Bringing a old rig back to life - ***NEED YOUR ADVICE***

[Iciclebar]

An fun rebuild project would be to find one of those old athlon XP era Soyo boards with the voice output on the bios. Instead of beeping codes or flashing lights they had pre recorded error messages that played if you had any problems with the board. Scared the crap out of me the first time i fired one up with it on there and heard a little voice coming from inside the box out of the pc speaker.

Very scifi-esque.

 

[hoax32]

S.T.A.L.K.E.R. - PC!!!!!

 

[hoax32]

OK - so Ive looked around on eBay for some parts and ive found this:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Intel-D865GLC-Socket-478-mATX-Motherboard-Video-Audio-/120831197159?pt=Motherboards&hash=item1c2219bfe7#ht_1743wt_754

-supports 800MHz FSB
-supports up to Pentium 4HT 3.4GHz
-supports AGP x8
-4 RAM slots instead of only 2
-better onboard graphics
-better I/O controller
-2 FAN connectors
-SATA controller with 2 SATA connections

I think that $27 total for a manufacturer refurbished board like this is well worth!
What do you guys think?

 

[Iciclebar]

I would almost bet money on that being an HP/Compaq board.

We've got a couple old HP's still kicking around as training pcs. One of them died a while back (popped a bunch of caps) and its board looked exactly like that. The other that that's still going runs really nicely as far as old p4's go.

Make sure you've got some decent cooling for both the processor and the case if you are going up to old P4s.

P4 extreme edition! lol.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Intel-Penti...7AA-/150719997670?pt=CPUs&hash=item23179ca6e6

 

[ThE_MaD_ShOt]

An fun rebuild project would be to find one of those old athlon XP era Soyo boards with the voice output on the bios. Instead of beeping codes or flashing lights they had pre recorded error messages that played if you had any problems with the board. Scared the crap out of me the first time i fired one up with it on there and heard a little voice coming from inside the box out of the pc speaker.

Very scifi-esque.

I have one of those lol. Not my favorite socket A board but cool none the less.

hoax32 I have a old dell here that is running a p4 2. something proc. It runs win xp fine and I have even played Max Payne and Ut 2k3 and ut 2k4 on it.

 

[Jetster]

OK - so Ive looked around on eBay for some parts and ive found this:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Intel-D865GLC-Socket-478-mATX-Motherboard-Video-Audio-/120831197159?pt=Motherboards&hash=item1c2219bfe7#ht_1743wt_754

-supports 800MHz FSB
-supports up to Pentium 4HT 3.4GHz
-supports AGP x8
-4 RAM slots instead of only 2
-better onboard graphics
-better I/O controller
-2 FAN connectors
-SATA controller with 2 SATA connections

I think that $27 total for a manufacturer refurbished board like this is well worth!
What do you guys think?

Negative, you can do better. Again think of the project as a shoe string budget. The hardware is basicy worthless. Its just nostalgic. You should be able to pick up a whole system for $15 Mb, HD, Ram CPU at a yard sale or e-bay. Ive done many of these. If your going to spend $25 on a MB you might as well by a 775 board



http://www.ebay.com/itm/New-THERMAL...588?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item19cc072c6c

http://www.ebay.com/itm/ABit-NF7-S-...706289120?pt=Motherboards&hash=item256ad75de0

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Intel-D-915...912?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item4ab23f4580

On the proprietary Boards like Dell and HP you have to do some serous mods to get them to work in a regular case but it can be done. Again if you can get it for the right price. Really Ive thrown away better boards

Example: This looks like a dell inspiron 2400 right? Thats cause the case is. Inside is an i3 550 HTPC monster. Cost of the case = $0 I robbed all the parts fixing other peoples Dells and almost threw it away three times

 

[hoax32]

I dont think that a Athlon XP 2500+ can outperform a 3.4GHz P4 with HTT.
And the other board is also a P4 board and they are all auction style so Im not shure...but thanks for the links!!!!

Didn't see em when I was looking!

 

[Jetster]

Ya just troll E-bay for awhile. Auction style is best search MB + CPU and post extremely low bids. Like .99 You will hit one eventually maybe two then sell what you don't want. I use to do this allot cause it was fun trying to get them working ad I learned allot.

Good luck

 

[hoax32]

OK!

