Seriously some of the most fun I've had tinkering with parts in quite some time. I've got a follow up Retro-PC build that should be absolutely bonkers :-)
Noctua makes thinner 5v 40mm fans. Maybe worth taking a look at. They don't move a lot of air but they may be just enough to help. Edit: Noctua NF-A4x10 5v
The first problem you should be taking care of are the caps of the motherboard and I'm not saying just as preventive measures... at least 5 of them are bulging! Instability can be traced to leaky or bulging caps. The 9500 also seems to have a few leaky caps.
@@TwistedMe13 I still have a few PII and PIII systems that run to this day with the original caps. I think the problem was early to mid 00s, or I may be just lucky and remember thing wrong...it was over 15 years ago though.
@@aheartseeker My timeline was a little off. It started late 90's (around the PIII launch) and persisted until about 2007. I had two boards fail catastrophically (one even needing a fire extinguisher). Abit boards were especially bad for this.
Remove the unused parallel port to make room for an exhaust fan. Mount a fan on the back externally. Dremel off a few heatsink fins for a fan. Carefully drill some intake holes. Check the schematic for a 12V point.
@Komrade The power supply has only two wires connected to the board.... + and -. It is delivering 5V and only 5V. The motherboard has circuitry to step down the 5V to 3.3. This power supply isn't a traditional AT or ATX supply. It's basically just an AC-DC 5V transformer.
@@KomradeMikhail 12v on PCI slot isn't guaranteed, especially on custom/embedded designs like this. This is a thin client so that slot is designed to attach some USB or serial or whatever, not a GPU. A lot of simple connectivity cards are 5v or 3.3v only so it's 100% possible this is a tradeoff they did.
Here i was like "ya, i love old games but why would i want to go back?"... And then you busted out Dark Forces 2 and it brought back so many memories! Absolutely loved the Jedi Knight games! Now i have to build a retro pc... Here i come StarFlight!
Mod the existing chassis. Even if it means having the fan on the outside of the PC, it will still retain the look you want. It's worth it for something this small and affordable. Another option is to drill holes into the top panel until you make a "mesh" look to it. It will still look nice and retain the top shell and retro look, but then it will be as close to an open-air chassis as possible. You might even be able to fit a thin, larger-size fan onto the top cover with this config.
I've drilled grids of holes into side panels of a few SFF gaming PCs. It works pretty well and also creates a place to mount a thin fan either internally or externally. Would definitely be a good solution here 👍
I actually just setup a windows XP retro gaming machine - a virtual machine! (I also made another win7 VM for playing certain newer and GOG modified titles using a CRT monitor) I'm passing through a GPU and SoundBlaster Audigy 2 using IOMMU. I found the Nvidia Quadro K2000 is low power, comes with 2GB memory, and even has Window XP through windows 10 drivers! Display port, DVI, and VGA outputs for only about $60 on ebay. Now that I let the cat out of the bag ebay prices are going to go through the roof lol. So far this VM seems the best solution. VM which makes it portable and easy to backup. Storage is nvme which is silent, reliable, and way overkill. Same [silent] desktop machine so it doesn't take any additional space. KVM emulates a pentium 3 and along with the actual sound card and GPU being passed through means real hardware support with zero driver compatibility issues. DOSBox for older DOS games, Windows XP for any win95 and newer. I even play on a CRT monitor and I have an older surround sound speaker set. When I retro game I _really_ retro game :D For what it's worth, Phils Computer Lab goes in great detail on why A3D and EAX positional audio are far superior to modern day bland onboard audio devices. If you are going to build a late 90's gaming rig it is 100% worth the effort to get ahold a Soundblaster Live or Audigy and setup EAX with 4.1 or 5.1 speakers. Half Life 1 and Medal Of Honor: Allied Assault are fantastic examples of true surround sound positional audio from back then.
