TPU's Nostalgic Hardware Club

[QuietBob]

AM2NF3-VSTA
CPU is either some higher end Athlon 64 x2 or possibly a Phenom
2 or 4GB RAM
Seasonic PSU (around 430W?)
Western Digital Velociraptor (74GB probably)
probably a SSD

You got those right!

love that thermalright Northbridge cooler and the zalman vf900 gpu cooler

Nice catch!

Nope, it might be a Thermaltake Tsunami Dream though.

Yup, it's a Thermaltake but the model would be hard to tell from the photo. I stripped the door and the drive and expansion card latches and also swapped the original orange fans

So here's the full specs:

ASRock AM2NF3-VSTA
AMD Phenom II X4 965 BE
Sapphire ATI Radeon HD 3850 (custom AC)
2x 2 GB Kingston HyperX T1 DDR2 1066 MHz
Kingston SSD V300 60 GB MLC
Western Digital Raptor WD740ADFD 74 GB
Audiotrak Prodigy 7.1 HiFi
Thermalright Macho Rev.A (BW)
Thermalright HR-05 SLI/IFX
Seasonic G-450 450W 80+ Gold modular
Thermaltake Soprano VB1000BWS Black
2x Scythe SlipStream 120 1,200 rpm
Windows XP Home SP3 (fully updated)

This used to be my main PC. I've owned all the parts since new (save for the current mainbord). It started around 2010 with the unique ASRock AliveDual-eSATA2 and an Athlon II X2 250. Sadly, when the old Tagan PSU powering it died, it took the AliveDual with it. I decided to rebuild the rig around 2015 for the nostalgia. Couldn't find the AliveDual anywhere, so got the next best thing.

Posting from this PC right now

 

[Ruru]

The ultimate 2009 budget gaming build with watercooling, putting XP & 7 dualboot there

Q9500 w/ Alphacool Eisbaer, P5Q Pro, 4GB DDR2-800, HD 5770 w/ EK-FC5770, 2x 160GB HDD, SATA DVD-ROM & PATA CD-RW, Antec Earthwatts 380W, Define XL

 

[QuietBob]

Q9500 w/ Alphacool Eisbaer, P5Q Pro, 4GB DDR2-800, HD 5770 w/ EK-FC5770, 2x 160GB HDD, SATA DVD-ROM & PATA CD-RW, Antec Earthwatts 380W, Define XL

Nice! Need to get a PATA DVD drive for myself. Steam now refuses to launch altogether on XP and my mobo only supports 2 SATA devices...

 

[stinger608]

Need to get a PATA DVD drive for myself.

Are you in the US? If so, I think I have a couple. I'd be happy to part with one for ya man.
Got to help fellow nostalgic builders out.

 

[QuietBob]

Are you in the US? If so, I think I have a couple. I'd be happy to part with one for ya man.
Got to help fellow nostalgic builders out.

Thank you so much for your kind offer! I'm in mainland Europe, will find something locally.

Mustn't... give... up...

 

[stinger608]

There are a few of the members here in the nostalgic thread that are in Europe so maybe one of them will chime in.

 

[Caring1]

Nice! Need to get a PATA DVD drive for myself. Steam now refuses to launch altogether on XP and my mobo only supports 2 SATA devices...

I literally threw one out a week ago, but I'm in Australia so no point anyway.

 

[QuietBob]

"But does it run Crysis?"

FullHD + medium detail = around 30 fps

 

[TheKingGamerBr]

"But does it run Crysis?"
View attachment 169715
FullHD + medium detail = around 30 fps

I Remember playing with my 8500GT, and i wanted to play on high by any mean, so i played at 800x600 and high detail's, get around 20~25 fps

 

[biffzinker]

How about a 1996 gaming PC build out.

 

[QuietBob]

My current laptop: Compaq CQ60 from 2008. Got it for peanuts in 2013 from a friend who said it was "useless". And it really was! It was the bottom-spec model with a Sempron SI-40, 1 GB DDR2-666, 120 GB HDD and the notorious GF 8M. Running Vista, this thing was idling at 65 deg C

I set out to give it another lease of life, with maxed out specs. It received a Turion X2 Ultra ZM-85, 2x 2 GB DDR2-800, an SSD, and 64-bit Win7 HP. It also got a new oversized battery. But even after cleaning everything and replacing the TIM, the temps were quite high and the fan would soon get noisy. So I took more extreme measures and literally cut out a hole in the case, effectively removing the CPU vent. Put some wire mesh from a fan filter to keep the dust off.

Now it's been idling at 43 deg C I still use this laptop for office work, YT and web browsing. Never played any games on it though!

