Show off your old and retro computer parts

[da na]

Found a Ferrari monitor in ewaste today. For those who do not know, this is an officially licensed Ferrari product.

Looks like I now own 427 out of 5999. 
This is a 22" 1680x1050 display, 2ms response time and the most gorgeous color I have seen from a CCFL-backlit display. Very deep blacks, great contrast. 

[Beerzerker]

On 8/28/2022 at 6:59 PM, ApolloX75 said:

I have caps coming but they're a month or more out. I'll have those boards running again, don't you worry.

Good to hear you found those cheaply, recapping them shoudn't be a problem to do.
I got lucky sometime ago and bought a big bag of caps just for Socket A boards and they were cheap too, I believe I paid about $25 for a bag of 200 caps for the CPU circuit (6.3v/3300ufm caps).

If you run into issues getting those let me know.

BTW the versions of the A7N8X that's good for OC'ing are the "Deluxe 2.0" and -E variants, the -X variant is lesser in capability but still a good board for stock/retro builds.

[Bitter]

5 hours ago, Mel0n. said:

Found a Ferrari monitor in ewaste today. For those who do not know, this is an officially licensed Ferrari product.

Looks like I now own 427 out of 5999. 
This is a 22" 1680x1050 display, 2ms response time and the most gorgeous color I have seen from a CCFL-backlit display. Very deep blacks, great contrast. 

You need to find the rest of the Ferrari Acer stuff now....

[Dabombinable]

2 hours ago, Bitter said:

You need to find the rest of the Ferrari Acer stuff now....

The laptop would be awesome paired with the screen.

[8tg]

10 hours ago, Mel0n. said:

Found a Ferrari monitor in ewaste today. For those who do not know, this is an officially licensed Ferrari product.

 

Looks like I now own 427 out of 5999. 
This is a 22" 1680x1050 display, 2ms response time and the most gorgeous color I have seen from a CCFL-backlit display. Very deep blacks, great contrast. 

As much as I love acer Ferrari stuff the laptops in particular are just such a pain in the ass to restore. They’re weirdly tailor designed machines that don’t share anything with other acer platforms. They didn’t just take an acer gaming laptop and brand it as Ferrari, except for a few models they’re all completely unique designs. It’s either you pay $1000+ for one that’s pristine, or you pay $400 for one that’s cosmetically gone through a major war or two and is missing a bunch of parts.

Except unlike buying nearly any other laptop, parts are impossible to find.

Oh you need a replacement keyboard? Good luck, the keyboard in each Ferrari laptop model is proprietary to that specific laptop. You can’t even find a close approximation for a replacement keycap.

Need a new bottom panel or door? Nah mate same issue, it’s proprietary to that model alone.

Faux Carbon fiber lid is scuffed up? Fun fact, the carbon fiber effect involves actual Kevlar fabric in resin so polishing it is near impossible and it slowly chips out over time.

Screen cracked or burned in? Somehow pretty much every Ferrari laptop except the last c2d one the panel is seriously fucking proprietary.

[Bitter]

Someone has Acer Ferrari PTSD.

[Dabombinable]

46 minutes ago, Bitter said:

Someone has Acer Ferrari PTSD.

That's what Ferrari approved gets you. Expensive and/or hard to come by parts that also aren't standard - and cause severe stress.

[Corrupt_Liberty]

Water cooling an old motherboard is not as easy as I thought it would be.  I'm trying to do this on the cheap by using hardware I already have from previous builds.  Wren trying to install my EK Supremacy Evo I had to grind the backplate to clear the chipset backplate.

 

Not that it matters at this point because the socket is so crowded the cold plate hits the row od capacitors along the top. I swung by Micro Center and picked up the only waterblock they had that supported socket 775. It was a Bitspower with a slightly smaller cold plate.  Unfortunately it was also significantly shorter so the bracket interfered with everything.  Any ideas?  Suggestions are appreciated. 

[Dabombinable]

2 hours ago, Corrupt_Liberty said:

Water cooling an old motherboard is not as easy as I thought it would be.  I'm trying to do this on the cheap by using hardware I already have from previous builds.  Wren trying to install my EK Supremacy Evo I had to grind the backplate to clear the chipset backplate.

 

Not that it matters at this point because the socket is so crowded the cold plate hits the row od capacitors along the top. I swung by Micro Center and picked up the only waterblock they had that supported socket 775. It was a Bitspower with a slightly smaller cold plate.  Unfortunately it was also significantly shorter so the bracket interfered with everything.  Any ideas?  Suggestions are appreciated. 

