Wanting to build a windows 98 machine, equivalent to the ones LGR builds

[Yogi_DaBear221]

So I'm wanting to build a retro machine, kind of like what Lazy Game Reviews has with the Lazy Green Machine and the Megalinium Monster, but I'm not sure where to properly start, like I have a few clues as to good older hardware like the Voodoo cards that seem to be pretty good and hold up well in the modern day, but what are some other good brands and things I will absolutely need? I'd also love it if I didn't have to like buy a new monitor to go along with said machine. 

 

I'm just in the pre-planning stages so budget is questionable at the moment.

 

Also What are some thing to be aware of or avoid?

 

Should Probably Give More Detail about what I'm hoping to run and play on it:

So I'm looking to play games on the spectrum from Commander Keen to POD(I think that's what it's called) to the original NFS games and maybe if possible the old Hot Wheels FMV type games. 

I'm looking to have a Disc Drive, a 3.5in Floppy Drive, a 5.25 Floppy Drive, I'd also like a halfway decent sound card if someone can recommend one.

[aisle9]

TBQH, my first stop would be a yard sale or flea market. LGR puts incredible period builds together, but it would cost a lot less to go to a yard sale and offer someone $5 for one, assuming you're allowed to plug it in, turn it on and hear it POST beep (they all beeped back then). Clean that up and use it as your base, then fill in the gaps from there. A Pentium II or III, even some Celerons would make a hell of a Windows 98 machine. Thrift shops work too, but those tend to way overprice old computers because, to them, a computer is a computer is a computer, and everything is worth $50.

 

The biggest thing to make sure of is that if it's a slot CPU, the cooler fans actually spin when powered on. That's bitten me in the ass before. One that's more obvious but easily overlooked is the motherboard. Look for swollen or leaking caps, and if you see any, hard pass. Those old boards have become very temperamental with age, and even thought a cap can be desoldered and replaced, whatever damage it might have already done to the mobo can't be repaired. Also, assume the PSU is a time bomb if it even works. If it doesn't, ask if you can just have the system, because the power supply is going to cost you way more than the system's worth, but you still really want to put a vintage PC together and it's worth it to you. They might say yes.

 

It'll take you a while that way, but IMO it's much more rewarding to go on a shoestring budget and wing it than it is to overpay for individual components on eBay.

[Mira Yurizaki]

I did a Windows 98 build back in late 2018. Sourcing the parts wasn't that hard as eBay has a ton of them. The problem can be however sourcing something specific or hoping you get something that doesn't have bulging caps. 

 

Another issue is the price for certain parts. If you're trying to get something rare (like an Aureal card) or somewhat iconic (Voodoo's or the first GeForce) expect to pay a lot more for it. 

 

I ended up getting a Pentium 3 with a decent ASUS motherboard and a SoundBlaster Live. I did start off with a GeForce 2 MX400, but decided to get a Radeon 7500. All in it was around $300. And this included a questionable motherboard (just have to replace the caps) and a bid on a faster Pentium 3 that I won,but the seller never delivered (it was like $10 so I don't feel like it's worth going after them)

 

EDIT: I also wanted to add that Phil's Computer Lab has a nice archive of drivers. And while I've seen unofficial Windows 98 service packs, my experience has led me to believe that they may cause issues.

 

Or it could just be Windows 98 being Windows 98. It's a finicky OS.

Edited January 7, 2020 by Mira Yurizaki

[Yogi_DaBear221]

25 minutes ago, aisle9 said:

A Pentium II or III, even some Celerons

I'll be honest I'm a little dumb when it comes to older CPUs, which would be the best between the Pentium and a Celeron?

[Mira Yurizaki]

3 minutes ago, Yogi_DaBear221 said:

I'll be honest I'm a little dumb when it comes to older CPUs, which would be the best between the Pentium and a Celeron?

Pentium 3's are better for performance, but Celerons can make up the difference if you can overclock it. Especially the earlier ones (but not the first gen one).

[Yogi_DaBear221]

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Intel-Pentium-III-BX80526U667256ESL3ND-SL3ND-667-133-1-65V-CPU-NEW/153333427087?hash=item23b3626b8f:g:gqoAAOSwTSlcNV3u

 

So would this be overpaying for a Pentium III if that is the route I decide to take? 

[manikyath]

my windows 98 build is a 120MHz pentium, originally had 32MB RAM but i upgraded it with some ram sticks i harvested elsewhere, they're 256MB sticks, but the mobo only sees 32MB of that, totalling 64MB.

 

past that it's an s3 virge and a sound blaster live, slammed together in a pretty horrible case.

 

all in all, it doesnt matter all that much what exactly you get as long as it meets requirements of the software you want to run. flea markets and attics may be a good place to start your build.

 

one thing i DO STRONGLY recommend is getting an IDE to compactflash adapter, and a compactflash card around 1-8GB to use as your storage. this way you can easily load new software on the system, and you dont have to rely on ancient hard drives.

 

also, before you power things up, you may want to disassemble your power supply to make sure it's not hiding nasty secrets.

[Beerzerker]

During that period The Pentiums of the P2 and 3 era were behind AMD's Socket A, that was AMD's "Golden Age" and you can still find these chips today for a reasonable price if you know where to look.
Voodoo GPU's in any form now are expensive (Collector's items) but you may get lucky and find one anyway.

