TPU's Nostalgic Hardware Club

[TASOS]

Here's my newly aquired "WTF is it" chip.
View attachment 332264

Hi buddy

Interesting chip.
What's the story behind it ?

Have you tested it yet ? ... what core stepping cpuz reports ?
Does that small QR code give any useful info ?

A thousand bucks just sitting in a drawer.
Take advantage of the inflated pricing.

Hi Scotty

We have many piles of hardware just sitting in drawers ... rare pieces nowadays.
But what if ? ... you change your mind afterwards.
Many of these are almost impossible to replace.

 

[lexluthermiester]

Aside from it being a Dell.

Not a fan? I like Dell for the most part. At least the ones that are standards compliant.

 

[Bones]

Hi buddy

Hey Tasos!

Interesting chip.
What's the story behind it ?

Have you tested it yet ? ... what core stepping cpuz reports ?
Does that small QR code give any useful info ?

It's simply a chip that was in a system someone was tossing and I caught it before it hit the scrapper.
I know it's showing up as a 3.2 GHz Prescott, not sure of much beyond that ATM.

Haven't had it in CPU-Z yet but no problem to do a little later and see what stepping it reports.

Not a fan? I like Dell for the most part. At least the ones that are standards compliant.

I HATE "Proprietary" stuff and especially for stuff like this.
I know there are some that's more generic but this is clearly one I'm not a real fan of because of that.
However, this one works and seems OK after the repair I had to do for making it work again.

I'm thinking about letting it be a "Retro-Machine" for my games anyway since I really don't have any PC games newer than from around 2010 anyway and if I do, I'm not aware of it (Yet).

 

[Mr.Scott]

Hi Scotty

We have many piles of hardware just sitting in drawers ... rare pieces nowadays.
But what if ? ... you change your mind afterwards.
Many of these are almost impossible to replace.

I know.
But for what I do, I'd probably almost never run them again.
Might as well let somebody else enjoy them as I did.
I still have plenty of rare stuff.

 

[lexluthermiester]

I'd probably almost never run them again.

Same here. Granted my collection wasn't nearly as impressive as yours but yeah, same reasons.

 

[masterdeejay]

It needs a little repair.
Quado 900XGL (Geforce4 Ti4600)

 

[Greenslade]

I just received a SD card in this box. total over kill I know Amazon use to do the same thing, but this was eBaySurely it is common sence to have put it in a Jiffy bagLet alone all that cardboard waste

 

[kilo]

I just received a SD card in this box. total over kill I know Amazon use to do the same thing, but this was eBaySurely it is common sence to have put it in a Jiffy bagLet alone all that cardboard waste

The sender is recycling the box by giving it the most uses before throwing it away. It's also easier to compost cardboard (non glossy, plain brown) than a plastic bag.

 

[Greenslade]

The sender is recycling the box by giving it the most uses before throwing it away. It's also easier to compost cardboard (non glossy, plain brown) than a plastic bag.

I have no use for it, i am throwing it out.I have loads of box,s here.

 

[masterdeejay]

Quadro 900XGL, Fx5500, fx5600

Yes the Fx5600 is BIG. Can't fit in my ATX case.



For reference my smalest pcie card (Xgi
Volari z11)


Tested, works but psu is on the limits (delta 350w)


Single molex can handle it


Update! Now it fits, i just needed to remove the HDD holder.

 

[Greenslade]

Any one had one of these? Or still has one?

 

[TASOS]

Much too early for me (that pc era).

My first contact with pc world , was at early to mid 80's
At that point we had Commodore64 and ZX Spectrum (both had the system with the cassette tape ... if anyone remembers)
After that followed the Amstrad 6128 with the floppy disk drive

Then followed the pc as we currently know it (for me in the form of Intel i386)


Wow , what a flashback

 

[Courier 6]

I just received a SD card in this box. total over kill I know Amazon use to do the same thing, but this was eBaySurely it is common sence to have put it in a Jiffy bagLet alone all that cardboard waste

ah, but I know somebody that would love that box with that paper inside! he is black and does Meowww LOL, that would be flying LOL

 

[wolf]

It is with great pleasure I can announce the arrival of the final piece of the puzzle in my retro build. An exact PCIE counterpart to the AGP unit I bought new in the day, and still own.