Felt your frustration, but loved the journey. Phil's content is excellent as well, especially for anyone wanting to get into PC retrogaming. That Win 9x era is still best done on bare metal. For anyone wanting some cheap and reasonably easy, and has the space for a normal sized PC case, my cheap-as recommendations would be: Socket 478 Pentium 4 - cheap, anything over 2GHz is overkill for Win 98, but keep it the 2.8 GHz chips at most as beyond that power and heat consumption enters infamous territory. Any decent looking ATX or micro ATX socket 478 motherboard with an Intel chipset - they all support Win 98 fine, and Intel chipsets were nicely stable (unlike alternatives which can be temperamental). ATX was the standard then as now, which makes life easy. One that takes DDR RAM is preferred. Appropriate RAM - DDR, SDRAM, RDRAM if you find an exotic motherboard. DDR is cheap, the motherboards supporting it are cheap, and it is plenty performant, so that's my recommendation, but for low cost even SDRAM will be fine for late 1990s games. Geforce 4 MX 440 for your graphics card - very cheap, in fact not hard to find for free, Nvidia drivers from the time work well and are compatible with pretty much everything sans 3Dfx Glide. Did I mention stupidly cheap? Also, plenty powerful for anything released up to around 2000. Doesn't support DirectX 8 or 9 shaders, so not good for Doom 3, Far Cry or Half Life 2, but this isn't the machine for those anyway. Get AGP if your motherboard has it (which it should), otherwise PCI. Substitute with any cheap ATI 9500 or Geforce 5600 if your prefer, but those unloved MXs are fine for cheap retro fun. Try for a GPU that has a DVI connector if you plan on using a modern monitor; that's easily converted into HDMI or DisplayPort. Any ATX case - don't you love standards? If you have a micro ATX board, you can splurge on a micro ATX case... or find one by the roadside. Any modern ATX PSU - Socket 478 Pentium 4s are powered by 12v, and use the same connectors as modern systems, YAY! Preference given to a PSU where the 24 pin power connector can be converted to 20 pin, but even if it doesn't have the breakaway, a cheap 20 pin extension cable from ebay will get around any clearance issues you might have. Anything 400W or above and you are laughing. IDE to CF adaptor and card like Jeff uses, or if your motherboard has SATA headers, any SATA drive - keep it simple. Free IDE CD/DVD ROM drive - easier then USB for installing Win 98, and if you have old games on CD you want to play, but optional really. And with that you are done. USB mice and keyboards should work with Win 98 and a P4 system, so just use what you have. You can still pick up complete OEM P4 systems that just need a GPU thrown in, but make sure it's socket 478 to ensure Win 98 compatibility (s775 is possible, but it becomes much more specific in what you are looking for). Those Pentium 4s, for all their faults at the mid-2000s high end gaming, are stupidly stable, it-just-works Win 98 machines. The only real issue you need to keep an eye out for is the infamous capacitor plague - watch for bulging caps on the motherboard or video card. Not fun if you aren't handy at through-hole soldering, but P4 motherboards are so cheap you can just go buy another one. Now if you want a cheap Win XP retro box, well, look at Core 2 Duos. Loads of them for peanuts.
@@heyitsdazy Win98 doesn't have any issues with a Core2Duo CPU, though it'll only use one core. The problem is finding a motherboard that both works with Win98 and Core2Duo - most are one or the other, and the few which are both are rare. Unless you are a collector or your goal is to take Win98 to its limits it is much easier to stick with a known compatible hardware generation.
3D print a top cover with heavy venting. A section over the power supply can be raised for 40mm semi-external fans. A low profile 140mm fan might sit in the middle, perhaps partially inside the case. New side profile: ▇▆▆▇▇▇▇▆
Damn you man! First you led me down the custom mechanical keyboard rabbit hole and now you got my interest peaked with setting up a retro gaming PC. Last month I found a box of hardware at my parents house which included a Voodoo2 and Geforce 256 which planted the seed though, so its not all your fault :P
I loved this lol. Especially pulling power from pci! Here's my thoughts: I'd still take power from the PSU, and just use a relay controlled by the fan. As for the fans... Man, there HAS to be somewhere you can dremel out a small 40mm hole that doesn't kill the aesthetic.. As for getting the 12v for it... Hrm.. maybe another pull off the psu and relay to the fan, providing there is a 12v? lol Very Cool project though, and I really feel like there IS a way to make it happen with what you have!
