Show off your old and retro computer parts

[da na]

Installed the Core 2 Quad in my Precision this morning! To my surprise, the Quadro FX 770m is actually soldered to the board, not an MXM card. A little disappointing, but doesn't make it any less fast.

Fresh pads and paste, and she's running great.

[Bitter]

Needs more liquid metal.

[ApolloX75]

On 1/18/2023 at 12:25 AM, Bitter said:

Nice Koolance gold plated block.

That little block is why I have a pile of BSP 1/4 hose barbs. I used it on my Athlon XP a year or more ago, I've had it collecting dust for a decade and a bit so I finally decided to do something with it. I got it out of a Koolance PC2-C case I found many many moons ago. I don't have the original retention mechanism for it from Koolance, so I made one. Works quite well, can keep a 2800+ at room temperature no matter the load.

 

Not a major accomplishment really, but still neat.

[Bitter]

5 minutes ago, ApolloX75 said:

That little block is why I have a pile of BSP 1/4 hose barbs. I used it on my Athlon XP a year or more ago, I've had it collecting dust for a decade and a bit so I finally decided to do something with it. I got it out of a Koolance PC2-C case I found many many moons ago. I don't have the original retention mechanism for it from Koolance, so I made one. Works quite well, can keep a 2800+ at room temperature no matter the load.

 

Not a major accomplishment really, but still neat.

If you go back far enough, I think I posted my mostly complete koolance system. It's cooling a 300W Xeon X3470 with a meaty overclock. Haven't used it for anything, more of a cause I can than cause I needed to.

[ApolloX75]

24 minutes ago, Bitter said:

If you go back far enough, I think I posted my mostly complete koolance system. It's cooling a 300W Xeon X3470 with a meaty overclock. Haven't used it for anything, more of a cause I can than cause I needed to.

Yeah I can relate to that a lot. Most of my collection is based around that sentiment lol.

 

So far my wife just rolls her eyes as the packages show up, or I come in the door carrying an armload of cards. I'm sure it'll be fine.

 

 

 

[Dabombinable]

Full Palomino (3/4 cache disabled to make it a Duron however), Full Thoroughbred and finally Full Barton.

3200+ wasn't worth the cost for an extra 100MHz. My Retro PC is now complete. Unless I see a cheap 12MB Diamond Monster 3DII or STB Black Magic.

[X-System]

3 hours ago, Dabombinable said:

Full Palomino (3/4 cache disabled to make it a Duron however), Full Thoroughbred and finally Full Barton.

 

-snip-

 

3200+ wasn't worth the cost for an extra 100MHz. My Retro PC is now complete. Unless I see a cheap 12MB Diamond Monster 3DII or STB Black Magic.

Or 8MB version (it's cheaper than 12MB version), the performance is same in games at 800x600 and 1024x768.

 

See this old benchmark from 1998 : https://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/voodoo,85-19.html

[TualatinMan]

我的阁楼发现了。祝大家农历新年快乐

[Dabombinable]

8 hours ago, X-System said:

Or 8MB version (it's cheaper than 12MB version), the performance is same in games at 800x600 and 1024x768.

 

See this old benchmark from 1998 : https://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/voodoo,85-19.html

I've got 12MB versions of both though - and just like the 486 boards with missing cache - the fact that something is missing really sticks out.
Plus if I push visual quality, the 8MB cards can fall flat:

If I end up with an STB Black Magic, my PII 233+Viper V550 rig will be getting its Monster3D II back (with OG Passthrough cable). Will probably give it my Celeron 333 @ 375MHz (or 300 at 373MHz) however.

[frozensun]

One of my rigs back in hmm I think around 2002.

I am just running it now, it does do still some kind of hicups while I use, I mean it is not that slow,but it does open up webpage slower then my Galaxy Note 10+.

I mean I don't want to throw them into garbage,still will run office,normal work and compare to like some newer rigs like mine from 2021 year.

2 gigs of RAM should be plenty for Windows 7.

I will try not to open like 20 Chrome tabs and report back....lol.

Biostar back then did pretty good motherboards and was popular manufacture here in eastern Europe.

I could maybe speed the rig up wiith SSD but who knows if either supports sata III,don't think so, will check that up.

Nope, it's SATA II, so I am limited to 300MB/s judging by google.