You're going to have to look for a far older waterblock - spacing for the most part on modern boards is significantly better than on most high end LGA775, so it is difficult finding small waterblocks. At least new ones that aren't dirt cheap with a short lifespan. I take it you're planning to do a custom loop, with the chipset being cooled as well?

[Corrupt_Liberty]

11 minutes ago, Dabombinable said:

You're going to have to look for a far older waterblock - spacing for the most part on modern boards is significantly better than on most high end LGA775, so it is difficult finding small waterblocks. At least new ones that aren't dirt cheap with a short lifespan. I take it you're planning to do a custom loop, with the chipset being cooled as well?

Yeah, I had a pump and radiators already. Figured that northbridge chip was begging for water, so why not?  I ordered some off brand chinese waterblock off of Amazon for super cheap.  It has good reviews but I'm not that excited about it.  I also found a Thermaltake Big Water system on Ebay.  It has a waterblock with 3/8" barbs that might do the trick.  It is era appropriate.  I'm not sure what else I could try.  Now for the waiting game.  

[Bitter]

You might see if someone sells a milled flat copper block to interface between the IHS and waterblock to get a little more height to clear stuff around the board. The added thermal mass with make things a little funny regarding big temp swings but it should work fairly well thermally.

[ahmedbatty]

Intel Celeron from 1998

 

 

Seagate 10.2 GB HDD also from 1998

 

 

Intel Pentium III

 

[ahmedbatty]

XFX GeForce 9500 GT from 2009

 

 

 

 

[BondiBlue]

1 minute ago, ahmedbatty said:

XFX GeForce 9500 GT from 2009

That card brings back some memories. I still have one of those in storage somewhere, and as far as I know it still works. The fan runs at full speed all the time for some reason, but the card itself worked fine. The last time I used it was probably in an old Hackintosh system I had based on a Dell OptiPlex 780 SFF. It ran OS X El Capitan pretty well, and I used it for a couple years on and off. 

[ApolloX75]

7 hours ago, Corrupt_Liberty said:

Water cooling an old motherboard is not as easy as I thought it would be.  I'm trying to do this on the cheap by using hardware I already have from previous builds.  Wren trying to install my EK Supremacy Evo I had to grind the backplate to clear the chipset backplate.

 

 

Not that it matters at this point because the socket is so crowded the cold plate hits the row od capacitors along the top. I swung by Micro Center and picked up the only waterblock they had that supported socket 775. It was a Bitspower with a slightly smaller cold plate.  Unfortunately it was also significantly shorter so the bracket interfered with everything.  Any ideas?  Suggestions are appreciated. 

 

Oh! I can help here. I watercool my 775 stuff all the time for fun.

 

The last successful waterblock I used was a $20 special off Amazon, it's en EK Supremacy knockoff. Used it with an adjustable backplate. I will attach some shots. I have also used an Evo+ and a modified Corsair H110 on 775, both of those required some "adjustments" however. This el-cheapo waterblock worked out of the box with the adjustable backplate. My 790i isn't as crowded around the socket as your board, buy my P45T-AD3 is, and these all fit with no issues on that board also.

 

Spoiler

 

[da na]

1 hour ago, BondiBlue said:

That card brings back some memories. I still have one of those in storage somewhere, and as far as I know it still works. The fan runs at full speed all the time for some reason, but the card itself worked fine. The last time I used it was probably in an old Hackintosh system I had based on a Dell OptiPlex 780 SFF. It ran OS X El Capitan pretty well, and I used it for a couple years on and off. 

These old cards didn't have PWM fan control (or really any control at all), some drivers adjusted the fan speed but some cards that didn't even work. When it did it was based on applications opened, not actual temp (if I open any application, my GeForce 6800's fan speeds way up for example).

[BondiBlue]

26 minutes ago, Mel0n. said:

These old cards didn't have PWM fan control (or really any control at all), some drivers adjusted the fan speed but some cards that didn't even work. When it did it was based on applications opened, not actual temp (if I open any application, my GeForce 6800's fan speeds way up for example).

This card didn't have fan control issues originally, but one day it wouldn't slow the fan down for some reason. Since then it's always run at full speed no matter what OS I'm using. 

[Corrupt_Liberty]

1 hour ago, ApolloX75 said:

Oh! I can help here. I watercool my 775 stuff all the time for fun.

 

The last successful waterblock I used was a $20 special off Amazon, it's en EK Supremacy knockoff. Used it with an adjustable backplate. I will attach some shots. I have also used an Evo+ and a modified Corsair H110 on 775, both of those required some "adjustments" however. This el-cheapo waterblock worked out of the box with the adjustable backplate. My 790i isn't as crowded around the socket as your board, buy my P45T-AD3 is, and these all fit with no issues on that board also.

