Show off your old and retro computer parts

[WhitetailAni]

Just now, Bitter said:

Aw man, that Optical drive was like new too. Did you try hitting it or manually ejecting it with the paper clip? Might just be something stuck that needs to cycle a few times. Maybe try a different cable, I think that's a higher end drive like the end of ATA and the start of SATA so it probably needs a full 80 conductor cable not the normal 40 or whatever. I ALMOST threw in one of the nice branded cables I had laying around but you'd said you had cables plenty. That drives probably worth opening up to see whats not working and maybe un-sticking it and giving it a few dabs of grease. Oh jumper settings, did you check the jumper settings? It may be on secondary and needs primary or vice versa. I think I used it once or twice, it was a pull from a system I junked I believe.

I was using a 40-wire cable, but I do have an 80-wire that I'm using for my HDDs.

Since they don't seem to care (I was running them with 40-wire before I saw the 80-wire) I'll try the 80-wire cable on them.

If it works I'll update ya!

[Bitter]

Yeah, if it doesn't work it doesn't work. I honestly thought it did but it's been sitting for a long time in my basement. I hope it's just stuck. I guess I should have plugged it into my IDE to USB dongle and tested it out, sorry dude.

 

The Bigfoot works but I wouldn't trust it with anything important. It's very old  and I even opened it once and ran it without the top cover because I wanted to see the insides. It would be pretty cool to make a plexiglass top and mount it on the outside of a case. It's also mind numbingly slow being single platter the size of a CD.

[WhitetailAni]

6 minutes ago, Bitter said:

Yeah, if it doesn't work it doesn't work. I honestly thought it did but it's been sitting for a long time in my basement. I hope it's just stuck. I guess I should have plugged it into my IDE to USB dongle and tested it out, sorry dude.

Still no luck - "D:\ is not accessible. Incorrect function."
80-wire cable, jumpers are set correctly (double-checked).

Oh well.

Maybe I can find something in my grandparents' attic again.

[BrianTheElectrician]

31 minutes ago, FakeKGB said:

Still no luck - "D:\ is not accessible. Incorrect function."
80-wire cable, jumpers are set correctly (double-checked).

Oh well.

Maybe I can find something in my grandparents' attic again.

That sucks about the drive but unfortunately that's the way it goes with old hardware sometimes. Glad you've got everything else working though. For the time being you can try a program called daemon tools which will give you a virtual cd/DVD drive and through that you can mount a drive image file and it works just like a disc in a drive.

 

Windows 2000 and ME both have the universal storage drivers built in. 98se and I think 98fe there is a universal driver available that once its installed it'll work the same as ME/2000/XP etc.

[Bitter]

98SE for sure has USB drives, I think even the final build of 95 had USB 1.0 but maybe not mass storage devices just mice and printers.

[WhitetailAni]

Update #3?
I put back in my SCSI card and it turns out I had a SCSI ID conflict.

My SCSI HDD was set to Device 1 and my SCSI optical drive was set to Device 1.

Pulled out the SCSI HDD and it detects, but I still have this problem:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1x0at9FIQOFOPjEepBmMGgKMRAsr2RI7X/view?usp=sharing

[BrianTheElectrician]

28 minutes ago, Bitter said:

98SE for sure has USB drives, I think even the final build of 95 had USB 1.0 but maybe not mass storage devices just mice and printers.

Yes, I believe anything newer than 95B (osr2 with the USB supplement) technically had USB support. It just wasn't until ME/2000 that a USB mass storage driver was built into Windows. Prior to those you would have to install a device/drive specific driver or the now available generic mass storage driver for similar functionality. Windows 95B/98/98SE did include drivers for USB devices just like any other device Windows might have drivers for. They just didn't include a generic storage driver.

[Beerzerker]

31 minutes ago, Bitter said:

98SE for sure has USB drives, I think even the final build of 95 had USB 1.0 but maybe not mass storage devices just mice and printers.

