TPU's Nostalgic Hardware Club

[Athlonite]

Well goes to show that they don't build them like they used to Absolutely love that

I still have a seagate 545MB HDD that runs well noisy as all hell but still runs fine also and older 105MB Quantum XL Hardcard HDD that also still runs

 

[phill]

I still have a seagate 545MB HDD that runs well noisy as all hell but still runs fine also and older 105MB Quantum XL Hardcard HDD that also still runs

That's just awesome

I think the smallest drive I have will be my 4Gb drive sat in my Amiga lol

 

[lexluthermiester]

older 105MB Quantum XL Hardcard HDD that also still runs

That is very old. And it still work properly? Bad sectors?

 

[The Egg]

Pentium 166 (non-MMX)
430HX Chipset
32MB EDO 72-pin SIMMS
onboard ATI 3D Rage
onboard sound

Saved the above board/system from being thrown in the trash last year. Apologize for the blurry crap photo (I'm not at home to take a new one). Got Win98SE fully up and running. I've made great progress clearing out my closets over the years, so I don't really have any other old running systems. Lots of bare CPUs as souvineers. Most everything else got tossed or eBay'ed. Still have a softspot for anything Pentium Pro and earlier though, so I'm jealous of a few of you here.

 

[lexluthermiester]

Pentium 166 (non-MMX)
430HX Chipset
32MB EDO 72-pin SIMMS
onboard ATI 3D Rage
onboard sound

Saved the above board/system from being thrown in the trash last year. Apologize for the blurry crap photo (I'm not at home to take a new one). Got Win98SE fully up and running. I've made great progress clearing out my closets over the years, so I don't really have any other old running systems. Lots of bare CPUs as souvineers. Most everything else got tossed or eBay'ed. Still have a softspot for anything Pentium Pro and earlier though, so I'm jealous of a few of you here.

That has potential! Plug in a Voodoo2, a SB Awe32/64, add a fan to the heatsink and maybe 32MB more ram and you have a very cool Win9X retro gaming PC!

 

[The Egg]

While I do enjoy messing with old systems, I have no such love for old mechanical drives. In fact I have a bit of a distain for them. For the above system I used a Compactflash -> PATA/IDE adapter along with a 16GB card. Worked flawlessly, and probably light years faster than a drive of the era. I actually think I remember reading somewhere that Compactflash is really just a miniturized PATA interface. Indeed, there doesn't appear to be any translator chips on my adapter, and the old mb BIOS didn't even cast a sideways glance.

That has potential! Plug in a Voodoo2, a SB Awe32/64, add a fan to the heatsink and maybe 32MB more ram and you have a very cool Win9X retro gaming PC!

Sadly, I used to have a PCI Voodoo3 2000 laying around, but no longer. Also had an AWE32 back in the day. Anyone remember if the 430HX had AGP? I almost expected it to, but maybe they never did.

 

[Athlonite]

That is very old. And it still work properly? Bad sectors?

Works perfectly fine no bad sectors or anything other than being really slow. I take it to my mates place as he has a few PC's with ISA slots & a floppy drive which is needed for this card to run as it needs it's driver loaded at boot time in order for it to run

 

[havli]

GeForce4 Ti4600 vs Radeon 9600 Pro

The Ti4600 can keep up in OGL games... but the rest is not that great (not surprising though).

 

[Robert B]

Flea market day today! (again & again 'till the end of days ... )

1. Creative Sound Blaster 16 CT2830 - SB16IDE46 - my first long Creative SB.
2. US Robotics - FCC ID: CJE-0286 - Internal FAX/Modem Card
3. Intergraph Intense 3D 100 / (Rendition Verite V1000-E)
4. DFI G586 VPS REV.C1 / G586VPS PRO - http://www.go-gddq.com/down/2011-04/11040300077148.pdf
5. PQI Turbo DDR400 dual channel 2x256MB - PQI3200-512DBH

I stole them for little over 5 EUROS. No missing parts just a few minor scratches here and there.

If I would've got sooner at the flea market I would've found also the CPU which was sold before I got there. In any case this is a score!

 

[Splinterdog]

Three beige bombshells that I put up for sale in 2010 at my shop. If I remember correctly, they may have been Pentium 4s which I cleaned up at a time when second-hand PCs were flying off the shelf, for me at least anyway.