The BFG 6800 Ultra overclocked. The showdown and endless hours of testing and gaming comparing this to the X850XT will be epic.

And what a coincidence, a brand new old stock Arctic Accelero X1 to suit, it's way chonkier than I expected.

 

[TASOS]

I am sure you will enjoy to the max your new (hard to find) vga and even more the battle with the X850XT.
It needs a good cleaning and re-paste at the moment.

I am sure that the X1 was not a coincidence
Although it wont make a big difference.

The X1 was a good choice for those updating their cooling of 6800 plain vanilla models or even 6800GT's
But the Ultra's had a better heatsink from the factory ... it will be close.

Have fun with it !!!

 

[wolf]

@TASOS the X850XT has already had that clean since receiving it, but it doesn't need new paste, I suspect it was opened and repasted earlier, and it seems they did a decent job, the memory pads are all in good shape from an external look and temps are very much as expected.

I don't expect any miracles from the X1, just a few degrees and decibels less, but not before I test the hec out of the card in stock form of course.

This has been easily as rewarding, if not more, than any solo modern gaming I've done over the past year (I say solo because gaming with my son is a primary source of the joy of gaming for me), and the reward of setting up a totally standalone retro gaming box that has the potential to last the rest of my lifetime and beyond is a massive reward unto itself, as you can imagine.

Not to mention my thirst for overclocking, benchmarking and modding, half the cards I've used lately have had cooler swaps and been overclocked to the brink of stability and benchmarked, it's how I've always rolled and I don't intend to stop anytime soon!

 

[TASOS]

@TASOS the X850XT has already had that clean since receiving it, but it doesn't need new paste, I suspect it was opened and repasted earlier, and it seems they did a decent job, the memory pads are all in good shape from an external look and temps are very much as expected.

I don't expect any miracles from the X1, just a few degrees and decibels less, but not before I test the hec out of the card in stock form of course.

This has been easily as rewarding, if not more, than any solo modern gaming I've done over the past year (I say solo because gaming with my son is a primary source of the joy of gaming for me), and the reward of setting up a totally standalone retro gaming box that has the potential to last the rest of my lifetime and beyond is a massive reward unto itself, as you can imagine.

Not to mention my thirst for overclocking, benchmarking and modding, half the cards I've used lately have had cooler swaps and been overclocked to the brink of stability and benchmarked, it's how I've always rolled and I don't intend to stop anytime soon!

Well , since you are deep into o/c world ...
You know that this "poor" 6800 Ultra , wont be able to keep up with the "beast" X850XT

Better find an X800XT for that dogfight

 

[Canned Noodles]

Any one had one of these? Or still has one?

my dad told me that he and his friends used to call them the "trash-80s" I think because they were low-quality or something like that

 

[Bones]

my dad told me that he and his friends used to call them the "trash-80s" I think because they were low-quality or something like that

Nah - They worked fine , it's was more of a nick-name than anything else.

I still remember "Poke", "Peek" and other commands in BASIC with these.

 

[Trekkie4]

It's been a while since I posted anything nostalgic-related in here. Mainly because I had to move on from old tech due to financial reasons, not to mention the fact that I sold most of my Voodoo & Tualatin collection keeping only the most essential & nostalgic pieces for myself. Such as those "Adison" systems I talked about, consisted of Chaintech Slot 1 motherboards & couple of Voodoo2 cards in SLI configuration. But those had been previously documented in here so I better not go into details ... instead, I'm going to talk about something entirely different.