It does, have a disk copy of 95 with USB support printed on the disk here but Win 98SE is just so much better all around.

[Bitter]

23 minutes ago, FakeKGB said:

Update #3?
I put back in my SCSI card and it turns out I had a SCSI ID conflict.

My SCSI HDD was set to Device 1 and my SCSI optical drive was set to Device 1.

Pulled out the SCSI HDD and it detects, but I still have this problem:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1x0at9FIQOFOPjEepBmMGgKMRAsr2RI7X/view?usp=sharing

[Bitter]

4 minutes ago, BrianTheElectrician said:

Yes, I believe anything newer than 95B (osr2 with the USB supplement) technically had USB support. It just wasn't until ME/2000 that a USB mass storage driver was built into Windows. Prior to those you would have to install a device/drive specific driver or the now available generic mass storage driver for similar functionality. Windows 95B/98/98SE did include drivers for USB devices just like any other device Windows might have drivers for. They just didn't include a generic storage driver.

Yes, OSR2 is the words I was looking for. I remember that upgrade fondly. Pretty sure our Acer didn't have USB ports.

I really liked ME except for the unstable parts, it had a lot of nice stuff in it compared to 98 but dangit if it just always crashed a lot all the time.

[flibberdipper]

35 minutes ago, Bitter said:

Yes, OSR2 is the words I was looking for. I remember that upgrade fondly. Pretty sure our Acer didn't have USB ports.

I really liked ME except for the unstable parts, it had a lot of nice stuff in it compared to 98 but dangit if it just always crashed a lot all the time.

Funnily enough, on my ProSignia 165 I ended up switching to ME over 98SE because it ends up working better and running a bit faster. I don't really understand it, but hey. I'll take it.

[BrianTheElectrician]

36 minutes ago, Bitter said:

Yes, OSR2 is the words I was looking for. I remember that upgrade fondly. Pretty sure our Acer didn't have USB ports.

I really liked ME except for the unstable parts, it had a lot of nice stuff in it compared to 98 but dangit if it just always crashed a lot all the time.

 

Just now, flibberdipper said:

Funnily enough, on my ProSignia 165 I ended up switching to ME over 98SE because it ends up working better and running a bit faster. I don't really understand it, but hey. I'll take it.

We ran ME on a Gateway machine that my dad bought in I think 2000/2001. It was a 1.1Ghz Thunderbird Athlon with a Geforce 2 MX. ME Honestly ran pretty good on that machine and the only thing to ever really cause any issues was system restore. It didn't play nice with Norton Antivirus of the day and between the 2 it would sometimes cause issues when I had to upgrade to the newer graphics driver to play the Sims 2, but then downgrade again for anything else because the newer driver didn't play nice with some of the other games we ran, and system restore didn't seem to like the newer driver either from what I remember. I still have the motherboard and processor from that computer haha, but my dad smoked and as a result the case yellowed badly so I wound up getting rid of it a few years ago.

 

Not having MS-Dos mode was never an issue for us as there was never any DOS era software we ever ran at the time. The first computer my dad had bought in '95 came with Windows 95 on it and that was our first home computer so we only ever really had Windows software/games to run. Ironically it wasn't until I was interested in computers and the history and started collecting that running DOS stuff even came to mind, which by that point it had long been obsolete and out of use.

[Bitter]

Something to keep in mind using non AVX CPU's and CPU's without AES instructions will perform worse and worse or maybe not even be able to run some software in the coming years, Chrome is now starting to use AVX instructions and having AES instructions is a huge boon to performance for anything done online especially with poor IPC processors or ones with lower clock speeds. Swapping my laptop from the i3 without AES to i5 the i5 with AES made a super difference, same cores and threads, only somewhat faster peak speeds, but the instructions being able to process encryption in hardware made a huge difference in how hard the CPU was working to just browse the internet or even handle a wifi connection. Core2 era stuff lacks this, it's only available in first gen i5's and up and doesn't get into i3's until Haswell and not into the whole product line until like Skylake. If the IPC and core speeds are high enough it's not a big drag but if you're running a slower clocked CPU or one with poor IPC or both then missing these instructions can make for a much poorer experience. And heaven help you if you're trying to use bitlocker or something. With AES instructions is literally twice as fast then without and rather than software chewing the whole CPU to run them the hardware does so with minimal overhead and less impact on the rest of the user experience.

