPU with VGA and DVI as well as some kind of sound card- this PC might well have everything I need and I get 'free' Pentium 4 bits and bobs!

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Naturally the whole lot was covered in dust and rust so I took everything out. The soundcard turned out to be a "CMI8738", which doesn't really mean anything to me. The graphics card was a bit of a mystery with no model numbers stickers. Looked nice though:

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When I treated it to what was probably its first clear out in 15 years it turned out it was a 128mb 4200ti Not bad! better than what usually turns out to be a 5200FX!!

Tomorrow the empty case is going straight in the shower to give it a good scrub (when my partner is out of the house) and hopefully the motherboard which should arrive tomorrow can get mounted up. I still need to source a CPU...
 
I bought 3 sticks of 64mb SDRAM on wednesday, they've arrived today :)

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orbitalwalsh said:
love to see an old skool pc brought up to some modern standards on the inside, like braided cables etc but still plain jane on the outside

think an AIO could be retro fitted?
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Unfortunately I am filling this old school PC with even older components ;) I don't think the pentium even has a fan, just a heatsink!
 
I bought a Pentium 3 700MHz today. It seems to come with what looks like a daughter board- is this some kind of voltage regulator?

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The motherboard arrived today too. For some reason I didn't take any pictures of it loose, so here is one of it in the PC. I put the RAM in, it was incredibly stiff! I put in all the drives and tested them out on the Pentium 4- they were all detected.

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I also put the case in the bath to give it a proper clean off whilst my other half is out with her work mates. That says it all really- she is out having a meal and drinking and I'm washing my computer in the bath :/ !

Before and After...
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(the big scratch on the side panel was on the other side last time :( )

The GPU cleaned up nicely too but I'm half tempted to get something older. I'll stick with it for now, 4200ti should be compatible and I know it works...
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Finally I got the keyboard ready by removing ten years worth of... I don't wanna know.

Now all I need now is Windows 98SE. Also games!
 
howiepoohs said:
I just binned a load of carp like that. I kept my old Voodoo cards though. I have 1, 2 and 3000. The 3000 is still in it's box.
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AmitA said:
Same here, kept my 3DFx cards (Voodoo 5 5500 AGP and 5500 PCI - boxed ... my own little piece of tech history :))
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I originally wanted to go for separate 2D and 3D cards, but the prices of Voodoo 2 / 3 on ebay (£80+!) and the faff with video cables "passing through" (and their relative lack of performance compared to something like the Geforce 256) meant I decided to try to keep this bit simple!

KiiYzOo said:
Been wanting to do one of these for a while now after watching LGR as well, I'm thinking something from either around '95/pentium 3 era stuff, will be watching to see what you end up getting :)
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Pentium 3 is 98/99 really, from my research 95 was more the original Pentium. I went for a P3 as the games I play will probably stray into year 2000 or so, and it should be quite happy playing mid 90s games too.

agw_01 said:
Leadtek WinFast... those were the days! :D
CMI8738 is a C-Media 8738... quite a popular chipset for on-board sound back in the day.
I love the thought of having a couple of old PCs for reliving old games, but could just run most things in a virtual machine tbh. My Dad hasn't thrown a machine away since his AMD K6-2 with a Voodoo 5 graphics card.
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That's good to know, although this is a fairly modern looking PCI sound card (probably the on-board sound jacks broke, so they bought the cheapest sound card available), but it should be good enough for me if it plays nice with Windows 98!
 
LewisRaz said:
Really do enjoy retro builds. Mine is a bit "overkill" for windows 98 I think and im having trouble launching a few titles... (athlonXP1600+, ATI 9600 256mb). Did you manage to get W98SE yet?
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Windows 98se is about £20 on eBay so I've sourced it from elsewhere now! I still have a few bits to get hold of:
  • CPU (should be with me early next week)
  • Jumpers for the motherboard and my CD drives
  • Soundcard with Windows 98 drivers.
Also games! So far I have / on the way:
  • Driver (still got this from new in 1998)
  • Age of Empires 1 and 2
  • Empire Earth
  • The Sims
  • Sim City 3000
  • C&C Red Alert
  • GTA 3
Does anyone have any recommendations?
 
Rroff said:
Never seen that daughter board before - I've had or installed multiple P3-500, 800 and 1GHz models which didn't wonder if it is something propitiatory to compaq.
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The CPU arrived today and I'm having a dumb problem- I can't mount the CPU! Where am I going wrong?

I lift the CPU board retention clips up and the click into a vertical position. I try to slide the CPU/heatsink down the clips. The AGP end fits fine both width ways and depth, with the heatsink groove neatly fitting inside the clip:

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However the top end doesn't fit neatly:

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Width ways it is fine, but the little groove that I guess is for the clip to slide into doesn't fit. This is because of the little nib/triangle thing at the very top, inside corners of the clips I think:

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I guess my CPU has a aftermarket heatsink on it provided by a manufacturer that had special slot clips? What would you do?

