TPU's Nostalgic Hardware Club

[Trekkie4]

I would say the Pentium MMX 233 MHz but the 133 MHz Pentium (01-June-1995) seems more authentic to the time period of the Voodoo Graphics (End of 1996.) Between the two PCI cards I would have to pick the Matrox Millennium II (rebranded Mystique with the SGRAM swapped for WRAM) for the excellent 2D image quality.

Pentium MMX 233 MHz came out 02-June-1997

Thanks! So, what you're saying is P133 non-MMX with 3dfx & Mystique (Millennium II) and 233 MMX without the 3dfx & Rage IIc?

Regarding the video you posted, the more I look at it, the less I'm impressed (and interested in buying one). It's a great idea for someone who's into arcade & Atari stuff, but I was severely disappointed with "Doom" performance, since even the slowest CPU in my collection, 4x86 DX2 performs twice as better in the terms of speed & rendering...

It was3-head but a single capstan from quick Google, I didn't know the specs of these things He still playing with it, the heads are dirty when I posted that and after a quick clean it sounded better, the casette he using is also wrinkles that makes the sound imbalanced. He got another properly calibrated Technics M270X that sounds better than the Denon currently. Thing is, Technics gives extensive maintenance manual how to properly calibrate their casette deck with proper diagram showing chich components do what, the Denon manual is not as detailed.

Your dad probably already knows this, but wrinkles & tears in tape are caused by excessively worn or dirty pinch rollers. Once the surface gets too slippery, it doesn't have enough friction to pull the tape, resulting with all sorts of problems. Cleaning the mechanism usually helps somewhat, but replacing the pinch (or at least restoring the rubber with chemical solutions such as "Rubber Renue") is the only working solution to this problem

 

[biffzinker]

3.5" Floppy Disc Assembly Line

 

[deflipe]

Hardware

Motherboard: Intel Desktop Board D815EEA2 - ATX - Socket 370 - i815EP
Processor: Pentium III @933 MHz, 256K Cache, 133 MHz FSB
VGA: 3dfx Voodoo 5 5500 AGP 64MB
WiFi / Bluethoot: MSI Dual NET 802.11b/g WiFi & Bluetooth PCI combo card
Memory: Kingston KVR133X64C3/512 512MB 133MHz
Sound: Creative CT4760 SoundBlaster Live X Gamer PCI
HDD: Seagate 80GB ST3802110A 7200RPM
CD/DVD: LG GH22NP20
Floppy Drive: NEC FD1231 (Without connection)



Cooling System

x 1 Noctua NF-F12 PWM Ultra Quiet
x 1 Noctua NF-A8 PWM Premium
x 2 Noctua NF-A4x10 5V, Premium Quiet Fan

S.O.

Windows 98 SE

 

[lexluthermiester]

Very nice retro system! If the HDD ever gives you issues or you'd just like faster drive access times, a CompactFlash card and adapter can be had for good prices.

 

[biffzinker]

Hardware

Motherboard: Intel Desktop Board D815EEA2 - ATX - Socket 370 - i815EP
Processor: Pentium III @933 MHz, 256K Cache, 133 MHz FSB
VGA: 3dfx Voodoo 5 5500 AGP 64MB
WiFi / Bluethoot: MSI Dual NET 802.11b/g WiFi & Bluetooth PCI combo card
Memory: Kingston KVR133X64C3/512 512MB 133MHz
Sound: Creative CT4760 SoundBlaster Live X Gamer PCI
HDD: Seagate 80GB ST3802110A 7200RPM

No 3.5" floppy drive? Any 5.25" optical drive?

 

[deflipe]

No 3.5" floppy drive? Any 5.25" optical drive?

It has a NEC floppy drive installed but not connected, LG IDE CD player connected.

Very nice retro system! If the HDD ever gives you issues or you'd just like faster drive access times, a CompactFlash card and adapter can be had for good prices.

Thank you, but I read that they were not designed for continuous reading and writing (like a hard drive), or that they failed soon and I should review that, but I still like the idea, I saw it on the Phil's Computer Lab channel

 

[biffzinker]

Thank you, but I read that they were not designed for continuous reading and writing (like a hard drive), or that they failed soon

Continuous writing to NAND flash wears it out, continuous reading however isn't destructive to the flash cells. Voltage drift in the flash cells when left without power would be the reason for the issue reading data back from the cells.