I live in an old apartment building, which was built around early 60s. And so (as you can probably imagine) it witnessed a lot of changes, upgrades & makeovers over the course of time, but the public (stairwell) lighting fixtures remained the same ... until now. We are undergoing a complete makeover & slight modernization, which (among other things) include a whole new LED lighting fixtures with motion detection & CCTV cameras. Meaning that all the original stuff is getting binned & thrown away into the nearby dumpster. I suppose most people would argue & say that we are going for the better, but these things are approx. 60 years old now, and quite literally part of the history. So I'm kinda sad to see them gone & replaced with something as cheap & generic that's probably (most likely) NOT going to last 10 years, let alone 60 years like the original ones did.

Mind you, these fixtures are not unique, and they had been heavily used throughout most ... if not all public (and private) buildings, especially in central & eastern Europe. In fact, you can still find plenty of these today but they /are/ fading away, day after day as more & more people are replacing them for modern & fancy looking fixtures. In either case, they bring back a LOT of bitter-sweet memories of happy moments which are now long gone but never forgotten. So I took the moment to uhh ... "borrow" some of these globes while I still had the chance & converted one of them to stand alone, "ambient-lighting" (aka decoration) lamps. Finding a brand new plastic base was a challenging task, I will tell you that much but not impossible one ... not yet, at least. That being said, I've been told by several dealers & electric stores how they no longer keep these things in stock, and probably never again will, since they are no longer in production & no one really bothers to buy them. So in other words, "grab it while you can & don't look back". These are only the plastic fixtures (with the bulb socket) I was referring to, as the actual glass globe are quite literally unobtainable unless you find someone willing to sell them online or perhaps grab couple of them from an old building such as mine.


For the time being there is a so called "disco" lamp inside it, although I'm planning and hoping to upgrade it to a full RGB bulb eventually & have it continuously change the colors. Lamp socket is pretty standard, E27 that's available just about anywhere, and it was designed to handle up to 60W incandescent lamp inside it. Meaning that you can probably put 9W (or higher) LED bulb inside it, IF you ever need to. For me at least, it is all about preserving a memory & having (somewhat) interesting conversation piece, as I'm already using LED desk lamps & spotlights for the actual light source.

 

[Veseleil]

It's been a while since I posted anything nostalgic-related in here. Mainly because I had to move on from old tech due to financial reasons, not to mention the fact that I sold most of my Voodoo & Tualatin collection keeping only the most essential & nostalgic pieces for myself. Such as those "Adison" systems I talked about, consisted of Chaintech Slot 1 motherboards & couple of Voodoo2 cards in SLI configuration. But those had been previously documented in here so I better not go into details ... instead, I'm going to talk about something entirely different.

I live in an old apartment building, which was built around early 60s. And so (as you can probably imagine) it witnessed a lot of changes, upgrades & makeovers over the course of time, but the public (stairwell) lighting fixtures remained the same ... until now. We are undergoing a complete makeover & slight modernization, which (among other things) include a whole new LED lighting fixtures with motion detection & CCTV cameras. Meaning that all the original stuff is getting binned & thrown away into the nearby dumpster. I suppose most people would argue & say that we are going for the better, but these things are approx. 60 years old now, and quite literally part of the history. So I'm kinda sad to see them gone & replaced with something as cheap & generic that's probably (most likely) NOT going to last 10 years, let alone 60 years like the original ones did.

Mind you, these fixtures are not unique, and they had been heavily used throughout most ... if not all public (and private) buildings, especially in central & eastern Europe. In fact, you can still find plenty of these today but they /are/ fading away, day after day as more & more people are replacing them for modern & fancy looking fixtures. In either case, they bring back a LOT of bitter-sweet memories of happy moments which are now long gone but never forgotten. So I took the moment to uhh ... "borrow" some of these globes while I still had the chance & converted one of them to stand alone, "ambient-lighting" (aka decoration) lamps. Finding a brand new plastic base was a challenging task, I will tell you that much but not impossible one ... not yet, at least. That being said, I've been told by several dealers & electric stores how they no longer keep these things in stock, and probably never again will, since they are no longer in production & no one really bothers to buy them. So in other words, "grab it while you can & don't look back". These are only the plastic fixtures (with the bulb socket) I was referring to, as the actual glass globe are quite literally unobtainable unless you find someone willing to sell them online or perhaps grab couple of them from an old building such as mine.