I'm tempted to cut off the little triangle thing, i'm not sure what purpose it has?
 
Mrjobby said:
I can find several pictures of similar sinks but no pictures of any clips.

Usually Slot 1 to 370 adaptor boards came with little clips to secure the board in the slot, not sure if that looks the case here.

Does it physically stop the CPU slotting in?
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The retention clips are on the motherboard, and it's the little triangle bits that stick up which stop the CPU from sliding in at all. These triangle things by the looks of it are to stop any upwards movement. I think I'll remove the offending little blob and rely on having three out of the four still present... It looks like there is not a universal design for the retention clips (and some motherboards have none at all), what a stupid idea! I'll crack out the stanley knife tonight.

Armageus said:
It is indeed a Voltage Regulator Module (VRM) - have seen them before on Dual Pentium Pro and Dual Slot 1 motherboards.
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Do I need it for a single processor?
 
mmj_uk said:
Make sure your motherboard has the right type of retention clips, PIII 700 will be SECC2 whereas PII were mostly SECC. If it's an earlier motherboard (which I think it is) it might have SECC clips.
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Ah... this motherboard was released before PIIIs were released, but supports PIIIs. An earlier version of the manual I found only covers PIIs, but later version I found also includes installing SECC2 PIII chips (both manuals refer to motherboard rev 1.0 though).
 
Today I cut off the little leg what was blocking the CPU:

Before
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After:

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With the CPU

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Edit- I like how this picture of 'precision electrical equipment' ominously has a saw in the background ;)

Unfortunately the retention clip is bulging a bit, as the CPU has a little springy clip itself which is meant to stick out one of the little holes on the motherboard retention clip to stop vertical movement. However, the clip is mounted too high on the cooler, so it pushes against the motherboard clip and pushes it out a bit. But the CPU is properly mounted into the CPU Slot and won't go any lower, I think it is just the varying cooler and retention clip design between manufacturers :(

Sadly I can't fire it up as I am missing jumpers to tell the motherboard what the CPUS multiplier and FSB speeds are... unless I just try anyway!
 
I've run another problem :( it won't post! Nothing on the screen at all. The GPU fan spins up, the HDDs click to life and the KBM numlock etc LEDs flash once. I've got a little PC speaker plugged in and I don't get any error beeps.

I've installed the jumpers with 7x multiplier and 100.3MHz FSB. The manual only goes up to P3 550MHz as an example configuration but it says how to set various multipliers and FBSs. I've set the "keyboard boot" jumper to off, which the manual says is the default option. I've unplugged everything except the KBM, GPU, CPU and RAM. I then even unplugged all the RAM, GPU and CPU in turn to see if I could at least generate error beeps, but nothing...

I've done normal stuff like tried different sticks of RAM in different slots.

Any ideas? Considering it does not provide any beeps at all, I think it is the Motherboard or CPU (too much bad luck for it to be 3x sticks of RAM...)
 
I've got two compatible CPUs on the way (thanks armageus!) and I'm thinking of getting a more period graphics card to go with the rest of the system. I've narrowed it down to the ATi Rage 128 Pro and the TNT2 (mainly for cost reasons). Which would you recommend?
 
agw_01 said:
What about a GeForce 2 GTS?
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Bit too new for me as I already have a 4 series for DX 8 games.

I ordered a TNT2 Pro (luckily I got suspicious of all the "M64" names appearing and learned that they're the slower version!) today for £12. It's passive, and it will be a bit strange having a 'mostly' passive PC.

I may end up selling my backup 7970 and using the money (and space) to get a Voodoo 3 + 2D??? as I understand that is the done thing!

The game collection is building now but is lacking a couple a few some many most classics and what I bought is all a lot newer than I originally intended...

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!bluetonic! said:
After watching LGR and Phil's Computing Lab, I put together a semi-retro machine...
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Nice! I think someone here told me that a CF card would make the storage pretty nippy (similar to a new HDD PC). That just sounded a bit too complicated for me ;) I was going to go for a SB Live! but decided to save a few quid and stick with the CMI8738 that was in the donor PC and spend the money on games!
 
My drugs CPUs and TNT2 arrived today :)

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The CPU, which I guess was retail rather than an OEM, fits in the Slot 1's clips perfectly:)

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But will it POST? Yes!

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Great Success! I see that I have an IRQ conflict between the ethernet card and sound card... Also I'm trying to do the auto set up for my HDD, but it presents three options...

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Which is the correct one?
 
The next dumb problem- I can't seem to access the two floppies I bought. Not sure if it is the drive or the floppies? I put the disk in and double click on the floppy icon (in XP) and it just says insert floppy into A:. It makes some soft clicking noises and the LED comes on but can't seem to read disks :(
 
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