 

[Athlonite]

I would say the Pentium MMX 233 MHz but the 133 MHz Pentium (01-June-1995) seems more authentic to the time period of the Voodoo Graphics (End of 1996.) Between the two PCI cards I would have to pick the Matrox Millennium II (rebranded Mystique with the SGRAM swapped for WRAM) for the excellent 2D image quality.

Pentium MMX 233 MHz came out 02-June-1997

Definitely put the Voodoo with the Matrox and on the PentiumMMX 233MHz system

 

[Apocalypsee]

Nice! Those Noctua fans looks fitting on these retro build where most PCB was green in color. They compliment each other.

 

[Trekkie4]

Definitely put the Voodoo with the Matrox and on the PentiumMMX 233MHz system

Thanks for the input! So, we got two votes for 3dfx with Mystique/Millennium II (and Rage IIc going solo) except @biffzinker thinks it would be more chronologically appropriate with P133, where on the other hand you suggested P233MMX

Thing is, I already have couple of 233 MMX rigs, all with 3dfx Voodoo cards. But yes, I see your point - the MMX hardware is more likely to take full advantage of 3dfx technology than 100MHz slower counterpart, without the MMX support.

Alrighty then guys, I will keep you posted. This will require some modifications to the previously-assembled Pentium 133 rig (see below), but overall speaking it shouldn't be too difficult. Basically, I will swap the two cards from P133 into P233, and replace Matrox with Rage IIc, for the system in the picture below. As for the other & upcoming rig, the main objective will be to assemble this new P233 from scratch. I'm still waiting for the case & PSU, but other than that it will be a full rebuild, starting fresh from top to bottom

 

[biffzinker]

SCSI Ultra2 card?

 

[Trekkie4]

As a matter of fact - yes, it is. But only used for SCSI CD-RW drive

It originally had a different SCSI controller for the CD-RW drive (Kouwell KW-801), but it was causing all sorts of issues. The biggest one of all not being able to boot from CD drive in DOS, which was a real PITA because I had to temporarily hook up another CD-ROM drive, just to boot up Win95.

 

[lexluthermiester]

Thank you, but I read that they were not designed for continuous reading and writing (like a hard drive), or that they failed soon and I should review that, but I still like the idea, I saw it on the Phil's Computer Lab channel

Phil's done it, but Clint over on LGR uses them quite often and I'm sure he would chime in if there was a problem with them. CompactFlash was designed for high end camera's and thus is designed for repeated write/erase cycling. As long as you get one of decent quality you'll be fine for years to come. I've actually installed a few of these myself and they're very easy to use. Below are examples very similar to the ones I've used;

Compact Flash CF to 3.5 Female 40 Pin IDE Bootable Adapter Converter Card | eBay

1 Compact Flash CF to 3.5 Female 40 Pin IDE Bootable Adapter. Bootable from CF. Support CF-!, also support IBM micro-driver with CF- ! IDE: 40 pin female. This adapter does NOT support hot insertion of CF cards.

www.ebay.com

Monoprice IDE to Compact Flash CF Adapter w/PCI Bracket | eBay

Find many great new & used options and get the best deals for Monoprice IDE to Compact Flash CF Adapter w/PCI Bracket at the best online prices at eBay! Free shipping for many products!

www.ebay.com

And then there's cards which are also very reasonably priced;

GENUINE MONSTER DIGITAL FLASH MEMORY 32GB CARD 500X PROFESSIONAL QUALITY SEALED | eBay

FOR SALE IS A GENUINE MONSTER DIGITAL 500X 32GB COMPACT FLASH ITS A PROFESSIONAL QUALITY.

www.ebay.com

SanDisk 64GB Extreme Compact Flash Memory Card #SDCFXS-064G-A46 | eBay

Why settle for less when you can have the best?. With its impressive shot speed of up to 85MB/s, you can capture fast action shots without missing a beat. The card records photos almost instantly, ensuring you'l catch your best shot.

www.ebay.com

New Lexar 16/32/64/128GB 1066X Compact Flash CF Memory Card UDMA7 For Camera | eBay

Find many great new & used options and get the best deals for New Lexar 16/32/64/128GB 1066X Compact Flash CF Memory Card UDMA7 For Camera at the best online prices at eBay! Free shipping for many products!

www.ebay.com

The Monster Digital is a solid brand that I've used with no failures. The Sandisk cards are very good as well but the Lexar is the ultimate in reliability and speed. Very worth the premium price.
Those classic old systems will never run better than with with what is effectively IDE SSD's

Thanks for the input! So, we got two votes for 3dfx with Mystique/Millennium II (and Rage IIc going solo) except @biffzinker thinks it would be more chronologically appropriate with P133, where on the other hand you suggested P233MMX

Thing is, I already have couple of 233 MMX rigs, all with 3dfx Voodoo cards. But yes, I see your point - the MMX hardware is more likely to take full advantage of 3dfx technology than 100MHz slower counterpart, without the MMX support.

