Repurposing a 2004 Athlon 64 system in 2021

[TechGeek]

Originally Posted by eccerr0r

I've never had a combo floppy-card reader, have a few black floppies and my card readers are black...

Down to two CRTs and hasn't budged any: one 19" shadowmask and one 21" trinitron.
LCDs seem to have been multiplying like rabbits however...

Started to collect some HDMI to VGA adapters...

17" shadowmask (Samsung CRT, IIRC, pretty solid colors and has held up well over the years) and a 17" Diamondtron CRT, which has excellent color quality. It's from a November 1999 batch of monitors whose CRTs don't seem to have been aged at the factory, leading to the entire picture turning a sickly green as the guns age. I went into the service menu a while back and reset the gun gain and gun drive settings to bring it back to page whites and true blacks.


I feel you on the LCDs. Only spare video adapters that I've got are a couple of DVI-A to VGA adapters, and one doesn't like to work half the time.

[TechGeek]

And a little more progress on the system. This is from the same photo dump as my last big post.

Turned on the SATA RAID controller:


Turned on the FDC:


Not sure why I took this, but here it is:


Turned on FDD seek @ POST:


Saving and exiting.


Some signs of life from the SATA RAID controller, but it's not entirely sure what the hard disk is:


Don't do this- some older drives may not take kindly to it:


Putting the SATA RAID controller on the boot order:


Putting the FDD on the boot order:


And after disabling Spread Spectrum Clocking on the hard drive, things look a lot better:


And apparently there's a valid boot sector on the hard drive- not sure how that happened.


Turning off 32-bit transfer mode as the optical drive doesn't like it.


Turned off the unused IDE channels:


Burning Windows 2000 Professional SP4 to CD:


Preparing the driver diskette for the SATA RAID controller:


And done. (Or so I thought)


Booting up...






Oops, put the driver files in the wrong place:


And fixed.


Installing...


*F8*




First boot!


More setup...


Some Googling cured this problem.



And dead ahead is the attachment limit. More to come later!

[ChaosLegionnaire]

Originally Posted by TechGeek

Set the AGP aperture size...

256mb agp aperture size with only 1gb of ram? not a very wise move as u could end up with only 768mb ram usable if u play high-res texture games. from my own testing, if u use a 128mb vram card, setting the agp aperture size to the same 128mb is the best. if u need the extra video ram, u're better off upgrading to a better card with more video ram like the 256mb gf5 or gf6 series.

Originally Posted by TechGeek

Considered. Might as well throw in a spare Maxtor I've got kicking around (yes it works and has perfect SMART stats) to make it even more period-correct and toss 98SE on there.

careful with that! u're supposed to install the newer os on top of the older one! if u installed the newer os, win2k first and then install the older os, win98se, u'll need to reinstall win2k. but since u're doing this on two separate hard drives, thats okay. just unplug the drive with win2k to avoid any funny business that could occur when installing win98se and it tries to detect any existing windows installation.

thereafter, just select the maxtor ide drive as the first boot device in the bios if u wanna boot win98se. set the wd raptor as the first boot device in the bios if u wanna boot win2k.

[TechGeek]

Originally Posted by ChaosLegionnaire

256mb agp aperture size with only 1gb of ram? not a very wise move as u could end up with only 768mb ram usable if u play high-res texture games. from my own testing, if u use a 128mb vram card, setting the agp aperture size to the same 128mb is the best. if u need the extra video ram, u're better off upgrading to a better card with more video ram like the 256mb gf5 or gf6 series.

Noted. I'll probably change it today.

Originally Posted by ChaosLegionnaire

careful with that! u're supposed to install the newer os on top of the older one! if u installed the newer os, win2k first and then install the older os, win98se, u'll need to reinstall win2k. but since u're doing this on two separate hard drives, thats okay. just unplug the drive with win2k to avoid any funny business that could occur when installing win98se and it tries to detect any existing windows installation.

thereafter, just select the maxtor ide drive as the first boot device in the bios if u wanna boot win98se. set the wd raptor as the first boot device in the bios if u wanna boot win2k.