These are some of my favorite videos. Makes me feel a little better when an expert has failures like me. It really lets me know that sometimes things just don't work
13:18 I would inspect and replace every single capacitors on the board and graphics card especially those that are bulging. If just one them pops you'll have a dead board. As far as the cooling goes cut a hole in one of the side panels for a Noctua fan and power it via an external brick and slave it to the system it cools via a UPS. If you want the ability to mount a larger fan on the inside you could 3D Print an expansion frame out of beige PLA for the side panel you add the fan to. (Pay attention the dimensions of the side panel and how it attaches to the computer and model both a male side and a female side (for the side panel to snap into-- into the blueprint you create for the print.
I didn't even know Nocuia makes that small of fans.. I bet they would work in my Power Mac G4 MDD. Getting fans to fit and work in that power supply and still run silently is nearly impossible. I have a 2003 model with the updated Apple supplied fans.. it's ok, just not great. I mean it cools and it's fairly quiet, but its obvious there is room for improvement. It's a great computer, but not one of Apple's best designs. The Quicksilver that came before it was not only much more quieter, but much cooler too. If only Apple had simply updated the Quicksilver motherboard to accommodate the slightly faster hardware, it would be a fantastic system.
I know what you mean about the volume of the G4 MDD “Wind tunnel” fans. We bought one for use in a recording studio. Once it was fully loaded, we had to put the MDD in another (soundproofed) room out back then run cables to the keyboard/monitor because it was way too noisy for the control room. The little fans you’re describing might just work. How hard can it be, right?
Have you tried changing the psu for a pico power supply? They're really small, provide around 100watts of power and should be easy to modify a connector for that motherboard. It might help with your heat problems and maybe even give you a little extra room for a fan....
Try drilling a series of holes in the case for some major passive cooling. Obviously the more holes you drill the better, add some plastic screen behind as as safety measure
Very interesting Jeff, I'm planning a retro gaming video myself in a couple of weeks. I know exactly what you mean when you said "loosing 90 minutes.. testing" isn't it great!
Talk about the best laid plans of mice and men! Methinks the Ale was the best part of the day, but you are a persevering type and I much appreciate your work..
Just curious, couldnt you barrel plug a laptop power supply and use buck converters to step down the voltage to what you need inside the chassis? Buck converters are still going to generate some heat, but i imagine not as much as having the entire power supply be internal.
You have a fancy CNC table now right? Cut diagonal slots or a grid of holes in the top and bottom panels. Should be able to keep itself passively cool if you allow hot air to just naturally not build up
Based on what I am seeing at 11:06 I think the capacitors on your motherboard are bulging and bad. I doubt it will help your thermal issues, but might be worth replacing. Also you may be able to solve your fan issue with some old laptop fans.
Our little retro YT and Twitter community feels your pain. We do "buildoff" competitions and most of us have either had serious retro hardware/software issues or just been unable to complete our builds. Fun hobby 🙄
When i built my 98se machine, the biggest issue was getting a flash card that would even boot in a ide converter! i wish this video was around then so I wouldnt have burned so much of my budget on an 'industrial' card XP
Aight, some thoughts Could be me watching in 480p but some of the motherboard caps don't look fantastic Also why not get an aftermarket cooler for the Radeon card that has a fan on it. Might get enough air movement in the chassis to solve your issues.
They make tiny ATX power supplies that take 12 volt in and supply 5 volts and 12 volts. They also make ATX breakout boards. It's possible that that combination will still be smaller than the power supply you have now, which might give you room for a fan. It also won't be an exposed power supply that will shock you. Another option would be converting it to an external power brick.