Alrighty then guys, I will keep you posted. This will require some modifications to the previously-assembled Pentium 133 rig (see below), but overall speaking it shouldn't be too difficult. Basically, I will swap the two cards from P133 into P233, and replace Matrox with Rage IIc, for the system in the picture below. As for the other & upcoming rig, the main objective will be to assemble this new P233 from scratch. I'm still waiting for the case & PSU, but other than that it will be a full rebuild, starting fresh from top to bottom

Here's my 2cents;
I would pair the Voodoo with the 233MMX & the ATI Rage2c and here is my reasoning;
1. The Matrox drivers didn't always play nice with the 3DFX drivers in games and even some desktop situations.
2. The ATI and Voodoo complement each other better in the onboard ram area.
3. The P133 would be better served by the Matrox card and it's 4MB as long as you pair them with a motherboard with at least 256KB of L2 cache(but 512KB is highly recommended if you have it).

 

[Trekkie4]

Here's my 2cents;
I would pair the Voodoo with the 233MMX & the ATI Rage2c and here is my reasoning;
1. The Matrox drivers didn't always play nice with the 3DFX drivers in games and even some desktop situations.
2. The ATI and Voodoo complement each other better in the onboard ram area.
3. The P133 would be better served by the Matrox card and it's 4MB as long as you pair them with a motherboard with at least 256KB of L2 cache(but 512KB is highly recommended if you have it).

Thank you! Yes, that is exactly the same thinking & reasoning as my own, because I honestly don't think Rage IIc would be able to handle "3D" with only just 2MB of VRAM.

Neither of these cards are great choice for games, I'm perfectly aware of that but since I only have one 3dfx & these two PCI cards available, it'll have to be...

 

[deflipe]

Phil's done it, but Clint over on LGR uses them quite often and I'm sure he would chime in if there was a problem with them. CompactFlash was designed for high end camera's and thus is designed for repeated write/erase cycling. As long as you get one of decent quality you'll be fine for years to come. I've actually installed a few of these myself and they're very easy to use. Below are examples very similar to the ones I've used;

Compact Flash CF to 3.5 Female 40 Pin IDE Bootable Adapter Converter Card | eBay

1 Compact Flash CF to 3.5 Female 40 Pin IDE Bootable Adapter. Bootable from CF. Support CF-!, also support IBM micro-driver with CF- ! IDE: 40 pin female. This adapter does NOT support hot insertion of CF cards.

www.ebay.com

Monoprice IDE to Compact Flash CF Adapter w/PCI Bracket | eBay

Find many great new & used options and get the best deals for Monoprice IDE to Compact Flash CF Adapter w/PCI Bracket at the best online prices at eBay! Free shipping for many products!

www.ebay.com

And then there's cards which are also very reasonably priced;

GENUINE MONSTER DIGITAL FLASH MEMORY 32GB CARD 500X PROFESSIONAL QUALITY SEALED | eBay

FOR SALE IS A GENUINE MONSTER DIGITAL 500X 32GB COMPACT FLASH ITS A PROFESSIONAL QUALITY.

www.ebay.com

SanDisk 64GB Extreme Compact Flash Memory Card #SDCFXS-064G-A46 | eBay

Why settle for less when you can have the best?. With its impressive shot speed of up to 85MB/s, you can capture fast action shots without missing a beat. The card records photos almost instantly, ensuring you'l catch your best shot.

www.ebay.com

New Lexar 16/32/64/128GB 1066X Compact Flash CF Memory Card UDMA7 For Camera | eBay

Find many great new & used options and get the best deals for New Lexar 16/32/64/128GB 1066X Compact Flash CF Memory Card UDMA7 For Camera at the best online prices at eBay! Free shipping for many products!

www.ebay.com

The Monster Digital is a solid brand that I've used with no failures. The Sandisk cards are very good as well but the Lexar is the ultimate in reliability and speed. Very worth the premium price.
Those classic old systems will never run better than with with what is effectively IDE SSD's


Here's my 2cents;
I would pair the Voodoo with the 233MMX & the ATI Rage2c and here is my reasoning;
1. The Matrox drivers didn't always play nice with the 3DFX drivers in games and even some desktop situations.
2. The ATI and Voodoo complement each other better in the onboard ram area.
3. The P133 would be better served by the Matrox card and it's 4MB as long as you pair them with a motherboard with at least 256KB of L2 cache(but 512KB is highly recommended if you have it).