 

[Bones]

Got this a few weeks ago and framed it this morning.
Silicon wafer made by AMD/Fujitsu - circa 2003.

 

[Athlonite]

@Bones Aw NICE score

 

[Robert B]

My first EE Edition CPU I found at the flea market.

S775 - Intel Pentium D 955 Extreme Edition - SL94N - 6.25 EUROs

http://www.cpu-world.com/sspec/SL/SL94N.html

Intel® Pentium® Processor Extreme Edition 955 (4M Cache, 3.46 GHz, 1066 MHz FSB) Product Specifications

Intel® Pentium® Processor Extreme Edition 955 (4M Cache, 3.46 GHz, 1066 MHz FSB) quick reference guide including specifications, features, pricing, compatibility, design documentation, ordering codes, spec codes and more.

ark.intel.com

A once 999$ CPU ... sheeshhh ...

The bad thing is that I must now find a good motherboard and crank this puppy really high!

 

[freeagent]

What a beast @ 130w. No wonder they were so hard to cool, hsf have come a long way since those days.

 

[dorsetknob]

The bad thing is that I must now find a good motherboard and crank this puppy really high!

Rumour has it that is How Chenobal had its meltdown

 

[agent_x007]

955 should OC around 4,2-4,5GHz mark without blowing up VRMs (proper ones with big heatsinks).
Higher than that... well, let's just say that going without water cooled CPU and top class VRM (air cooled), isn't possible to do (stability + heavy throttling awaits all inexperience challangers).

Great buy, good luck !

PS.

 

[biffzinker]

955 should OC around 4,2-4,5GHz mark without blowing up VRMs (proper ones with big heatsinks).
Higher than that... well, let's just say going without water cooled CPU and top air cooled VRM cooling isn't possible to do (stability + heavy throttling awaits all inexperience challangers).

Great buy, good luck !

PS.
View attachment 133996

All that for a score of 142 cb. At least it was Presler instead of Prescott.

 

[erek]

I received a GeForce4 Ti 4600 Engineering Sample and GeForce3 Ti Engineering Sample for my collection!

 

[Trekkie4]

I received some some cool (and most importantly, vintage) stuff, from a fellow forumer. Think I should probably let the pictures do all the talking...

Soyo SY-6BA+III

At first it didn't want to post, and almost ended up in waste bin. Not really sure what is going on here, but eventually it powered up fine & POSTed as expected. If I'd have to guess, I'd say the board is having cap issue(s), except they all appear to be fine *shrug*


This one was quite a mystery... After loads of Googling (random numbers & codes, from the PCB) it turned out to be a Siemens board. Weird one, but eventually tested OK!


Yet another Socket 7 board ... except this one comes with pretty cool (and I would even dare to say unique) IBM processor - 6x86. So now I got all the "x86" models, except for earliest 2x86 & 3x86



Teac 5.25" floppy drive ... this one will most definitely come in handy at some point!


Followed by this server back-up unit. It has a tape deck, which (to be completely honest) I've never seen before in my life. Unfortunately, the pinch roller (which drives the tape, pulls it across the head) seems to be shot and it even melted into a goo. Which will no doubt require some serious cleaning. Not sure about the replacement, something tells me that spare parts for this thing will be impossible to find!


Also received this S775 Gigabyte board. At first glance it seemed to be OK, but then I found one of the two BIOS chips wedged inside the PCI slot. The other chip was apparently de-soldered at some point & then re-attached. Don't know why, but eventually I'll give it a try to see if it boots up or not.


Speaking of 4x86 gear, this here is an old 4x86 board. I was surprised to see the unusual, even obsolete socket choice for this kind of board (since most of the other boards already had a ZIF one at this point) so I'm not sure how is this going to work out, especially without any cooling, heatsink on top. But either way, it's here & will most likely come in handy. Now I have a perfect excuse to build yet another 4x86 machine!


Unknown ISA controller card. The parallel port controller looks familiar, but there appears to be more than just your average COM port controller. I'd appreciate any insight on this card!

 

[biffzinker]

If I'd have to guess, I'd say the board is having cap issue(s), except they all appear to be fine *shrug*

Could it be the electrolyte in the caps is close to drying out?

 

[Trekkie4]

Could be... I also received two other boards, which I haven't mentioned. FIC VB-601 and unknown (PC-Chips?) Slot-1 board using the old AT form factor layout.

