Show off your old and retro computer parts

[Bitter]

Just clean installed Kubuntu 22.04 on an Acer Aspire One with an N570 Atom. Talk about slooooow.

[Dabombinable]

17 hours ago, da na said:

Yes.

Dell XPS Desktop 700 Tower Intel Pentium D 3GHz 3GB RAM NO HDD NO OS - Parts | eBay

Holy shit, you've found a BTX PC.

[Bitter]

3 hours ago, Dabombinable said:

Holy shit, you've found a BTX PC.

I thought part of btx spec was the exhaust fan was also the CPU fan, ala dimension 2400. If it's just upside down motherboard then the FM1 system I have here is btx also.

[da na]

4 hours ago, Dabombinable said:

Holy shit, you've found a BTX PC.

I have a few other BTX systems, an old Dell Dimension chiefly. Pretty odd

[Dabombinable]

2 hours ago, Bitter said:

I thought part of btx spec was the exhaust fan was also the CPU fan, ala dimension 2400. If it's just upside down motherboard then the FM1 system I have here is btx also.

It really is BTX (got to remember as well - Dell has trouble following even the ATX standard):
Dell XPS 700 Review | Trusted Reviews

If the review is accurate - probably one of the worst chipset implementations as well.

[8tg]

1 hour ago, Dabombinable said:

It really is BTX (got to remember as well - Dell has trouble following even the ATX standard):
Dell XPS 700 Review | Trusted Reviews

If the review is accurate - probably one of the worst chipset implementations as well.

Every time I see an old Dell review it’s always “look what they made, it’s amazing, and then they fucked it up massively”

[da na]

1 minute ago, 8tg said:

Every time I see an old Dell review it’s always “look what they made, it’s amazing, and then they fucked it up massively”

That is typically how Dell systems from back in the day are

[SimplyChunk]

4 hours ago, da na said:

That is typically how Dell systems from back in the day are

They're not far from that now either

[Bitter]

2 minutes ago, ChonkerFox said:

They're not far from that now either

Truth. I loved popping open a Dimension 2400 with a semi decent 2.4ghz Northwood and seeing the solder pads and traces for an AGP slot but no slot populated. I always wondered if I could just solder one on and it would work but never did. Would have been pretty cool back in the day!

[da na]

7 hours ago, Bitter said:

Truth. I loved popping open a Dimension 2400 with a semi decent 2.4ghz Northwood and seeing the solder pads and traces for an AGP slot but no slot populated. I always wondered if I could just solder one on and it would work but never did. Would have been pretty cool back in the day!

That exact damn computer disappointed me in the same way a few months ago! 

 

On the topic of bad design, the HP Pavilions of the late 2000s are gorgeous but wowie are they poorly cooled. I have several and thus can attest to the cooling issues. HP built the prettiest laptops with Core 2 Duo or Turion 64 x2 CPUs and Nvidia graphics, but forgot to put fan vents on them. Thus, some models are actually getting a bit rare since most of them have killed the weak-soldered Nvidia graphics long ago. I'm fortunate enough to have a 13" model with a 9300ge, 14" model with 8400m GT, and HDX 16 special edition with 9600 GT. Not ridiculously power hungry or hot GPUs clearly, but HP still managed to cook 'em.

[Dabombinable]

3 hours ago, da na said:

That exact damn computer disappointed me in the same way a few months ago! 

 

On the topic of bad design, the HP Pavilions of the late 2000s are gorgeous but wowie are they poorly cooled. I have several and thus can attest to the cooling issues. HP built the prettiest laptops with Core 2 Duo or Turion 64 x2 CPUs and Nvidia graphics, but forgot to put fan vents on them. Thus, some models are actually getting a bit rare since most of them have killed the weak-soldered Nvidia graphics long ago. I'm fortunate enough to have a 13" model with a 9300ge, 14" model with 8400m GT, and HDX 16 special edition with 9600 GT. Not ridiculously power hungry or hot GPUs clearly, but HP still managed to cook 'em.

Our school library had several P4 based HP Pavilion, and each and every one got that clogged with dust, they overheated. They later on got replaced by Pavilion with Pentium D...

[ApolloX75]

Well after several late nights, I have a functioning water-blocked pair of reference 780 Ti's that currently overclock higher than a Classy or Gigahertz edition. And run at 24C full tilt while pushing 266W each. And that's with my 975 at stock right now because it's been a bit of a pill to get it cooperating with the Ti's. Tuning that will be tomorrow evening's challenge.

 

Some eye candy....

Spoiler

 

My first water blocked pair, the second card went bad after a few runs even though they were at 19C and stock clocks. So after troubleshooting that and setting that card aside for some repair work later, I set out testing all four Ti's separately and then together to find who worked with who. The final pair clock amazingly well so far, +201 on the core first try and +400 on the memory. Boost clock is now 1220 and they hold thanks to the stupidly good Heatkiller blocks (and my massive radiators). I will continue tuning these cards as I've barely scratched the surface.

 

I had one Ti that would tap out when it hit 83C, it no longer has that issue with the Heatkiller on it and it's clocking like a champ. Go figure.

 

On the plus side, almost all the regular 780s seem to work fine, but I will need to test further and it's time consuming to swap, firestrike, swap, firestrike, swap..... etc. I am attaching 40mm heatsinks to the backside of the card, to the three VRMs that are on the reverse side, on all the air cooled cards and it's dropping the average temps by almost 10C on average per card.

