Show off your old and retro computer parts

[Mitko_DSV]

On 7/4/2022 at 12:20 AM, Bitter said:

Nice, that orange/red case is a Cheiftec Dragon or whatever it got branded as there. A lot of companies used that chassis for custom builds, I have one from Koolance with an integrated water cooling system. Absolute UNIT of a case and built to last. It's worth repairing the cosmetic damages or stripping it to part out, it's hard to get the parts for them these days. I lost so many bits and baubles from mine that I wish I still had.

Thanks for the info. The front door is also brocken off, I just put it in place for the pictures. I'll definitely keep this case and will repair it sometime in the future. What I will I use it for, I have no idea, but I'll eventualy figure it out. Sadly it's also missing one of the HDD cages, I guess the person who took the HDD/HDDs took the whole HDD cage with it, also the tool-less 5.25" bay things that are used are missing.

 

On 7/4/2022 at 12:37 AM, James Evens said:

10/10

You slide the HDD into this bay and remove it once you are done.

That's interesting. So my guess was correct. I wonder why both SATA and USB are used simultaniously, though.

[Bitter]

1 minute ago, Mitko_DSV said:

Thanks for the info. The front door is also brocken off, I just put it in place for the pictures. I'll definitely keep this case and will repair it sometime in the future. What I will I use it for, I have no idea, but I'll eventualy figure it out. Sadly it's also missing one of the HDD cages, I guess the person who took the HDD/HDDs took the whole HDD cage with it, also the tool-less 5.25" bay things that are used are missing.

 

That's interesting. So my guess was correct. I wonder why both SATA and USB are used simultaniously, though.

Maybe USB to power?

[da na]

1 minute ago, Bitter said:

Maybe USB to power?

probably an eSATA like setup with SATA for, well, SATA but USB for power

[Kilrah]

12 hours ago, Mel0nMan said:

probably an eSATA like setup with SATA for, well, SATA but USB for power

Has yet another separate connection for power though.

 

12 hours ago, Mitko_DSV said:

That's interesting. So my guess was correct. I wonder why both SATA and USB are used simultaniously, though.

Probably not simultaneously but both options so you have choice of which to use depending on what mobo you have. 

[Mitko_DSV]

@Bitter@Mel0nMan@Kilrah I thought about this and had an idea. The round power plug supplies 12V (that I know for sure) and maybe the USB is used for 5V power only and SATA for data transfer? Just a guess. Maybe when I have time I will dissasemble it and check how the USB is wired. For now I'm planning on installing Windows Vista Ultimate on this PC and dual-booting with the already installed Windows 11, though I'm going to change the WD Blue 250GB HDD with a Samsung Spinpoint 640GB HDD, should have plenty of space.

[Kilrah]

Indeed it's possible they did this to skip on having to put a DC/DC converter in the box to get 5V.

[da na]

Epic Games, circa 2004.

[SimplyChunk]

So, my drives have showed up

5.25" is a Panasonic JU-475-2 1.2MB jobby with an edge connector and the 3.5" is a Sony MPF920 1.44MB jobby.  Both sold to me as working so it's time to pull out the only case i got that has both a 5.25" and 3.5" bay (a Cooler Master mATX jobby) and set up a machine.  I'm going to start with my Uncles old Pentium D and if that doesn't work try my friends old Pentium 4. and if that still doesn't work i've got a motherboard with a coppermine celeron chip in it which might get me there.  Going with XP over win98SE as that has better USB support and I've been told can still support the older 5.25" floppy drives

[Dabombinable]

51 minutes ago, SimplyChunk said:

So, my drives have showed up

5.25" is a Panasonic JU-475-2 1.2MB jobby with an edge connector and the 3.5" is a Sony MPF920 1.44MB jobby.  Both sold to me as working so it's time to pull out the only case i got that has both a 5.25" and 3.5" bay (a Cooler Master mATX jobby) and set up a machine.  I'm going to start with my Uncles old Pentium D and if that doesn't work try my friends old Pentium 4. and if that still doesn't work i've got a motherboard with a coppermine celeron chip in it which might get me there.  Going with XP over win98SE as that has better USB support and I've been told can still support the older 5.25" floppy drives

Considering my late Socket A board (MSI KT6V-LSR, does all SA CPU) supports 1.2MB 5.25" FDD, the Pentium 4 (hopefully socket 478) should work with them.

 

Since my Jetway 994AN-L (all s370/slot1 excluding Via) supports apparently all 5.25" FDD - and even 2.88MB super floppies - the Celeron would be less hassles for you however.

[SimplyChunk]

So got the drives installed in the case.  Haven't done the wiring yet but it's starting to look good.

 

Gonna leave the Fatal1ty front panel and accompanying X-Fi PCI card in there for the shizz and gigs

Here's the first board/CPU i'm gonna try.  It's a Pentium D chip and there is a floppy connector it's just buried under the sound card

 

I'm only starting with this one as it was already in the case to begin with.

