TPU's Nostalgic Hardware Club

[MaxiPro800]

I hear ya their man. They are getting hard to find. I saw one a couple of years ago on Fleabay and it was selling for about a $100!!! I followed it and it ended up selling for well over the opening bid price!

That's not only the reason. I had two versions of this board (the 75FRN2-RL and the 75FRN2-L - the latter was even more rare than the former >_< ) and neither would work, altogether POST. I still dream of the day I get one of those to replace my ol' MSI K7N2 (which I also like) with. Those are real gold,and I also have a 250GB Samsung SATA drive to go with them. No problems if I need to recap them, I have enough crappy Gigabyte KT600 boards (seriously,ASUS did a better job at KT600) to scavenge good caps from.

This and the Epox EP-4PLA3I are two of the most nice motherboards I ever seen. Wish I knew how to solder stuff and save the EPoX - it had amazing features.

 

[Trekkie4]

Re-capping boards using old & previously used capacitors is usually a bad idea, because there's no telling if they're in top condition and when (or rather IF) they're going to fail. Considering the new ones only cost $0.50 each (more-less), I'd recommend that you go with those ones, instead.

 

[stinger608]

Very true @Trekkie4 !

A person can purchase new caps real cheap. With that said, it isn't worth taking the chance with used capacitors.

 

[DR4G00N]

Man, how much I envy you for having that Soltek.

JK,but seriously now - take care of that board. And about the 40GB - hope it's not a 4D040H2 (Maxtor Romulus) - those "4D" drives are loud as hell. (I had a 60GB one that was loud as hell - the 4D060H3. Heck,even the previous D740X drive I had was quieter)

Anyways - I dug up some old parts I had and built this machine:
Gigabyte GA-8IPE1000
Pentium 4 2.8GHz Northwood
1GB RAM
80GB Maxtor 6Y080L0 - XP SP3 (italian - I wanted a simple, non-nLited version of XP,and this was the only thing I had.)
40GB Maxtor 6E040L0 - 98 SE (english)
Winfast A340T 128MB/Geforce FX5200
Realtek RTL8139C NIC
Winfast TV2000XP Deluxe TV Tuner
ASUS-DRW1608P3S DVD-RW
Hitachi-LG GCR-8481 CD-RW
JNC RJA-52 case (white)
all powered by a Modecom FEEL-400ATX PSU (built by Apex/Allied)

It is indeed a 4D040H2, it's extremely annoying lol. But it's the only IDE drive I have, so I have to use it.

The board is definitely one of the nicer looking boards I have. I'll probably end up using the system to play some old games like Halo:CE & Mechwarrior 4 Mercs at some point.

 

[MaxiPro800]

Re-capping boards using old & previously used capacitors is usually a bad idea, because there's no telling if they're in top condition and when (or rather IF) they're going to fail. Considering the new ones only cost $0.50 each (more-less), I'd recommend that you go with those ones, instead.

That would quite apply in the case of caps like OST,G-Luxon,and such. I'm using Rubycon,Sanyo,Panasonic and United Chemicon caps (with the exception of their KZG line)

 

[Komshija]

I picked up that Soltek board today
View attachment 81253
View attachment 81256

That's really one nice looking motherboard. I have to admit that this is the first time I heard about Soltek. It seems that they produced variety of colorful motherboards.

 

[CAPSLOCKSTUCK]

The Model 5100 was IBM's first minicomputer, which was also considered one of the world's first portable computers.

There were very few other computers available in 1977, and none with the capabilities of the 5100.

The advert for the IBM 5100 says: 'You're looking at a small portable computer called the IBM 5100.

'It's helping a lot of different people do their work productively.'

 

[natr0n]

I forgot I had a photobucket I made in 2004 look what goodies I found.

6600agp a7n8x board. I modded the psu cables. Notice the extreme cooling(stacked fans)

 

[dorsetknob]

Notice the extreme cooling(stacked fans)

You outcaps @CAPSLOCKSTUCK
thats a FANSTACKING PICTURE

 

[DR4G00N]

Bought an XP 3200+ for my Soltek board and lucky me, the person who sold it to me used an XP 1800+ Palomino as a pin protector for the 3200+. After getting the pins straightened it works fine too, which is surprising since the die is chipped.

It also seems like my 3200+ is unlocked! I set it to 12.5 x 200 and at post it's recognized as an "AMD Athlon 2500MHz". Memtest86+ also sees it as 2506MHz.