While the PC Chips one does power up, it doesn't give any feedback or signs of life (no sounds, or beeps either) ... VB-601 on the other hand has exactly the same problem as Soyo board did, at first. Doesn't power up, at all (no matter what)

 

[Susquehannock]

This thread really delivers. So many memories. Appreciate everyone sharing here.

Couple weeks back thought to myself, why not hook up the old 36gb 10,000 RPM Raptor and see what's what. You know, the early ones with SATA and molex power connectors that people would release magic smoke from after ignoring bright & bold warning stickers warning them not to use both simultaneously.

Drive is hardly used at all. Too small. Forgot how hot these heavy beasts ran. Topping out around 65-C in the eSATA dock after a few passes in Crystal. Figured hey, why not set my mug on there. Good home roasted coffee deserves some love. Changing to the P4 heatsink dropped temps nicely.





However, first thing first. Ran some scans. Drive has WinXP install from 2005. Oh look, Worms. Wonder what that one was. Nuked it before even looking where it resided.



Found a few bits of PC nostalgia on there. Being on 56k at the time I saved many pages as complete MHT files to view at leisure later.

Boards.
Almost bought the Abit NF7S after reading this review from 2003 but ended up going with Soltek FRN2 instead.



GPUs.
Anyone remember certain plain 6800 (aka-'nu') where disabled pipelines could be opened with Rivatuner? Seeing the 12 change to 16 was like winning the silicon lottery. That along with some overclocking and we could reach 6800 GT levels thereby saving over $100. Mine didn't quite get that high until after doing some work to the big solid copper BFG heatsink and cooler. Sure miss those days.



CPUs.
How about the T-bred B? Those were fun. Remember when some retailer started price gouging certain known stepping that OCed well? 0307 VPMW were very popular. Until other later steppings were found to be even better. I remember putting a comparable 1700 in the cart for this screenshot. Roughly 17% markup? I also remember some retailers asking over $90 for exact same thing. And look at all those NF7 combos. They were board to have at the time. Sure miss Abit.



Plenty of other interesting bits but that is enough for now.

 

[erek]

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Rare-ATI-R...420939?hash=item3b3aabff0b:g:UfYAAOSw7FFdhoBi

 

[Robert B]

Flea market day today!

1. Zalman ZM80C-HP nVIDIA and ATI editions - BULK - one used two NOS - 4 EUROS
2. Razer BlackWidow Chorma V1 - mechanical keyboard - 4 EUROS - UNTESTED!

Not too bad.

The Zalman ZM80C-HP will be used on anything but video cards.

CPU Intel Pentium 2 400 MHz (slot verzia) chladené Zalman-om ZM80C-HP

Spoločnosť Zalman určite nie je neznáma pre užívateľov vyznávajúcich veľmi tiché, alebo dokonca pasívne chladenie či už procesorov, grafických kariet, alebo aj zdrojov. Na fínskej stránke som našiel zaujímavý nápad, ktorý prerástol aj do reálnej podoby. Užívateľ použil chladič Zalman ZM80C-HP...

pc.zoznam.sk

 

[TOMCAT]

I received some some cool (and most importantly, vintage) stuff, ...


Followed by this server back-up unit. It has a tape deck, which (to be completely honest) I've never seen before in my life. Unfortunately, the pinch roller (which drives the tape, pulls it across the head) seems to be shot and it even melted into a goo. Which will no doubt require some serious cleaning. Not sure about the replacement, something tells me that spare parts for this thing will be impossible to find!


Unknown ISA controller card. The parallel port controller looks familiar, but there appears to be more than just your average COM port controller. I'd appreciate any insight on this card!

Hello Trekkie4,
very nice vintage catch.
The "Unknown ISA controller card" is a very early QIC controller card "Wangtek Assy 30850-(008)". It's the controller card for your tape drive.
The tape drive should be a Wangtek QIC (-36 ???) Tape Drive of the 5000er series. One matching tape cartrigde (3m C6150) is in your drive.
With these info you can look for spare parts and the connecting cable, when needed.

Years later the tape cartridges became more common as QIC-40 or QIC-80, connected to PC with floppy disk port or SCSI. Used for daily or large backups and moving datafrom one location to an other. Internet and even CD-R(W)s were unknown at that time. A cartridge was cheap, a HDD costs more than one Dollar a MB!