I was too poor to afford this

[David S_rpr1z3 Gauthier]

Sometimes PC DREAMS DO become reality! We’ve assembled high-end gaming parts of years past to build our top tier fantasy retro desktop rig. But there are a more than a few hiccups, and maybe our Dreams will transform into nightmares. Y2K more like WHY-2K? Either way, the 2001 Dream Machine from Maximum PC is here.

 

 

[darknessblade]

What is the funniest thing about that case is that you can use it for a sleeper and use usb 3.0 trough panel connectors.

since the case looks to be using generic back-panel usb ports for the front IO

[emosun]

That case isn't worth 1000$. Idk who the hell determined it was 1000$ or rare. There's literally one on ebay with a computer in it for 150$ and another for 120$.

Even I have an atcs and i'm not rich either , someone gave me it for free. And it's not one of the later ones they're using it's an actual original one from 1999.

Can we get a citation for that 1000$ valuation?

[Bitter]

Rounded IDE cables actually do enhance...instability. I have had more issues with rounded cables at ATA 133 than I ever had with flat cables, even folded flat cables. Forget about overclocking the IDE to 150 with rounded cables too, that's a definite fail.

 

I helped a friend build a similar system back in the day then bought it and ran it for a while myself before the board failed and I swapped to a different Asus board. Original board was a Granite Bay based one from Intel or Asus, then I I got an Asus P4C-800-E Deluxe. Cool board, overclocked well, lots of features, very modern for it's time. I ran that all the way until Core2's were out. Of course with some help overclocking from my water cooled Koolance PC case, which I still have and is still very much operational. Original pumps, radiator, and CPU water block. Yes, the gold plated "200W" water block which still sort of holds up today. I made a socket 115x adapter and have some records for a X3470 with it over on HWBOT using it for cooling. The case has seen better days and is missing some parts over the years but it all works. And it has a case window!

 

I either have still or gave away to https://linustechtips.com/profile/763720-whitetailani/ the original PSU from the system which is definitely a 23yr old PSU.

[FireyFoxiconnRageEX]

I have a functional Win XP machine that has an Athlon, 3GB ram, 9800 GT and a Sound Blaster Audigy 2 ZS, the sound quality is sick.

My system is not as cool as Linus's though.

[mini-z1994]

Glad too see this era of computers getting a bit of a spotlight, nice too see my suggestion got some interest as well.

I'm sort of making a way overpowered windows xp machine here myself with basically entirely free parts.
That I've picked up from the electronics container at the recycling facility we swing by a lot at work.
The guys working there don't mind as long as i do it somewhat discreetly so people can't call and complain I'm rummaging through computers or taking them outright, which is understandable heh.

More video suggestions could be
" Checking out some modified game consoles of the 6th generation ? "

The original Xbox & the PS2 they have some pretty good mods to give them both better visual output too hdmi as well as had modifications for better performance, at least for the original Xbox, they had mods too solder on a faster Pentium III processor as well as doubling up the maximum amount of ram.

Ofc not all games benefit or could make use of that faster performance.
But the Xbox Half-Life 2 port for example does benefit from the faster processor.
While some games actually had issues or needed patches too see the extra amount of ram available.


Or a video series too check out the performance limits of say an AGP platform back in the day with the best being the AGP HD 3870 or HD 4670 agp cards on ATI/AMD's side & the Nvidia 7900 GS for the fastest AGP card there on their side.

As for the processor you could go as late as socket 775 with an Asrock 4core dual motherboard or a similar motherboard with core 2 duo & 1066 fsb support.
I think they made some AM2+ motherboards with AM3 support as well but dont know how strong the vrm's are on those motherboards if they are able to support the phenom II black edition cpu's which have unlocked multipliers.

Otherwise update or find a modded bios with cpu microcode too support the core 2 duo e7600 processor for example which would be on par with the core 2 duo e8400 for a really fast agp compatible system, ofc AGP isn't great with backwards compatibility sometimes so do watch out for that if you do try a newer graphics card in the pc from this video.