 

[Trekkie4]

Nice find, @DR4G00N

I should REALLY get my butt moving one of these days & force myself to do something with that HP kayak XU800... Either keep it as it is, as Visualize P-Class clone or revert it back to original specs & use it as such. After all the headache with both Visualize machines, I just wasn't motivated to fiddle with hardware any longer but one way or another, I'll have to finish Kayak sooner or later!

 

[MaxiPro800]

Bought an XP 3200+ for my Soltek board and lucky me, the person who sold it to me used an XP 1800+ Palomino as a pin protector for the 3200+. After getting the pins straightened it works fine too, which is surprising since the die is chipped.

It also seems like my 3200+ is unlocked! I set it to 12.5 x 200 and at post it's recognized as an "AMD Athlon 2500MHz". Memtest86+ also sees it as 2506MHz.

View attachment 82256
View attachment 82257

Chipped die usually has no effect on AMD chips. At least my 950MHz Duron survives with a chipped core.

 

[Mr.Scott]

Chipped die usually has no effect on AMD chips. At least my 950MHz Duron survives with a chipped core.

Depends. I have chipped cores that went both ways.

 

[Trekkie4]

Agreed with @Mr.Scott, it usually depends on how much the core is chipped and under which angle. If it's damaged too much, the CPU won't be operational.

On a side note, happy holidays guys!

 

[MaxiPro800]

I'll drop y'all some shots on my build. Guess what BIOS splashscreen I'm going to use and what will the name of the rig be. I dare you.

 

[Trekkie4]

I'll drop y'all some shots on my build. Guess what BIOS splashscreen I'm going to use and what will the name of the rig be. I dare you.

Santa's little helper?

 

[MaxiPro800]

Santa's little helper?

Nope. Try again.

I'm not sure if I should give you a hint because it would be easy then.

 

[MaxiPro800]

Got the case yesterday! Expect a video of it soon.

 

[MaxiPro800]

Since I can't edit the old post anymore,here it is!

 

[Trekkie4]

Love the Ford Racing 2 game! It's one of he rare games I got to be completely playable on older systems (and video cards) such as GeForce2. I'm honestly not sure at this point, but I might have even tried with TNT2 Pro, and it looked absolutely wonderful & breathtaking! Even by modern standards, today, it looks a LOT like Half Life 2 engine actually.

I probably won't be doing any computer projects today & until 2017, it's been a rather difficult & disappointing year for all of us so I'm just going to wait & hope for better 2017! Happy New Year guys!

 

[stinger608]

Hmm, I don't think I have ever played Ford Racing 2!

I might have to see if I can come across that game somewhere? Is it a downloadable game at this point?

 

[Trekkie4]

*ahem* http://theisozone.com/downloads/pc/windows-games/ford-racing-2-4/

Funny thing... Ford Racing 2 is one of the very few games which turned out 1000x better, than the original, 1st edition. I remember getting Ford Racing 1 back in a day and I remember how much I expected from the game (I imagined it to be the same, or at least somewhat similar to TOCA), but it was a complete disaster. Starting from the physics, sound effects, difficulty, etc it was just a waste of time and money. Not to mention it wasn't optimized, so unlike Ford Racing 2, it could barely run at decent FPS when set to "max", even if you had a Pentium 3, with the Voodoo2 or even early GeForce cards!

 

[MaxiPro800]

Hmm, I don't think I have ever played Ford Racing 2!

I might have to see if I can come across that game somewhere? Is it a downloadable game at this point?

Look over The Iso Zone,they might have it. (along with other classics)

EDIT: I must be really tired (I was up till 4 AM in the morning,and that's not even a joke) to not notice Trekkie 4 beat me to it

One thing you would want to know - this game won't work correctly under 7,and in rare cases under 98SE. For 7 it's because the WMA thing is removed,and I have no idea about 98SE. I can play the game but no music will play on it. 7 will throw a WMA_347 error if I remember correctly. There's a patch,but the game is no fun without the music,really.

 

[Trekkie4]

Yes, it does work on W98, at least the 2nd edition does I have the Ford Racing 2 on several of my retro rigs, and they've all worked pretty much OK apart from in one particular situation, where the game would cause a system crash. Since I have so many retro machines, I honestly don't remember which one had this problem, but I DO remember it was related to video card drivers, therefore not the Windows and/or hardware itself.

 

[AsRock]

Been more of a Sports Car GT my self, just took a quick look and it's easlily available even with another classic like superbike 2000 both awesome games.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00005S83O/?tag=tec06d-20