That's my plan. Install 98SE, then W2K, then XP.

[TechGeek]

And here we have a little more progress on the system. Let's begin.

Setup complete!


Disabling an annoying "feature"...


Installing drivers...




That looks a whole lot better.


Setting screen resolution...


...to [email protected]


Installing sound drivers.


And done! That 4-pin audio cable is actually having analog audio routed over it instead of over the system's ATA bus. I've tried it both ways, and using a direct analog output always seems to work better and more reliably as compared to stuffing digital data over an already crammed ATA bus.


About the system:


Now for some case shots.






A bit later...


Preparing to install the unofficial Service Pack 5.1 update:


Installing...


...and done.


Showing it off once again:


Locked out the wireless card since I can't find any Windows-2000 compatible drivers for it.


And that's all I've got for now. Stay tuned, more changes coming up later today!

[TechGeek]

Somehow, my previous post lost all of its pictures. Take 2...

Setup complete!


Disabling an annoying "feature"...


Installing graphics drivers...




...and done.


Setting display resolution...


...to 1024x768 @ 85Hz.


Installing audio drivers...


...and done. That 4-pin audio cable is actually having analog audio routed over it instead of over the system's ATA bus. I've tried it both ways, and using a direct analog output always seems to work better and more reliably as compared to stuffing digital data down an already crammed ATA bus.


About the system:


Case shots:






Some more customization later...


Preparing to install the unofficial Service Pack 5.1...


Installing...


...and done.




I couldn't find any Windows-2000 compatible drivers for the wireless card, so I ended up disabling it in the Device Manager.


More coming soon. (And hopefully with pictures!)

[TechGeek]

Been rather busy with the system the past few days, so I've got more than a little bit of a backlog of pictures to clear out. Here we gooooooo... *crash*

Had to switch to a PS/2 keyboard due to emulation problems with USB keyboards.


Testbedding Windows XP x64. Yes I wiped out my Windows 2000 installation, but we'll put that back in place later.
Installation...


First set of issues I ran into: x86/x64 drivers incompatibility.




Solved.








About to enter the graphical setup phase...




...and installation complete.


Booting...


Time for this stupid song-and-dance:


Done.


Nvidia driver woes:


And here I discovered that C:\ doesn't always have to be the system partition.




Reinstalling, False Start Edition:










Reboot...








And this is where I realized that my plan of action was not one that would work.


One reinstallation (and many hours later)- WinXP x64 reinstalled and drivers gathered. Nvidia does NOT make it easy to find older legacy drivers for WinXP x64.


Installing drivers.


And some time later, plus a few false starts on the wireless software later, things are up and running pretty well.

And staring me right in the face is the attachment limit, yet again. More megaposts coming up soon.

[TechGeek]

Another huge mega-post incoming... hope you've got fans pointing at your modems, because they're about to get a little HOT!

Some time later- Opened up a slew of windows, including the 2 configuration panels that you need to get into to turn off digital audio from the optical drive.


Momaka- hats off to you for this one!
Installing an 80GB Maxtor drive so I can install Windows 98SE. System opened up once again...


Had to remove the fan I put in the hard drive cage because it prevents the installation of any hard drive below the topmost slot.


And done.


Detected by BIOS.


Burning Windows 98SE to CD...


Booting up and installing.








The first signs of a false start...


Reading the setup.txt file, and WinXP kinda went loopy...








Uhoh...


Unplugging the WinXP drive straightens things right out.


Installing for real.






Really, ScanDisk? IT'S A BLANK DRIVE!




Graphical setup phase begins here...














And here's the attachment limit once again.

[momaka]

Originally Posted by Topcat

Diablo2, download the Glide wrapper for it, it will smoke on that GF4TI! D2 was written for glide, not D3D....and D3D sucks with it.