[Kilrah]

15 hours ago, flibberdipper said:

Funnily enough, on my ProSignia 165 I ended up switching to ME over 98SE because it ends up working better and running a bit faster. I don't really understand it, but hey. I'll take it.

I've got a dual boot with 98SE and XP on my Thinkpad X21 and interestingly XP runs significantly smoother. 

 

[WhitetailAni]

Scored a bunch of 1.2MB 5.25" floppy disks.

Two of which are green.

Spoiler

Also another yellow 3.5" 1.44MB disk:

Spoiler

And another caddy for my SCSI optical drive. Perhaps the one I have has a problem?

Spoiler

And some speakers.

Spoiler

Not sure whether to continue using my little red speaker for my P3 build and use these for a 4.1 sound setup or put these to use on the P3 build.

Think I'll do 4.1 since I have no place to put them otherwise.

[WhitetailAni]

I have more info on the SCSI optical drive.

If I prevent it from fully ejecting, after 5 tries to eject it will just leave the caddy inside and display "EE" on its little LCD screen.

Unfortunately, I can only find the manual on eBay from Germany.

I also found and installed the drivers for my sound card, and dang, it's a good one!
I can only hear a difference because I'm using a 4.1 sound setup on my main PC and a small single speaker on my P3. I tried switching and could hear no difference.

Windows Media Player can't do MP3's though, which means much converting must be done.

 

[BrianTheElectrician]

36 minutes ago, FakeKGB said:

I have more info on the SCSI optical drive.

If I prevent it from fully ejecting, after 5 tries to eject it will just leave the caddy inside and display "EE" on its little LCD screen.

Unfortunately, I can only find the manual on eBay from Germany.

I also found and installed the drivers for my sound card, and dang, it's a good one!
I can only hear a difference because I'm using a 4.1 sound setup on my main PC and a small single speaker on my P3. I tried switching and could hear no difference.

Windows Media Player can't do MP3's though, which means much converting must be done.

 

For the mp3s, the newer versions of media player for sure play them, media player 7 and newer I'm positive do but I'm pretty sure older than that does too. If not you could try a program like winamp. The older versions are great for win9x systems.

[WhitetailAni]

Picture time!

Full specs:

Spoiler

CPU: Pentium III 500 MHz Slot 1

Motherboard: ASUS P3V 4X
RAM: 2x Kingston G2/2048 1GB PC133 SDRAM

GPU: Radeon 9250 AGP 8X, Ageia PhysX PPU (not in system as it overheats due to no fan yet, is coming)

Storage: Samsung SP0842N 80GB (Windows 2000), Fujitsu MPD3084AT 8.6GB (storage), Quantum Bigfoot TX 4GB (music)

Floppy drives: 1.2MB 5.25", 1.44MB 3.5"

Ethernet: Intel Pro/100+ 10/100 LAN card

Modem: USRobotics ISA modem

SCSI: Adaptec AHA-2040U(W) PCI SCSI controller

Optical drive: NEC MultiSpin 3xi CDR-500

Sound card: Sound Blaster Live! CT4780

PSU: Enermax EG651P-VE 550W

Case: JC Segae (case that my dad bought in 1999, no identifiers other than a JC Segae badge)

Keyboard + mouse: Dell QuietKey SK-1000REW, Microsoft IntelliMouse 1.1A

Displays: Samsung S22B350 @ 1280x720 75 Hz, ASUS VS427 @ 1280x720 75 Hz

Pictures:

Spoiler

 

This system has been 5 months in the making. It started when my grandpa dropped off some old computers from relatives, and I found this system. It was new enough for me to understand, so I booted it up and it worked!
It was barely hanging on to life, though. A 250W PSU, 128MB of RAM on a single stick, a PCI video card, and an HDD that made horrible noises and the 98 SE booting process often froze.

