TPU's Nostalgic Hardware Club

[PHaS3]

I forgot to post about the pair of HIS ICeQ4 HD 4850 I bought the other day. Here's the pair really digging the wicked cooler

Oh man I had one of those back in the day, after my 3870 and before my 5850 lol. That card was great.

Here's mine from back then (bad pic - 'twas long ago and all I could find of it I took lots of my 5850s for some reason...)

 

[droopyRO]

I forgot to post about the pair of HIS ICeQ4 HD 4850 I bought the other day. Here's the pair really digging the wicked cooler

View attachment 97495

The card inside my main system

I wished for this HIS cards years ago, don't know why they discontinued this type of cooling.

 

[_JP_]

Blower type coolers fell out of fashion. Blame MSI with their Twin-Frozr and later ASUS with the Direct-CU.

 

[Apocalypsee]

IDK about the cards, but I'm amazed with Intel's Gigabit Ethernet

Nice setup, makes me feel bad for never even attempting to go SLI or CrossFire. Other than 5 Voodoo2 SLI rigs of course but those are whole other class & generation

Lol, yeah apparently Intel Gigabit ethernet is a good marketing.

I dream of driving those old Voodoo, even more so in SLI but I cant. I only have Voodoo Banshee but even so no motherboard to slot in the AGP 2X. The one I have is all 4X/8X.

Blower type coolers fell out of fashion. Blame MSI with their Twin-Frozr and later ASUS with the Direct-CU.

I really dislike that, the blower fan is really good dumping the card heat outside the case and reduce case temperature. TDP wise its the same as my 980Ti but since EVGA SC cooler dumps the heat to the case its a lot warmer than this pair of cards.

Current trend putting crappy noisy squirrel fan on blower cooler made a bad name for it. This IceQ cooler in pair with 100% fan is quieter than my 980Ti at similar fan speed.

 

[Trekkie4]

You do realize of course, that AGP doesn't matter to Voodoo2/SLI? Heck, you can even pair V2 with 7600GT lol, as long as you want to do so. The "only" requirement for Voodoo cards is free PCI slot, or two in case you're going SLI

 

[Apocalypsee]

You do realize of course, that AGP doesn't matter to Voodoo2/SLI? Heck, you can even pair V2 with 7600GT lol, as long as you want to do so. The "only" requirement for Voodoo cards is free PCI slot, or two in case you're going SLI

I know but finding one is a pain and the prices are quite high. From ebay I could easily bought GTX 690

 

[MaxiPro800]

Found an ABIT IP35 Pro motherboard through my big ass stash of motherboards.

I don't think anyone can imagine how much "fun" it was to set it up.

 

[PHaS3]

Dredging up some memories When I got my first 5850 (with Core2Duo E8400) then my second (with my Phenom II 1100T).

 

[Trekkie4]

I know but finding one is a pain and the prices are quite high. From ebay I could easily bought GTX 690

Yeah, those 3dfx cards are becoming a true rarity. Even V3, which I always (personally) considered to be "budget 3dfx" due to huge amounts being available, worldwide. Come to think of it, I don't remember when was the last time I saw one for sale...

 

[Red_Machine]

I bought a Voodoo3 3000 for cheap at a car boot sale over a decade ago, I recently installed it in my retro battlestation. Performs nicely, with a small overclock. I also bought a Voodoo5 a few years ago, complete in box. My only gripe with it is one of the heatsinks on the GPUs is wonky.

 

[Trekkie4]

I bought a Voodoo3 3000 for cheap at a car boot sale over a decade ago, I recently installed it in my retro battlestation. Performs nicely, with a small overclock. I also bought a Voodoo5 a few years ago, complete in box. My only gripe with it is one of the heatsinks on the GPUs is wonky.

Trust me, it's not worth OCing Voodoo3. You're only going to gain a small advantage, and (unless you severely modded your V3), it's going to get VERY hot. So in the long-term scenario, it'll probably fry V3 GPU core and/OR VRAM modules around it

 

[Apocalypsee]

Now that I use this FX5500 I remember how slow these card were. I used to have various of MX440 and FX5200 64 and 128bit memory but it was a long time ago. It struggles to run Doom3 at 640x480 medium, usually drops to below 20fps and that is still in Mars City before the havoc. I remember tweaking ini files to make it playable with MX440. NFSU2 also struggles at 1024x768. I need faster cards but cant find much. Someone sells 6800XT and 9800SE in local forum but its faulty, dont know whats the fault or whether it can be fixed its very cheap RM20 about USD5.

 

[Red_Machine]

Now that I use this FX5500 I remember how slow these card were. I used to have various of MX440 and FX5200 64 and 128bit memory but it was a long time ago. It struggles to run Doom3 at 640x480 medium, usually drops to below 20fps and that is still in Mars City before the havoc. I remember tweaking ini files to make it playable with MX440. NFSU2 also struggles at 1024x768. I need faster cards but cant find much. Someone sells 6800XT and 9800SE in local forum but its faulty, dont know whats the fault or whether it can be fixed its very cheap RM20 about USD5.

I'm sure you can get it running smoothly, I've seen DOOM 3 run on a pair of Voodoo2s in SLI.