 

[MaxiPro800]

The AMD versions always ran as hot as the sun, regardless of the spectrum in which they were. My DV7-3165el would literally fry eggs with its Turion M520 + HD4650. And that's with a 9.1W/mK thermal paste (Zalman ZM-STC9) so you can guess that HP or AMD screwed up big time somewhere along the road, especially if the Intel counterparts (Core 2 Duo in your case, 1st gen i3 in the case of my DV7) run MUCH MUCH colder than the AMD versions.

This was also the case with one of my DV6000s. It originally started its life as a AMD machine of the worst kind (S1G1 + Go7200, the worst combination there could ever exist) and eventually I got tired of having to constantly reflow it so I just stuck a Intel based board that had 8400M GS and PM965 chipset and the temperature difference is night to sky - if with the AMD I'd hit 70-80*C by literally doing NOTHING, the Intel counterpart barely reaches 60*C if used intensively.

I'm planning on finding a working i3 board for my DV7 as well, since it seems the AMD board also starts to give up the ghost. It's going to be a bit harder but I hope I can pull it off, along with sticking a i5 or i7 in it, 1TB + 750GB spinning drives (I'm not a big fan of SSDs), H-L GT31N DVD RW, as well as hopefully 8GB of DDR3.

 

[lexluthermiester]

How about a 1996 gaming PC build out.

I would have thrown a P133 or P166 in it to bump up both the CPU and bus speed(or just OC'd it to 133mhz). This is becasuse P120s only ran on a 60mhz bus (2x60=120) instead of the standard 66mhz. At that speed everything in the system is being underclocked to accommodate the 120mhz CPU. Nice PC though. Wacky layout but it worked.

 

[QuietBob]

The AMD versions always ran as hot as the sun, regardless of the spectrum in which they were. My DV7-3165el would literally fry eggs with its Turion M520 + HD4650. And that's with a 9.1W/mK thermal paste (Zalman ZM-STC9) so you can guess that HP or AMD screwed up big time somewhere along the road, especially if the Intel counterparts (Core 2 Duo in your case, 1st gen i3 in the case of my DV7) run MUCH MUCH colder than the AMD versions.

I hear ya. It's true that AMD mobile parts of the time ran much hotter than their Intel contemporaries. But I'd also blame HP and their crappy laptop design. Of the odd dozen laptops from that period I've upgraded, HP had some of the worst cooling solutions. I've seen bigger heatsinks on a Pentium And let's not forget Nvidia and their ill-fated GF8M series...

Hopefully your future upgrades will go well!

 

[MaxiPro800]

GF 8M was far from being as hot as Turions were. I mean come on, I have a HP DV6000 and it's the Core 2 Duo w/ 8400M GS and it's nowhere as hot as my DV7 (in fact, it's unusually cool given it's BOTH a HP and G8x chipsets usually run pretty hot). It's strange, as the DV7 has a much complex heatsink than the DV6000 by quite a lot.

As for the 8700M GT in my G70S running hot, I can only blame my absolutely stupid decision of using a brush type thermal paste instead of just buying a MX4 (or MX2, whichever I'd find available where I live) and applying that. Heck, I wouldn't be surprised if the temps drop to exactly the same temps as my DV6000. It's also interesting how the G70S card uses a G84-750-A2 which has a big surface and the G86-730-A2 in my DV6000 surprisingly has the same footprint, while the G86-603-A2 chips used for Acer's 5520 and some 7520 (the 8400MG variants more exactly) are half the size of the HP and ASUS chips.

 

[biffzinker]

The first laptop I owned was a Compaq Presario CQ62 almost similar to the one @QuietBob posted. I don't remember it suffering from a overheating issue. It would however eventually get a bit on the warmer side than I would of preferred.

Review HP Compaq Presario CQ62 Notebook

Detailed review of the HP Compaq Presario CQ62-A04sg (AMD Athlon II P320, ATI Radeon HD 4250, 15.6", 2.6 kg) with numerous measurements, benchmarks and ratings

www.notebookcheck.net

 

[MaxiPro800]

P320 is 4th gen, and those usually ran cool enough. @QuietBob 's machine is a CQ60 from the S1G2 era, and those were literal space heaters.

 

[QuietBob]

P320 is 4th gen, and those usually ran cool enough. @QuietBob 's machine is a CQ60 from the S1G2 era, and those were literal space heaters.

45 vs 65 nm and 25 vs 35 W TDP sure makes a difference. Here's my current CQ60's temps at idle, following a single run of Cinebench R15 at 25 deg C ambient. The GPU is still the hottest chip even though it's the weakest 8200M G model. Due to questionable design, the GF die is being heated by the same heatpipe which cools the CPU.