 

Question though..  I have three PSUs to choose from to put in there one really old one that came with my friends P4 system (as old as the system).  One hardly used 2 year old CX750M and one never used (i know both if these as they've been mine since new) CX750F RGB.  Which do you reckon would be best?  I know the corsairs don't have floppy connectors in the modular cables but i've got a couple of Molex to floppy connectors floating around somewhere.  I'd need one for the 3.5" and one for the soundcard/front panel.  the 5.25" uses a molex

[Bitter]

On 7/7/2022 at 5:51 PM, Mel0nMan said:

Epic Games, circa 2004.

Find me some Epic Games from back when they were Epic Mega Games with Jazz Jackrabbit, Epic Pinball, Tyrian, etc. Kind of still floored those aren't for sale on the Epic Games store!!!

[da na]

2 minutes ago, Bitter said:

Find me some Epic Games from back when they were Epic Mega Games with Jazz Jackrabbit, Epic Pinball, Tyrian, etc. Kind of still floored those aren't for sale on the Epic Games store!!!

Ah yes...

Sadly, no Epic games from before 2012ish are on the store.

[SimplyChunk]

5 minutes ago, Bitter said:

Find me some Epic Games from back when they were Epic Mega Games with Jazz Jackrabbit, Epic Pinball, Tyrian, etc.

https://www.gog.com/en/game/jill_of_the_jungle_the_complete_trilogy

 

They're free

[Bitter]

16 hours ago, SimplyChunk said:

https://www.gog.com/en/game/jill_of_the_jungle_the_complete_trilogy

 

They're free

I know I know but I feel like the EGS should also offer them on their own freakin platform too even if they're free. Maybe you make an account and they're just there free in your library as a welcome gift, right?

[Kilrah]

Not that old but it'd been a while since I filled a PC's slots

 

 

 

Also the mobo IO is definitely of another time, look at all those firewire ports (there's even a header for a front panel one - not USB3 though, that didn't exist yet, had to loop to the back) - and I found my contemporary eSATAp box 

 

 

I need to find a floppy cable and something IDE just to I can make use of that board's everything

[Kilrah]

Just installed XP on this thing and it flies, even managed to get drivers installed for the myriad of onboard stuff and all the cards I've installed in it. So happy I kept it, seems it's just the right kind of hardware to be able to flawlessly run anything from XP to 11.

 

Kinda funny to be watching 4K youtube on a 1440p displayport monitor, with sound, and casually plugging a USB-C hub and drive on XP 

 

 

 

[Bitter]

What PSU is that? If it's XP/7 vintage you should probably grab a new one so you don't fry your stuff! I actually have found extra OC in some of my PC's or the ability to drop core voltage/lower temps with the better stability of newer PSU's vs older ones. They've gotten much better in general over the past 10+ years and hugely better over the last 20yrs.

[Kilrah]

A 750W Thermaltake from 2010 when it was built, should be fine. It was also OCd a lot (BCLK 133->166) but I brought it back to stock.

It's an i7-970, 24GB RAM, GTX970 on a GA-X58A-UD5 so not at all XP-era, but fully XP-capable so it makes it basically a god-tier XP machine 

[Bitter]

48 minutes ago, Kilrah said:

A 750W Thermaltake from 2010 when it was built, should be fine. It was also OCd a lot (BCLK 133->166) but I brought it back to stock.

It's an i7-970, 24GB RAM, GTX970 on a GA-X58A-UD5 so not at all XP-era, but fully XP-capable so it makes it basically a god-tier XP machine 

Oh the Toughpower units that had a propensity for turning off at substantially less than their rated wattage? I recall them turning off at around 500W in a couple reviews and not every unit turned back on.

[Kilrah]

Hmm maybe?

It only needs to provide about 250W here it seems. 

[Bitter]

58 minutes ago, Kilrah said:

Hmm maybe?

It only needs to provide about 250W here it seems. 

You can get a much much better 500-600W unit for not a bunch of money these days. The hardware is modern enough it doesn't need a bunch of 3.3 and 5V so modern PSU's will work just fine.

[flibberdipper]

9 hours ago, Kilrah said:

Just installed XP on this thing and it flies, even managed to get drivers installed for the myriad of onboard stuff and all the cards I've installed in it. So happy I kept it, seems it's just the right kind of hardware to be able to flawlessly run anything from XP to 11.

 

Kinda funny to be watching 4K youtube on a 1440p displayport monitor, with sound, and casually plugging a USB-C hub and drive on XP 

Great now I want to try installing XP on the system in my signature, I believe everything has drivers? which would make it one of the funniest things ever.

[Kilrah]

I thought 4th gen was too late but no it seems it might be fine...

 

SDIO is going to be your friend https://www.snappy-driver-installer.org/

[flibberdipper]

2 hours ago, Kilrah said:

I thought 4th gen was too late but no it seems it might be fine...

 

SDIO is going to be your friend https://www.snappy-driver-installer.org/

Yeah 6th gen is where drivers became a bit of an issue.

[da na]

1 hour ago, flibberdipper said:

Yeah 6th gen is where drivers became a bit of an issue.

then there are the chad Xeon owners who still have full XP support...