Penelope - Retro Gaming PC

[Crunchy Dragon]

Backstory-

My fascination with retro gaming started a few months ago, around November 2017. I started down that road by loading RetroPie onto my Raspberry Pi, but that wasn't enough to satisfy my inner PCMR. Emulation wasn't enough, I wanted a dedicated machine to play my games on.

 

Specifically, Windows XP Pinball. I spent so much time playing that way back in the day and wanted to try it again. I figured I could load the original Doom if I wanted to as well.

 

So this started me on my journey, hunt in everywhere I possibly could for old computers and computer parts from the XP era. I wanted to avoid spending a lot of money, and managed to get what I have named Penny for practically nothing. Penelope is her full name, but I figured Penny was fitting as I didnt even spend one.

 

I got an older computer from exactly the era I needed from my grandparents, running 1.5Gb DDR RAM, an Athlon 64 X2 3800+ , and a WD 200Gb SATA drive. The power supply soon after bit the dust(which was really disappointing, it was a fairly decent unit). 

 

The next couple systems I got were from a church friend, one running an Athlon 64 X2 3200+, 1.5Gb DDR memory, and a 160Gb IDE drive. The next had dual Athlon MP 2000+s, 2Gb DDR memory, dual HDDs, one 200Gb and one 80Gb(both IDE). 

 

I also managed to obtain a fully legitimate copy of Windows XP (surprisingly, also for nothing). So I sat down and got building. I don't have any pictures of my other two systems, but I do have some taken during Penny's assembly process that I will edit in from my laptop. 

 

I got a couple GPUs from a friend, a GeForce 6200 PCI, a GTS 250 1Gb, and a Radeon HD 4850 512Mb. I do plan on swapping out Penny's 6200 for the 4850, but my current PSU has no PCIe commectors(another reason I liked the original PSU). The stretch from the PSU to the CPU power header is a bit tight for this unit as well, planning on getting a CX450M in the future(got a 300W OEM unit right now).

 

Current specs are:

AMD Athlon 64 X2 3800+

Asus A8AE-LE motherboard

4x513Mb DDR memory

GeForce 6200 graphics

200Gb SATA HDD

300W power supply

 

I'm currently installing Windows XP. Stay tuned for building pictures.

 

Thanks for reading, I promise I'll add pics soon.

~Crunchy

[Guest]

Pics or it didn't happen...

[Crunchy Dragon]

Just now, Legendarypoet said:

Pics or it didn't happen...

Actually adding them right now :P

 

[Gikero]

I am planning a similar build with an old machine. I never expected to be willingly installing XP on a system in 2018. Good luck with your build! ^__^

 

[Crunchy Dragon]

For some reason, the pictures rotated. No clue why, I didn't do it manually but just a warning.

[kelvinhall05]

Nice

 

I'm too young to find these retro gaming PCs cool, but I'm glad you enjoy it. Have fun playing Space Cadet pinball  

[Crunchy Dragon]

1 minute ago, Gikero said:

I am planning a similar build with an old machine. I never expected to be willingly installing XP on a system in 2018. Good luck with your build! ^__^

Thanks, you too!

 

I never expected to be installing XP either, it's going pretty well. I'll have to risk connecting it to the Internet so I can activate it, but everything else I'll need such as drivers and retro games I can download and move over from another PC.

[Crunchy Dragon]

Just now, kelvinhall05 said:

Nice

 

I'm too young to find these retro gaming PCs cool, but I'm glad you enjoy it. Have fun playing Space Cadet pinball  

Oh I will. I remember the days when I could get 1,000,000 points on a single ball.....

Once I throw in my HD 4850, I might throw some more demanding games on(if games were even demanding at the time).

 

Benchmarks are also in order, hopefully I can find some that will run on XP....

 

Good times.

[Crunchy Dragon]

Another thing to note: I used one of my spare 120mm fans from my S340 as an intake. Forgot to mention that in the OP.