TPU's Nostalgic Hardware Club

[Ruru]

This guy has also great videos. Like that he gets few old systems and shows them throughly.

Not in my experience. CompactFlash card are much faster than period correct hard drives. Granted, a SATA SSD hooked up to a SATA to IDE adapter is going to be the ultimate, but CF is more than fast enough and is very handy for easy removal and transferring file to & from.

Also CF is hella compatible as it uses the sama PATA protocol than hard drives.

 

[RyzenMaster.sys]

It's outdated laptop hour again. This time a Dell Inspiron 6000 I picked up for $4.99 at a Goodwill auction.

Took some TLC. I cleaned it and removed small scratches with a magic eraser. Couldn't do much with many of the larger ones. Also repasted the CPU and cleaned dust.

Came complete with a 1.5ghz Pentium M, 2GB+256mb DDR2 sticks (odd), a 60GB IDE HDD, and onboard GPU. Also includes a genuine good condition Dell battery that appears to be newer judging by the part number.

I just installed XP onto it with drivers and am continuing to tinker. So far it's a solid laptop for the era.

 

[Greenslade]

@Greenslade, why exactly are you trying to have a CF card as your primary hard drive? It's going to be slow as hell man. Surely there are some decent used IDE 2 to 4 gig hard drives available in the UK.

Our old friend Clint uses them all the time.If it is good for him it is good for me.

Latest versionLatest version
Like New: An item that looks like it has just been taken out of its shrink wrap. No visible wear, and the item is flawless and intact.

that must have been a hell of a job 13 floppy discs to get Windows 95 on the PC Question do you need the 95 floppyBoot disc to get 95 on a PC?I downloaded the disc from here stinger608,s Windows downloads. This.

off of eBay Microsoft Windows 95 Floppy Boot Disk

 

[Ruru]

Crap. My 290X might be dying since it crashes when trying to launch any 3D application. Need to test it on a different system before I declare it half-dead. :/

Luckily I have a RX 460 4GB for my 2nd PC, though it's not a powerhouse, at least it's a low-power card for light gaming. I also have that HD 7970 but I'd rather just keep it in its box. Don't want to (possibly) have another Asus Matrix card failing.

 

[Outback Bronze]

Thought I'd better grab one of these:



Unfortunately, it didn't come with any accessories or manuals, but original retail box is in very nice condition.

So, which one did you guys buy back in the day?

 

[Ruru]

Thought I'd better grab one of these:

View attachment 317367 View attachment 317368 View attachment 317369

Unfortunately, it didn't come with any accessories or manuals, but original retail box is in very nice condition.

So, which one did you guys buy back in the day?

View attachment 317370

Gbyte GTX 470 SOC. With an aftermarket cooler (Twin Turbo II) and modified bios to give more voltage, that overclocked like mad. And for a GF100 card, didn't even run that hot.

Funnily I switched to HD 5870 CF later.

 

[68Olds]

Crap. My 290X might be dying since it crashes when trying to launch any 3D application. Need to test it on a different system before I declare it half-dead. :/

If it wasn't done recently, try a TIM repaste. My X1900's wouldn't display after being in the box for years. I did a repaste & back to working.

 

[RyzenMaster.sys]

It now has an SSD and 3gb RAM since I had these parts lying around. Might look into CPU upgrades but unsure if it's worth

 

[Ruru]

If it wasn't done recently, try a TIM repaste. My X1900's wouldn't display after being in the box for years. I did a repaste & back to working.

Honestly I repasted it like 2 weeks ago and as its an Asus Matrix so it has direct heatpipe contact, I made sure to put paste to the pipes' gaps as well.

Too lazy to try that in an another PC yet but I'll report later.

Looks like it was only a driver issue, now the 290X works fine which is good, as I was thinking of playing something via TV with my 2nd PC. In fact I managed to brick that RX 460 with a modded bios lol

 

[boomstik360]

I have a question guys. I am starting to wonder if this is legit or like a reproduction box kinda like what the Chinese companies have done with the used mining cards. I don’t recall seeing BFG use the black style boxes back in the day. I just saw a BFG GTX 285 in the exact same type of box with the same old Tomb Raider graphics comparisons. Just didn’t seem right but idk. Let me know what you think! Refurb maybe? I always saw the lighter colored ones with the cutout in the middle showing the GPU itself. I kinda want to open it up.
Edit: I did find the BFG GTX 285 originally have this box so I guess that means it should be legit.

 

[Mr.Scott]

It's outdated laptop hour again. This time a Dell Inspiron 6000 I picked up for $4.99 at a Goodwill auction.

Took some TLC. I cleaned it and removed small scratches with a magic eraser. Couldn't do much with many of the larger ones. Also repasted the CPU and cleaned dust.

View attachment 317211
View attachment 317212
View attachment 317213
Came complete with a 1.5ghz Pentium M, 2GB+256mb DDR2 sticks (odd), a 60GB IDE HDD, and onboard GPU. Also includes a genuine good condition Dell battery that appears to be newer judging by the part number.

I just installed XP onto it with drivers and am continuing to tinker. So far it's a solid laptop for the era.

LOL. I have the exact same machine. Upgraded the CPU to a 2.0 ghz unit and 2 gig of ram.