I booted into 98 SE, looked around, then shut it down to make a full backup of the contents (since it had some of my cousin's school assignments on it).

I then put it back in the system and booted it up again, but while 98 SE was booting, the hard drive let out a SCREETCH and then 98 SE froze. I left it for an hour, no luck.

Rebooted and it wouldn't boot.

So I brought the system back downstairs and left it. This was in late November, on Thanksgiving.

I then posted on here about it (don't remember when) and @BrianTheElectrician reached out to me. We worked out what I wanted, and he shipped the stuff to me. It came on Monday. Unfortunately, the 250W PSU stopped working when I screwed it into the case and also wasn't strong enough to power everything.

So me and @Bitter met up near my house and he gave me a PSU and some other things (next project will be an XP rig with the P4 + motherboard + 6800 Ultra) he gave me during the summer). I put it in, booted the system up, and installed Windows 2000. After a few days setting up drivers, here we are! The system is complete, minus a working optical drive.

THANK YOU to everyone who helped me with this, whether with hardware and software.

[Bitter]

Winamp 100% will run on 98. I used it for decades.

[PhoenixGamer]

Not sure the exact value of this- but I know its pretty rare. Intel Pentium w/ MMX Tech Mech sample from an Intel Inside the Computer Kit, super cool piece of tech education history. I believe that it should work (don't quote me on that) but still super neat. I also have the original teacher's guide.

[Bitter]

@FakeKGB

 

Once you get that North Bridge water block off you'll need to put a cooler on it. I didn't have any around but it can get pretty toasty if you're overclocking.

 

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Heatpipes-Radiator-Heatsink-Motherboard-Northbridge-Southbridge-Cooler-Parts-Kit-/143700706783?_trksid=p2349624.m46890.l49286

 

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B002OHPKSY/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_glc_fabc_FTBCP4QAWMZ2B7T434G9

 

Those would work, I think. You need the spring steel clips to hold it down for sure, not the push clip type.

The heat pipes cooler has little hook arms and should work but you'll want a slim 80mm fan on it and to use either a splitter to share off the CPU fan header or off a molex but it won't need full speed (and full noise).

 

Or you could water cool it again, finding a socket 478 water block will be the hardest part, the rest can be budget china stuff.

[BrianTheElectrician]

7 hours ago, FakeKGB said:

Picture time!

Full specs:

  Reveal hidden contents

CPU: Pentium III 500 MHz Slot 1

Motherboard: ASUS P3V 4X
RAM: 2x Kingston G2/2048 1GB PC133 SDRAM

GPU: Radeon 9250 AGP 8X, Ageia PhysX PPU (not in system as it overheats due to no fan yet, is coming)

Storage: Samsung SP0842N 80GB (Windows 2000), Fujitsu MPD3084AT 8.6GB (storage), Quantum Bigfoot TX 4GB (music)

Floppy drives: 1.2MB 5.25", 1.44MB 3.5"

Ethernet: Intel Pro/100+ 10/100 LAN card

Modem: USRobotics ISA modem

SCSI: Adaptec AHA-2040U(W) PCI SCSI controller

Optical drive: NEC MultiSpin 3xi CDR-500

Sound card: Sound Blaster Live! CT4780

PSU: Enermax EG651P-VE 550W

Case: JC Segae (case that my dad bought in 1999, no identifiers other than a JC Segae badge)

Keyboard + mouse: Dell QuietKey SK-1000REW, Microsoft IntelliMouse 1.1A

Displays: Samsung S22B350 @ 1280x720 75 Hz, ASUS VS427 @ 1280x720 75 Hz

Pictures:

  Reveal hidden contents

 

This system has been 5 months in the making. It started when my grandpa dropped off some old computers from relatives, and I found this system. It was new enough for me to understand, so I booted it up and it worked!
It was barely hanging on to life, though. A 250W PSU, 128MB of RAM on a single stick, a PCI video card, and an HDD that made horrible noises and the 98 SE booting process often froze.