But I am sure with SSD PC would be hell lot more responsive even though SATA II bottleneck.

 

[Bitter]

SSD still makes a fairly substantial difference,they're cheap might as well.

[HumdrumPenguin]

Retro 2080Ti vs New 4090

[da na]

1 minute ago, HumdrumPenguin said:

Retro 2080Ti vs New 4090

 

 

We classify 'Retro' as usually 10+ years old, not like 3. 

[SimplyChunk]

36 minutes ago, HumdrumPenguin said:

Retro 2080Ti

To quote a man and paraphrase a little

Quote

If it can run Fortnite.  it doesn't belong here

 

[ApolloX75]

Alright X58 Classy... I'm ready for ya...

 

Spoiler

I got this for a steal. Brand new, next to no run time on it, all accessories, original box and everything.

Now I just need that X58 board to show up. Funny how my reservoir from China is going to arrive before the board from Texas...

 

Need another 360 slim rad too.

[flibberdipper]

18 hours ago, Bitter said:

SSD still makes a fairly substantial difference,they're cheap might as well.

SSDs are a godsend for older PCs if you don't care about missing out on the sweet vibes provided by spinning rust. I threw a 120GB 840 EVO in my old Vaio system (nothing special, a Pentium D, 4GB? of RAM, and an HD6670) and man did it get even snappier than before, which is impressive considering the fact that it was already really responsive running off the 500GB Barracuda 7200.12.

 

14 hours ago, SimplyChunk said:

To quote a man and paraphrase a little

Quote

If it can run Fortnite.  it doesn't belong here

 

I feel a sudden urge to be a smartass and try to run Fortnite on either the 6670, my GTX 480 ES, or the A8 3850 I have.

[da na]

2 minutes ago, flibberdipper said:

SSDs are a godsend for older PCs if you don't care about missing out on the sweet vibes provided by spinning rust. I threw a 120GB 840 EVO in my old Vaio system (nothing special, a Pentium D, 4GB? of RAM, and an HD6670) and man did it get even snappier than before, which is impressive considering the fact that it was already really responsive running off the 500GB Barracuda 7200.12.

I use Samsung 860s in all my Core 2 Duo laptops, it's total overkill but since I use Windows 10 on them they're quite responsive.

I use SAS drives in RAID arrays for all my server and workstation file storage, but I can't deny that SSDs for boot are a must.

[flibberdipper]

3 minutes ago, Mel0n. said:

I use Samsung 860s in all my Core 2 Duo laptops, it's total overkill but since I use Windows 10 on them they're quite responsive.

This guy just has XP on it which will run like hell if you give it two sticks and some dollar store duct tape (or if you prefer, nearly any drive made in the last 15 years).

 

Best part is that my One X is about to get a healthy speed boost in the form of the 2TB MX500 currently in my PC since said PC is getting a 4TB NVMe drive. I absolutely don't need the capacity, but the speed boost will be excellent (even though to Microsoft's credit, the last few OS updates have made the One consoles significantly more responsive after a factory reset on them). It is insane that I'm dumping parts into a One X when I have a Series X, but it beats the mortgage I need for a 2TB expansion drive.

[ApolloX75]

I have a literal pile (22 and counting) of 120GB and 240GB SSDs I use for all my builds. No spinning disks for my experiments anymore, an SSD makes everything smoother.

 

Only thing I haven't put on an SSD yet is 98. That's next. 

 

I also have a PATA to SATA converter and a 32GB PATA SSD. Because reasons.

 

I hate HDDs. I spent long enough groaning through the hell that was UDMA IDE and it's "ultra" fast speed of 133MB/s... When it felt like it. SATA made it better, but as soon as I got an SSD I was hooked for life.

[da na]

1 minute ago, ApolloX75 said:

I have a literal pile (22 and counting) of 120GB and 240GB SSDs I use for all my builds. No spinning disks for my experiments anymore, an SSD makes everything smoother.

 

Only thing I haven't put on an SSD yet is 98. That's next. 

 

I also have a PATA to SATA converter and a 32GB PATA SSD. Because reasons.

 

I hate HDDs. I spent long enough groaning through the hell that was UDMA IDE and it's "ultra" fast speed of 133MB/s... When it felt like it. SATA made it better, but as soon as I got an SSD I was hooked for life.

