TPU's Nostalgic Hardware Club

[MaxiPro800]

Not if you have decent cooling and good paste.

 

[hat]

Funny how a good old Core 2 Quad, maybe even a Duo can still be relevant in today's tasks, as long as it's not something that lives on the cutting edge. The original i7 lineup was still passable for gaming until games started requiring AVX.

The key to future-proofing a rig seems to lie in buying oversized RAM. Want to build a new gaming rig this year and keep it for years and years? Buy 32GB RAM, not 16GB. Get at least an 8c/16t CPU. The graphics card is the thing that evolves the most, but hypothetically speaking if they were available, a 3080 would do just fine for years to come. Maybe one significant graphics card upgrade over the life of the whole system.

 

[framebuffer]

took some pcs of an ASUS Radeon X850XT during the cleaning

also found that has 1.6ns RAM, rated at 625MHz, will see...

 

[Splinterdog]

took some pcs of an ASUS Radeon X850XT during the cleaning

View attachment 193277View attachment 193278View attachment 193279

also found that has 1.6ns RAM, rated at 625MHz, will see...

Fabulous pictures. The clarity is insane.
Did you use a phone camera?

 

[framebuffer]

Fabulous pictures. The clarity is insane.
Did you use a phone camera?

Thanks!
Uhm no, used my SONY A6000

 

[bogmali]

 

[Pupo]

Barn find.

Shitty vendor, shitty card, non native AGP, but was factory sealed and Ruby is still sexy

 

[micropage7]

Thanks!
Uhm no, used my SONY A6000

stock lens? it's too good
i may use them for wallpaper

 

[framebuffer]

Barn find.

Shitty vendor, shitty card, non native AGP, but was factory sealed and Ruby is still sexy

hahah exactly!! Ruby on box is worth the purchase without even knowing the card model

stock lens? it's too good
i may use them for wallpaper

No hehe, first one is with SIGMA 16mm F1.4, for the close-ups I used the Sony E 30mm F3.5 Macro

If you want use them as wallpaper I can upload a proper 4K version, let me know

 

[Trekkie4]

Well guys, the Adison project is still coming along, with the few remaining bits & pieces on the way to me. Mainly the BTC drive(s), I found two additional units. So, those are hopefully going to take care of the "missing trim" situation (pic below), and I will even have a spare unit in case I ever need to replace it down the road. The actual drive itself DOES seem to be working fine, but its visual state is unacceptable for my standards.


I'm also trying to finish that other Pentium II build but I'm missing long-ish ATA33 cable, so that one's on hold for now. Oh, and I'm also trying to source a modem (or two?), to be as identical as possible to the other machine. I'm aiming at Rockwell 56k V90, but at this point I would accept any model that's 56k/v90 and has external headset/microphone connections. Therefore, no software emulation, it has to be fully old-fashioned.

Also, despite my best intentions @QuietBob and I haven't been able to work out that keyboard deal & the whole thing fell through. Which means that I'm still looking for BTC 8110M keyboard. So, if you have one to give away or to sell (for the reasonable price, or at least for the price of shipment itself) send me a msg & let me know Picture of the actual keyboard is down below:

Furthermore, a fellow forumer (from another forum) was kind enough to provide me with "Adison" catalog of what the Adison store had to offer back in 1999. It is a PDF document, so if you guys are interested, I might hook it up here for everyone to see

 

[Valantar]

took some pcs of an ASUS Radeon X850XT during the cleaning

View attachment 193277View attachment 193278View attachment 193279

also found that has 1.6ns RAM, rated at 625MHz, will see...

Nice shots! What is that background lighting, btw? Certainly complimented the colors of the card well. Generally excellently lit shots

 

[Trekkie4]

Whoops, forgot to include additional pics of those BTC drive(s). Just for the sake of keeping records & preserving log history


Someone recently asked me ... what's with my obsession with BTC, why do I keep forcing these terrible, unreliable & loud CD-ROM drives, when I could have much better, more reliable & quieter units such as Plextor, Panasonic, Pioneer & similar brands?

The answer is simple - because they are original, "true" to what I had back in a day. And like I said several times by now, this isn't just another retro build, it is a full rebuild (and reconstruction, in case of the other machine) of what I had back then. As accurate & true as you can get, without time-traveling to 1998

 

[lexluthermiester]

The answer is simple - because they are original, "true" to what I had back in a day.

Those of us who have been following your progress understand you. Carry on good sir!!

what's with my obsession with BTC, why do I keep forcing these terrible, unreliable & loud CD-ROM drives

BTW, IMHO, BTC drives weren't as bad as people make them out to be.

 

[Trekkie4]

Those of us who have been following your progress understand you. Carry on good sir!!

Thanks

I knew some people would get it, but on the other hand, some of the other individuals are repeatedly amazed, surprised and/or seem to think that I'm BTC fanboy

BTW, IMHO, BTC drives weren't as bad as people make them out to be.

