TPU's Nostalgic Hardware Club

[RyzenMaster.sys]

I have the same laptop! My grandparents gave it to me after they got a Macbook.
This has a Athlon 64 X2 TK-55 AMD Turion - Wikipedia
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Since 1.8GHz is pretty slow, I have tried raising the FSB with SetFSB but none of the PLLs were compatible.

Guess that means it's possible to upgrade mine to a dual core. Will definitely look into it! I wonder if any higher clocked ones work. This sempron does not have 64 bit extensions despite being k8, I know only a handful of early semprons do. So x64 will be an upgrade, even if I don't think it has cx128 to actually run anything past w7 64.

Sadly on a lot of laptops from this era the clock generator is built into the chipset, which is why these mobile chipsets are so picky about what FSB CPU you install. It also means that setfsb will not work. Not 100% sure but probably the case here.

A shame Dell didn't solder on the connector where that long white spot next to the ixp1150 chipset. That's where the X1400 GPU connects on my other laptop, I have no clue what form factor that is, it's not MXM.

I clearly need more inspirons

That is awesome that it went smoothly for you! Did you have to do the work around for windows 11 to install on the old hardware or did it work just fine?

If you download the ISO and create the installation media by Rufus it lets you tick boxes to bypass the requirements check and other annoyances of 11.

The yonah t2080 CPU in here prior was 32 bit so the upgrade to the merom t7400 was required to make 11 run. No requirement check bypasses can fix that.

 

[Greenslade]

This is what i bought yesterday at the local market for £2 ,To wet to go there today though

SPARKLE Launches World's First GeForce GTS250 Graphics Cards With Low Profile Design.Taipei, Taiwan – November 26, 2009 - SPARKLE Computer Co., Ltd., the professional VGA card manufacturer and supplier, today introduced the SPARKLE GeForce GTS250 Low Profile Graphics Card, the world's first low profile graphics card based on GeForce GTS250 graphics chip, providing powerful 3D performance and amazing home theater experience to HTPC enthusiasts.

I guess its not a bad little Gpu although i wish my version was a 1gb one.Still not bad for £2. ​

Will this fit in a normal case?
ASUS A8NE-FM/ROHS/S s.939 Micro-ATX AMD Socket 939 Motherboard

Apparently it is Fujitsu-Siemens) is this a oem board?​

Someone asked on another forum as there is no update bios for it.ASUS and they replied that the A8NE-FM is a bulk motherboard they produce for other producers.£20.​

 

[68Olds]

That Sparkle GTS 250 should be a lot of fun to play with. Is yours a low profile version? Doesn't look like it in the picture.

On the other hand, I would stay away from that Asus A8NE-FM board. There are many better options for S939 NForce4 boards out there.

 

[Greenslade]

That Sparkle GTS 250 should be a lot of fun to play with. Is yours a low profile version? Doesn't look like it in the picture.

On the other hand, I would stay away from that Asus A8NE-FM board. There are many better options for S939 NForce 4 boards out there.

It is a single slot that goes in the board.Thanks for that i will give that a miss.

 

[boomstik360]

Guess that means it's possible to upgrade mine to a dual core. Will definitely look into it! I wonder if any higher clocked ones work. This sempron does not have 64 bit extensions despite being k8, I know only a handful of early semprons do. So x64 will be an upgrade, even if I don't think it has cx128 to actually run anything past w7 64.

Sadly on a lot of laptops from this era the clock generator is built into the chipset, which is why these mobile chipsets are so picky about what FSB CPU you install. It also means that setfsb will not work. Not 100% sure but probably the case here.

A shame Dell didn't solder on the connector where that long white spot next to the ixp1150 chipset. That's where the X1400 GPU connects on my other laptop, I have no clue what form factor that is, it's not MXM.

View attachment 320186
I clearly need more inspirons


If you download the ISO and create the installation media by Rufus it lets you tick boxes to bypass the requirements check and other annoyances of 11. View attachment 320187

The yonah t2080 CPU in here prior was 32 bit so the upgrade to the merom t7400 was required to make 11 run. No requirement check bypasses can fix that.