I booted into 98 SE, looked around, then shut it down to make a full backup of the contents (since it had some of my cousin's school assignments on it).

I then put it back in the system and booted it up again, but while 98 SE was booting, the hard drive let out a SCREETCH and then 98 SE froze. I left it for an hour, no luck.

Rebooted and it wouldn't boot.

So I brought the system back downstairs and left it. This was in late November, on Thanksgiving.

I then posted on here about it (don't remember when) and @BrianTheElectrician reached out to me. We worked out what I wanted, and he shipped the stuff to me. It came on Monday. Unfortunately, the 250W PSU stopped working when I screwed it into the case and also wasn't strong enough to power everything.

So me and @Bitter met up near my house and he gave me a PSU and some other things (next project will be an XP rig with the P4 + motherboard + 6800 Ultra) he gave me during the summer). I put it in, booted the system up, and installed Windows 2000. After a few days setting up drivers, here we are! The system is complete, minus a working optical drive.

THANK YOU to everyone who helped me with this, whether with hardware and software

Looking good! You've sure packed a lot of hardware in and glad you've got it up and running! Have you had a chance to try any games on it? Win2k is an interesting choice as well, systems that era most seem to run windows 98. I've run into the odd game that 2k doesn't play nice with but it's definitely one of my favorite OS's and I ran it myself back when well after xp came out, right until win2k went out of support.

[WhitetailAni]

Just now, BrianTheElectrician said:

Looking good! You've sure packed a lot of hardware in and glad you've got it up and running! Have you had a chance to try any games on it? Win2k is an interesting choice as well, systems that era most seem to run windows 98. I've run into the odd game that 2k doesn't play nice with but it's definitely one of my favorite OS's and I ran it myself back when well after xp came out, right until win2k went out of support.

No games yet - I go back to school tomorrow and I'll be going in full-time.

I chose 2000 since 98 SE doesn't support 2GB of RAM, and I need my 128/256MB sticks for my Power Mac G4.

I might put 98 SE on the Bigfoot TX once I have the time to tinker around with it more, though.

[BrianTheElectrician]

On 4/4/2021 at 12:47 PM, Kilrah said:

I've got a dual boot with 98SE and XP on my Thinkpad X21 and interestingly XP runs significantly smoother.

That is a beautiful looking thinkpad. I love these old ibm machines and the keyboards on them really do set a standard. I've got I think it's a t21 or t22 but the backlight for the screen is dead.

 

Also have a 380D, an I series with a celeron 466, t40, t43p, t61 (don't remember if it's a performance model or not), and 2x t500s

[Bitter]

32 minutes ago, FakeKGB said:

No games yet - I go back to school tomorrow and I'll be going in full-time.

I chose 2000 since 98 SE doesn't support 2GB of RAM, and I need my 128/256MB sticks for my Power Mac G4.

I might put 98 SE on the Bigfoot TX once I have the time to tinker around with it more, though.

I know I have the 4x 1GB DDR 400 sticks that were in that P4 board here, I think they're in the closet behind some junk. I have a bunch of ram in the closet for some reason. I can mail it up if you want it.

 

The thing with RAM is you can always have more than the OS can address, it just won't be able to use it all. If you're multi-booting then you just leave it all in there and Oh hey WinXP 32bit see's 3GB of it, 98SE only see's 384MB of it, and the abomination that is XP 64bit....crashed.