D3D sucks for anything from that age. Glide really was the way to go if the game supported it. Not only does it usually look better (or at worst, just the same as D3D), but the performance boost is huge. For example, Pentium II of that era could get maybe 20-40 FPS on the early Need For Speed series (NFS 3, 4, and 5.) With Glide, it's pretty much guaranteed 60 FPS.

Originally Posted by Topcat

Carmageddon....ohh my!! The first time I played that was at a big LANfest maybe around Y2K....we were drunk off our asses on jello shots and trying to play that game; big smash-up derby, corny cars, and can barely see straight.... Yes, f;ing classic! Great memory!!

Haha, that's such a funny story.

Let's see... Y2K? I was in elementary school - a bit too early for alcohol for me at that point (and I didn't really discover beer + gaming = good fun much later... like maybe 2-3 years ago, lol. )

Funny enough, I think I got Carmageddon way back in late '97 or possibly '98... or early '99?? I actually didn't even know anything about the game at the time. It came in a game pack with 4 other games. My mum just literally surprised me with it one afternoon (it was possibly a little before Christmas.) Don't think she knew what she bought... and neither did I. On the plus side, I didn't really know English back then, so it's okay? Oh, and it was the UK censored version with the Zombie crowds/pedestrians & green blood.
But anyways, I think that was my 1st non-platform game and I think also 1st game on a CD that I owned. I still have it! Near mint condition, too.

(ChaosLeggionaire, I think I sent you a copy of it on one of the discs.)

Originally Posted by TechGeek

Note to self: buy a 4th hard drive if I plan on installing all of these.

Might not be necessary.
A lot of the pre-Y2k titles were typically less than 600 MB for an absolute full install. Only the "newer" titles like Collin McRae Rally 3/04, NFS Underground & Underground 2, GTA VC, and Mafia may take around 2 GB each or slightly more. CS Source is probably too new for this PC to run at high FPS... but it will run. And anything from Valve's Source engine and onwards is big in size. But if you stay with the older titles like original HL and CS, those are also ~600 MB each. CS can get silly, though, if you install a ton of maps and mods. At some point, I had one installation of that take 2 GB due to a huge amount of custom maps.

Originally Posted by TechGeek

I'm particularly fond of this drive. It's taken more than a bit of abuse and it still works fine.

Yeah, I got you. I feel the same way about my Teac CD-540E. It's only a CD-ROM drive, but it's indestructible. It also has a gear-only -driven tray, so it will never suffer from a stuck tray.

Originally Posted by TechGeek

Pulled it from a Dell Optiplex GX100 with a non-working PS/2 controller that had seen outdoor storage and rough treatment.

Ah, the Library computer - that's what we called them back in high school (since that's what we had there.) They are actually kind of nice systems now. The desktop desktop ones don't have AGP, though (IIRC), so limited usability for a retro PC. But they are pretty well-made, otherwise. That would also make a nice system to restore.
... or turn into a sleeper PC with a modern uATX mobo?

Originally Posted by TechGeek

I do it so it eases load off of the ATAPI bus. It also annoys me quite a bit to hear the drive spinning up and down over and over when I'm playing a CD, instead of keeping at a steady 1x speed. Older computers with slower ATA busses could benefit greatly from this, too.

Hmm, good point, I didn't think about that one.
Glad I still have all of my cables saved. Guess I may be able to put some of them to good use after all.

Originally Posted by TechGeek

Trade?

It's the only black floppy I have... matched to a black case. Plus, no card reader on it.

Originally Posted by eccerr0r

LCDs seem to have been multiplying like rabbits however...

Yeah, people can't even seem to sell the older (17-19" 5:4 ones) for $5 here. If free, they still go... most of the time. Recently I saw a CL post offer two 22" LCDs for $20 ($10 per screen.) No one went for it for a month. Then the guy dropped it to $15. After almost 3 weeks, I was thinking if I should go buy them... but then finally someone else did. These weren't 16:9 1080p, but rather 16:10 1680x1050 (better, IMO.) So yeah, the smaller LCDs here pretty much no one cares for anymore (well I do, and wouldn't pass one up if it's on the side of the road for free. )

Originally Posted by TechGeek

Setting display resolution...
...to 1024x768 @ 85Hz.