Sometimes, even XP era games are PITA. Years ago, I bought a collection of all the Command and Conquer games up to Generals: Zero Hour called "The First Decade". Most of the games, if not all, require fan made patches and tweaks to work on Windows 10. The 30 € that EA asked day one for the remastered Red Alert and Tiberian Dawn were somewhat much, but frankly, I gladly paid it. I don't want to patch and tweak, I want to click download and install, then click play, and then PLAY. I bought the Infinity Engine RPGs twice on GOG, and had some of them from gaming magazine releases, just for the ease of use. Yeah, not full price, but 2 € for the original GOG releases and 5€ for the enhanced editions during discounts? No brainer.
If the PSU can't deliver the power that you need, try looking into a Mean Well unit. There are quite a few that will fit in such a cramped space. If you do succeed in that, why not put a fan on the outside of the case lid. I know that the aesthetic will be compromised, but it will work out way better than roasting your machine to point of busting out the marshmallows and singing "Happy Trails" as it bursts into flames... 😆 🤣
I'd desolder the VGA, Serial, and Parallel ports and install a small fan. To power the fan, I'd crack open a 12v wall wart and solder it in parallel to mains. You can then use a small solid state relay or an optocoupler ... something ... off the 5v fan header to turn the fan on/off with system power.
I wouldn’t say it’s a failed project if it works with the case open; you could actually get one of those giant thin noctua fans that is the size of the chassis but lower profile and then put a thin plexiglass window with tons of perforation on top, then add some metal standoffs that you weld to the case to secure this added fan
What you really need to get all your power issues sorted easily is an external power brick. I'm pretty surprised that the power supply in this thin client was internal to begin with.
Good to see enthusiasm in the retro space. My hot take though? Don't try playing any games that are DX9-dependent. Windows 98 may have support for DX9, but even a good GPU like the 9500 or FX 5500 will have terrible drivers late in the lifespan of Windows 98. DX8.1 is the maximum I use on all my 98 builds, and I have no problems. Sure, I can't play some late games, but that's why you'd build an XP machine with a P4 processor. It's just what DirectX 9 belongs on. I'd try just a generally smaller card. A GeForce MX4000 may not hit the same framerates of the FX 5500 by a long shot, but the thermals are way more manageable. Or, maybe just drop to an FX 5200. Same performance, still has a cooling fan to move some air around.
I live in an apartment, so there isn't much space for big beige box. To satisfy my needs for retro gaming I bought a laptop with dGPU, the Dell Latitude D800. It's a bit new for Windows 98 but it does work, and with a bit of ini mod, the driver for the Geforce4 4200 Go installs.
as someone else pointed out that serial port space could be repurposed as a blower exhaust with a laptop cooler and a 3d printed shroud sucking air directly from the psu part. I mean that's how Dell cooled their low profile Pentium 4 Optiplexes back in the day
Nice video. Tips: PICOpsu instead of that thing... in a similar build i found the Nehemiah CPUs work best. Unlocked fsb and multiplier. Goes up to 1333mhz and performs as a P3 650 or even more. And after trying different cards went for a voodoo 3 pci for compatibility. Did a few vent holes and added a scythe mini silent fan. Done. 0 problems. And audio is not bad, via with sound blaster compatibility configurable through BIOS. :)
@LabRat Knatz I’d hardly call that a mistake. It served its purpose during that time and I could play all the games I wanted to play. Definitely sticking with the glory days statement because some of my fondest memories of gaming were from then. Now I’m grown up, have kids, and can’t play the 50 hours of games I was playing a week like I could back then 😂
You don't have to mod the case or keep the chassis cover off, but if you want this to work better and run cooler, you're going to have to give up your desire for an internal PSU and go for a picoPSU, which is going to give you an external power brick, but it's fairly standard sized and not huge like an Xbox 360 or one of those early SFF Optiplex power bricks. With that janky internal PSU out of the way, you'll have plenty of room for cooling, and you won't have to worry about the GPU getting low power.
