TPU's Nostalgic Hardware Club

[Bungz]

I tend to use Panasonic FR or FJ usually.

Will outlast the boards

 

[Trekkie4]

Nice to know that bad caps can cause USB problems. that's a problem I see from time to time with older hardware.

Since there were no obvious symptoms with either of the caps, I wasn't 100% sure about this. However, pretty much all the USB devices would suddenly stop responding at some point & turn off, resulting with Win98 reporting them as "Unknown Device", and would require reset in order to get them working again.

This issue would also occur in DOS and/or Acronis True Image boot loader, so it wasn't driver related. I also noticed that the problem was more pronounced with external hard drive for example (which draws more power than optical mouse, obviously), so I decided to play it safe & recapped just about everything I could. Sanyo caps (6.3V/1200uf) were replaced by "Yage" ones, where on the other hand, Tayeh RAM ones (6.3V/1000uf) were replaced by Panasonic.

I tend to use Panasonic FR or FJ usually.

Will outlast the boards

Exactly!

 

[Ruru]

Now this is a platform, Slot 1 was cool.

 

[lexluthermiester]

If it were mine (and my decision to make), I'd use Panasonic-branded caps. That way, you should be safe for around 10 years or so... if not longer.

I agree with this but with one alteration, Panasonic brand caps have a history of lasting 20ish or more years. So Panasonic? Two Thumbs Up!

 

[Trekkie4]

I agree with this but with one alteration, Panasonic brand caps have a history of lasting 20ish or more years. So Panasonic? Two Thumbs Up!

Well, I did say "for around 10 years or so... if not longer" - and 20ish years are certainly in "longer" category

 

[Splinterdog]

Dusting off the old Pentium II and giving Lara some fresh air. Just to make sure it still works because the PSU is now around 22 years old

 

[Ruru]

Dusting off the old Pentium II and giving Lara some fresh air. Just to make sure it still works because the PSU is now around 22 years old
View attachment 224799

There is a reason why I don't miss ribbon cables and your pic is a good example

 

[Splinterdog]

Yeah, those big ones at the bottom are for a PCMCIA controller card which are so hefty you can't do much with them

 

[Trekkie4]

Yeah, those big ones at the bottom are for a PCMCIA controller card which are so hefty you can't do much with them

From what I can tell, you did great with cable management! Maybe you should tidy up those PSU cables up there, behind the CD-ROM drive but other than that it looks "clean"

Anyhow, speaking of old(er) computers... What do you make of this one?


Pentium II? Pentium III? Maaybe Pentium 4 ... or perhaps Athlon64?
-Nope!


And when I take the case cover off, things get a lot different!


Even the rear side & I/O Shield both look highly unusual for 1997/1998 machine

 

[stinger608]

I've got that exact Gigabyte video card laying around somewhere @Trekkie4 . 8600GT as I recall.

 

[Trekkie4]

I've got that exact Gigabyte video card laying around somewhere @Trekkie4 . 8600GT as I recall.

Close! That's Gigabyte GV-NX86S256H, 8600GTS card in there

Eventually, I might even upgrade to something better ... 8800GT, or higher. Hopefully with active cooling, since this older Adison case was obviously never designed to accommodate PCIe cards and/or CPU with multiple cores. That being said however, Q6600 is running incredibly cool ... up to 140F at most. Not sure why, or because of what - as you can tell, everything is cramped up inside, but it seems to be running cooler than inside my Coolermaster Cosmos 1000 case.

Edit
This here was the initial version of "Adison Sleeper", I posted these a while back & talked about it several times


However, a lot of things have changed over time. Yellowed case has been brightened up, DVD-RW has been replaced by CD-ROM (to preserve the "sleeper" look & idea ... and having a DVD drive in there doesn't help), floppy cable has been reoriented so that it no longer blocks the airflow across the GPU (from the intake fan, on the front) and most importantly - Core2 Duo & its cooler have been replaced with Q6600 and Coolermaster Hyper TX3.

 

[TheinsanegamerN]

Now this is a platform, Slot 1 was cool.

I miss Slot 1. It was before my time, but having used it I dont know why it died off. Even if the CPu became more tightly integrated slot 1 allowed for way mroe cooling then socket 370 did, and was far more durable as well. Seeing a tualatin 1.4s in a powerleap slotket adapter was something else.

 

[Trekkie4]

I miss Slot 1 (...)

Me too, me too!

I'm not even trying to hide my affection for Slot 1 systems... Most of them - especially "Adison" builds are Slot-1 based. Even that Tualatin 1.4, I could have easily chosen a lot more different (and cheaper) route and go with dedicated S370 board instead. But I wanted it to be Slot 1 & 440BX...

 

[lexluthermiester]

but having used it I dont know why it died off.

Cooling & cost. While the Slot1 cartridge format had wonderful utility in making easy and safe(because the connectors were very well protected) CPU swap-outs. However, the SECC package was expensive to make as opposed to the standard pins/socket type. It was also more difficult to cool because of the orientation of how the heatsink attached to the CPU package. As heat emissions increased with the speed and amount of wattage used by the CPU dies increased, cooling became increasingly problematic. As interesting and functionally durable as the Slot 1 & 2 type connectors were, physics and costs demanded returning to the simpler and more cost efficient pin/socket type. AMD's Slot A was just as interesting and fun, but suffered from the same limitations.

 

[Ruru]

Yeah, those big ones at the bottom are for a PCMCIA controller card which are so hefty you can't do much with them

Zipties? Those did wonders at least with PATA cables

I miss Slot 1. It was before my time, but having used it I dont know why it died off. Even if the CPu became more tightly integrated slot 1 allowed for way mroe cooling then socket 370 did, and was far more durable as well. Seeing a tualatin 1.4s in a powerleap slotket adapter was something else.