I don't like consumer grade hard drives, but SAS server hard drives are fantastic. They're the only ones I still use.

[flibberdipper]

1 hour ago, ApolloX75 said:

I hate HDDs. I spent long enough groaning through the hell that was UDMA IDE and it's "ultra" fast speed of 133MB/s... When it felt like it. SATA made it better, but as soon as I got an SSD I was hooked for life.

I hate them in my daily system (both because of noise and mainly speed), but everywhere else it's fine for me. One of my favorite drives right now are the WD80EMZZ's, they don't really have much spindle/air noise, but the seeking racket they make is fucking amazing. There's one of 'em in the easystore I use for my Series X and I absolutely adore the idiot thing.

 

It is also amusing how I hate them in a daily for noise but in anything else I love the noise...

[da na]

1 minute ago, flibberdipper said:

I hate them in my daily system (both because of noise and mainly speed), but everywhere else it's fine for me. One of my favorite drives right now are the WD80EMZZ's, they don't really have much spindle/air noise, but the seeking racket they make is fucking amazing. There's one of 'em in the easystore I use for my Series X and I absolutely adore the idiot thing.

 

It is also amusing how I hate them in a daily for noise but in anything else I love the noise...

Hah, you think a WD drive is loud?

In my workstation, I have four Toshiba 15,000 RPM 2.5" server drives as my video editing scratch disk. Good amount of spindle noise, and sounds like a jackhammer when they start seeking.

For general file storage and some applications I have three 7200RPM HGST Ultrastar drives, not quite as loud as the Toshiba array though.

Loudest drive I own is a 2006 73GB 15,000RPM HGST Ultrastar. Can hear it two rooms away. And that's just one of them.

[SimplyChunk]

Just now, Mel0n. said:

In my workstation, I have four Toshiba 15,000 RPM 2.5" server drives as my video editing scratch disk. Good amount of spindle noise, and sounds like a jackhammer when they start seeking.

Was gonna ask you if you could sample some of your drives spinning up and FTPing to somewhere for a music project I got planned.  If i could get about 15-30 seconds of spindle noise then maybe a minute of seeking?

[flibberdipper]

19 minutes ago, Mel0n. said:

Hah, you think a WD drive is loud?

In my workstation, I have four Toshiba 15,000 RPM 2.5" server drives as my video editing scratch disk. Good amount of spindle noise, and sounds like a jackhammer when they start seeking.

For general file storage and some applications I have three 7200RPM HGST Ultrastar drives, not quite as loud as the Toshiba array though.

Loudest drive I own is a 2006 73GB 15,000RPM HGST Ultrastar. Can hear it two rooms away. And that's just one of them.

Oh they're absolutely not that loud compared to my older drives or pretty much any high-rippem enterprise drive. These lads have quiet-ass spindles but a damn healthy amount of head banging. They're also nothing compared to my old Deskstar (spindle noise for daaaaaays considering it's just 7200RPM) or a few of my older WD drives which sound like they're trying to chew up an armored cash vehicle and spit it back out.

 

I'm hoping I'll find a 19.2GB Bigfoot to replace mine that died forever ago for a reasonable price on eBay, but at this point it's looking like I'm going to have to settle for a 12.7GB. I miss that drive more than any person should ever miss a hard drive. Might also get some Fireballs because I had one of those a long time ago (14.7GB I think?) and it was a fun drive.

[Dabombinable]

5 hours ago, flibberdipper said:

SSDs are a godsend for older PCs if you don't care about missing out on the sweet vibes provided by spinning rust. I threw a 120GB 840 EVO in my old Vaio system (nothing special, a Pentium D, 4GB? of RAM, and an HD6670) and man did it get even snappier than before, which is impressive considering the fact that it was already really responsive running off the 500GB Barracuda 7200.12.

 

I feel a sudden urge to be a smartass and try to run Fortnite on either the 6670, my GTX 480 ES, or the A8 3850 I have.

It sucks though when you have to do it via an adapter. Only SATAI HDD or SSD function with my KT6V's onboard controller. So I can't use my early 128GB SATAII SSD (though it can be booted over USB 2.0) without an IDE adapter or bootable controller card.

 

That being said I do have (both 160GB 5400RPM) a 2008 Hitachi and 2009 WD SATAI 2.5" HDD which work fine - and they crush any period correct 7200RPM HDD in all metrics.