Maybe a modern power supply could be adapted to work; you only need 5V, after all. It'd definitely be smaller and probably put off less waste heat, so you could keep it internal and maybe make a little more room for fans. The NF-A4x10 5V might be just what you need as far as size and power requirements, but I'm not sure if its air flow would be enough.
11:07 it looks like you have blown capacitors on the board there (domed tops). Also note that some 9500 non-pros (the ones with an "L-shaped" memory arrangement) can be fairly easily modded into a 9700 equivalent with a small solder mod (doubled memory bandwidth, etc). This was one of my favourite early graphics cards, until I eventually killed it by ripping off a memory module trying to remove some heatsinks that I'd thermal epoxied to the chips.
I'd cut away some of the fins from the CPU heatsink to make room for the fan. As for 5V fans, you can buy USB-powered fans from China. You should be able to convert them to fan header. I've seen them in sizes from 40-80mm, with 10 or 15 mm depth.
I tried to put together a W98 PC myself. Only changes I made to the PC was adding an audio card and replaced the HDD with an SD card + adapter. But I have a similar issue: when I go to launch 3D games, it crashes. I thought I got the most up to date W98 NVIDIA driver for my GeForce 6200. I'll try some other drivers, but idk what else to do if that doesn't work.
A lot of the Fremont beers cellar really well. Especially the coffee and spice ones. If you have another bottle, give it a year or two and see what you think.
Remove the internal PSU, put a fan where the mains input was, add a small barrel jack and just use an external 5V PSU, could even encase the internal PSU to use externally to keep within a budget. It'd remove your main source of heat and add cooling though 👍
"Hello, My name is Jeff and I like to fail." "Hello, My name is Jeff and I perform like a Russian dancing bear in a cage for my fans." thank you for this classic turmoil.
You forgot the basics of yester year. Hardware is touchy, and you can only mix certain hardware. PSU quality is highly important as well as it's ability to deliver. The only problem seems to be that you wanted a very small form factor. Or office terminal only box. I would suggest a Compaq desktop en series. There are available, and small. (They do make a big one). And they work week and can be upgraded with fair ease as they are a normal SFF. That's my retro 98 and prior, but it runs me and XP too and we also get basic and DOS. USB was a later thing and serial and parallel was the "best". But there fairly simple as.long as the software has support... It's not as much as you think. However.. I much prefer my later 2002+ systems, they can look just as good as new systems and have two smoked glass sided copper covered gaming rigs, which were over £3,500 when they were new and you desperately wanted them on your Christmas list...(if you old enough). But playing the first COD or Battlefield and many forgotten titles just reminds.you that development was never as promised, (see Nvidia 2007 bench and marketing) or look up the history around Stalker SOC. Perhaps next you may try a retro server? I'd recommend a Compaq gen 1 360 with its 275w peak power draw, and dual pentium 3 tulatins. They are still "fast" today and perform. I don't think you can multi user and GPU it?? But you can try. -MS product were not enabled and required MS data center, and some "support adjustment" to run multi... As in all multi so you either want Linux/Unix or after 2005/7 software. Have fun and a good Christmas
Have you checked the capacitor status on the motherboard ? Some of them seems bumped out or broken. Maybe the artifact problem is caused by a wrong voltage regulation caused by these capacitor.
As a combo cheapskate/hoarder I have a number of period-correct systems picked up back when they were basically being given away for free. I always find it amusing when people nowadays go out and _buy_ things from this era for an order of magnitude more than I would ever consider paying. I have a relatively small Sony VAIO minitower I'd be glad to part with if you're interested. Features include an 800MHz Pentium III, 256 megs of SDRAM, and four PCI slots for your choice of graphics and I/O upgrades. With the fan dialed back it's quieter than the average 90s hard drive yet still stays cool.