[SimplyChunk]

So i bought these CPUs for my Slot 1 upgrade:

 

They're a PII MMX 233 and a PIII MMX 450.  I've already swapped out that simply ridonkulous passive sink on the PIII.  I could only do this by breaking the plastic retainers.  I couldn't get any leverage to pull them out (stupid old retaining system XD) I got both cause the manual for my ABIT AB-BH6 has conflicting info about whether the BIOS needs a flash before it'll recognise the PIII.  The Die on the PIII was tiny but cleaned up really well considering how old the thermal paste must have been.  same with the thermal paste on the second hand cooler i bought for it. Here's what the PIII looks like in the BH6:

 

I have the case I need for the new boards ATX form factor and plan on using the RAM, Sound Card, GPU, HDD (should be able to recognise the full 80GB of the HDD in the Slot 1 board) and other drives out of the K6-2 450 system then selling the rest of that on here or on ebay.

[ApolloX75]

 

Lol. Broke out the Rockit today. Lapped, delidded and then Conductonaut applied to a 4670K. If she wasn't an overclocker before, she is now. Z87 Sabertooth should be arriving any day now as well. Thermal paste on this little unit was dry as a bone anyways, I tested it real quick in a little H81 board to make sure it worked and just tore it apart afterwards.

 

I can't wait, so excited, haven't played with Haswell in so long and it is by far my favorite platform to overclock on.

[ApolloX75]

Ahhhh.... Good news/bad news situation. Good news? I broke another 3D Mark record with the 975 and a pair of 780 Ti's. Sweet.

 

Bad news? I found the max voltage my 975 can take. And it's gone. 

 

Time to get another from China I guess, but I also am picking up a six core X5660 on Friday with another Sabertooth X58 board. So I'll have some fun with that as well.

 

Note to self: This jumper baaaaaaad

[K9ninjah]

[Beerzerker]

5 hours ago, ApolloX75 said:

Ahhhh.... Good news/bad news situation. Good news? I broke another 3D Mark record with the 975 and a pair of 780 Ti's. Sweet.

 

Bad news? I found the max voltage my 975 can take. And it's gone. 

 

Time to get another from China I guess, but I also am picking up a six core X5660 on Friday with another Sabertooth X58 board. So I'll have some fun with that as well.

 

Note to self: This jumper baaaaaaad

 

Which 3D Mark version record did you manage to break?

[ApolloX75]

6 hours ago, Beerzerker said:

Which 3D Mark version record did you manage to break?

Just Firestrike at this point. Last time someone ran it with this combo was 2014, so I'm sitting at top of the charts hahahaha.

 

I'm sure I'll be there for a few years and someone will come along and blast it away again.

[Beerzerker]

Will check that out...... And sounds like you're probrably running it for Team Cup.
Well, maybe not TC but still fun to do regardless.

I've gotta get my shiite together if I'm gonna be in it myself before it's over, present circumstances permitting.

[SimplyChunk]

4 minutes ago, Beerzerker said:

Will check that out...... And sounds like you're probrably running it for Team Cup.
Well, maybe not TC but still fun to do regardless.

I've gotta get my shiite together if I'm gonna be in it myself before it's over, present circumstances permitting.

I got in the top 5 at one point with my 6600k and 1070 in timespy back in the day.  3DMark is so much fun when you concentrate in your own hardware bracket.

[flibberdipper]

Not strictly a PC but small details, I got this dude from recycling and it works fantastic other than having a dead DVD laser. Never thought I'd own a technically fully working Xenon but here we are. I just wish it were on either Blades or NXE but you can't win 'em all.

 

Also fun fact, I didn't clean the inside of it at all, this is seriously just how CLEAN it was. From the save data on it, it seems like it was in use to some extent up until 2016.

[SimplyChunk]

Got my PIII 450 up and running and WOW! what a difference from my K6-2 (the PIII just 'fashioned' together at the minute so no pics yet).  Couldn't be happier.  The difference in Quake under software rendering alone is night and day.  Maybe 30fps on the Socket 7 system at 320x200? The Slot 1 system kept going all the way up to 1024x768 with a nice smooth framerate.  Still got some work to do to get it to hardware render on the Voodoo 3 (I had it running at 640x480 for a brief glorious few moments before i decided to change the res and started getting an error on it) but in know I had that card running in the socket 7 build up to 1024x768 so...and now I got some CPU horses to push it  

[Bitter]

Mmmmm messing with unofficial Glide drivers, that brings me back lol.

[da na]

I found this wacky little Altec Lansing computer speaker set, the ADA885. THX and Dolby certified with a little LCD screen on them, and the speaker design is very unusual. Unfortunately it looks like there is a DIN connector on each speaker that would have to go to a reciever or subwoofer, so I doubt the display and all that would work correctly without it. 

These sadly do need the woofer to work correctly. Shame there since I would've loved to pick these up. Still though I'd share though as they are quite cool

[ApolloX75]

OH! My bad luck is back!

 

 

I received my Z87 Sabertooth board today, the package looked like it had been through the ringer. Looks like customs tore it open and ripped apart the box, took the socket protector off and let it rattle around the board. Bent and broken pins. I know it wasn't the seller, he sent me photos of it being packed and it was very secure.

 

I'm just so down now, I can't fix this easily. I can try replacing the socket but all the caps in the center on 1150 make it even more daunting and I'll probably just ruin it more.

 

The seller is fantastic though, he sent me a full refund right away. I was smart and took pictures as I removed it from the box of course, so that helped my case. 

 

The hits just keep on coming, a couple weeks ago I got royally ripped off on FB marketplace, I don't usually use it but a guy in Quebec had a card I wanted and he agreed to ship it, got the tracking from him, etc sent him the money. Well it's been a couple weeks and he doesn't respond to my messages and guess what, no card.

 

My hatred for Quebec continues to burn.