Oh that is awesome & easy! I hadn’t looked into it too much aside from some YouTube videos but that is good to know it works well. I’ve just used Windows 10 for some older stuff (1st Gen Core i’s) and that’s been great. I’ll give it a try next time.

 

[lexluthermiester]

Mike has done another video, Bubble systems!!

 

[Greenslade]

Mike has done another video, Bubble systems!!

Good video very little room in the second one he looked at.Loads of room, in the first one though.They all look clean inside. Do you or anyone else on here have one of them.?The last one looks very cool being so tiny with the pull out try..

 

[lexluthermiester]

Do you or anyone else on here have one of them.?

I've seen or worked on every one of them. They were very common back then and everyone always want to upgrade then and remove the bloatware.

 

[stinger608]

Do you or anyone else on here have one of them.?

Yeppers, I have one that my late mother had. I've just got it boxed up though.

It has the monitor, keyboard, mouse, and little speakers that came with it. She had purchased it new.

It is running Windows 98SE, if I recall correctly.

 

[boomstik360]

Mike has done another video, Bubble systems!!

Amazing how many you can still find in this day and age lol.

 

[Trekkie4]

It's been a while since I posted anything hardware-related in here... So, why not start with Slot 1, my all-time-favorite platform?


Chaintech 6BTM, kindly given to me by @r0x Everything seems to be running perfectly fine, it POSTed out of the first try without any hiccups. In case the name Chaintech and/or 6BTM seems familiar, it's probably because I already talked about this particular model before ... a LOT! But for those of you who don't remember, here's the short version. My Pentium II "Adison" branded system came with one of these back in 1998, and to this date it is still running fine, although I had to recap 6BTM at some point using Panasonic 1000/6.3 caps. In fact, the reason why I love Slot 1 as much as I do is because of none other than 6BTM - and from what I can tell, the two boards appear to be identical:


Moving on ... but still related to Slot 1. I finally managed to find a decent Asus P2B in working condition. It originally came with one of the busted USB ports, but once again thanks to @r0x that problem was taken care of. Oddly enough, I was going to upload another photo featuring P2B in all its glory when I realized that I can't seem to find anything - I must have deleted it by mistake, meaning I would have to take her out of the box & take another shot. Maybe tomorrow...

And last but certainly not least, something more recent. Socket 775, I found this E6600 Core2 Duo system outside in the rain & carried it back home with me.


Graphics card is Radeon X1650 XT, PCIe:


It had a Blue Storm II 400W power supply inside:


The whole thing was soaking wet, so I couldn't just plug it into the mains but I took it apart, cleaned all the dust & debris and reassembled everything back together again


Including both 120mm fans and HDD mounting rails:


...and a fancy Gigabyte logo "projector" component, conveniently hidden behind the front panel which (by the way) is made out of black-colored aluminum:


In fact, I took the liberty of modding this one with brighter LEDs, since I could barely see or read anything with the original ones. And that was AFTER wiping the lens & LEDs of dust:


It doesn't look as impressive on the photo, but it DOES look super cool in person. Very sharp & bright projection, which is hardly a surprise since I used ultra-bright (15000mcd, 5W) LED diode for this purpose. Alas, I couldn't find the other (blue) LED with the same intensity, so I had to settle for 10000mcd instead. But I wasn't going to use the blue LED in the first place so it's not much of an issue really.

 

[boomstik360]

It's been a while since I posted anything hardware-related in here... So, why not start with Slot 1, my all-time-favorite platform?