Rather than leaving the top off, you should take the opportunity to experiment with passive updraft airflow. IE, take out all the components, and perforate the hell out of hte top and bottom - or just replace both with steel mesh. stick the thing on generous rubber feet, and the buoyancy of hot air should pass a fair amount right through the system. If you're feeling adventurous/janky, you can get some fans designed to run off USB power, and put them on the bottom as intake to speed things along, though you'd want even taller feet for that. If you have a drill capable of making a hole in that aluminium, this project is by no means sunk.
A top-level WinDOS PC would be a restored BX board. There were small form factor ones too at that time, fit in a ventilated case. Maybe with a slocket and P3 Tualatin for ultimate performance.
I just got back from a trip to Seattle Might I recommend the following : scotch scotch scotchity by rooftop, the Jolly Roger by maritime and the coffee porter from island hopping brewery on orcas
@Craftcomputing ... Tweeted out I have a working GT730 low profile video card just sitting around doing nothing. AND I even have a low profile bracket for it too. Has DVI port, HDMI port and VGA port... FREE ... Interested??
I built a pretty neat retro rig. I got a hold of an HP rp3000. It's powered by an atom cpu, so it's clearly no powerhouse. But the system has a PCI port so I stuck in a Geforce mx4000 video card. I swapped the mechanical hard drive with a small ssd (that was also nearly just as big as the 160gb mechanical drive it replaced) I doubt the Atom CPU could even keep up with system as a whole but it seems to be a fairly balanced system. It plays most DOS games fluidly, much better than the internal gpu, and with taking the load off the cpu allows the cpu to perform a little better too. Again not some crazy powerhouse. Heck it was a point of sale system after all. But the smallish case and hardware make this a pretty good option for retro gaming. The case itself is quite a bit bigger then this. Probably close to twice as big. But it has full sized fans too. Easily cooling the system. The standard HP bios also has options like turning up the fans in the event things do get a little warm. The system came with Windows 7 32-bit and can run embedded images but I use Windows XP pro. I have the HP installer so I don't even got to mess around with activation. It just works.
I'm currently shopping Atom/Celeron ITX systems, and plan on doing something very similar. The Atom may not be fast by modern standards, but they do blow away Pentium 2/3 machines. Plenty of power for systems like this.
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MCM2 makes all this worth it. I would go to AMD based thin client, as those had reasonable on board graphic chip.
I see lots of advice to change out caps. While many vintage PC maintainers also replace the tantalums with electrolytic caps, which are supposed to be somewhat more reliable (actually tantalums are technically also electrolytic, but the more usual are aluminum electrolytics, with their own issue of being labelled "aluminium" for outside the US) Often vintage Mac users feel a sudden, obvious "blow up" and magic smoke is better than the slow, less detectable failures of the aluminum electrolytics. It seems to me, it comes down to personal preference, or whatever traumatized you the least. 😂💥💨
I would see if it's possible to change the power supply to a external brick. It might not be, given the proprietary nature of the design, but it would improve the heat issue and might give you enough room for a fan.
Have you thought about making say a cooling mat for the unit to sit on, you could maybe design and print a unit with internal fan to blow upwards into the unit base? Maybe install a 12V DC PWM PC 4 Wire Fan Temperature Speed Controller from ebay to operate power to the fan.
Those VIA boxes are meant for dumb terminals and maybe machine control. They were never meant for gaming. A good gaming rig for that era would never be that small. Very glad I just kept my old rig and upgraded the drive to a PATA SSD (albeit *just* before the HD died). If you can find an older system with Socket A or 370, you could use a slimline case that uses a TFX PSU. Or just put it in a modern case with big quiet fans. If you get a later board with SATA you're golden and can use basically any 2.5" SSD. Then you'd have room and power for the video cards and a sound card because you're not a barbarian willing to settle for the onboard audio. You'd also be able to get a game port so you can use a joystick. USB Controller support was still mostly awful at the time. DOS games you can do Tiny Retro, but in the Post DOS Pre-XP era, the options tend to require something more substantial.