Here the updates:
---------------------------------------
I just bought this really nice motherboard: eBay Link

I will upgrade it to an AMD Athlon XP 3200+ (which should bypass a P4 3.06GHz).
And thanks to it's AGP 8x I can also put in a Radeon HD3850 8x AGP.
Sadly RAM limit is only 2GB but thats no big deal!
It will still have a 7200rpm HDD in it so some HDD cache wont hurt and I am not planning on running Windows Vista on it anyways ....
Doesn't the +3200 get burning hot!?

...and what shader version comes on the HD3850?

 

[Irony]

I have a single core Athlon 64 and a Foxxcon motherboard. But it also says ABIT on it, which I though was strange.

I also have an ATI 2000 series 256mb card. This was all in a computer I got from my great uncle, who gave it to me a month or two ago and told me that it was a cutting edge top of the line computer that was built by a fried of his who really knew about computers. I didn't have the heart to tell him it was worth less than 50 bucks.

 

[hoax32]

...poor uncle.....
I used to be a 2400+ owner!
It ran GTA:SA, Wolfnstein: ET and CoD2 without 100% CPU work!
The Radeon 9250 took care of all that! ^_^

Hope that a 3200+ and either X1650 Pro / HD3850 let me go 2 or 3 levels up!

 

[Killer_Rubber_Ducky]

This may sound dumb (to you) but have you considered running a Linux OS on that older hardware? You want to multi-task watch videos, surf the web and play some games? Most Mainstream Linux Distros are free, work 100% better on the hardware than windows ever will and are able to play those games you listed. Check out Sabayon, Ubuntu Ultimate Gamers Edition, Linux Mint, or even just Ubuntu. If you are familiar with Linux and know how to configure hardware, it is damn near impossible to go wrong with Slackware or Gentoo.

 

[ThE_MaD_ShOt]

OK!

Here the updates:
---------------------------------------
I just bought this really nice motherboard: eBay Link

I will upgrade it to an AMD Athlon XP 3200+ (which should bypass a P4 3.06GHz).
And thanks to it's AGP 8x I can also put in a Radeon HD3850 8x AGP.
Sadly RAM limit is only 2GB but thats no big deal!
It will still have a 7200rpm HDD in it so some HDD cache wont hurt and I am not planning on running Windows Vista on it anyways ....
Doesn't the +3200 get burning hot!?

...and what shader version comes on the HD3850?

Hate to be the party pooper but that board won't run the Athlon xp 3200. You may be able to get close to the speed of one with a Athlon xpm 2500-2600+ and overclocking it. But that board doesn't support 400 mhz fsb procs which the xp 3200 is.

Now If I knew you would consider the Athlon I have a Mother board and proc I'll let you have for a great price. I'll even let you chose between to of my many spare boards. ( Nf7-s v 2.0 or a A7n8x deluxe) pm me if interested.


And no the 3200 does get to hot with the right hsf on it. I have one that cruches all day and never gets above 39/100 c/f degrees.

 

[ThE_MaD_ShOt]

This may sound dumb (to you) but have you considered running a Linux OS on that older hardware? You want to multi-task watch videos, surf the web and play some games? Most Mainstream Linux Distros are free, work 100% better on the hardware than windows ever will and are able to play those games you listed. Check out Sabayon, Ubuntu Ultimate Gamers Edition, Linux Mint, or even just Ubuntu. If you are familiar with Linux and know how to configure hardware, it is damn near impossible to go wrong with Slackware or Gentoo.

He is right I run Unbuntu 11.04 on a Epox 8krai pro with a 2500 xp mobile proc (@2.4 ghz) and 1 gig of mem and it runs smooth as butter.

 

[hoax32]

http://asrock.com/mb/cpu.asp?Model=K7S41GX

The CPU is being listed as supported!

 

[ThE_MaD_ShOt]

http://asrock.com/mb/cpu.asp?Model=K7S41GX

The CPU is being listed as supported!

The 333 mhz fsb version of the 3200 is supported. and finding one of them might prove to be a task. And tell you the truth I don't ever recall seeing one. What you will find on ebay is the 400 mhz version (2.2 ghz not 2.4 ghz) If you find one great I hope you do but I don't ever recall seeing a 333 mhz fsb 2.4 ghz athlon xp 3200+

 

[hoax32]

I currently have one in my HP motherboard.......but dk if i wanna take it out....whats the fastest 333FSB Athlon XP?

