TPU's Nostalgic Hardware Club

[stinger608]

Some time ago; oh jeez, maybe a year or year and a half now, I picked up 2 ole Alienware systems locally from a guy on Craigslist.

One, the newer system, had something funky going on with the motherboard. I located a new, original Alienware EVGA 790i Ultra for an amazing price. Flashed the BIOS to unlock it due to the newer system being one of the one's that was produced after Dell had bought them out.

Had a heck of a time finding the proper software to make all the lights and crap work on it, but after some digging, I found all of that.

I found an amazing deal here on TPU for a fan controller from @XZero450 which I knew would look amazing in this ole system!
Needless to say, I grabbed it and am kind of in the process of installing it today.

For some enjoyment, here are a few pictures of that ole system.

Spoiler: Silver Alienware

I just think the bay area looks so much better with the fan controller installed! It's one that gives 4 different temps as well. Very cool!
Thanks a million again @XZero450 !!!!!

And, I just tossed in the side and motherboard shots for shits and giggles.


The older Alienware system is an original real Alienware before they sold out to Dell. It had an Abit motherboard in it, that worked great, but it wouldn't support anything other than a single core S775 chip.
Well, I had an awesome P5Q-E motherboard that I had grabbed for next to nothing from our amazing TPU member @theonedub a few years ago (jeez, I think around 3 or 4 years now).

Pulled that board installed the P5Q board and a quad-core processor and that ole system frigging rocks out! I have Windows XP Pro installed on it for some nostalgic gaming now and then.

Here are a couple of shots of it:

Spoiler: Black Alienware

Man, I remember back in the days of old, my best friend and I wanted an Alienware system so bad!!!!!
Naturally, that was before we started building our own systems.

Of course, they were way out of our budgets at that time.


Okay, sorry for being so long-winded on this post.

 

[Trekkie4]

Wow, that's one impressive setup @stinger608 And it's powered by Asus board, so I like it even better!

Just curious though, was the fire extinguisher part of the deal, or was it optional component?

 

[stinger608]

Just curious though, was the fire extinguisher part of the deal, or was it optional component?

I knew someone would notice that.

 

[Robert B]

Soon the story of the three little pigs....with me the BIG not so bad w o l f

Will be posted in the Project Logs section.

 

[stinger608]

Soon the story of the three little pigs....with me the BIG not so bad w o l f

Will be posted in the Project Logs section.

I've been following, as probably several on this thread has, your other amazing thread relating to some amazing nostalgic hardware!!!!

 

[Trekkie4]

@Robert B

1st pic - Teac CD-RW
2nd pic - AMD Athlon, Slot A CPU
4th pic - Slot 1 (Pentium?) CPU

Not sure about the 3rd one though, some kind of tool?

 

[Robert B]

@stinger608 - I hope my adventures are as entertaining for you as they are for me

@Trekkie4
1. Teac CD-W524E
2. Athlon Slot A 750 MHz unfortunately dead
3. Brass screws for a PII heatsink. I put them on an allen key so that I wont lose them
4. PII SL2S5 333MHz 66MHz bus.

I am also negociating with someone for some other exotic HW

 

[Trekkie4]

Finally done with that mATX Asus build! This one really was in sorry-state when I 1st got it, but now it's all primed up & ready to go! More about that over the course of next couple of days, but for now here's the actual hardware behind it


One thing I got to admit is the terrible noise, coming from the exhaust fan! If you don't remember my post from yesterday, I replaced the original 92mm fan with "HP-Compaq" branded one, model number 282317-003 which is more like a small vacuum cleaner. But let's face it, it's either that or fried motherboard & recapping everything from scratch, all over again!

Edit
By the way, I totally forgot to mention this before. I also got to fix the problem with CPU uCode, it was due to BIOS & not being compatible with Prescott P4. Apparently they've designed this thing with ONLY Celeron D in mind - in fact, according to the official website this motherboard will only accept Celeron D CPUs & nothing else, but when ppl started replacing them with P4 chips, they decided to release an upgrade. At least that's the impression I was given from visiting the Asus support website.

To make things even more complicated, this board also doubles as "p5s800 vm", it even says so on the board itself. But since this particular board is default barebone system component, it uses customized BIOS & therefore some of the original features are disabled and/or adopted to this particular system. So finding the correct drivers and BIOS was a bit tricky & I had to switch between the real P5S800 VM & "Vintage-PE1", which is the actual name of the barebone system, but eventually I got everything working OK

Edit2
Fun fact, this 2nd edit was done from the Asus machine, just wanted to see if I got everything OK... It's running Windows Vista (this is the part where you say: oh, NO! ) Ultimate SP1, with all the latest updates & patches, and with loads of software still downloading in the background

 

[CAPSLOCKSTUCK]

Did/does anyone here have one of these?

 

[uuuaaaaaa]

Did/does anyone here have one of these?

View attachment 86896

View attachment 86898

That is one gorgeous board!

 

[CAPSLOCKSTUCK]

These sata cables are perfect

 

[uuuaaaaaa]

These sata cables are perfect

View attachment 86900



View attachment 86901

X5670 slapped in there?

 

[CAPSLOCKSTUCK]

i7 920 to start. Im still trying to find a working BIOS for Xeons in this board. I will need 920 to flash the board anyway.



My son is insisting on a wooden case for this build. I think it would be a shame to conceal all its gaudy lovlieness so my latest thoughts are to modify a cigar humidor and put the pc in there.


Edit.......not my box, but i can find one similar.

 

[jboydgolfer]

I almost forgot I had this

i still have one of this kicking around somewhere iirc. not the Exact same shroud, but close. sounds like a jet taking off iirc.

 

[basco]

i am jealous of your cohiba´s

 

[CAPSLOCKSTUCK]

 

[Mr.Scott]

i am jealous of your cohiba´s

Me too.

 

[CAPSLOCKSTUCK]

For clarification.

They arent my cigars. I hand roll my fags.

 

[dorsetknob]

For clarification.

They aren't my cigars. I hand roll my fags.

Cuban cigars " Hand Rolled on the thighs of beautiful Cuban senorita's" ( Trump Embargoed)
Welsh Roll ups "hand rolled on the thighs of a Sweaty welshman's leg" ( Trump Embargoed ? )

 

[CAPSLOCKSTUCK]

Welsh Roll ups "hand rolled on the thighs of a Sweaty welshman's leg" ( Trump Embargoed ? )

Given the chance i would roll him one. Im not convinced he would like it though, it might make him feel a bit wonky and i dont think he would like me either.........

 

[jboydgolfer]

They arent my cigars. I hand roll my fags.

I'll never get over what you call cigarettes over there

 

[alucasa]

Is this considered as hardware? I mean I have the boxes...

 

[Mr.Scott]

I'll never get over what you call cigarettes over there

Indeed. You roll a fag here and you go to jail for a hate crime.

 

[Trekkie4]

The way I see things... If you can take it into your hand, carry it around and/or place it on the shelf, then it IS hardware Perfect timing as well, since I just mentioned Vista in my previous post!

 

[MaxiPro800]

Some of my rigs.

And yes, much to my shame that's a TNT2 M64 32MB on the Gigabyte machine, and the other one in the ASUS machine is a ATi Rage 128/Xpert2000 32MB. As soon as I'm going to rack up on better GPU (GF4 MX440 and up) it's gonna be replaced by an Abit Siluro FX5200DT 128MB for the Gigabyte, and hopefully the ATi to be replaced by at least a 9600. (or 9500/9550)