Show off your old and retro computer parts

[Dabombinable]

5 hours ago, Bitter said:

Careful, that's what the US military will be transitioning to after floppy drives in a few more decades.

Still can't believe that 8" floppies are in use.

[sub68]

43 minutes ago, Dabombinable said:

Still can't believe that 8" floppies are in use.

Well its used for nuclear stuff and that hasn't been upgraded since the 60's I think its due to downtime or something like that.

[FreddyWestside]

I have older, but this was late 2019 when my 4790k finally hit peak 2014 with dual GTX 780's.

I know, I know... the cooler is a waste of a K sku but I got the chip on sale and never bothered to overclock it.

 

[Aremis]

4 minutes ago, FreddyWestside said:

I have older, but this was late 2019 when my 4790k finally hit peak 2014 with dual GTX 780's.

I know, I know... the cooler is a waste of a K sku but I got the chip on sale and never bothered to overclock it.

 

lulw, "old"

 

I would litrally use this right now

[FreddyWestside]

34 minutes ago, Aremis said:

lulw, "old"

 

I would litrally use this right now

I'm still using the platform, but the GPU is updated to a RX580. It's getting pretty long in the tooth, the low power i5 in my Surface Pro+ is more powerful, and I'm planning out an AM5 upgrade... but it works.

Here's the same system with a modern case and cooler.

[Aremis]

3 minutes ago, FreddyWestside said:

I'm still using the platform, but the GPU is updated to a RX580. It's getting pretty long in the tooth, the low power i5 in my Surface Pro+ is more powerful, and I'm planning out an AM5 upgrade... but it works.

Here's the same system with a modern case and cooler.

Well if you're using none of them I'll take all 3, the 780's AND the 580  nary a waste

[FreddyWestside]

7 minutes ago, Aremis said:

Well if you're using none of them I'll take all 3, the 780's AND the 580  nary a waste

I'm still running the 590 (I own one and I still forget they made them sometimes), even if I'm not at my desk much. You'd be surprised how useless the 780's are; they're too slow to use PLEX encoding, their game performance is dismal in anything but CS:GO and Crysis, and driver support is dead. I was going to put them on e-bay during the shortage but I didn't get around to it.

I'm probably going to put one of them back in this build when I upgrade to AM5 for myself and let my daughter use it until I buy a modern GPU and pass on the 590.

[Aremis]

6 minutes ago, FreddyWestside said:

I'm still running the 590 (I own one and I still forget they made them sometimes), even if I'm not at my desk much. You'd be surprised how useless the 780's are; they're too slow to use PLEX encoding, their game performance is dismal in anything but CS:GO and Crysis, and driver support is dead. I was going to put them on e-bay during the shortage but I didn't get around to it.

I'm probably going to put one of them back in this build when I upgrade to AM5 for myself and let my daughter use it until I buy a modern GPU and pass on the 590.

I need cards for VM's.  You'd be surprised what I manage to get away with.  I'll be showing off tonight in the setup thread.

 

My desktop is legitimately from 2007/8 and I stream games to twitch no frame loss

[FreddyWestside]

2 minutes ago, Aremis said:

I need cards for VM's.  You'd be surprised what I manage to get away with.  I'll be showing off tonight in the setup thread.

I thought about using them for VMs, but just couldn't find an application. They're so big and power hungry that I can't put them in my server and I don't have a real use for gaming VMs in there, I just use a GTX750 to homelab pass-through systems.

I installed both to try a dual-boot system where my Linux and Windows installs were always spun up with their own graphics cards, but I never actually set it up because 4c/8t isn't enough for that kind of virtualization. I built my 10c/20t xeon system as a test platform and unraid/plex/nextcloud server to see if it was worth the trouble before I build my next system.

[Aremis]

24 minutes ago, FreddyWestside said:

I thought about using them for VMs, but just couldn't find an application. They're so big and power hungry that I can't put them in my server and I don't have a real use for gaming VMs in there, I just use a GTX750 to homelab pass-through systems.

I installed both to try a dual-boot system where my Linux and Windows installs were always spun up with their own graphics cards, but I never actually set it up because 4c/8t isn't enough for that kind of virtualization. I built my 10c/20t xeon system as a test platform and unraid/plex/nextcloud server to see if it was worth the trouble before I build my next system.

Well I can tell you exactly what I would do with them.

 

First off, one goes in my R510.  Thats just a no brainer.  I run a VM with all my editing software that I run on my desktop, which runs linux, and I have a network render node for kdenlive.  The other one goes to be used for testing in powermac G5's and other near-compatible systems that just need a little bit of a framework.