 

[ThE_MaD_ShOt]

I think the 3000+ is the fastest 333 mhz proc. But with what you doind you probably be alright with the 2700+ that board came with. Now you can get a 2500 or a 2600+ mobile proc and see if you can clock it at 166x14.5 which would be the 2.4 ghz a 333 mhz 3200+ would run at. I have 2 xpm's running at 2.4 on air but mine are at 200x12. I have never tried at a lower fsb and higher multipler.

 

[Killer_Rubber_Ducky]

I think the 3000+ is the fastest 333 mhz proc. But with what you doind you probably be alright with the 2700+ that board came with. Now you can get a 2500 or a 2600+ mobile proc and see if you can clock it at 166x14.5 which would be the 2.4 ghz a 333 mhz 3200+ would run at. I have 2 xpm's running at 2.4 on air but mine are at 200x12. I have never tried at a lower fsb and higher multipler.

i was under the assumption that mobile procs were for mobile boards.
He may want to look at VIA chipsets too to save money and still roll heads especially running linux. I recommend Linux Mint as it is easier to use especially if you are a n00b. ^_^

As for AMD, here are some links to the procs that work.

http://www.ambry.com/AXDA2800OEM.html
http://www.amazon.com/AMD-AXDA3000BOX-Athlon-512KB-Processor/dp/tech-data/B00008CMMI/ref=de_a_smtd

You could also go this route:

Definitely recommend this setup:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813500068



http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813138326

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813157209

 

[Franjul08]

Fsb

an 800MHz FSb Cpu will Downgrade his FSB to 533 by thenself to work properly

 

[ThE_MaD_ShOt]

Aw no my friend the mobile athlon xp's where the thing to have . I actually have 2 systems running them. They are the same as the desktop procs except they run at lower voltages hence the reason they overclock so well. They are also barton cores. I have mine running at 2.4 ghz with air cooling and they don't even break a sweat with a very slight increase in voltage. With stock voltage they will run all day at 2.2 ghz which is the same as the xp 3200+ and cost less then half the price. Others on here that ran socket a systems can vouch to this.

i was under the assumption that mobile procs were for mobile boards.
He may want to look at VIA chipsets too to save money and still roll heads especially running linux. I recommend Linux Mint as it is easier to use especially if you are a n00b. ^_^

As for AMD, here are some links to the procs that work.

http://www.ambry.com/AXDA2800OEM.html
http://www.amazon.com/AMD-AXDA3000BOX-Athlon-512KB-Processor/dp/tech-data/B00008CMMI/ref=de_a_smtd

You could also go this route:

Definitely recommend this setup:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813500068



http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813138326

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813157209

 

[Mussels]

Aw no my friend the mobile athlon xp's where the thing to have . I actually have 2 systems running them. They are the same as the desktop procs except they run at lower voltages hence the reason they overclock so well. They are also barton cores. I have mine running at 2.4 ghz with air cooling and they don't even break a sweat with a very slight increase in voltage. With stock voltage they will run all day at 2.2 ghz which is the same as the xp 3200+ and cost less then half the price. Others on here that ran socket a systems can vouch to this.

i ran a mobile 2600+ i think it was back in the day, and OC'd to 3200+ speeds first thing. was a fantastic chip.

 

[ThE_MaD_ShOt]

Also if you ran the 3000+ proc on your board there would be to much of a difference between it and the 3200+ they both are very close in actual clock speed. The 3200+ would get a slight edge due to running on a 400 mhz fsb compared to the 3000+ 333mhz fsb. But I don't think it's enough of a edge to condemn the board you are playing with for a board that supports 400 fsb procs. But if you really want to run a 400 mhz proc let me know I have a board that you can have for next to nothing. Basically shipping.

I currently have one in my HP motherboard.......but dk if i wanna take it out....whats the fastest 333FSB Athlon XP?

 

[Frick]

Speaking of Athlons, my Barton 2500+ once booted on 2.7Ghz. Then it died permanently.

 

[Killer_Rubber_Ducky]

I happen to have in my possession an Athlon XP AXDA1700UT3C. Any way to jerry rig an Athlon II/939 cooler to work with it?