A lot going on at the minute so have not been keeping to a blogging schedule, even with videos on my Youtube channel, but less so here.
I've decided I want a dedicated Old School Gaming PC, for older games, e.g. 90's games that require windows 95/98 and support XP. Especially the games I just can't get running right on modern hardware either on Linux via WINE/DOSBox, Windows via compatibility modes or on virtual machines.
One Game in Particular pushed me to do this as I really want to play the damn thing, That game is: DARK VENGEANCE from developer Reality Bytes, which I picked up from a charity shop recently along with a few others.
The initial plan:
Objectives:
- Spend as little money as possible
- Use Parts I already had left over from old PC builds
- Run 3 OSs including windows and Linux
- Recreate original "golden age" PC Gaming experience
As I wanted to go with one PC that could run Windows 98SE, Windows XP and Linux in a triple boot situation, I needed hardware that would be supported over all 3 operating systems, Initially this is what I came up with:
- AMD Athlon XP / Socket A/462 CPU and Motherboard
- At least 1GB of RAM
- Hard Drives, 1 boot drive, and some data drives.
- DVD-ROM / Writer
- 15/17" 4:3(non widescreen) TFT screen with build in speakers.
- PS/2 Keyboard and Mouse
Hardware I already had:
- Keyboard & Mouse
- Athlon XP 3000+ CPU
- Various DDR 1 RAM modules 256mb-1GB sticks
- ATI Radeon 9200SE 128mb AGP card
- Various PCI sound cards including SB Live 5.1, SB X-FI xtreme audio.
- Gigabyte motherboard with KT266 chipset(micro atx)
- Random P4 motherboard, DFI lanparty Socket 939 motherboard.
- 1.5ghz P4 CPU, Other random P4 CPU
Some items to acquire!
Having some of the components was good but I was missing some essentials like the Monitor and Power Supply, I also needed some hard drives and a case << yeah need a case to put everything in! also a CPU heatsink + fan would be an advantage.
After checking prices and various other avenues to get a lot of the parts needed, and it seemed the best and most cost effective option was buying a complete PC, or at least the base unit, didn't need keyboard and mouse. I went around some second hand and charity shops looking for a Monitor, and Found one! also needed a desk to set the system up on, so I grabbed one of them too from the same shop, also a charity shop so I can feel good about that at least.
When I got the monitor home I found it had no power supply :( and strangely the power socket was actually built into the D-SUB 15 pin VGA connector, To address this, I decided to check the polarity, the required voltage and amp ratings were on the back of the monitor so all good there, 12v 3amp, I had a 12v 1.5amp adaptor so I tested with that and it worked, for a while, but needed a bit more current, keeping with the "spend as little as possible" objective and not trusting cheap Chinese AC adaptors: my thought train went something like this:
Monitor 12v 3amp > Only on when PC is on > PC PSU provides 12V with plenty of amps > DC in jack for monitor is on VGA connector > Bingo!
I'll power the monitor from the PC Power supply.
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| EM-150 TFT Proview 12v 15" monitor (not a pic of my action one but the same) |
So I cut off the connector from the old 12v 1amp adaptor and wired it up to a female 4pin molex connector and tested by hooking up to PC power supply molex male (same that goes into the back of your CD/DVD drives)
Worked perfectly and for prolonged periods. nice! also the monitor worked as did the sound from the built in speakers. So I now had a Monitor with speakers a method of powering it and a Desk! Excellent!(Monty burns style)
Now for the rest of the missing hardware. Reluctantly I went to ebay to search for a cheap old PC, after a lil searching i found a few options and decided to go with one that matched my initial plans the best(and had free shipping) so scooped one for £20: specs below:
- AMD Athlon 1700+ CPU
- Jetway V266B v3 Socket A/462 Motherboard
- 1GB DDR Ram
- 2x 40GB hard drives
- 256mb Geforce 6600LE Graphics card
- Network Card
- 480w PSU
- Floppy Disk Drive
- Sony NEC A/ND5170A DVD Writer
- CPU heatsink and cooling fan of course
- The All important case!
Nice, pretty much just what I need, and combined with the parts I already have should work well.... Should...
I also ordered a laptop IDE to Desktop IDE converter / adaptor, as I found an old 40GB laptop IDE drive I wanted to use also, and an extra 80mm cooling fan both of which were really cheap.
Anyway, everything Arrived after a few days, well packed too, Now on with the build!
The case i was happy with, nothing special but useful features like front USB ports, and one thumbscrew and you can open the whole case. plenty of room for fans and drives, solid built minimal sharp edges. While the system worked and had XP pre installed also has a license key on the side, there were a few issues, which I was ready for and expected on old hardware.
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| The actual Case - pic from ebay listing |
Immediate Issues:
- About 9 Swollen Capacitors(all same value)
- Motherboard old BIOS not recognising CPU
- Very dusty inside and fans a little noisy
Video on fan cleaning.
Luckily the capacitors were cheap got 10 for 99p, 1800uf 6.3v, and replaced them, then more luck, the motherboard MFG (http://www.jetway.com.tw/jw/download_show.asp?productid=V266B) still has downloads for it up on their website, including chipset drivers (via anyway) and an updated BIOS from 2006(original BIOS from 2001). and having a floppy drive made updating BIOS easy, although finding a working floppy disk was the hardest part.
Also having the manual was very useful as these older boards use jumpers to set CPU speeds and multipliers etc, also for front panel connector pinouts and USB header/audio pinouts.
Now, to test further I installed a Linux distro and Windows XP, then windows 98se, although the best practice for this would be to first partition the hard drive, install windows 98, then windows XP and then Linux last.
and so the issues started, while XP and Linux worked perfectly fine, 98se didn't like the graphics card and didn't like having the 1.5GB of ram I put in, long story short it was a pain in the ass, another issue i had was with the motherboard, now due to it's hardware constraints eg, having backwards compatibility with SDRAM so it has 2 DDR slots and 2 SDRAM slots, this means although it is a 266mhz chipset, it is limited to 133mhz, and this in turn limits the CPU, speed, i tried everything i could think of but couldn't get the CPU running stable at over 1.6ghz, the AMD Athlon XP 3000+ I put in was being detected as an 1800+
The board however does have some nice features, while lacking on-board graphics, usb2.0 and on-board network, I like the fact that if i wanted to I could throw even older hardware into it. also the BIOS post screen shows some nice data about fan speeds and temperatures etc. and it also has 2 system fan headers as well as the CPU fan one. and everything is located nicely.
Conclusion to part 1 and where i currently stand...
What I now plan to do is build two PCs one running 98se and a lightweight Linux distro for emergencies etc, and a second one running XP and Linux. I'll run these using the same keyboard mouse and monitor using a KVM switch, I've also ordered a USB 2.0 card for the V266B motherboard as 1.1 is just too slow and using usb to boot and transfer files is just easier.
I had a spare PSU i was using for arcade boards, but sadly today, that PSU passed away, so I've also gone and ordered a new PSU which again was the cheapest one I could find, Also I still want the monitor to be powered by whichever computer is active at the time and not have a separate adapter, the only other Issues I need to address are the KVM switch and Sound distribution e.g. if the KVM switch does not also switch sound. and one in my budget probably will not lol.
Hopefully the update for Part 2 will be more successful! And also include final price and parts list, cover the software used, and any other knowledge / tips that may be useful for anyone attempting this.
Live, make mistakes, learn and adapt.
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