Chaintech 6BTM, kindly given to me by @r0x Everything seems to be running perfectly fine, it POSTed out of the first try without any hiccups. In case the name Chaintech and/or 6BTM seems familiar, it's probably because I already talked about this particular model before ... a LOT! But for those of you who don't remember, here's the short version. My Pentium II "Adison" branded system came with one of these back in 1998, and to this date it is still running fine, although I had to recap 6BTM at some point using Panasonic 1000/6.3 caps. In fact, the reason why I love Slot 1 as much as I do is because of none other than 6BTM - and from what I can tell, the two boards appear to be identical:


Moving on ... but still related to Slot 1. I finally managed to find a decent Asus P2B in working condition. It originally came with one of the busted USB ports, but once again thanks to @r0x that problem was taken care of. Oddly enough, I was going to upload another photo featuring P2B in all its glory when I realized that I can't seem to find anything - I must have deleted it by mistake, meaning I would have to take her out of the box & take another shot. Maybe tomorrow...

And last but certainly not least, something more recent. Socket 775, I found this E6600 Core2 Duo system outside in the rain & carried it back home with me.


Graphics card is Radeon X1650 XT, PCIe:


It had a Blue Storm II 400W power supply inside:


The whole thing was soaking wet, so I couldn't just plug it into the mains but I took it apart, cleaned all the dust & debris and reassembled everything back together again


Including both 120mm fans and HDD mounting rails:


...and a fancy Gigabyte logo "projector" component, conveniently hidden behind the front panel which is by the way made out of black-colored aluminum:


In fact, I took the liberty of modding this one with brighter LEDs, since I could barely see or read anything with the original ones. And that was AFTER wiping the lens & LEDs of dust:


It doesn't look as impressive on the photo, but it DOES look super cool in person. Very sharp & bright projection, which is hardly a surprise since I used ultra-bright (15000mcd, 5W) LED diode for this purpose. Alas, I couldn't find the other (blue) LED with the same intensity, so I had to settle for 10000mcd instead. But I wasn't going to use the blue LED in the first place so it's not much of an issue really.

I remember disassembling soooo many of those Slot 1’s back in the day for recycle lol.

Dang that 775 setup was a nice find!!

 

[Trekkie4]

I remember disassembling soooo many of those Slot 1’s back in the day for recycle lol.

Dang that 775 setup was a nice find!!

Yeah, I know. There was a time, around 2005-2006 when everyone wanted to recycle their Slot 1 boards, CPUs and other components. To make situation even worse, these things could be found just about anywhere you looked, and they had next to no value. Nowadays obviously, the situation is significantly different and these things are becoming super rare. Heck, you're more likely to find a rainbow colored unicorn than a decent Slot 1 system in working condition

And yeah, that S775 indeed was a nice find. I got plans for this particular case, it will be re-purposed for a modern day application but rest assured, all the components in there will be put to good use one way or another. In fact, I already have Q6600 (Core2 Quad) arriving from China to replace that E6600, Dual Core counterpart

 

[boomstik360]

Few more things today! Courtesy of @Bobaganoosh

Ugh, makes me wish I kept my XFX 7950 GX2 11 years ago lol

Annndddd an Evga GTX 970 ACX 2.0. Dusty but perfect retired card from a much needed upgrade.

 

[MaxiPro800]

All this new hardware... let me yank out this brick I just fixed.

It's an Gericom Masterpiece 25360XL/ECS Green G732.

Quick specs since the stickers aren't really that accurate:

- SiS 645DX desktop chipset
- 15 inch 1400x1050 LCD (as opposed to the 2540 that had only XGA)
- Pentium 4 Northwood 2.53GHz - haven't tested yet to see if HT Northwoods work tho. It runs on desktop PGA478 btw.
- Radeon Mobility M9/Mobility 9000 64MB AGP4x
- 1.25GB DDR333 (1x1GB + 1x256MB)
- 60GB Toshiba HDD
- 2k SP4 + XP SP3 dualboot

As for weight.... imagine about half of a OGXbox, if you will.

 

[boomstik360]

All this new hardware... let me yank out this brick I just fixed.

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It's an Gericom Masterpiece 25360XL/ECS Green G732.