Boards of that era  - The easiest to find boards that platform are the Abit models, namely the NF7/NF7-S and the AN7.

[manikyath]

Just now, Yogi_DaBear221 said:

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Intel-Pentium-III-BX80526U667256ESL3ND-SL3ND-667-133-1-65V-CPU-NEW/153333427087?hash=item23b3626b8f:g:gqoAAOSwTSlcNV3u

 

So would this be overpaying for a Pentium III if that is the route I decide to take? 

i'd say search for a full system, they're hard to find but defenately out there. its a matter of having a base to start off from, even if you end up swapping half of the components, starting off with something that (mostly) works is a HUGE help.

[Beerzerker]

That's way too much for that chip.
I can find Barton core chips for way less that perform much better.

 

[Yogi_DaBear221]

So I'm definitely gonna start with like yard sales and garage sales and looking around locally, granted my area of the US is hit or miss with that kind of thing, would something like this Optiplex be ideal?
 

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Vintage-Dell-Optiplex-GX110-Mini-Tower-Pentium-III-Computer/383349590650?_trkparms=aid%3D555018%26algo%3DPL.SIM%26ao%3D1%26asc%3D60695%26meid%3D52bfbd8e747d467abe8201dd023a0b2d%26pid%3D100005%26rk%3D1%26rkt%3D12%26mehot%3Dpf%26sd%3D184077459531%26itm%3D383349590650%26pmt%3D1%26noa%3D0%26pg%3D2047675&_trksid=p2047675.c100005.m1851

[EarthWormJM2]

I'd say look online for some local trade shows or swap meets, especially if any specialize in retro tech. Usually a good place to start for cheap, and can get some good information out of those people. Then maybe look further on ebay and craigslist to see whats out there. The first computer I built was a win 95/98 pc with an AMD slot CPU (I think a k6-2 400 or 450 or something), a Creative Sound Blaster Live! card, 64MBof RAM, and a 4GB HDD. Not sure which Graphics card I had, I wanna say an old ATI Rage 128 or something. That all worked for me back in the day, who knows about 20+ years later. lol.

[Beerzerker]

Those were typical of that era, if you're lucky you could find the fastest AGP card ever made, namely the ATI HD3870 AGP card but know that one is hard to find and expensive too.

 

I kinda flubbed, yes slot CPUs were around too and aren't too hard to come by, the boards are a different story but something useful is out there. Just a matter of finding it.

 

[Mira Yurizaki]

On a side note about some components:

• I found someone selling new old stock IDE drives on eBay. The one I picked up seemed to be working fine.
• If the motherboard is standard ATX, which should've been most from around the Pentium 2 era, use a modern power supply, unless you're really trying to make it as "period correct" as possible. Though if you get stuck with a system builder board like something from Dell, you're SOL

[Kalm_Traveler]

Vogons.org is a great place for information, but as everyone else has said ebay is the easiest place to source old parts. 

 

I have two motherboards, 5 Pentium 3s, a bunch of SDRAM, etc now.. It can become addicting. 

 

Also, remember what your goal is. Do you want to recreate a past experience, or are you just wanting to run old software / games on hardware it was designed for? 

 

My main keeper parts are a dual socket 1.4ghz Pentium 3, 2gb pc133 SDRAM, 250gb sata ssd, Quadro 4000, Aureal Vortex 2 sound card, sata card, IDE DVD-rw drive, USB 2.0 card, USB 3.0 card in a modern Thermaltake Suppressor case. Still modding an old Enermax PSU to put the guts into a modular Corsair PSU case. 

[aisle9]

17 hours ago, Yogi_DaBear221 said:

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Intel-Pentium-III-BX80526U667256ESL3ND-SL3ND-667-133-1-65V-CPU-NEW/153333427087?hash=item23b3626b8f:g:gqoAAOSwTSlcNV3u

 

So would this be overpaying for a Pentium III if that is the route I decide to take? 

Yes, extremely. You can find entire Pentium III systems for $5 or less. You're not looking for collector's items, which is what that P3 is. You're looking for functional ones. New-in-box is a detriment to you.

 

17 hours ago, Yogi_DaBear221 said:

So I'm definitely gonna start with like yard sales and garage sales and looking around locally, granted my area of the US is hit or miss with that kind of thing, would something like this Optiplex be ideal?
 

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Vintage-Dell-Optiplex-GX110-Mini-Tower-Pentium-III-Computer/383349590650?_trkparms=aid%3D555018%26algo%3DPL.SIM%26ao%3D1%26asc%3D60695%26meid%3D52bfbd8e747d467abe8201dd023a0b2d%26pid%3D100005%26rk%3D1%26rkt%3D12%26mehot%3Dpf%26sd%3D184077459531%26itm%3D383349590650%26pmt%3D1%26noa%3D0%26pg%3D2047675&_trksid=p2047675.c100005.m1851

Looks like it uses a proprietary PSU. Avoid those. If they go bang, boom, pop or silent death, replacing them will be pricey and difficult. Go for a system that has a standard ATX or, worst case, SFX PSU.