Show off your old and retro computer parts

[MarbleHornets]

6 minutes ago, Schnoz said:

...wait, but don't setup with RTX cards usually contain DDR3/DDR4?

I mean not really, yes it'll bottle neck the hell out of it but PCIe is supposed to be backwards compatible, but it'd depend more on the software side of things if it'd actually work like bios and drivers, but then again it was kindof the joke of it.. (r/woosh?) Also that nvidia actually branded ram as "SLI Ready" when that's not a real thing

[Redrooster]

So i was passing by my local church and i realized they were having a yard sale. There was a bunch of church things (obviously), but i realized they were also selling a computer. Come to realize that this computer was a 15 year old dell computer with xp installed. I asked the lady selling it if it had ever been opened or upgraded, and she said no. She also said that it works fine, but they upgraded to a windows 7 pc, which means they kept all the cords, except the PS2 keyboard and mouse. So I buy it off at her for $10 and I take it home. I cracked it open and oh the dust had taken over. Everything had been covered in a centimeter of dust. I didn't take a picture of the dust because my immediate reaction was to clean it, but I did take a picture of the CPU. Of course i cleaned it off using isopropyl alcohol, and I gave it the Arctic silver 5 treatment. Strangely it came with two sticks of 512 megabyte ram (DDR1) from different manufacturers at different clock speeds and timings. Sadly I don't have a VGA cord laying around, but I'm going to visit my grandma's house and see if she has one lying around. Also, I think it came with a pci card with 2 Ethernet ports installed. So that's all I got so far with this project, I'll update once more whenever I get a VGA cable.

[PlayStation 2]

Ooh, Pentium 4!

[Guest]

its certainly a dell, I remember those coolers. Really nice design. 

[Tamesh16]

10 minutes ago, handymanshandle said:

Ooh, Pentium 4!

back when intel used the old pins on cpu, i mean their new cpus are cool but those gold pins were nice tbh

i was always afraid those pins were gonna bend in that tension 

[Business Corgi]

Remember back when monitors didn't used to have motion blur or input latency? PVM remembers. Remember when 480i was all you needed and all this muck about HDR and Four-K was just a far off space opera fantasy that only existed inside the imaginations of science fiction writers? PVM remembers.

 

Look, I get it. I have a modern 4K display for my console and comfy couch PC gaming. I even have a GSync monitor because why not, I shouldn't have nice things? But I tried emulation--Lordy I tried. Maybe I've got a screw loose but it just isn't the same. I can't always place it but games running on an emulator hardly ever feel *right*. I can live with scaling and clean scan-line free pixels but I just can't bring myself to enjoy emulated games in most cases (PSX on PS Vita being a notable exception). A big part of that is latency.

 

I know I don't need to use high-end monitors such as these to get the feel of gaming on original hardware. I just need original hardware and any old CRT. But if you're going to commit to the sizable amount of space a CRT takes you might as well go bonkers and try to go for the best IQ possible. Enter the PVM. From a practical point of view I feel like these are significantly better than your average consumer end television. The boxy shape and handles (!!!) make them relatively easy to transport. I set these up a few days ago and I forgot how much I miss the hands on instant gratification of trim pots. Not having to cycle through menus is a breath of fresh air.

 

Both of these were work-horses in the medical field. The Sony is a 600TVL 19" 1953ST which was part of an endoscopy suite. PVMs that were used in hospitals are nice because they're often in good condition and weren't running 24/7 unlike those used in production/broadcast/security. The Olympus is a white-label Sony Trinitron PVM-20M2UDU that was also used as a monitor for an endoscope.

 

How do they look? Well, keep YouTube's compression in mind but...

 

 

[minibois]

35 minutes ago, Ducks_McGoo said:

-snip-

I love these old style monitors (PVM)!

They just look so good for retro gaming (I would love to get one for my 6th gen consoles, GC, Xbox, PS2). On a more modern flatpanel the games just don't look as good.

'My Life in Gaming' kind of introduced me into all that stuff, from just me looking up the best way to hook up a PS2 (I just wanted to know if component was the way to go and now I am thinking about 'sync on luma', bob-deinterlacing and all that stuff the entire time).

 

Awesome find! 

 

One question though; not sure if you notice such a thing, but when I am in a thrift store in the TV department I hear the high pitched 'beeping' from all the (CRT) TV's. Do these PVM's also have that?

Not to sound rude, but I know some people cannot hear the high pitched noise from the CRT TV's, so if you can answer the question about the PVM's, do you mind answering if you hear the CRT beeping too?

