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Hey all my intro & love for retro computers

Gold Leader

New Member
Joined
Feb 14, 2025
Messages
5 (2.50/day)
Hello everyone, I'm Gold Leader from the EVGA & 2CPU forums which sadly have been closed down, 2CPU on September 05, 2020 and EVGA on February 06, 2025, for me this is quite a loss as I had a ton of friends at EVGA forums , almost the entire staff, the things I did there were mainly Retro PC topics, graphics card collection threads and GPU breakdown & maintenance guides for 3dfx, ATiAMD & NVIDIA graphics cards and many other things my aircraft models and what ever else.
Also I am owner of the official x-3dfx community at Facebook, , we also used to have a forum which we had from 1999 - 2006, we as in the x-3dfx staff and me included.
We had around 250.870 members in that timeline, most people came and left ya know how it all goes.
in 2006 the forum got hacked and taken down for 3 years we lost a lot of data, this was very abrupt and out of the blue, in 2009 the forums returned and well not many was left over, Reid Campbell gave BOingball & I the IP of 3dfx.com back in 19999 and we built x-3dfx.com from that, after the 2006 disaster the forum was rebuilt in3 years time and reopened in March of 2009 I believe this was, roughly 40a 50 aka a handful of members came back, in 2011 we migrated to Facebook, I was really against the idea, but the majority had it and yea ya know social media took over there it all went to.
Around May 07 of 2013 they made me owner ,as that the original owner became a father and yea I kept the place always active so they chose me to take lead and well we started with 40 people at the x-3dfx FB site in2011 and now we are just under 1100 people and there is always some activity as well, so hey it's not all grey and dark in the end, right.

Alongside retro & modern computers I also collect diecast metal scale 1:200 Boeing 747 models, some of you from EVGA forums seen a few go by I am sure of it.
On February 23, 2025 my dad & I will go to the Amsterdam Aviation Collectors Fair, there I will hunt down some B747models from All Nippon Airways & Lufthansa, this is the largest Aircraft modeling fair in the world 6 rooms and around 363 tables good for 120K+ Models., O-plenty of choice and I will hold a DA.C forums meet and greet as well, always fun it's like a fair and convention in one.

If this is in the wrong section My bad for that, I could not find a General off topic section for introductions, a thing we did at EVGA, 2CPU and x-3dfx for that matter.

Here all my PC's as of how it looks like at the moment 7 systems currently always trying to build more hah!


And here the models:



And the countless of graphics cards I had in my past can all be seen here:
They have been sorted per graphics chip maker.

Here my vintage Star Wars/G.I.Joe collection that hangs above the computers via curtain rails and 25lb nylon fishing line:

Gold Squadron


Raven Squadron


Here a view of Gold & Raven Squads


Dagger Squadron


Here my Descent/Freespace Collection which is the largest of these game types known in the world:



Here the Freespace items:


Here how I store it, to protect it from the sun's deadly UV rays:


sadly due to multiple depressions I have let go from a lot of them, now I am trying to rebuild some of it, to what is even feasible, sadly like the new gen market , the retro market is also packed by scalping sellers driving up the prices to abysmal amounts, that to which is not of need as this only hurts the 3dfx and retro communities in it's whole, at x-3dfx we are fully against these motives, this hobby has to be enjoyable for all classes and not just the rich and greedy.

My entire apartment is one massive man cave , the advantage of living alone rofl, but yea there you have it really.
 
