Rethilgore

So I have finally finished my retro (early to mid 2000's for me) gaming PC. I use the term finished loosely as i am still looking to swap in a better motherboard that will allow me to chance FSB and multiplier settings (current one is bios locked and i can't find a compatible bios to flash it with). 
 
This started out as me buying a shitty Compaq on eBay for about $20 with the goal just to muck around with it and i ended up going deep down the Rabbit hole and spending a whole lot more money (and a huge amount of time) on different components and learning some basic early 2000's modding (Like sleeving my own IDE cables). 
 
This turned into a pretty cool little project for me and it was great to build the computer i always dreamed of when i was a teenager
 
Specs are as follows:
 
* AMD Athlon XP 2600+ (thoroughbred Core)
* 1GB DDR 3200
* ATi Radeon 9600XT
* Creative Labs Sound Blaster X-Fi Fatal1ty Eddition (with Live Drive)
* 2x 160BGB 7200RPM HDD
* Wireless LAN
* DVDRW / 3.5" FDD
*Custom Sleeved IDE cables / Sleeved ATX Power extension
* Cooler Master Xdream III CPU Cooler
* Swanky Blue Lights
 
pic below for you to peruse
 

 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

So I have finally finished my retro (early to mid 2000's for me) gaming PC. I use the term finished loosely as i am still looking to swap in a better motherboard that will allow me to chance FSB and multiplier settings (current one is bios locked and i can't find a compatible bios to flash it with). 
 
This started out as me buying a shitty Compaq on eBay for about $20 with the goal just to muck around with it and i ended up going deep down the Rabbit hole and spending a whole lot more money (and a huge amount of time) on different components and learning some basic early 2000's modding (Like sleeving my own IDE cables). 
 
This turned into a pretty cool little project for me and it was great to build the computer i always dreamed of when i was a teenager
 
Specs are as follows:
 
* AMD Athlon XP 2600+ (thoroughbred Core)
* 1GB DDR 3200
* ATi Radeon 9600XT
* Creative Labs Sound Blaster X-Fi Fatal1ty Eddition (with Live Drive)
* 2x 160BGB 7200RPM HDD
* Wireless LAN
* DVDRW / 3.5" FDD
*Custom Sleeved IDE cables / Sleeved ATX Power extension
* Cooler Master Xdream III CPU Cooler
* Swanky Blue Lights
 
pic below for you to peruse
 

 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Yeah what i find the most interesting is that the CPU is Single Core, Single Thread, 32-Bit, No SSE2. etc etc etc. 
 
Multi core, Hyperthreading, 64-Bit architecture and new instruction sets are all things that i have come to take for granted and i forgot about them not existing haha!
 
Try finding modern software (Like Browsers) that will work on a Non SSE2 CPU the struggle is real lol!
 

Yeah, that was my main complaint about XP. I think it was like that for everything up to 7, iirc.
 
I may look into doing that just so I don't have to reinstall every month. After that, I just need a better PSU and I can throw in my ATI Radeon HD 4850 and I should be good to go.
 
I've got an Athlon 64 X2 3800+, 3GB DDR, a 120GB SATA drive, and usual motherboard/case/PSU that comes with an OEM system.

Dope build, amazing how far technology has come, 1 GB of ram and 2 160 GB HDD

There doesn't seem to be any legitimate way to activate it anymore online or over the phone (tried both). 
 
Managed to get a new factory sealed copy of XP with a genuine licence and was pretty sad to find i couldn't activate it. 
 
i resorted to ... 'less genuine' means to make this copy genuine

So I have finally finished my retro (early to mid 2000's for me) gaming PC. I use the term finished loosely as i am still looking to swap in a better motherboard that will allow me to chance FSB and multiplier settings (current one is bios locked and i can't find a compatible bios to flash it with). 
 
This started out as me buying a shitty Compaq on eBay for about $20 with the goal just to muck around with it and i ended up going deep down the Rabbit hole and spending a whole lot more money (and a huge amount of time) on different components and learning some basic early 2000's modding (Like sleeving my own IDE cables). 
 
This turned into a pretty cool little project for me and it was great to build the computer i always dreamed of when i was a teenager
 
Specs are as follows:
 
* AMD Athlon XP 2600+ (thoroughbred Core)
* 1GB DDR 3200
* ATi Radeon 9600XT
* Creative Labs Sound Blaster X-Fi Fatal1ty Eddition (with Live Drive)
* 2x 160BGB 7200RPM HDD
* Wireless LAN
* DVDRW / 3.5" FDD
*Custom Sleeved IDE cables / Sleeved ATX Power extension
* Cooler Master Xdream III CPU Cooler
* Swanky Blue Lights
 
pic below for you to peruse
 

 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

lol it will shortly be transported into a nicer build that is just waiting for a motherboard to arrive at the moment but i couldnt resist testing it out will likely be plopping a SB Live or Asus Xonar DG back in this one

Forget that, I just want to watch the 3D maze again.
 

about to start a retro early/mid 2000's XP Gaming machine build with the following 
 
300W PSU
Gigabyte GA-7VT600
AMD Athlon XP 2600+ (thoroughbred core)
1GB Geil DDR400 (2x512 kit)
2x Seagate 7200RPM 160GB HDD
AMD Radeon 9600XT (256MB)
Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Fata1ty (with live drive front pannel)
DVD RW
 
all jammed into a new case with a "fancy" window and will be doing some custom IDE sleeving and custom cooling for the GPU. also got a nice fancy Cooler master cooler for the socket A cpu (those are damn hard to find now!)
 
If anyone is interested in seeing the Final build let me know im planning to do a video

I have a terrible cheap toolbox set that ive had for like 15 years. Its never failed me and im too attached to it to get newer better tools