TPU's Nostalgic Hardware Club

[havli]

Really nice stuff here. And Voodoo4, that is one of my favorites (both PCI and AGP).

I wasn't very active here on TPU lately, but in the past months I managed to get my hands on some nice HW, mostly videocards. So let's start with these:

Sapphire Radeon HD 4770 - the first 40nm GPU, yay

Sapphire Radeon HD 4850 X2 - this one is relatively rare, 4870 X2 was much more common.

Quadro FX 3700 - pretty much a "500MHz 8800 GT". Even at this low clock the heatsink is not so good (running at 98°C), maybe fresh thermal paste and some cleaning will help. It is in fact the same heatsink as first batch of 8800 GT used, later Nvidia redesigned it using bigger fan.

Gigabyte GeForce GTX 580 - not much to say here, everyone knows it.

 

[Red_Machine]

I have a Voodoo3 3000 (currently in my Pentium II Win98SE rig I built last summer) and a boxed Voodoo5 5500 that's currently in storage. From what I read, 3dfx never properly implemented AGP on their cards, so they don't support sideband addressing or any of the other fancy features you'd expect from an AGP card. They were essentially PCI cards that were bridged internally to AGP, even though they pushed the AGP versions more than the PCI versions (for obvious reasons, given the way the industry was headed at the time). It's honestly no wonder they went bankrupt.

 

[phill]

@phil - the V4 4500 is worth quite a bit of money. Yours being the PCI version is even better. I suggest you keep it. It doesnt occupy a lot of space and if it is alive it would be awesome. It isnt fast but it is rare. I dont even want to think about the prices of the boxed V4 4500....

http://hw-museum.cz/vga/57/3dfx-voodoo4-4500-pci

I have made a choice @Robert B never to sell anything I buy from now on, so dear lord help me!! lol I'm sure I'll need a house just for the boxes of hardware and whatever else I end up buying but hopefully it'll be worth it for the long term for my daughter when I'm not around (Positive thinking I'm not so sure of, but if I could get her a little interested in to gaming and PC's, it'll be a good thing!! )

Oh and my name is Phill with two ll's not l lol I think you might have tagged someone else!!

 

[agent_x007]

Got myself a "Universal AGP care package" :

Contents :
Pentium 4 2.0A Northwood "B0" (w/cooler)
ECS P4S5ADX+
1x 256MB DDR PC2100 "no-name"
1x GoodRAM 1GB 400MHz CL3
1x Maxtor "Fireball 3" 40GB 5400RPM (2MB cache ?) [IDE]
1x Intel PCI LAN 10/100 (Compaq NC3121)
1x D-Link DWL-G510 Wi-FI PCI (w/antenna)
1x FSP 145-60SP PSU (145W, 10-18A 5V and 4.2A on 12V)
2x IDE type "80" ribbon cables
2x I/O shield for MB (?) with screws/standoffs
^Whole pack cost me ~17$ (that's with shipping, bought locally).
I think it was a pretty good deal

 

[Ruru]

^ And I usually trash hardware like that.

But not this AGP motherboard. now we just need a Phenom II X4 CPU.

 

[Mr.Scott]

Nice board. I have 2.
Needs vcore and vdimm mods for good overclocking.
It is my AGP card benching board.

 

[Ruru]

Nice board. I have 2.
Needs vcore and vdimm mods for good overclocking.
It is my AGP card benching board.

Can you link those mods for me

 

[Mr.Scott]

Can you link those mods for me

http://warp9-systems.proboards.com/thread/3/am2nf3-vsta-vdimm-vcore-mods

 

[Trekkie4]

Finally got my headshell earlier this week


Few moments later & Shure M75 was securely mounted to it... Have to say, doesn't look bad for a 40yr old hardware component!


Also received this one from China, through AliExpress. For 10$, it's probably the cheapest MM cart on planet, but nevertheless a very good one too. Not to mention its upgrade potential, this thing can be made into anything. From the cheapest conical styli all the way to expensive & exotic shibata ones.


Anyhow... Just so that I'm not completely off-topic here. I was asked to patch up an old AM2 system earlier this week. In fact, I'm still in the process of doing so, but I'll most likely use the opportunity to test some of the leftover hardware I got laying around. Maybe even that Quantum's Bigfoot drive

 

[GreiverBlade]

Anyhow... Just so that I'm not completely off-topic here. I was asked to patch up an old AM2 system earlier this week. In fact, I'm still in the process of doing so, but I'll most likely use the opportunity to test some of the leftover hardware I got laying around. Maybe even that Quantum's Bigfoot drive

off topic...

TPU's Nostalgic Hardware Club

 

[Trekkie4]

off topic...

TPU's Nostalgic Hardware Club

Hmm, not sure what you're trying to say here, but I suppose it /is/ hardware, isn't it...? Computer hardware, audio hardware, and being 40yrs old, it's most definitely nostalgic

 

[agent_x007]

Pretty good for BOX cooler (with 120mm fan on top), and three low-side MOSFETs on VRM
Also, this CPU isn't supported on this MB (...works without BIOS mod).