Joined
Dec 2, 2024
Messages
51 (0.67/day)
Location
Wet Coast of Canada Eh!
System Name NON-AMD Folding Farm
Processor Intel i7 7700K-9700K-14700K
Motherboard Asus WS Z390 Pro's, Z270 A, TUF Z390-Plus Gaming Wifi's, Prime Z790 P Wifi
Cooling Coolermater 212's, EVGA AIO's, EVGA CLx AIO
Memory Vengeance
Video Card(s) 4090FE, 4090 MSI Suprim AIO, MSI 4090 X Tri(will edit)'s, EVGA 3080 FTW3's
Storage WD HD's, WD NVME's
Display(s) You would ask...LoL 7 Colour Monitors all given to me for free
Case Rosewell Mining Cases, Coolermaster Haf Evo's
Power Supply EVGA 1600P2's, Seasonic Platinum 1300's, EVGA Platinum 750's, EVGA Gold 750's, EVGA Bronze 650's
Mouse Logitech's
Keyboard Logitech's, Old school ps2's, (will edit)
Software Win 10 Pro's, AI Suite 3, Precison X1's, Afterburner's, AVG Free, Bionic's, FAH's
Benchmark Scores HuH?
Incredible achievements.
Days before the EVGA Forum archived ...
I did see your post and the pieces in your post looked NEW.
I know you do outstanding work.
Glad you found Techpowerup!
There is lots of cool sections here...and over time more cool ones reveal themselves
Or so I have been told..;)
Have fun Bro..You deserve it!:).
 

Gold Leader

New Member
Joined
Feb 14, 2025
Messages
5 (2.50/day)
Incredible achievements.
Days before the EVGA Forum archived ...
I did see your post and the pieces in your post looked NEW.
I know you do outstanding work.
Glad you found Techpowerup!
There is lots of cool sections here...and over time more cool ones reveal themselves
Or so I have been told..;)
Have fun Bro..You deserve it!:).
Anytime friend, I'll see what I can do here, much has changed tho, as the reworks go they were done by Backfire from Voodoo Alert forums, Germany, I have known him for over 25 years, he has don electro engineering for the past 48 years an his job is repairing an maintaining he APU's an Jet Engines of the TUI Airways Boeing 737 fleet, he has don this for the past 28 years now, so if parts are needed for recaps, reworks or even certain trace repairs, I mail Backfire an present him the problem an he i like oh sen it over an I'll se what I can do, he then order the needed parts directly via his work from Japan, here by avoiding any high shipping costs, import an VAT fee's as well,all worth it in the end too.
 
Last edited:

Gold Leader

New Member
Joined
Feb 14, 2025
Messages
5 (2.50/day)
Well here the post from EVGA of my latest retro rebuild, the recaps of the PSU, Terratec EWS64 XL and the Gainward Voodoo2 were done by Backfire and the recap of the EP-BX3 mainboard was done by SWZSSR.

The EWS64 XL was fully gold recapped with 55 Nichicon FG Professional Audio Grade Gold Capacitors, 49 on the card + 6 on the 5.25" IO Drive unit
The mainboard was flashed with a custom made Bios version 4.23 so all Pentium !!! Katmai & Coppermine CPU's are supported + Slot 1 to Socket 370 convertors aka Slotkets for Socket 370 CPU's with Coppermine & Tualatin cores as well as long the FSB is 100Mhz, so Celeron Tualatin 1400Mhz CPU's with 256KB L2 and a 100Mhz FSB per example.

So here the name and specs this project took a little longer than expected, 3 years and 7 months but it's fully operational and no bad sectors on the original HDD's either everything works as if it was bought new yesterday.

Avenger M99

Intel Pentium !!!/E Coppermine 850Mhz S.E.C.C. II Slot1 CPU
Thermaltake Golden Orb for S.E.C.C. II Slot 1 CPU's
2x 256MB PC-100 Legend CL2 matched kit (Kingston ram chips)
EPoX EP-BX3 + Modified Bios 4.23
Matrox Millennium G400 MAX DH AGP 32MB 128Bit Rev.A 4399 + Soltek Bronze Orb
Gainward Dragon 3000 PCI 12MB Rev.A 9846 (Voodoo2)
Terratec Promedia EWS64 XL Audio System Rev. 1.2 3397 + Full Gold Nichicon Recap & Stereo sound reworks done by Backfire from Voodoo Alert, Germany
1x Maxtor DiamondMax 9+ 30GB 7200 rpm HDD (Main drive)
1x Western Digital WD1200BB 120GB 7200 rpm HDD (Game drive)
1x Creative Labs 12x DVD-Rom Drive
1x Mitsumi Electric 3.5" FD Drive
FKI FK-6043 Midi Tower

