$7 Win98 Gaming PC with a 3dfx VooDoo 3 3000! Loaded with games too

RainMotorsports

RainMotorsports

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The card alone can be sold for a decent chunk of change. So buying a PC marked for parts for $7 was worth the risk. Turns out it has a bios password. That's fixed by jumpering to config mode... Easy! I have been holding onto another Pentium 2 machine hoping to turn it into a retro gaming rig but this one is soo much better.

Diablo 2, GTA2, The Sims, Sim City 3000, Civilization 3, Roller Coaster Tycoon. All kinds of stuff.

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I will probably pick up a 450Mhz cpu. I have the 350 out of the other machine to replace the 300mhz one in this one.
 
Score, I keep a P2 350mhz and a tulatin 1ghz p3 around for such myself. It has been an adventure to keep them operational.
 
DUFlakesBeer1 said:
Score, I keep a P2 350mhz and a tulatin 1ghz p3 around for such myself. It has been an adventure to keep them operational.
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Yeah I feel pretty good that I have 2 similar machines at the moment. But I was thinking should I aim to get some P3 hardware later or find a P4 setup that is ideal for 98. I have a P4 XP machine here that was acquired with the intention of being a USB capable machine for writing floppy disks. Could always use it for older OS's as well.
 
These both have USB but it's slow USB. their floppies are toast though, is all backups for me. Am glad my brother warned me of the fragility of floppy data over time, both have CDROM is what I use mostly.
 
DUFlakesBeer1 said:
These both have USB but it's slow USB. their floppies are toast though, is all roms for me.
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I still have my first USB 2.0 PCI card. So actually that is likely to make it's way into this machine. Assuming I can find drivers for it. Been a LOOOONG time since I actually used it.
 
RainMotorsports said:
I still have my first USB 2.0 PCI card. So actually that is likely to make it's way into this machine. Assuming I can find drivers for it. Been a LOOOONG time since I actually used it.
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my usb 2 pci card died in a lightning strike in 2003 or 4, didn't care because my ABIT IC7-G in my primary rig had it onboard. God I miss ABIT...
 
holly shit this takes me back.....i have not seen a up right CPU in decades....as for P4 rigs if you need some i have 3 dells that are all running hyper threaded P4's with DDR2 memory i would sell for 5 bucks each.....they are optiplex GX620....the only thing that would suck about them is the fact they weight 25 pounds each and shipping would be a bitch....
 
smokerob79 said:
holly shit this takes me back.....i have not seen a up right CPU in decades....as for P4 rigs if you need some i have 3 dells that are all running hyper threaded P4's with DDR2 memory i would sell for 5 bucks each.....they are optiplex GX620....the only thing that would suck about them is the fact they weight 25 pounds each and shipping would be a bitch....
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If I wanted em I would just have you ship the boards rather than the whole machines.

Trying to CPU swap this thing takes me back a bit. It's a 66 Mhz bus and I have a 100Mhz bus CPU that is faster. It will work but the maximum multiplier is 3.5 which is 233mhz on that bus. Setting it to 333mhz requires a multiplier of 5. The 450mhz cpu on that bus would only be 298Mhz so the best CPU I can actually use with this bus is the proper 333Mhz cpu.
 
So I found out who used to own the computer. Looked him up on facebook. Was definitely a Battlefield guy. Died in 2012 though.
 
smokerob79 said:
wow that was depressing....
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Yeah I reached out to one of his old clan mates. Got a USB storage driver installed after trying to find a working optical drive in this house... Even my work laptops drive was dead apparently. I've started copying the drives to a USB drive.

Installed 3dmark99 and benchmarked it. The results were not impressive. But the specs meet the game I really want it to play first. I'll have to try different driver's out.
 
it sucks as you and i know some day someone will find mine or your computer after we are gone.....i hope they will get over the porn on mine.....hehe....i wonder if anyone will ever figure out the fact my system is a dual boot set up that you have to change power wires on the PSU to boot the second install....

as for pulling the files.....i have had to do that more times then i can count....i remember a father that had decades of pictures on the hard drive'S but none of the kids or wife knew the password...thank god he never used encryption....i ended up pulling 5.2TB off the computer with pictures that went back to the guy as a kid to his grand kids being born....the wife was crying when i showed her everything and she knew they still had these pics

then there is the other side of it when you find the hidden collection of child porn where the sicko had pics of his own daughters....glad that bastard is DEAD

if you do find pics i hope you can get them back to the family.....
 
the first thing you need to do is fire up that internet explorer and start clicking on links.
 
tongobongo said:
the first thing you need to do is fire up that internet explorer and start clicking on links.
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You know the funny part about that joke is the concept that it can load a webpage at all. Like not even Google. In fact fire up an WinXP Gold install and you can't even connect to windows updates lol. The internet has changed.

My non technical retort is I prefer to use the Netscape 4.08 that's already installed. Same issue but still... lol
 
weird....i was able to update a install of XP i just did on a emulator in windows 10....it was a install taken from a dell service pack 3 install disc but windows updates still worked....i wonder if it was able to do it because 10 was the real OS talking to the net....
 
smokerob79 said:
weird....i was able to update a install of XP i just did on a emulator in windows 10....it was a install taken from a dell service pack 3 install disc but windows updates still worked....i wonder if it was able to do it because 10 was the real OS talking to the net....
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Most likely because it was SP3. I suggested gold because I believe it was a SP1 disk I tried to use in Virtual Box and it has IE8 (maybe not 8 came on SP2) and can't connect to windows update or most websites period due to TLS encryption issues. There are 3rd party update sources if you run into that kind of problem.

I am not sure what the current status is but Facebook and a couple other websites were actually holding out dropping SHA-1 support so that XP users could still connect. Outside of things like windows update the last version of Firefox for XP should connect pretty well on SP3. Their TLS implementation was in the browser not on the OS level.
 
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yeah i was thinking it was 10 but having SP3 on it would help in a lot of ways....just glad i still have that disc....cant believe it will install on any dell system without asking for a COA.....i still have a ton of COA stickers i stole off of dell systems after using this to install....
 
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