Thank you, I will buy the Monster and the monoprice adapter to test how it works

 

[SniperHF]

One of my old Franken-machines in the closet:
Athlon XP 2000+
Asus A7S333
Radeon 9200se (used to have a 9800se but that stopped working)
2xWD IDE drives
512mb DDR (pretty sure it's 333 but it has an aftermarket heat spreader and I forgot to check it in Aida)
Triple boot 98se,Windows 2000 (An elegant OS from a more civilized age), Mandriva
Airlink 802.11g PCI card (this was always kind of a POS)
Linksys LNE100TX PCI
Some random white case I bought at Fry's Electronics.
A "Maxpower" PSU of some sort.
And a bit of dust.

Was all working when I put it away, seems fine except for the win2k install won't boot even in safe mode.
It's even pretty snappy at the desktop in Mandriva.

Spoiler: More

 

[Trekkie4]

What's with all the unplugged front panel connectors? It also seems you're missing essential part of every vintage system, a 3.5" floppy drive

 

[SniperHF]

What's with all the unplugged front panel connectors? It also seems you're missing essential part of every vintage system, a 3.5" floppy drive

I only have one good 3.5 floppy drive between my 5 retro systems so I keep it separate in the event I need it for something rather than have to yank it out.

No idea why I left the other connections unplugged. When I built this one ~5 years ago I was just grabbing parts that would work together and slapping them in something rather than leave them in anti static bags.

The CPU/board came from a system I built for a family friend that gave it back to me when he upgraded it.
The case was my brothers, then my mom's for around a decade.
The 9200se was purchased to upgrade my brother's 7000 LE that ran KOTOR at slideshow levels.
The hard drives were my daily drivers at one point as were the NICs.
The RAM was the first RAM I purchased with my own money.

Most of my old stuff is built out of my old parts rather than trying to outright build a retro box.

 

[GreiverBlade]

each time i see VU Meter ... i have a kick back to the mid to late 90s ...

Deja VU .... Kilometer Per Hour ...

 

[HUSKIE]

Bought whilst on holiday back home. Loads of cheap pc hardware here.

Motherboard, c2d E7500, 2gb team elite ram

 

[SniperHF]

Speaking of meters.

Bought this used for $5 at a DeVry garage sale many years ago:

Works great.

 

[Dinnercore]

I don´t know if this is the right place to ask about specific hardware problems for older stuff, but I have an Asus Rampage Formula that acts a little funny.

I used it in a build for Win XP and every time it posts the board reports an error: South Bridge overheat warning!
Now that must be an issue with reading the sensor, because when I check in bios and later in OS via HWmonitor the SB-temp never exceeds 45°C. It starts at around 30°C, and climbs to 40°C then settles there. I can not see any overheat issues.
I had some crashes and bluescreens with XP but I think they are unrelated, because I got them fixed after finding all the drivers for my chipset, soundcard etc..

Is there a way to skip this message? Because it stops the POST every single time.

 

[btarunr]

The first rig I put together on my own dime had an Athlon XP 2600+ and a crappy ECS motherboard with NVIDIA nForce 2 chipset. At least it had dual-channel memory, which was new to AMD at the time.

 

[GreiverBlade]

I don´t know if this is the right place to ask about specific hardware problems for older stuff, but I have an Asus Rampage Formula that acts a little funny.

I used it in a build for Win XP and every time it posts the board reports an error: South Bridge overheat warning!
Now that must be an issue with reading the sensor, because when I check in bios and later in OS via HWmonitor the SB-temp never exceeds 45°C. It starts at around 30°C, and climbs to 40°C then settles there. I can not see any overheat issues.
I had some crashes and bluescreens with XP but I think they are unrelated, because I got them fixed after finding all the drivers for my chipset, soundcard etc..

Is there a way to skip this message? Because it stops the POST every single time.

seems awfully similar to "CPU fan error Press F1 to continue"

i spent a long time pressing F1 ... for the CPU fan error ... never found how to bypass an error like that

 

[Trekkie4]

seems awfully similar to "CPU fan error Press F1 to continue"

i spent a long time pressing F1 ... for the CPU fan error ... never found how to bypass an error like that

What about disabling CPU fan speed monitoring, under "Power" options, in BIOS? I've had several situations like that, where the CPU fan was rotating too slow for sensor to be registered & kept throwing errors. The only way around it was to disable the fan monitoring in BIOS.