 

[droopyRO]

Dredging up some memories When I got my first 5850 (with Core2Duo E8400) then my second (with my Phenom II 1100T).

Is that a CM HAF 922 ? i still have one, my main rig is in it, but i put fan filters on the bottom and side pannel, cause it sucks a lot of dust with those 200mm fans.

 

[agent_x007]

I got my new toy (right) bit earlier than expected :

Mounted :

Wish MB could work in Double CPU mode (FX-60 + FX-62 combo FTW)

 

[Red_Machine]

I remember seeing boards with both SLOT1 and Socket 370 interfaces. Thet must have been expensive back in the day, but I get the idea. Buy a decent motherboard and keep your old CPU, while you save up for an expensive new CPU.

 

[Apocalypsee]

That Asrock motherboard is the stuff of dreams, sad that its not really possible nowadays to implement such thing. Asrock are pretty new when they release that, its a pretty bold move by them when no other big names making something similar.

 

[Doc41]

...i think my 5AX board dieded , tried booting after its been idle for a long time but it just wont post.
with no RAM it would beep but still wont work with any of the other sticks i have, i'll do a more thorough testing on it later but man it would suck if it really died as i don't think i'd find a replacement SS7 board locally :/ (or for cheap at that)

 

[_JP_]

Pry it off the case and test over the table with the bare minimum to POST. If it still doesn't, then start worrying.

 

[Trekkie4]

...i think my 5AX board dieded , tried booting after its been idle for a long time but it just wont post.
with no RAM it would beep but still wont work with any of the other sticks i have, i'll do a more thorough testing on it later but man it would suck if it really died as i don't think i'd find a replacement SS7 board locally :/ (or for cheap at that)

Try removing all the expansion cards, and/or cleaning the RAM contacts with contact-cleaning solution. I had dozens of boards acting up like this, it was always the same problem. Alternatively, you could try removing CMOS battery & resetting all the values to fail-safe mode...

Oh, and also give it a try with another PSU - just in case...

 

[Doc41]

i did just that, bare board with just 1 stick of ram and it worked!.... but then it almost gave me a heart attack when i put in the voodoo 2 and it wouldn't boot again
so i did another round of cleaning.. rubber eraser on card contacts and contact cleaner on everything, it was also being finicky with ram so after swapping around everything works now

alas nothing goes perfectly as its showing me an invalid disk when i put the HDD back.... soo i guess i have to re-install the OS again? (now is it Win98 or WinME )
fun fact: the board has a color change option in the BIOS.. neat! 8D not many boards had this "feature"

 

[Robert B]

@Doc41 - the capacitors are ok? I have a motherboard that acted like yours and after some use a capacitor developed a bulge so I know that I'll need to recap it.

 

[Trekkie4]

i did just that, bare board with just 1 stick of ram and it worked!.... but then it almost gave me a heart attack when i put in the voodoo 2 and it wouldn't boot again
so i did another round of cleaning.. rubber eraser on card contacts and contact cleaner on everything, it was also being finicky with ram so after swapping around everything works now

alas nothing goes perfectly as its showing me an invalid disk when i put the HDD back.... soo i guess i have to re-install the OS again? (now is it Win98 or WinME )
fun fact: the board has a color change option in the BIOS.. neat! 8D not many boards had this "feature"

@Doc41 - the capacitors are ok? I have a motherboard that acted like yours and after some use a capacitor developed a bulge so I know that I'll need to recap it.

Nah, these are NOT capacitors. What happens over time (especially if you have your boards, systems stored in damp environment) is that water particles condense over electrical contacts, to the point where they either corrode or leave a residue. Like I said, I've had dozens of systems acting up like this - and it was always the same story! Either the system wouldn't boot up, OR one of the expansion cards wouldn't work. For example, I once had a Voodoo2 SLI system which couldn't recognize the 2nd Voodoo2 card, even though I tested it alone & was working OK. So, as it turned out later, the problem was not with the card, but with PCI slot interface itself!

Just go ahead & buy a spray can/bottle of contact cleaning solution & spray some over contacts, memory banks, PCI/AGP/ISA slots, etc. Heck, it even works for Slot-1, as I once had the same issue on a Slot-1 system where it didn't want to boot up, recognize the CPU because of the SAME issue. Remember, contact-cleaning solution is non-conductive, so it won't do any damage, short your board. Therefore you don't have to wipe anything, or wait for it to dry (which could take a looong time) But DO unplug the PSU (power cable) while doing this, as you would normally do for any other repair &/or upgrade!

 

[Doc41]

nah caps looked fine, but i guess leaving the case open got more dust inside/ helped it corrode faster (can get quite humid)
this is what i used

 

[Trekkie4]

Lol, my first reaction (when I saw "WD-40") was WTF? Noooo! I had no idea WD40 was in the production of contact-cleaning solutions...

But yes, that should do a trick. Brand doesn't really matter, the only important factor is to renew the contact on the mobo. And yes, I knew humidity had to be behind this issue. Don't be surprised (and/or shocked) if you experience the same problem all over again, as this problem tends to randomly reappear when you least expect it to...