 

Enough oomph to do stuff.  Enough age to not care if it explodes, post ball-death era, all good far as I can see

 

I DID have a 7870, an R7/5 250X, and an R7 370, but they died due to AMD not picking up on ball quality for a WHILE, and I have a 6770, but that is going to explode.  Plainly, if I have any cards from that era, they need to be 290 / 285, or Nvidia.  One of my current cards is a 290, it does display and game render.  The other card is a 580 and does compute.  Each card gets a bay of ram and a xeon, individually.  So its like running a cluster in one machine lol.

 

If nothing else, use them like I use GPU's and use them as accelerators.  Look up what they CAN do, and set to it if you want to do whatever they do.  AI, OCL, live rendering, whatever.

[Issac Zachary]

Here's my current build. It's a gen 12 Intel with a real floppy drive! (I do need to find a beige front plate for the CD/DVD/BluRay drawer).

[Dabombinable]

Finally have a proper Solo-1 for use in my Mum's retro PC (replacing the Live Value! I temporarily installed). This also means that I can now get the correct capacitor and resistor values to complete the gameport on my far newer Solo-1e (which also requires replacing said gameport with one that has pins). I need to get better soldering gear:

[JFAllen]

Is 2008 retro? If so:

 

My Cosmos-S; the best full tower PC case ever made Case handles on a large full tower are sooooo good.

 

[da na]

2 minutes ago, JFAllen said:

Is 2008 retro? If so:

 

My Cosmos-S; the best full tower PC case ever made Case handles on a large full tower are sooooo good.

 

One of my favorite things about my HP z840 workstation is its handles.

[Rarity]

i think this can fit into this category of old stuff .. the g4 titanium powerbook , was posted in the other thread earlier 

Spoiler

 

[ApolloX75]

I've been busy.

 

I have created... a monster. This is reminiscent of how we water cooled back in the early to mid 2000s. 

 

Spoiler

 

I scored a pair of Inno3D GTX 580s with Heatkiller water blocks on them from the UK. Awesome. The bottom card has a fuzzy output, so it's getting a good reflow this weekend and should be back in business.

 

Spoiler

Pure badassery.

 

For some retro jollies this is how we did it with old Swiftech kits and a P182:

Spoiler

I'm surprised I still have photos of these rigs, I built a lot of them back in the day and it was far more challenging.

 

I'm mixing my own coolants now to shave some costs, seems to be working quite well so far. Also my EVGA Classy board is no good, dead in the water. Got it to boot a couple times then it just gave up the ghost again. Pity. But I have my backup; the Sabertooth X58, and it works flawlessly.

[Bitter]

Honestly I want to water cool my GIANT CoolerMaster tower (which technically could be in this thread since it's a Core2Duo era case) and this is how I was going to do it, but a triple 120 rad on spacers off the top of it and use the 80mm top fan hole for hose and fan cable pass through so I only have to drill some small holes for the stand offs. What's stopping me is not wanting to alter this case any because it's not hacked up like all my others and I really like it. I might change plan and hang a rad off the back, still room for a 360 but I could probably make brackets to use existing holes like you did there, thanks for the inspiration. There's also a 3rd option, just have the radiator on it's own tower or mount separate from the case with some quick connect fittings.

[ApolloX75]

1 hour ago, Bitter said:

Honestly I want to water cool my GIANT CoolerMaster tower (which technically could be in this thread since it's a Core2Duo era case) and this is how I was going to do it, but a triple 120 rad on spacers off the top of it and use the 80mm top fan hole for hose and fan cable pass through so I only have to drill some small holes for the stand offs. What's stopping me is not wanting to alter this case any because it's not hacked up like all my others and I really like it. I might change plan and hang a rad off the back, still room for a 360 but I could probably make brackets to use existing holes like you did there, thanks for the inspiration. There's also a 3rd option, just have the radiator on it's own tower or mount separate from the case with some quick connect fittings.

Took me a while to come up with that rig not gonna lie. The NZXT case, the rear fan grille is bowed out so a rad won't sit flush against it, neither will a fan. I then had an epiphany going through my screw bins, and got a kit of M4 standoffs of various sizes. Worked like a charm. Old Coolermaster cases are slick, they're hard to get now too. Honestly there's always a way to mount a rad, I fit that thicc 360 into the top shroud of that NZXT case earlier, I took it out only because I had to change the orientation of the fittings, now I have a slim 360 up there.

 

Lots of older cases like the HAF series, P180 series, old Lian Li's, Chieftechs, everything really had passthroughs in the back panel for hoses. At least 5/8 in size and usually with grommets. Hanging a rad on the back was pretty old hat by 2009 lol and it works well. Too bad no one makes rad box mounts anymore, Swiftech was one of the last holdouts. You can make one however by gutting a 120mm fan and cutting the motor and supports out, that usually will space a rad out far enough to use the cutouts.