For the time being there is a so called "disco" lamp inside it, although I'm planning and hoping to upgrade it to a full RGB bulb eventually & have it continuously change the colors. Lamp socket is pretty standard, E27 that's available just about anywhere, and it was designed to handle up to 60W incandescent lamp inside it. Meaning that you can probably put 9W (or higher) LED bulb inside it, IF you ever need to. For me at least, it is all about preserving a memory & having (somewhat) interesting conversation piece, as I'm already using LED desk lamps & spotlights for the actual light source.

Old is gold, becoming more obvious each day. Nowadays if you want something of quality and you're not ready to search, read and spend a lot of money and time eventually, you got to make it yourself. I'm making my own furniture and modifying stock one for example. Another example is that a lot of people in Germany invest in real estates and oldtimers (cars) especially.

Edit: And I could agree that we should preserve as much fine old hardware pieces as we can, as the world is going in the opposite direction.

 

[Audioave10]

Old Dells and more...

 

[Trekkie4]

Old is gold, becoming more obvious each day. Nowadays if you want something of quality and you're not ready to search, read and spend a lot of money and time eventually, you got to make it yourself. I'm making my own furniture and modifying stock one for example. Another example is that a lot of people in Germany invest in real estates and oldtimers (cars) especially.

Edit: And I could agree that we should preserve as much fine old hardware pieces as we can, as the world is going in the opposite direction.

Right?! These things are solid and heavy. The actual shade (globe) is entirely made out of thick glass, while the original fixture (base) was made from either porcelain OR bakelite ... depending on who (and when) it was manufactured. Modern fixtures however are made entirely out of cheap plastic, but at least they kept porcelain lamp socket, probably to handle the amount of heat from 60W lamp. On the other hand, these modern fixtures with motion detection & LED modules are made entirely of cheap & flimsy plastic, which you could probably poke (and punch) it with the pen or even a toothpick. Not that I'm going to do such thing of course, just pointing it out.

And yes, I absolutely agree. I did my best to save as much as I could. Just like I expected, these things ended up inside the box, but at least they were kind enough to keep them indoors, under the stairs & in public place, in case someone ever needs or wants to grab one. No one did, however they DID remove the old LED bulbs from the sockets, which (in my opinion) is quite sad & ironic. I even took one of the original bakelite fixtures, so I might even take a picture eventually & post it in here. Nostalgic "hardware" at its best ... right?!

 

[Ruru]

It is with great pleasure I can announce the arrival of the final piece of the puzzle in my retro build. An exact PCIE counterpart to the AGP unit I bought new in the day, and still own.

The BFG 6800 Ultra overclocked. The showdown and endless hours of testing and gaming comparing this to the X850XT will be epic.

View attachment 334875

And what a coincidence, a brand new old stock Arctic Accelero X1 to suit, it's way chonkier than I expected.

View attachment 334876
View attachment 334877

Sucks that I have only a X800 Pro, so comparing that to my 6800U is a little unfair. And it's not a VIVO model so not flashable to XTPE.

 

[wolf]

Well , since you are deep into o/c world ...
You know that this "poor" 6800 Ultra , wont be able to keep up with the "beast" X850XT

Better find an X800XT for that dogfight

It's already evident that the X850XT is the faster card, up until it isn't because it doesn't support the full dx 9.0c feature set, still a lot of benching and comparing to do before I make the judgement of what matters more to me and this particular box and set of games installed.

Sucks that I have only a X800 Pro, so comparing that to my 6800U is a little unfair. And it's not a VIVO model so not flashable to XTPE.

To be fair, I'd wager the pro could likely go head to head with a 6800U, depending on the clocks of either...

I the long run if I decide to stick with the X850XT in the retro box, I'll want an aftermarket cooler for sure, this one's already a hair-dryer at 50% fan speed...

Or I can go for a faster card and do something fun like put the 6800U and X850XT in a box on the wall with glass and a sign "break in case of a 2004 gaming emergency" or the like