Maybe hunt down parts for a specific UV reactive build with parts that aged better but is still firmly in the era of Windows XP or Vista ?
For example HIS had UV reactive coolers on their graphics cards as late as the HD 4870 iceQ 4 which in my opinion, they make it look great still on their page showing off that blue glow.

* Back to ranting about that windows xp machine heh. *

Spec wise i could have gone with either an AM2+ or AM3 mATX motherboard with an Athlon II x3 445 cpu as the fastest i got that's rated for 95w.
Or a more recent mATX B75 motherboard with an I7 3770, ofc i got an ssd in this system, theres software too trim the ssd's ofc.
Or i could just dualboot too windows 10 every once in a while & start the trim command there.

Went with the 3770 as 1155 is one of the last Windows XP supported platforms, might as well go big right ?
I have plenty of performance on tap as well as options too underclock & undervolt for lower noise & temperatures besides using fps limiters in drivers or via rivatuner server statistics or the game's own fps limiters if available.

Gpu wise I'm thinking the 9800 gt similar too FireyFoxiconnRageEX as i do have one around and it should it in the case i have i think.
Might try too find a 1 gb gtx 750 though as then I'd have access too a windows xp compatible low powered gpu with DSR too really push the resolution up on some titles.

[Alex Atkin UK]

2 hours ago, Bitter said:

Rounded IDE cables actually do enhance...instability. I have had more issues with rounded cables at ATA 133 than I ever had with flat cables, even folded flat cables. Forget about overclocking the IDE to 150 with rounded cables too, that's a definite fail.

Indeed it makes sense, they were designed flat for a reason so bundling them up increased crosstalk.

The last revision switched to solid conductors and added ground lines between each signal cable to further decrease crosstalk to achieve the higher speed.

[Akyhne]

In 1998 at my 30th birthday, I got a SCSI card from my colleges at work. I bought a SCSI Plextor CD or DVD burner (don't recall) for my own money. It completely eliminated the issue that you couldn't use your PC, when burning a disk and there were no issues when the buffer ran low. The SCSI board apparently had its own processor, to do all the hard work, as there was next to no load on the PC, when burning a disk. All you had to be careful with, was not overloading your harddisk, but I can't remember me ever having a single burn failure, after getting that combo. You should make a video about such a setup! I'm pretty sure I have either or maybe both components to this day, somewhere.

Edited May 19 by kirashi
removed now-redundant sentence / video link after threads were merged

[da na]

That's how almost all SCSI/SAS hardware works. It has its own processing hardware to take the load off of the system processor, and, on servers, this hardware is low-power enough to be run by a small battery for a few minutes in the case of power loss, preserving the cached data yet to be burned to disc or written to HDDs.

On the high end of SAS hardware nowadays, the CPU power gets a little ridiculous - The LSI MegaRAID in my workstation has 2GB of RAM and a 2GHZ PowerPC processor, a whole Chromebook worth of horsepower relegated to just shuffling files around. A lot of em even have upgradable memory.

[kirashi]

=============================================

=== Merged user thread with official video release thread ===

=============================================

43 minutes ago, Akyhne said:

In 1998 at my 30th birthday, I got a SCSI card from my colleges at work. I bought a SCSI Plextor CD or DVD burner (don't recall) for my own money. It completely eliminated the issue that you couldn't use your PC, when burning a disk and there were no issues when the buffer ran low. The SCSI board apparently had its own processor, to do all the hard work, as there was next to no load on the PC, when burning a disk. All you had to be careful with, was not overloading your harddisk, but I can't remember me ever having a single burn failure, after getting that combo. You should make a video about such a setup! I'm pretty sure I have either or maybe both components to this day, somewhere.

Just a heads up for the future... LMG usually links directly to the forum thread for videos where such a discussion thread exists.

 

That way everything people want to discuss about the video stays in one place. Feel free to keep the discussion going!