Quick specs since the stickers aren't really that accurate:

- SiS 645DX desktop chipset
- 15 inch 1400x1050 LCD (as opposed to the 2540 that had only XGA)
- Pentium 4 Northwood 2.53GHz - haven't tested yet to see if HT Northwoods work tho. It runs on desktop PGA478 btw.
- Radeon Mobility M9/Mobility 9000 64MB AGP4x
- 1.25GB DDR333 (1x1GB + 1x256MB)
- 60GB Toshiba HDD
- 2k SP4 + XP SP3 dualboot

As for weight.... imagine about half of a OGXbox, if you will.

That is sweet! Gotta love the 478 laptops. Thicck with two c’s!

 

[Trekkie4]

I got something similar myself, an old (478?) laptop running Windows XP. I hate portables though (if it doesn't weight a ton & consume at least 200W of power, it is NOT worth my attention ) but this one was a gift from fellow forumer a while ago.


I gave it a try with several different games, and from what I can tell most of them seem to be running OK.


Edit
Sorry guys, this one seems to be AMD. My bad, I'm really not familiar with these things, but when I Googled for MS-1011 it referred to it as SiS-based Sempron/Turion64 laptop.

 

[MaxiPro800]

I think I saw one of those A64 based laptops with a Radeon Mobility 9700 at the car boot sale, IIRC it was a Targa?

I kinda feel sad I didn't get it, as it seems to have been OEM'd by Gateway (or at least made by the same OEM that did Gateways of that era.) and had a Athlon 64 in it.

EDIT: Well I'll be damn'd, it actually IS a Gateway rebrand - W730-K8X points to a Gateway model, even though the whole laptop had Targa written on it.

 

[Greenslade]

cool stuff.

 

[68Olds]

cool stuff.

That Silverstone case is what I wanted back in the mid-2000s, but I hated the idea of spending that much money on a HTPC case. I bought the Antec NSK2400 case instead, and I currently have an AMD AM2 APU & HD 7750 in it. It is a complete nightmare connecting the SATA cables to the edge of the mobo because of clearance. But it has otherwise been a good case for a home theater PC.
A couple reviews of my case.
Antec NSK2400 HTPC Case – Techgage
Antec NSK2400 Case - Overclockers

 

[lexluthermiester]

Continuing the quest for the Ultimate SNES, I've bought some chrome labels for the clear SNES shell. Came from Poland!

Though the photo doesn't really show, it looks great!

 

[Greenslade]

That Silverstone case is what I wanted back in the mid-2000s, but I hated the idea of spending that much money on a HTPC case. I bought the Antec NSK2400 case instead, and I currently have an AMD AM2 APU & HD 7750 in it. It is a complete nightmare connecting the SATA cables to the edge of the mobo because of clearance. But it has otherwise been a good case for a home theater PC.
A couple reviews of my case.
Antec NSK2400 HTPC Case – Techgage
Antec NSK2400 Case - Overclockers

I got a modern Silverstone case off F.M.P over a year ago for £10 i have not put a system in it yet.In fact i have only made one PC.It was a good day today i got these 10 PC games in a charity shop for £1 It is the first shop that i have seen PC games for 10p.It is usually DVD,s.

 

[Audioave10]

I got a modern Silverstone case off F.M.P over a year ago for £10 i have not put a system in it yet.In fact i have only made one PC.It was a good day today i got these 10 PC games in a charity shop for £1 It is the first shop that i have seen PC games for 10p.It is usually DVD,s.

Nice games....as they are hard to find these days.

 

[68Olds]

I got a modern Silverstone case off F.M.P over a year ago for £10 i have not put a system in it yet.In fact i have only made one PC.It was a good day today i got these 10 PC games in a charity shop for £1 It is the first shop that i have seen PC games for 10p.It is usually DVD,s.

Yes, you got several nice classics in that bunch.

 

[Greenslade]

Nice games....as they are hard to find these days.

Plus most of them had the manuals,If i were to buy them from CEX chances are a quite a few of them don,t, I would never buy a PC or PS2 or 3 without one from them.I see i have Hitman 2 on PS2,i don,t know which is the better version?