You've earned my respect with how you use your CRTs.
Lower resolution at higher refresh rate was always my priority.
In high school computer graphic design class though, there was this kid next to me who'd always choose the highest res of the monitor... which back then on the 17" CRTs we had was 1280x1024 - a 5:4 resolution on a 4:3 monitor! Ugh! And worst of all, those Viewsonic 17" CRTs couldn't do anything higher than 60 Hz on that resolution. It was a strobing nightmare. It bugged me so much that I'd usually pull my desktop forward on the desk so that it would block his screen from my peripheral vision.

Originally Posted by TechGeek

Had to switch to a PS/2 keyboard due to emulation problems with USB keyboards.

Any self-respecting retro PC build should always use a PS/2 KB & MS.

Originally Posted by TechGeek

Nvidia driver woes:

That's one reason I avoid XP x64 - drivers for it usually do exist if you look hard enough... but it's just more work.

Originally Posted by TechGeek

And staring me right in the face is the attachment limit, yet again.

Lol, you with the attachement limit and me with the char limit.

Well, yours might be easier to solve, though: just post only the relevant images of stuff? (i.e. finished system with the tri-boot setup... and maybe only a few "points of interest" along the way.)
It would also make the thread load a little faster on this aging Pentium 4 machine.

Originally Posted by TechGeek

Momaka- hats off to you for this one!
Installing an 80GB Maxtor drive so I can install Windows 98SE. System opened up once again...

You're welcome?!
I mean, the separate HDD was your own idea, after all.

Originally Posted by TechGeek

Had to remove the fan I put in the hard drive cage because it prevents the installation of any hard drive below the topmost slot.

LOL! Now that's a funny case design FAIL. I mean, what's the point of having an HDD cage fan if it can't be installed when there are HDDs there.
Funny thing is, I've seen something similar on modern cases with slots for 120 mm fans on top... but no space left between the motherboard and top of the case. So either you can mount the motherboard and not have fans installed... or install the fans and have no motherboard.

[TechGeek]

Originally Posted by momaka

Ah, the Library computer - that's what we called them back in high school (since that's what we had there.) They are actually kind of nice systems now. The desktop desktop ones don't have AGP, though (IIRC), so limited usability for a retro PC. But they are pretty well-made, otherwise. That would also make a nice system to restore.
... or turn into a sleeper PC with a modern uATX mobo?

If I was able to resurrect the PS/2 controller and get it running again, I would restore it and clean it up. If I can't do that, I'll probably part it out and keep the case for something interesting.

Originally Posted by momaka

In high school computer graphic design class though, there was this kid next to me who'd always choose the highest res of the monitor... which back then on the 17" CRTs we had was 1280x1024 - a 5:4 resolution on a 4:3 monitor! Ugh!

EW! Why was that even a thing to begin with? Even Debian Testing knows to default to something else instead of forcing a 5:4 resolution on a 4:3 tube. I have never understood it and I feel that it shouldn't have ever been a thing to begin with.

Originally Posted by momaka

LOL! Now that's a funny case design FAIL. I mean, what's the point of having an HDD cage fan if it can't be installed when there are HDDs there.
Funny thing is, I've seen something similar on modern cases with slots for 120 mm fans on top... but no space left between the motherboard and top of the case. So either you can mount the motherboard and not have fans installed... or install the fans and have no motherboard.

I'm guessing they weren't smart enough to use their CAD software to verify that their case can be fully loaded without physical conflicts.

And I've done something with the fans that will more than make up for the loss of that one fan from the hard drive cage. It'll be in another one of my Internet Connection Stress-Test Megaposts™, coming soon.

[TechGeek]

Another day, another megapost! Up to January 9th in the picture backlog now.
Getting the W98SE installation finished up and settled in here.

Continuing with setup...


Reboot!


First boot.