IIRC when they started to integrate the L2 to the processor die (unlike Pentium II, Katmai Pentium III and pre-Thunderbird Athlons which had their L2 cache chips on the same PCB) that Slot cartridge wasn't needed anymore.

 

[Splinterdog]

From what I can tell, you did great with cable management! Maybe you should tidy up those PSU cables up there, behind the CD-ROM drive but other than that it looks "clean"

Anyhow, speaking of old(er) computers... What do you make of this one?


Pentium II? Pentium III? Maaybe Pentium 4 ... or perhaps Athlon64?
-Nope!


And when I take the case cover off, things get a lot different!


Even the rear side & I/O Shield both look highly unusual for 1997/1998 machine

Yes, that's another job on the list and coping with the limited space available. If it's quiet today I might give it a crack later.
My other retro is a Pentium 4 and the biggest issue is keeping the CPU cool when light gaming. TR 2 and 3 for example, when it regularly goes up to 70c, so I have to stop.
It's a copper based cooler with MX4 paste and third party P4 coolers are impossible to find down here.

 

[Trekkie4]

Yes, that's another job on the list and coping with the limited space available. If it's quiet today I might give it a crack later.
My other retro is a Pentium 4 and the biggest issue is keeping the CPU cool when light gaming. TR 2 and 3 for example, when it regularly goes up to 70c, so I have to stop.
It's a copper based cooler with MX4 paste and third party P4 coolers are impossible to find down here.
View attachment 224816

Strange... Which core? Prescott? Or Northwood one?

I got S478 inside one of the other "Adison" builds, running stock CPU cooler within reasonable limits. As in not great, but certainly not THAT bad, either

 

[Splinterdog]

That'll be Prescott, so I just replaced the paste, turned the heatsink around and it's improved very nicely now. Didn't go over about 58c when running TR3.

 

[Trekkie4]

That'll be Prescott, so I just replaced the paste and turned the around and it's improved very nicely now. Didn't go over about 58c when running TR3.
View attachment 224820

That sounds about right, same as my Northwood & Asus P4B...

IMHO, there was probably more to it than just thermal paste. Perhaps the cooler wasn't seated properly, one of the latches (or hooks) out of place or weakened? I'm using generic paste for electronics (same, white stuff that's used to cool mosfets, transistors and/or amplifiers) and never had ANY issues with overheating whatsoever. In fact, I'm running the same stuff on Core i5 rig...

 

[68Olds]

I never had a Slot 1 PII or PIII system when they were current. I went from a Pentium 200 to an AMD K6-450 to a Pentium4 s423 (what the hell was I thinking getting that P4 - LOL).

I saved a Toshiba PII system from the trash mid-2000s. I swapped the PII 300-350(?) for a slocket & Tualatin 1.4 celeron. It was able to run just shy of 1.6GHz using SetFSB software. I dropped an ATI 9600XT in it, maxed out the RAM and I had my first retro gaming rig. Loved that box & really miss the slocket.

Within the past 3 years I saved another Slot 1 from the trash. This one has a PIII 550 in it & an Abit motherboard. I recently saw the board needs to be recapped so I can really get into playing with this one. It has a Matrox video card in it, but I also have a GF2 GTS & a GF3 Ti 200 to use with it.

 

[caroline!]

Yes, that's another job on the list and coping with the limited space available. If it's quiet today I might give it a crack later.
My other retro is a Pentium 4 and the biggest issue is keeping the CPU cool when light gaming. TR 2 and 3 for example, when it regularly goes up to 70c, so I have to stop.
It's a copper based cooler with MX4 paste and third party P4 coolers are impossible to find down here.
View attachment 224816

Ah, Prescott... the Coffee Lake of the mid 00's. My 519K build gets so hot that's able to slowly heat up my whole room while I play TR II, that's probably because my build lacks a graphics card though, the northbridge easily hits 85C so I let it cool down every half an hour, it's inside a slim case and has the original noisy stock cooler. Bad combo.

 

[stinger608]

8600GTS card in there

Yeppers, that's right! Same card.

Not even quite sure where I put it now. LOL. Haven't used it in a few years......Dang, makes me want to build another nostalgic rig.

 

[Trekkie4]

Yeppers, that's right! Same card.

Not even quite sure where I put it now. LOL. Haven't used it in a few years......Dang, makes me want to build another nostalgic rig.

If you ask me, that 8600GTS is a great card! I received two of those, both identical & was going to put together SLI rig, however at the time I couldn't find find S775 motherboard which had 2x PCIe x16 slots, so the whole idea kinda backfired & I ended up with Core2 Duo (now Quad, Q6600) mATX sleeper.

Still, it has more than enough power to run all the Source-powered games (HL2, ep1, ep2, Portal & Portal 2), all maxed out. As for passive cooling, I had my doubts about this & was afraid that cramped mATX "Adison" case would overheat 8600GTS but from what I can tell, this isn't the case.

 

[stinger608]

Yeah, the entire time I used it, it never seemed to overheat. Hell, I think I used that card for around 2 or maybe 3 years. Never had a heat problem with it. Although, they do run kind of warm.

 

[Splinterdog]

Ah, Prescott... the Coffee Lake of the mid 00's. My 519K build gets so hot that's able to slowly heat up my whole room while I play TR II, that's probably because my build lacks a graphics card though, the northbridge easily hits 85C so I let it cool down every half an hour, it's inside a slim case and has the original noisy stock cooler. Bad combo.

Just curious, how can you play TRII without a graphics card? Or does the mobo have it on-board?