 

[Apocalypsee]

My current laptop: Compaq CQ60 from 2008. Got it for peanuts in 2013 from a friend who said it was "useless". And it really was! It was the bottom-spec model with a Sempron SI-40, 1 GB DDR2-666, 120 GB HDD and the notorious GF 8M. Running Vista, this thing was idling at 65 deg C

I set out to give it another lease of life, with maxed out specs. It received a Turion X2 Ultra ZM-85, 2x 2 GB DDR2-800, an SSD, and 64-bit Win7 HP. It also got a new oversized battery. But even after cleaning everything and replacing the TIM, the temps were quite high and the fan would soon get noisy. So I took more extreme measures and literally cut out a hole in the case, effectively removing the CPU vent. Put some wire mesh from a fan filter to keep the dust off.

Now it's been idling at 43 deg C I still use this laptop for office work, YT and web browsing. Never played any games on it though!

I used to use Athlon 64 QL-64 on ASUS K40AB and undervolt using k10stats. You can try using that to cool down further, and perhaps prolong battery life

 

[Robert B]

Flea Market Day 2 Day!

1. AOpen AK73-1394 A
2. Athlon 1GHz - A1000AMT3B - has a cracked die. I think that there is a 20% chance that it is still functional.
3. Palit ATI 9550 - bought solely for the Titan TTC-CUV2AB cooler and the blue heatsinks
4. Pentium II 350MHz - SL356
5. Two Slot 1 CPUs with unknown specs. Probably still functional. L.E. - probably PII 350MHz - http://yamano.fortunecity.ws/P2LIST.htm - KM736V604YMT-44 / TC55V2377AFF-255
6. MSI N470GTX-M2D12 - bought for peanuts. I should've not ask the seller for the price ...~ 2.2 EUROS. Probably functional.

 

[lexluthermiester]

Flea Market Day 2 Day!

1. AOpen AK73-1394 A
2. Athlon 1GHz - A1000AMT3B - has a cracked die. I think that there is a 20% chance that it is still functional.
3. Palit ATI 9550 - bought solely for the Titan TTC-CUV2AB cooler and the blue heatsinks
4. Pentium II 350MHz - SL356
5. Two Slot 1 CPUs with unknown specs. Probably still functional. L.E. - probably PII 350MHz - http://yamano.fortunecity.ws/P2LIST.htm - KM736V604YMT-44 / TC55V2377AFF-255
6. MSI N470GTX-M2D12 - bought for peanuts. I should've not ask the seller for the price ...~ 2.2 EUROS. Probably functional.

Everything is so dirty, needs some serious TLC!

 

[kiriakost]

This is my last deposit of personal photographed crimes which I did fifteen years ago in the name of Silent PC.
Since 2012 I am under oath that when I move to a new VGA purchase, I will get the one with the best in design and performance cooling system offered as factory option.

 

[Robert B]

Everything is so dirty, needs some serious TLC!

Diamonds in the rough.

 

[Dinnercore]

[...]Also it has a jumper to allow even more vcore if needed.[...]

A bit late, I had to catch up on the thread again.

BE CAREFUL with that jumper on the P5Qs. Its really nice for sub-zero OC but not really designed for ambient stuff. I used it once for 65nm to get just a bit more for a bench and I nearly fell from my chair when I saw how high it sets the voltage with the jumper.
When you toggle this overvoltage to ON it first boots up with ~ 1.9Vcore. The way it works is, it takes the values in bios and applies an insane overshoot of up to 0.4V. And on first boot after enabling it, it seems to set the before highest possible value and then adds its overshoot automatically so you boot with ~1.6V plus the ~0.4V offset. I experienced that a few times.

Once you set a more reasonable voltage in bios like 1.3V (will probably be more like 1.55V thanks to OV offset) it will remember that so its atleast controllable. I just left it enabled on my designated OC board and store it with a battery so it remembers my settings and I don't blow up any 45nm chip by accident.

 

[Ruru]

A bit late, I had to catch up on the thread again.

BE CAREFUL with that jumper on the P5Qs. Its really nice for sub-zero OC but not really designed for ambient stuff. I used it once for 65nm to get just a bit more for a bench and I nearly fell from my chair when I saw how high it sets the voltage with the jumper.
When you toggle this overvoltage to ON it first boots up with ~ 1.9Vcore. The way it works is, it takes the values in bios and applies an insane overshoot of up to 0.4V. And on first boot after enabling it, it seems to set the before highest possible value and then adds its overshoot automatically so you boot with ~1.6V plus the ~0.4V offset. I experienced that a few times.

Once you set a more reasonable voltage in bios like 1.3V (will probably be more like 1.55V thanks to OV offset) it will remember that so its atleast controllable. I just left it enabled on my designated OC board and store it with a battery so it remembers my settings and I don't blow up any 45nm chip by accident.

No worries yet, I'm running with just water... but I got ur point.