 

[phill]

Looking good

 

[Retrorockit]

I saw something that piqued my interest. Upon investigation it turned out to be too old for my purposes, But might be a good fit here.
I've been seeing the NVidia Tesla C1060 4GB 512 bit DDR3 "Graphics Processor" for $60-$100. Basically it's a PhysX CUDA card with no display outlets at all. 187W power.
This will require a workstation type MB with2 PCIe 16x slots. It only supports DX10 / Win XP era so it ends up in the retro ctaegory due to that. This would probably give an old P4 Xeon a real kick in the ass in any game that supports PhysX. There are Win 7 Driver for it.
https://www.ebay.com/i/142695815659?chn=ps

 

[Robert B]

Green Onions - Booker T & the MG's



More l a t e r . . . ....

 

[Trekkie4]

So, I finally booted up that Bigfoot drive aaaand .... nothing! It's obviously getting voltage, I can see the green LED lighting up, but I'm not hearing or feeling any movement from the inside the drive. Also, the system hanged up during the boot, waiting for drive to respond, so it's only safe to assume this one is toasted.

And I even tried removing & cleaning up the PCB contacts, just in case there's a bad contact somewhere but still not getting anything. So, there you have it guys, think I'm going to throw this one into the bin.

 

[phill]

Green Onions - Booker T & the MG's



More l a t e r . . . ....

You making me jealous!! @Robert B that is an awesome post!!

 

[Robert B]

- just some spit'n'polish

I had to restore the copper heatsinks even if they will oxidize again later along the way The pictures will be awesome when I'll put them on. BLING! BLING!

I'll use gloves when I'll install them. There were nasty fingerprints all over the place. It was very easy to remove the oxidation with the metal polishing paste. I was gentle with them

I was afraid that the vinegar / vinegar and salt method might mess up the aluminium fins so I chose the polishing paste.

The bottom was left as it was.

 

[phill]

Amazing
@Robert B I was just wondering, with all the photo's you upload, do you have more stored away on your PC or is it all up in the cloud?? You must have hundreds of thousands of pictures of hardware!!

I'm not sure I'd class this as nostalgic, but I was given it today at work for nothing... There's hopefully going to be a home for it soon!!

 

[Robert B]

I store all my pictures on my PC.

From 2015 until today I have made 33.133 pictures / 62GB - these are all the pictures, and all the duplicates.

What I posted goes in another folder and it is around 4500 pictures.

ASUS EAH3870X2 TOP 1GB is DONE!

 

[agent_x007]

@Robert B Few scores for my HD 3870 x2:
3DMark 03 : https://www.3dmark.com/3dm03/6538147
3DMark 05 : https://www.3dmark.com/3dm05/5548548
3DMark 06 : https://www.3dmark.com/3dm06/18040806
Vantage P-Score : https://www.3dmark.com/3dmv/5697728
Vantage X-Score : https://www.3dmark.com/3dmv/5697835
Cloud Gate : https://www.3dmark.com/cg/4302601

 

[phill]

I store all my pictures on my PC.

From 2015 until today I have made 33.133 pictures / 62GB - these are all the pictures, and all the duplicates.

What I posted goes in another folder and it is around 4500 pictures.

ASUS EAH3870X2 TOP 1GB is DONE!

I hope you have a few backups That's pretty impressive I don't even want to look on the server for all the pictures I have for the PC hardware, I think it would be daft and stupid of me to even want too!! lol I think I have a few pictures back from 2008.. I think that's as far back as I go... I think!

Now of those 33k of pictures, how do you manage to store all that amazing hardware??!! Hats off to you sir as I've said a few times before.. amazing work And loving every single post!!

@agent_x007 - What about 2001SE??

 

[agent_x007]

@phill I have it... but it's nothing to write home about (Win 10).

 

[phill]

Yeah it is a lot better in Windows 7 even but best still in XP I believe Oh how newer OS's mess up performance

 

[Robert B]

@phill - I keep my pics on a HGST Ultrastar 7K4000 4 TB 3.5" 7200 RPM SATA HDD and a backup on a 2TB WDC Black.

My collection is still somewhat small

All my parts have been, are or will be presented on TPU on my thread

ATM I have:

70 working graphic cards and 10 dead
14 soundcards
80 working CPU's and 1 dead
19 working motherboards and 6 damaged
12 optical units
10 working HDDs and 2 dead
3 lan cards
3 completed builds - AT - 5x86, K6-2 400 and ATX - PIII-800.
1 box of RAM
4 extra PSUs - 2xAT / 2xATX
1 box of coolers / fans
1 box of cables

I store them at my workplace and they don't occupy a lot of space. They are kept in boxes. Because I focus mainly on components, the footprint of my collection is smaller.

I plan to change the way I store my parts and I want to buy 200 ESD bags and three bigger plastic containers. If I need to move them they must be safe.

All my stuff has been cleaned and restored. I got better and better at cleaning and restoring my parts. The first parts I got arent at the level of my later parts, but they are still very clean.

As soon as I get to change my storage tactics I'll post a special episode dedicated to this matter.

New entries at the CPU section! I'm still waiting for 6 Celerons PPGA CPUs 366, 400, 2x433, 2x500.

More later.