[Bitter]

Sadly my case doesn't have pass throughs, I wouldn't be against adding them as long as I can do it nicely and it looks like there's a few places that would be possible. It's a Stacker 810. I'm never-endlingly annoyed at the spacing between the two rear fans. If they had just butted them together I could EASILY stick a 240 radiator on back there and just be done with it. But NOOOOOOOO that wasn't a thing yet in 2004(?) when they were designing this case. I was supposed to get black but it was back ordered so I went with silver and honestly I'm kind of glad I did.

https://www.newegg.com/silver-black-cooler-master-stacker-810-atx-full-tower/p/N82E16811119092

[ApolloX75]

15 hours ago, Bitter said:

Sadly my case doesn't have pass throughs, I wouldn't be against adding them as long as I can do it nicely and it looks like there's a few places that would be possible. It's a Stacker 810. I'm never-endlingly annoyed at the spacing between the two rear fans. If they had just butted them together I could EASILY stick a 240 radiator on back there and just be done with it. But NOOOOOOOO that wasn't a thing yet in 2004(?) when they were designing this case. I was supposed to get black but it was back ordered so I went with silver and honestly I'm kind of glad I did.

https://www.newegg.com/silver-black-cooler-master-stacker-810-atx-full-tower/p/N82E16811119092

The ol' Stacker! Those were amazing. 100% agree about those rear fans, but at least they are 120s and not something stupid like 80mm which was common at the time. You can still do a rear rad, take a look at how I did mine with the fans outside!

 

Spoiler

I tore down the 580s, and found some really bad stuff that definitely contributed to the problems. I ended up baking the second card to be sure, but I think the plastic film left on the thermal pads and the missing capacitor on the primary card were the real culprits! Luckily I keep a lot of broken spare cards lately and found a solid cap the same rating as the missing one and soldered it back on. The system runs flawlessly!

 

Spoiler

That cap right there was missing on the primary card, signs that it was possibly pulled off, or removed intentionally as the solder was missing and nothing was broken off. Maybe it failed and they meant to replace it later? Not sure.

Finally some good luck! However I haven't seen the missing stick of RAM from the Classified seller. So that's fantastic. Haha.

 

Spoiler

 

[Bitter]

8 minutes ago, ApolloX75 said:

The ol' Stacker! Those were amazing. 100% agree about those rear fans, but at least they are 120s and not something stupid like 80mm which was common at the time. You can still do a rear rad, take a look at how I did mine with the fans outside!

Oh my annoyance isn't with fan spacing not allowing me to just bolt a rad to the back of the case, my annoyance is with the fan spacing not lining up to use stand offs without making an adapter bracket...to bolt a rad to the back of the case. I have no problem building the bracket to adapt the goofy spacing and allow me to bolt to the case via the bracket. Just a couple rails of aluminum angle iron and some holes will do the trick. It's just an extra step to annoy me, that's all. I would want all 8 holes holding the radiator especially if it's on stand offs because you know just in case there's an earthquake it doesn't fall off lol.

[Crunchy Dragon]

20 hours ago, ApolloX75 said:

I've been busy.

 

I have created... a monster. This is reminiscent of how we water cooled back in the early to mid 2000s. 

 

  Hide contents

 

I scored a pair of Inno3D GTX 580s with Heatkiller water blocks on them from the UK. Awesome. The bottom card has a fuzzy output, so it's getting a good reflow this weekend and should be back in business.

 

  Hide contents

Pure badassery.

 

For some retro jollies this is how we did it with old Swiftech kits and a P182:

  Hide contents

I'm surprised I still have photos of these rigs, I built a lot of them back in the day and it was far more challenging.

 

I'm mixing my own coolants now to shave some costs, seems to be working quite well so far. Also my EVGA Classy board is no good, dead in the water. Got it to boot a couple times then it just gave up the ghost again. Pity. But I have my backup; the Sabertooth X58, and it works flawlessly.

I honestly miss the NZXT Phantom. That was a really good case.

[ApolloX75]

1 hour ago, Crunchy Dragon said:

I honestly miss the NZXT Phantom. That was a really good case.

I picked it up for peanuts last year for this project. I honestly didn't expect to be working in it this much, and it's surprised me how good it is to work in. Only complaint is lack of cable space behind the motherboard tray, it's decent but it's not quite deep enough. Otherwise it's fantastic with all the configurations I've been able to cook up.

[Crunchy Dragon]

19 hours ago, ApolloX75 said:

I picked it up for peanuts last year for this project. I honestly didn't expect to be working in it this much, and it's surprised me how good it is to work in. Only complaint is lack of cable space behind the motherboard tray, it's decent but it's not quite deep enough. Otherwise it's fantastic with all the configurations I've been able to cook up.

I firmly believe that the Phantom lineup were the last good cases NZXT made. H440 wasn't bad either, but it was no Phantom

[Dabombinable]

I may have a new favourite video card. The 6600GT. TBH hard to choose between it and the FX 5700:

My mum's retro PC may end up with the FX 5700 when it's KT400 board arrives.