 

 

That $20 special looks interesting.  I just recieved a $15 special from Amazon.  I think I'm going to wait on the Thermaltake from Ebay though.  The cheap one didn't even come with a backplate.  It fits.  But that's about all the good things I can say about it.  If the Thermaltake doesn't work I may have a look see for the one you're using. 

[Dabombinable]

2 hours ago, ahmedbatty said:

Intel Celeron from 1998

 

 

Seagate 10.2 GB HDD also from 1998

 

 

Intel Pentium III

 

The Celeron is actually pretty decent - still a bit of a shame it's not a 300MHz model though - on a 100MHz FSB at 450MHz they match the 500:

From what I remember as well - that CB score for my PIII 1000 in the Jetway is pretty much the score your PIII 800 would get. Demonstrating just how wide a gap there can be between 2 boards with the same Northbridge.

[ApolloX75]

1 hour ago, Corrupt_Liberty said:

That $20 special looks interesting.  I just recieved a $15 special from Amazon.  I think I'm going to wait on the Thermaltake from Ebay though.  The cheap one didn't even come with a backplate.  It fits.  But that's about all the good things I can say about it.  If the Thermaltake doesn't work I may have a look see for the one you're using. 

I can vouch for it, it kept my QX9650 from pushing past 70C when I was pushing 1.7v through it, and that was with an amazon 240 rad. I'll be combining it with a Corsair XR7 360 this time. Maybe I'll be able to crack more than 4.5GHz on my new QX. My old one is a bit worn out for some reason...

[da na]

23 minutes ago, ApolloX75 said:

I can vouch for it, it kept my QX9650 from pushing past 70C when I was pushing 1.7v through it, and that was with an amazon 240 rad. I'll be combining it with a Corsair XR7 360 this time. Maybe I'll be able to crack more than 4.5GHz on my new QX. My old one is a bit worn out for some reason...

Always wanted one of those, just tweaking the FSB on my Q9650 it's an amazing overclocker. 

(Best OCing chip I have is my Athlon 64 3200+ though, it can take some serious voltage.)

[Bitter]

Makes me wonder if I should get a QX for my old Abit 780i board but then I realized I would play with it for a week or two and then just shelve it again.

[ApolloX75]

1 hour ago, Mel0n. said:

Always wanted one of those, just tweaking the FSB on my Q9650 it's an amazing overclocker. 

(Best OCing chip I have is my Athlon 64 3200+ though, it can take some serious voltage.)

I've got a lot of old stuff lying around from the bygone years. Lots of S939 and Socket A hardware from my younger days amongst it. QX chips are pretty easy to get still out of China, but the costs are increasing.

34 minutes ago, Bitter said:

Makes me wonder if I should get a QX for my old Abit 780i board but then I realized I would play with it for a week or two and then just shelve it again.

Normally I wouldn't waste the resources, but we're aiming to get back into our Classic LAN parties soon, where I have a host of older XP systems set up and we just game for a weekend with the older titles we grew up with, no net. And I love just spending down time trying to overclock the snot out of stuff.

 

I'm also planning my bachelor party for next year with my groomsmen, it's going to be (because we're all old nerds and introverts anyways) a buiild-it-and-play-it version of our usual Classic LAN, with pre-assembled cases (by me) blinged out with RGB. Everyone assembles their system, we rate and judge them and then we game for a weekend. Everyone gets to take their system home.

 

I'm in the planning and gathering stages, we've got a year to scrape, barter and scavenge for hardware at this point. I'll post anything strange or unique I manage to gather or build.

[da na]

Bought some things... hoping to break into the late 2000s era of CPUs on the AMD side of things. I bought a Phenom x4 9550 in particular because I want to compare it to my Core 2 Quad Q9550, for no other reason than the name being the same. And I bought a triple core CPU because the allure of something so weird was irresistible for $8. 

Currently the only AM2+ board I have is an Optiplex 740 Enhanced, so no overclocking... if I really do like these chips I might buy a more enthusiast grade board, though. (That's how it went with LGA775 for me, started out on an Optiplex 760 lol)

[Dabombinable]

3 minutes ago, Mel0n. said:

Bought some things... hoping to break into the late 2000s era of CPUs on the AMD side of things. I bought a Phenom x4 9550 in particular because I want to compare it to my Core 2 Quad Q9550, for no other reason than the name being the same. And I bought a triple core CPU because the allure of something so weird was irresistible for $8. 

Currently the only AM2+ board I have is an Optiplex 740 Enhanced, so no overclocking... if I really do like these chips I might buy a more enthusiast grade board, though. (That's how it went with LGA775 for me, started out on an Optiplex 760 lol)

Please, if you see a remotely affordable AM2+ board that allows unlocking cores - get it.