Caught a dialog box mid-draw:


Setting up...


RU LEGIT?


And setup complete!


Got to see this screen a few times. It's not Windows 9x if it doesn't manage to throw itself into a creative loop at least once a day.


Excuse the blurriness. After trying to get the Universal USB Mass Storage driver for Windows 98 copied from a floppy diskette (and failing, several times), I resorted to booting into Windows XP and copying the drivers onto the Maxtor drive that Windows 98 was installed on, including the USB mass storage drivers.


Installing the graphics drivers because Windows 98 looks plain awful in 640x480x16 with all of its high-color and full-color graphics being dithered into oblivion.


And drivers installed.


Windows reconfiguring itself after installing graphics drivers.


And that looks a million times better!


Seeing if I can make six-foot-flames erupt from the monitor and graphics adapter...


...and no flames, thankfully. [email protected]


Installing the USB mass storage drivers.


That looks so much better with the GPU drivers installed.


Windows catching up after plugging in a USB flash drive...






That's a good sign!




Installing UniExtract so I can extract driver packages.


More USB stuff.




Installing LAN drivers.


And here we see the attachment limit? Or is it Windows 98 crashing again? Idunno.

[TechGeek]

More progress, and finally getting Windows 2000 installed for real! (Which steamrolled my Windows XP x64 testbed install into the ground)

Set a theme for Win98:


Installed drivers for the USB card I have installed in one of the PCI slots:




Lookin good.


Pulled apart once again. Installing a SATA card based around a Silicon Image SIL3114 controller and modifying the system configuration a bit.


Here's the SATA card (which also supports everything including RAID 5 with a hot spare or a RAID 10 array):


And here's the drivers disc, which is clearly a burned CD-R.


Installed.


Added a fan to the side of the hard drive cage in preparation for a push-pull forced air setup.


Switched the front case fan to a 120mm LED fan pushing air across the hard drive cage.


Installed the orange fan from the front onto the other side of the hard drive cage, creating a push/pull setup that will wrap the installed hard drives with a constant supply of fresh air.


Test run.


Back together and powered on. Disk seen on the new SATA card.


Windows XP predictably crashes.


Copying drivers to Win98SE.


Installing Windows 2000.
















And now for a few closing case shots.






And with that, I'll be back soon with more pictures of my progress!

[TechGeek]

More progress on getting Windows 2000 installed for real.

Setup complete.


Windows 98 on the boot menu as 'Microsoft Windows'.


Test boot to make sure that Win98 still starts...




Booted into Windows 2000. Before installing graphics drivers:


After installing graphics drivers:


Installing sound drivers.


And yet another piece of software that left a puddle of 2004 all over my floor.


Installing software for the LAN controller.




And done.


Installing chipset drivers.


Go away, nobody cares about you.


Installing the Unofficial SP5.1 updates.






And done.


Moved the whole setup to a new home, monitor and all.


Internet Explorer doing what it does best- downloading another browser.


FF10 up and running.


Installing some prerequisites for Extended Kernel.












And the attachment limit is dead ahead.

[RJARRRPCGP]

Back in the '00s, I would have loved a GeForce 4 Ti and payed an arm for a Ti 4200 back in 2004, IIRC. I would have loved a 4800, but the 64 MB 4200s weren't "gimped" like the 128 MB 4200s were! I honestly think the 64 MB 4200s, had better VRAM!

[TechGeek]

Some more pictures coming soon...