Win98 SE USA + Un-Official Service Pack 3 Version 3.66
Latest G400 Max drivers from 2002
3dfxzone.it's FastVoodoo2 Driver kit Version 4.6



Here 4 pics of the system with the PSU removed, to reveal the inner parts:



Here the bootup screen, the green setup menu is the EWS64 XL Configuration program, that allows you to manually set up the IRQ's, DMA's and Ports for the card, as this can vary per mainboard you use it in and with what chipset you combine the card with as well.
Other pics show my Win98 SE desktop and all the installed components within the task manager:





Here the three hand applied trace repairs to the EWS64 XL:



And here the gold recapped EWS64 XL it's self, it's a piece of beauty and it sounds phenomenal too, it's EDO ram stick is a 32MB 72Pins 50ns EDO Ram stick, plus the 2MB on board this card has a total of 34MB Sound Font memory, max supported EDO ram is 64MB for a total of 64+ 2MB = 66MB, I am not even using 14MB of it rofl, so yea 34MB is plenty for my doings.






And here the final showcase of the card + two flat data cables and the 5.25" IO drive bay unit all fully renovated and recapped, this card never had such a good treatment in it's life.


Here my fully reworked & Gold recapped EWS64 XL playing some 80's Midi music files!

01. George Benson ~ Give Me The Night (1980)
02. Jermaine Jackson, Pia Zadora - When the Rain Begins to Fall (1984)
03. Mental As Anything - Live It Up (1985)

 
Joined
Dec 2, 2024
Messages
51 (0.67/day)
Location
Wet Coast of Canada Eh!
System Name NON-AMD Folding Farm
Processor Intel i7 7700K-9700K-14700K
Motherboard Asus WS Z390 Pro's, Z270 A, TUF Z390-Plus Gaming Wifi's, Prime Z790 P Wifi
Cooling Coolermater 212's, EVGA AIO's, EVGA CLx AIO
Memory Vengeance
Video Card(s) 4090FE, 4090 MSI Suprim AIO, MSI 4090 X Tri(will edit)'s, EVGA 3080 FTW3's
Storage WD HD's, WD NVME's
Display(s) You would ask...LoL 7 Colour Monitors all given to me for free
Case Rosewell Mining Cases, Coolermaster Haf Evo's
Power Supply EVGA 1600P2's, Seasonic Platinum 1300's, EVGA Platinum 750's, EVGA Gold 750's, EVGA Bronze 650's
Mouse Logitech's
Keyboard Logitech's, Old school ps2's, (will edit)
Software Win 10 Pro's, AI Suite 3, Precison X1's, Afterburner's, AVG Free, Bionic's, FAH's
Benchmark Scores HuH?
Ok
I must ask.
What do you do with these works of art when you get done with them?
 

Gold Leader

New Member
Joined
Feb 14, 2025
Messages
5 (2.50/day)
Ok
I must ask.
What do you do with these works of art when you get done with them?
Well I use them to play my retro game from 1992 -2002 on them, most game I play are from 1994 - 2000., the upside having these date correct parts in perfect working order I will never to rely on crappy emulators, I tried them and I didn't like in what I was experiencing, so these retro PC's will give me the exact experience an feeling how them classic gameplay an feel like, emulators will not even come close to the hardware I use, so yea this was a very easy an logical choice for me to make.
An currently I own three fully fledged retro PC's , that are these:

P3/E 850 with Win 98SE + Un-Official Service Pack 3.66 from 1999-2000
K7 700 with Win 2K Pro +SP4 & Rollup 01 for SP4 from 1999 -2000
AXP 2200+ with Win XP Pro + SP3 from 2001- 2002

Hmm What I can do is pod the other two retro PC's kn this thread so they are all in one thread, but now I chill in VR Chat with my GF a rave, this post I typed with my Pico 4, took ages lmao.
 