[Business Corgi]

It's been a long time since I've been around a consumer CRT. I remember a high-pitch whine from the ones I used to have years ago but these don't seem to have that. I can take a video if you'd like.

[WkdPaul]

@Ducks_McGoo

 

Thread merged

[Underfire17]

Ooo! A Dell Optiplex! I actually have one of those that I'm trying to make a twitter bot out of.

[Eragaurd]

That beauty!

[Crunchy Dragon]

15 hours ago, floofer said:

its certainly a dell, I remember those coolers. Really nice design. 

I think I found a very similar model Dell at the side of the road once.

 

That also had a P4 and I think the same motherboard, but I can't be 100% sure.

[Juniiii]

I have 4 of these dell systems, 2 of the amd versions and 2 of the intel verison, I had the funnest time cleaning out the systems and restoring them, I love retro builds, if by any chance you're throwing this out, please PM me I’d be very interested taking from your hands, it would be put in a good home

[Guest]

21 minutes ago, Crunchy Dragon said:

I think I found a very similar model Dell at the side of the road once.

 

That also had a P4 and I think the same motherboard, but I can't be 100% sure.

No, I had one. If I recall it had those grey/blue cases. I think mine had a 1.4Ghz pentium and 512mb RAM. Picked it up for 50c in 2014. Or maybe it was 3Ghz. I've still got the working CPU at home, so can let you know I guess in about 2 weeks. I was pretty impressed though, the case was very modular for its time. Screwless caddies etc. 

[Crunchy Dragon]

18 minutes ago, Juniiii said:

2 of the amd versions

What was AMD on at the time? Athlon 64 X2 and the AM2 socket?

[star_pilot475]

I had a computer not that much different from that one and was able to sell it just yesterday...

[Juniiii]

8 minutes ago, Crunchy Dragon said:

What was AMD on at the time? Athlon 64 X2 and the AM2 socket?

I’m not too sure It resembles the athlon 1400, I’d have to check when I get back home. But I can guarantee it’s not on the AM2 socket, it’s socket is maybe something along the lines of socket 4xx all I remember atm.

[NunoLava1998]

Upgrade it to the best CPU you can find, give it 4GB or 8GB of RAM, put a SSD and a low end GPU in it, and you've got yourself a good web browsing PC.

[Mira Yurizaki]

Got a Radeon 7500 for my Windows 98 PC. It's replacing the GeForce 2 MX 200 that was in it. 

[Bitter]

14 minutes ago, Mira Yurizaki said:

Got a Radeon 7500 for my Windows 98 PC. It's replacing the GeForce 2 MX 200 that was in it. 

Careful, might render too many triangles at once and crash your something or other lol I can't even. Mmmmm....S-Video output. It's got DVI though, that's way too new fangled fancy. Passive video cards are great though, just the gentle whining drone of your 80MM exhaust fan to help you focus on slaying demons in Quake.

[Mira Yurizaki]

9 minutes ago, Bitter said:

Careful, might render too many triangles at once and crash your something or other lol I can't even. Mmmmm....S-Video output. It's got DVI though, that's way too new fangled fancy. Passive video cards are great though, just the gentle whining drone of your 80MM exhaust fan to help you focus on slaying demons in Quake.

I have a PCI exhaust fan to cover airflow

[flibberdipper]

3 minutes ago, Mira Yurizaki said:

I have a PCI exhaust fan to cover airflow

I feel like my solution for the MX4000 heatsink I strapped onto my 9600 Pro to get rid of the annoying ass fan on that is better. It's certainly more amusing looking since the fan takes up nearly every bit of width of the case.

 

[RollinLower]

18 minutes ago, flibberdipper said:

I feel like my solution for the MX4000 heatsink I strapped onto my 9600 Pro to get rid of the annoying ass fan on that is better. It's certainly more amusing looking since the fan takes up nearly every bit of width of the case.

 

incoming "whoa those VRM heatsinks!" now that you posted a pic of this machine again.

[Crunchy Dragon]

3 hours ago, Juniiii said:

I’m not too sure It resembles the athlon 1400, I’d have to check when I get back home. But I can guarantee it’s not on the AM2 socket, it’s socket is maybe something along the lines of socket 4xx all I remember atm.

That makes sense. P4 launched in 2000, Athlon 64 X2 launched 2005.

 

Wow, the Pentium 4 is almost 20 years old....

[Bcat00]

Oh the nightmares of this design.

 

i use to own one similar and the racket and noise from those fans, my god its worse then a vacuum cleaner at full throttle