[dogwitch]

4 hours ago, da na said:

That's how almost all SCSI/SAS hardware works. It has its own processing hardware to take the load off of the system processor, and, on servers, this hardware is low-power enough to be run by a small battery for a few minutes in the case of power loss, preserving the cached data yet to be burned to disc or written to HDDs.

On the high end of SAS hardware nowadays, the CPU power gets a little ridiculous - The LSI MegaRAID in my workstation has 2GB of RAM and a 2GHZ PowerPC processor, a whole Chromebook worth of horsepower relegated to just shuffling files around. A lot of em even have upgradable memory.

we move now to none raid cards.

 

[Bitter]

6 hours ago, Alex Atkin UK said:

Indeed it makes sense, they were designed flat for a reason so bundling them up increased crosstalk.

The last revision switched to solid conductors and added ground lines between each signal cable to further decrease crosstalk to achieve the higher speed.

Yeah, my rounded cables were '80 pin' but definitely not solid wires. Asus branded that came with my motherboard for the Core2Duo. I had some SOLID solid wire 80 pin cables that I slit and just folded in half or tucked out of the way with 45 degree bends. No stability issues with those at all ever. Took me a while to trouble shoot the cables as being the boot/stability issue too...really frustrating!

[Alex Atkin UK]

1 hour ago, Bitter said:

Yeah, my rounded cables were '80 pin' but definitely not solid wires. Asus branded that came with my motherboard for the Core2Duo. I had some SOLID solid wire 80 pin cables that I slit and just folded in half or tucked out of the way with 45 degree bends. No stability issues with those at all ever. Took me a while to trouble shoot the cables as being the boot/stability issue too...really frustrating!

I never actually came across 80 pin rounded cables, you'd think they would need to be coax to shield the whole wire but its probably not that simple as coax induces capacitance.

 

To be honest the only time I saw 80 pins where my own builds, spent time at a computer recycler so saw lots of different PCs but being all ex-business PCs they were all 40 pin.

 

Man I was so glad when SATA became a thing.

[Bitter]

40 minutes ago, Alex Atkin UK said:

I never actually came across 80 pin rounded cables, you'd think they would need to be coax to shield the whole wire but its probably not that simple as coax induces capacitance.

 

To be honest the only time I saw 80 pins where my own builds, spent time at a computer recycler so saw lots of different PCs but being all ex-business PCs they were all 40 pin.

 

Man I was so glad when SATA became a thing.

80 pin was all I would use, only thing really stable at ATA 133 all the time, my rounded 80 pin were in twisted pairs but just kind of bunched together instead of properly woven in a way that would have actually worked to not introduce cross talk. The solid core 80 pin were the best though, always stable, actually pretty easy to cable manage since they held their shape wherever you stuck and tucked.

I've had a few bad SATA cables over the years too! I have a SAS card I'm just getting to play with but it's older so nothing super cool except the onboard 200GB of eMLC split in 100GB modules that can be striped or mirrored. Seem to be a pain to get working under Windows but supposedly pretty easy to get going under Linux. I've had it for a while but haven't sat down to really play with it. I should, I've got a test bench setup and a fan for it so it doesn't burn itself up. I just need some drives to play with and I have a couple, too slow to be really useful but good enough to learn with. 

[Alex Atkin UK]

1 hour ago, Bitter said:

80 pin was all I would use, only thing really stable at ATA 133 all the time, my rounded 80 pin were in twisted pairs but just kind of bunched together instead of properly woven in a way that would have actually worked to not introduce cross talk. The solid core 80 pin were the best though, always stable, actually pretty easy to cable manage since they held their shape wherever you stuck and tucked.

I've had a few bad SATA cables over the years too! I have a SAS card I'm just getting to play with but it's older so nothing super cool except the onboard 200GB of eMLC split in 100GB modules that can be striped or mirrored. Seem to be a pain to get working under Windows but supposedly pretty easy to get going under Linux. I've had it for a while but haven't sat down to really play with it. I should, I've got a test bench setup and a fan for it so it doesn't burn itself up. I just need some drives to play with and I have a couple, too slow to be really useful but good enough to learn with. 