[momaka]

Ah, so you have an Athlon 64 3500+. That's a pretty decent overclocker CPU.
Running at 2.2 GHz and 200 MHz bus, that means it has a multiplier of 11x.
Not sure how far you may be able to push it, but generally 2.5 to 2.7 GHz @ stock voltage is a fairly standard OC. I was able to get one of my A64 3200+ CPUs to 2.5 GHz on stock voltage, just by setting the FSB to 250 MHz (along with changing the NB/SB multiplier and RAM clocks accordingly.) The fastest single-core Athlon 64 chip for socket 939 is the Athlon 64 FX-57, running at 2.8 GHz. I have one! Unfortunately, it's not a good OC-er on stock voltages - 3 GHz is as far as I can push it. So the realistic limit, again for stock voltages on s939 CPUs, should be somewhere around the 2.7-2.8 GHz range. So with any luck, you may be able to get that Athlon 64 3500+ of yours to do 2.6-2.7 GHz.
And if you're wondering if it's worth it - YES, absolutely!
I can attest to this with my OC-ed 3200+ (2 GHz running @ 2.5 GHz). A few years back (~2015-2016) when I could still run YouTube on Firefox ESR on XP with decent performance, the jump from 2 GHz to 2.5 GHz is what made the difference if I could watch 720p video or not. At 2 GHz, it was impossible and pretty much a slide-show. At 2.5 GHz, it was butter-smooth with some CPU headroom to spare. Essentially, I got a 25% increase in performance with that simple OC without touching the voltages. And heat output difference was minimal.
So give yours a try. ... provided that K8T Neo2 can do it, of course. May run into an issue if the AGP bus clock isn't asynchronous and can't be locked at 66 MHz.

[RJARRRPCGP]

The old-school FXes=They were so expensive, just like video cards now!

[TechGeek]

Originally Posted by momaka

Ah, so you have an Athlon 64 3500+. That's a pretty decent overclocker CPU.
Running at 2.2 GHz and 200 MHz bus, that means it has a multiplier of 11x.
Not sure how far you may be able to push it, but generally 2.5 to 2.7 GHz @ stock voltage is a fairly standard OC. I was able to get one of my A64 3200+ CPUs to 2.5 GHz on stock voltage, just by setting the FSB to 250 MHz (along with changing the NB/SB multiplier and RAM clocks accordingly.) The fastest single-core Athlon 64 chip for socket 939 is the Athlon 64 FX-57, running at 2.8 GHz. I have one! Unfortunately, it's not a good OC-er on stock voltages - 3 GHz is as far as I can push it. So the realistic limit, again for stock voltages on s939 CPUs, should be somewhere around the 2.7-2.8 GHz range. So with any luck, you may be able to get that Athlon 64 3500+ of yours to do 2.6-2.7 GHz.
And if you're wondering if it's worth it - YES, absolutely!
I can attest to this with my OC-ed 3200+ (2 GHz running @ 2.5 GHz). A few years back (~2015-2016) when I could still run YouTube on Firefox ESR on XP with decent performance, the jump from 2 GHz to 2.5 GHz is what made the difference if I could watch 720p video or not. At 2 GHz, it was impossible and pretty much a slide-show. At 2.5 GHz, it was butter-smooth with some CPU headroom to spare. Essentially, I got a 25% increase in performance with that simple OC without touching the voltages. And heat output difference was minimal.
So give yours a try. ... provided that K8T Neo2 can do it, of course. May run into an issue if the AGP bus clock isn't asynchronous and can't be locked at 66 MHz.

I'll certainly try that. And you can still watch YouTube under Windows 2000 today, if you can believe it. Serpent web browser + Windows 2000 Extended Kernel.

[eccerr0r]

Youtube on my Pentium-M and Atom (both 1.6GHz single core; Atom is HT) are just about unusable, chew up 100% of CPU... Linux/Firefox 91 ESR, 32-bit. Pains me when someone brings a youtube link when I'm using one of these to browse. Sigh.

[RJARRRPCGP]

Originally Posted by eccerr0r

Youtube on my Pentium-M and Atom (both 1.6GHz single core; Atom is HT) are just about unusable, chew up 100% of CPU... Linux/Firefox 91 ESR, 32-bit. Pains me when someone brings a youtube link when I'm using one of these to browse. Sigh.

LOL, much the same, even several years ago! And people were wondering why more people were using a downloader so they can play it on a player that don't have so much overhead!

IOW, please make your player more efficient, YouTube. It's kind of slow, even with my Ryzen powerhouses!