Last edited:
Joined
Dec 2, 2024
Messages
51 (0.67/day)
Location
Wet Coast of Canada Eh!
System Name NON-AMD Folding Farm
Processor Intel i7 7700K-9700K-14700K
Motherboard Asus WS Z390 Pro's, Z270 A, TUF Z390-Plus Gaming Wifi's, Prime Z790 P Wifi
Cooling Coolermater 212's, EVGA AIO's, EVGA CLx AIO
Memory Vengeance
Video Card(s) 4090FE, 4090 MSI Suprim AIO, MSI 4090 X Tri(will edit)'s, EVGA 3080 FTW3's
Storage WD HD's, WD NVME's
Display(s) You would ask...LoL 7 Colour Monitors all given to me for free
Case Rosewell Mining Cases, Coolermaster Haf Evo's
Power Supply EVGA 1600P2's, Seasonic Platinum 1300's, EVGA Platinum 750's, EVGA Gold 750's, EVGA Bronze 650's
Mouse Logitech's
Keyboard Logitech's, Old school ps2's, (will edit)
Software Win 10 Pro's, AI Suite 3, Precison X1's, Afterburner's, AVG Free, Bionic's, FAH's
Benchmark Scores HuH?
I will chat you up with some photos, sometime, to see any of it would be of interest to you.
Could take awhile before I do....or not lol
Any of your machines have the old floppy disk drive 2.5 inch I think?
 
Joined
Dec 2, 2024
Messages
51 (0.67/day)
Location
Wet Coast of Canada Eh!
System Name NON-AMD Folding Farm
Processor Intel i7 7700K-9700K-14700K
Motherboard Asus WS Z390 Pro's, Z270 A, TUF Z390-Plus Gaming Wifi's, Prime Z790 P Wifi
Cooling Coolermater 212's, EVGA AIO's, EVGA CLx AIO
Memory Vengeance
Video Card(s) 4090FE, 4090 MSI Suprim AIO, MSI 4090 X Tri(will edit)'s, EVGA 3080 FTW3's
Storage WD HD's, WD NVME's
Display(s) You would ask...LoL 7 Colour Monitors all given to me for free
Case Rosewell Mining Cases, Coolermaster Haf Evo's
Power Supply EVGA 1600P2's, Seasonic Platinum 1300's, EVGA Platinum 750's, EVGA Gold 750's, EVGA Bronze 650's
Mouse Logitech's
Keyboard Logitech's, Old school ps2's, (will edit)
Software Win 10 Pro's, AI Suite 3, Precison X1's, Afterburner's, AVG Free, Bionic's, FAH's
Benchmark Scores HuH?
Well that was embarrassing..lol:kookoo:
I should of said Are any of your machines using the old 3.5"?
and your answer would of been..
Yes!
Doh!
Good to know
 
Joined
Nov 19, 2005
Messages
797 (0.11/day)
Location
GA, USA
System Name Gamer
Processor Ryzen 7 5800X3D
Motherboard Gigabyte X570 Aorus Elite WIFI
Cooling Apogee XL, MCR360, MCP655, Micro-rez
Memory 2x16GB G.Skill DDR4-3600 CL16
Video Card(s) Red Dragon RX 6800 XT
Storage WD SN850 1TB & SN750 1TB
Display(s) LG 32GK650F-B 32" 1440p 144Hz
Case Rocketfish (Lian Li) e-ATX
Audio Device(s) Harman Kardon HK695 2.1
Power Supply Seasonic Focus GM-750
Mouse HP Gaming wired
Keyboard Logitech G110 wired
VR HMD HP WMR 1440^2
Software Win10 Pro 64bit
Welcome @Gold Leader , here's a couple threads you which will probably want to participate. :) Many members will be happy to see all your collections.

retro hardware/software

collections
 
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