 

[stinger608]

I have a question guys. I am starting to wonder if this is legit or like a reproduction box kinda like what the Chinese companies have done with the used mining cards. I don’t recall seeing BFG use the black style boxes back in the day. I just saw a BFG GTX 285 in the exact same type of box with the same old Tomb Raider graphics comparisons. Just didn’t seem right but idk. Let me know what you think! Refurb maybe? I always saw the lighter colored ones with the cutout in the middle showing the GPU itself. I kinda want to open it up.
Edit: I did find the BFG GTX 285 originally have this box so I guess that means it should be legit.

Crap, now you have me wondering!!!!

All of the old reviews that I seen all showed a light colored box with the cut out showing off the card.

Dammit, I hope you didn't get burned on that deal brother.

 

[boomstik360]

Crap, now you have me wondering!!!!

All of the old reviews that I seen all showed a light colored box with the cut out showing off the card.

Dammit, I hope you didn't get burned on that deal brother.

I’m not too worried since it was cheap but I am curious. The thing is though that on the old Newegg pics of the GTX 285, it did have the same exact box type and reused that old Tomb Raider graphic. Maybe I’ll just take one for the team and open her on up

In fact, I may do it late tonight when I get back home and take some good pics! I have two so

I’ll have to setup a Win 7 ISO and load it all up. See how some old source games run on it and 12600KF LOL. I think I have a windows 7 key somewhere but it’s super cheap if not. Hmmm I see windows 8 is supported for the Geforce 7 series Drivers from nvidia. Maybe that will do.

 

[Outback Bronze]

I am starting to wonder if this is legit

Just trying to review your card brings up the 7900GT as a green PCB where your is blue so dunno.

It looks more like the GS: BFG - The NVIDIA GeForce 7900 GS: A Closer Look (anandtech.com)

 

[boomstik360]

Just trying to review your card brings up the 7900GT as a green PCB where your is blue so dunno.

It looks more like the GS: BFG - The NVIDIA GeForce 7900 GS: A Closer Look (anandtech.com)

True true. We shall see soon enough! The suspense is killing me!

 

[Greenslade]

@Greenslade, why exactly are you trying to have a CF card as your primary hard drive? It's going to be slow as hell man. Surely there are some decent used IDE 2 to 4 gig hard drives available in the UK.

Its all done well Windows 2000 on a CF
card that is stinger608 It took a age but quicker than the IDE drive..

i wondered how small a CF card could be for 95 and 98se the guys only using a 2gb CF card. do i need a Floppy boot disc for 95?Or will it work without one?I have a floppy boot disc for 98se would that work with 95?

 

[Audioave10]

My favorite time period in PC gaming...all boxes are populated!

 

[boomstik360]

My favorite time period in PC gaming...all boxes are populated!

I agree! Definitely the best of times back then. I think around GTX 580 era I finally got out of gaming due to work and other hobbies developing. I had so many card setups around that time.

Just trying to review your card brings up the 7900GT as a green PCB where your is blue so dunno.

It looks more like the GS: BFG - The NVIDIA GeForce 7900 GS: A Closer Look (anandtech.com)

Well was a false alarm! Still glad I opened it up though. So beautiful! I may have to actually test it out though LOL. Back in this cards era, I could only afford a 7300GT! Then I finally started making money haha.

 

[Fouquin]

Got this ASRock AM2 upgrade card a couple years ago. Think I even posted about it in here... It had bad caps which I fully replaced, but it never worked. Well, today I decided I'd waited long enough and I was going to fix this stupid board once and for all. Took the heatgun to the back of it to get the CPU socket joints reflowed, and that did the trick.

 

[boomstik360]

I remember that!

 

[Outback Bronze]

Well was a false alarm! Still glad I opened it up those. So beautiful!

Wow! You had the courage to open it up! Nice one! I've got a few like this around and haven't had the balls to open them. Think I like seeing the original shrink wrap around them : )

 

[boomstik360]

Wow! You had the courage to open it up! Nice one! I've got a few like this around and haven't had the balls to open them. Think I like seeing the original shrink wrap around them : )

Oh yeah I just said what the heck. I have another one so I’m good with it.

It would’ve eaten me alive not knowing lol

 

[Outback Bronze]

It would’ve eaten me alive not knowing lol

lols

 

[80-watt Hamster]

It's outdated laptop hour again. This time a Dell Inspiron 6000 I picked up for $4.99 at a Goodwill auction.

Took some TLC. I cleaned it and removed small scratches with a magic eraser. Couldn't do much with many of the larger ones. Also repasted the CPU and cleaned dust.

View attachment 317211
View attachment 317212
View attachment 317213
Came complete with a 1.5ghz Pentium M, 2GB+256mb DDR2 sticks (odd), a 60GB IDE HDD, and onboard GPU. Also includes a genuine good condition Dell battery that appears to be newer judging by the part number.

I just installed XP onto it with drivers and am continuing to tinker. So far it's a solid laptop for the era.

Man, the Dells from back then had such nice keyboards. Haven't experienced a laptop keyboard better than the M1530's.

 

[Ruru]

Got this ASRock AM2 upgrade card a couple years ago. Think I even posted about it in here... It had bad caps which I fully replaced, but it never worked. Well, today I decided I'd waited long enough and I was going to fix this stupid board once and for all. Took the heatgun to the back of it to get the CPU socket joints reflowed, and that did the trick.

View attachment 317448View attachment 317449

Wonder how many actually bought these back in the day. Exactly that 939Dual-SATA2 was a hella popular board back in the day.