Twisted pair only works if the protocol uses differential signaling.  This was part of why SATA was able to go so much faster with less wires.

I supposed they might be twisted with the ground wire but I doubt that actually helps.

[Bitter]

7 hours ago, Alex Atkin UK said:

Twisted pair only works if the protocol uses differential signaling.  This was part of why SATA was able to go so much faster with less wires.

I supposed they might be twisted with the ground wire but I doubt that actually helps.

Yep, which is why they didn't work! Especially at full speed, they may have gotten away with it at ATA100 or something. Moot point, I soon upgraded to RAID0 on a pair of WD Black 640's, best combo of seek time/capacity at that time, then later a SSD, and so on and so on. The WD drives are sitting in basement storage containers, still working the last time I tested them.

[Rarity]

was the case later named the praetorian or something ? , and when it had the praetorian name, there many version of it , some with a different grill , a door and a funnel on the sidepanel for direct  cpu cooler acess to cool air .. still have mine gathering dust in the corner , with many stickers on it .. 

[Redicat]

Daaamn bro even now this thing is so LIT as a Retro system man i can only dream to buy and have this right now if i even can even in 2024

 

I hope/copium Linus will make an LN2 stream trying to overclock this bloody thing but this isn't Splave,GamersNexus or anything 

But yeah it would be nice to colab someone to LN2 overclock this just for a demo 

 

[Alex Atkin UK]

9 hours ago, Redicat said:

I hope/copium Linus will make an LN2 stream trying to overclock this bloody thing but this isn't Splave,GamersNexus or anything 

But yeah it would be nice to colab someone to LN2 overclock this just for a demo 

Trouble is overclocking an old system means:

1) The motherboard capacitors have aged so the power delivery wont be as reliable as it was at launch

2) The silicon of the CPU itself may have degraded

 

So any results of overclocking would not be indicative of what the CPU could have achieved when everything was brand new.  The odds of frying the motherboard and/or CPU is so much higher.

 

Also the Pentium 4 2.8Ghz exists, heck my first laptop came with a Pentium 4 2.4Ghz desktop CPU. (don't ask me how loud its cooling was)

[tkitch]

On 5/19/2024 at 11:37 PM, Alex Atkin UK said:

I never actually came across 80 pin rounded cables, you'd think they would need to be coax to shield the whole wire but its probably not that simple as coax induces capacitance.

 

To be honest the only time I saw 80 pins where my own builds, spent time at a computer recycler so saw lots of different PCs but being all ex-business PCs they were all 40 pin.

 

Man I was so glad when SATA became a thing.

most rounded cables were 80 pin IDE.

Source:  I sold them at FrozenCPU back in the day.  (how has that guy not run that company into the ground yet...   OH!  New owners!  That's cool, no longer the founder who was...  a problem.)

 

example:

[Redicat]

On 5/22/2024 at 12:10 AM, Alex Atkin UK said:

Trouble is overclocking an old system means:

1) The motherboard capacitors have aged so the power delivery wont be as reliable as it was at launch

2) The silicon of the CPU itself may have degraded

 

So any results of overclocking would not be indicative of what the CPU could have achieved when everything was brand new.  The odds of frying the motherboard and/or CPU is so much higher.

 

Also the Pentium 4 2.8Ghz exists, heck my first laptop came with a Pentium 4 2.4Ghz desktop CPU. (don't ask me how loud its cooling was)

Haha i guess we still have this 

 

[luckybob77]

I remember getting all the water cooling parts for my Pentium 4 rid from Frozen CPU.  They were the go-to for water cooling back in the day.

 

I had round cables too.  it was THE thing.  

 

god when sata came on the scene, it was a life saver for those who built their own machines AND wanted to show them off to friends.  Ribbon cable origami is a lost art.