Weeeell, that is open for interpretation. My very first BTC drive, BTC BCD 36X didn't last very long. Maybe couple of months at least, before it stopped working & was immediately replaced by another unit ... this time BCD BCD 36XH. Newer generation, with the oval trim (identical to those two drives, posted earlier)

Unfortunately, this replacement unit didn't last very long either, it broke down (again, during the warranty period) & was replaced with BCD 36X ... same unit as the original one, which came from the store. Due to one reason or another, this 3rd drive once again broke down & was then replaced with BCD 40XH, same unit as the one(s) above.

And that was the last "BTC" I had. By the time I pulled it out & swapped for modern LG 52x (GCR-8523B?) drive, the old (un)reliable BTC was still working but was extremely loud & would occasionally seize up. So the new LG seemed like alien technology at the time - super quiet, fast & (at first glance) reliable


So, all in all it might be a good idea to have spare unit(s), or even spare parts. Justin Case things go south

Edit
Found pics from back in 2005...

 

[lexluthermiester]

I don't remember them being that bad, or at least not anymore than that of some of the other budget brands.

 

[Trekkie4]

I don't remember them being that bad, or at least not anymore than that of some of the other budget brands.

IDK, maybe I just wasn't lucky enough to end up with decent unit?

But now that I think about it, most of my problems were related to the older model, BCD (speed)X series, not the "XH" one which supposedly has "Hitachi Loader" (perhaps that is what letter "H" stands for, could be wrong)

You can clearly tell them from this picture here... The first two are XH series, and these are mostly reliable. Loud & sometimes have tendency to seize up, but otherwise good enough. And then there's the 3rd drive, older gen. Which was much quieter, more smooth. But would easily break down.

 

[Athlonite]

I can remember my first BTC cdrom drive it was an 8X speed it lasted forever until one day it didn't I ended up replacing it with an Pioneer which lasted for four system builds before finally succumbing to tray failure apparently I'd used it so much that I wore the drive gear out Ohwell in with the newest DVD burner which was also a Pioneer unit and it's still running to this day in a friends system to this day without problem

 

[framebuffer]

Nice shots! What is that background lighting, btw? Certainly complimented the colors of the card well. Generally excellently lit shots

Thanks, the light in background it's just an IKEA LED strip

 

[F-Zero]

So I finally got myself a GTX 280 (ASUS). The seller described it in working condition and he did not lie to say The card works only in X8 mode and I think it's because of the torn SMD ( on the PCI-EX slot ). I tried to repair it but it seems the pads are ripped off.

 

[lexluthermiester]

So I finally got myself a GTX 280 (ASUS). The seller described it in working condition and he did not lie to say The card works only in X8 mode and I think it's because of the torn SMD ( on the PCI-EX slot ). I tried to repair it but it seems the pads are ripped off.View attachment 193511View attachment 193512View attachment 193513View attachment 193514

This is repairable. It would take some careful work and getting the right replacement part, but easily done.

 

[framebuffer]

So I finally got myself a GTX 280 (ASUS). The seller described it in working condition and he did not lie to say The card works only in X8 mode and I think it's because of the torn SMD ( on the PCI-EX slot ). I tried to repair it but it seems the pads are ripped off.View attachment 193511View attachment 193512View attachment 193513View attachment 193514

They managed to damage the only exposed part of the card, I'm always surprised how careless people is with computer components...
The good news is that 8X should not impact the performance and in theory you can solder new SMDs

 

[Trekkie4]

@F-Zero Check your PMs

 

[lexluthermiester]

The good news is that 8X should not impact the performance and in theory you can solder new SMDs

I would rather repair it, if it were my card. But you're not wrong, gaming performance shouldn't be impacted much if at all.

 

[MaxiPro800]

IDK, maybe I just wasn't lucky enough to end up with decent unit?

But now that I think about it, most of my problems were related to the older model, BCD (speed)X series, not the "XH" one which supposedly has "Hitachi Loader" (perhaps that is what letter "H" stands for, could be wrong)

You can clearly tell them from this picture here... The first two are XH series, and these are mostly reliable. Loud & sometimes have tendency to seize up, but otherwise good enough. And then there's the 3rd drive, older gen. Which was much quieter, more smooth. But would easily break down.

Do you know if there were any Samsung based BTC drives? Supposedly I heard the BCE-5224 would be a Samsung but I'd like to know for sure. (had one but never cracked it open to find out)

 

[Trekkie4]

Do you know if there were any Samsung based BTC drives? Supposedly I heard the BCE-5224 would be a Samsung but I'd like to know for sure. (had one but never cracked it open to find out)

I don't know about Samsung drives, but I DO know about TOP-G (Top Glory) BTC units. Perhaps TOP-G also manufactured Samsung drives at the time? Because they certainly manufactured CD-ROM drives for most of the other brands as well, including Sony, Creative & others.


At some point, during the early 2000s BTC stopped manufacturing their own units. Don't ask me why, but they handled manufacturing process over to Top Glory Electronics. So, if you Google for TOP-G CD-ROM drive, you will get interesting results.