Take a dremel and cut the CPU cooler fins down to fit the 40mm fan on to the top of that. pull the 5v from the power supply and connect the fan speed to the header.
If PSU is the problem for heat, then move it outside and on the back perhaps or get external power brick. I this for my improved high end brand bluetooth speaker and it works wonders, while also removing mains voltage from the system, so if something goes wrong its just 12-18v ruining my day.
There are 5V fans made for the Raspberry Pi that have dupont connectors for the header. Amazon has them for like $6 a pair and are 30mm fans. I use them on my MagicMirror/smartscreen project to keep the RPI cool and they move a decent amount of air for a 30mm fan and are slim.
oh god, I had a fx 5500 back in the day. I bought it cause of vram. My friend then showed me how bad the card actually was. Also couldn't you mount a couple 40mm fans on the side of the cpu headsink?
Same thing the noctua fans 40mm thin would fit and not kill the visuals of the case of cutting 40mm holes on the side of the case for 2 intakes and two exhaust I think could work
Dosbox can run win98SE Lite build with no problems and can run most games that you will throw at it, but tbh if you install games on a win XP VM and then move to win 10 most games will run kinda ok at their supported resolutions
There's a weird intermittent noise coming over your mic. Almost like a fan blade scraping against something. Best place to hear it is between 11:5411:56, there's a slight pause were you stop talking were it's easy to hear.
1:35 that's why it's good to keep an old windows xp potato around... Y'know - back when compatibility mode actually did anything as opposed to winblows 8+
![[Part 1] รักมาไม่ทันตั้งตัว❤ หนุ่มสาวโสดถูกจับมาแต่งงานกันกะทันหัน แถมเธอยังเป็นหัวหน้าของเขา?!](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/y2pOOMkuFI0/mqdefault.jpg)
Awesome!!! These machines are full of surprises with many quirks. But lots of fun ☺️
Seriously some of the most fun I've had tinkering with parts in quite some time. I've got a follow up Retro-PC build that should be absolutely bonkers :-)
@@CraftComputing Bro, what about an "S3 Trio 3D" VGA card?? Okay, it's from the 90's, but it runs cool enough for this compact form factor computer. 😉
Noctua makes thinner 5v 40mm fans. Maybe worth taking a look at. They don't move a lot of air but they may be just enough to help.
Edit: Noctua NF-A4x10 5v
Noctua with the wide range of unique fan sizes
@@NonsensicalSpudz Sunon has a much bigger selection, down to the diminutive 8x8 fan! (No clue what it would actually be used for tho)
You have no idea how much I appreciate that you included rhe motocross madness out of bounds launch... that made my entire day.
OMG yessss that was so nostalgic!
I remember playing that game at a friend's house exactly once and that's the only thing I done in it almost xD
Pretty certain it is present in most Rainbow games, considering I know it's in MX Unleashed, and probably MX vs. ATV Unleashed as well.
The first problem you should be taking care of are the caps of the motherboard and I'm not saying just as preventive measures... at least 5 of them are bulging! Instability can be traced to leaky or bulging caps. The 9500 also seems to have a few leaky caps.
Agreed. Wasn't the 90's to the early 00's rife with defective capacitors?
@@TwistedMe13 I still have a few PII and PIII systems that run to this day with the original caps. I think the problem was early to mid 00s, or I may be just lucky and remember thing wrong...it was over 15 years ago though.
@@aheartseeker My timeline was a little off. It started late 90's (around the PIII launch) and persisted until about 2007. I had two boards fail catastrophically (one even needing a fire extinguisher). Abit boards were especially bad for this.
@@aheartseeker It was a combination of Pentium 4 power hungry plus Chinese counterfeit capacitors
@@TwistedMe13 There is a shot at 4:14 on the video where you can see the caps bulging.
Remove the unused parallel port to make room for an exhaust fan. Mount a fan on the back externally. Dremel off a few heatsink fins for a fan. Carefully drill some intake holes. Check the schematic for a 12V point.
serach for a 12 V point OR just use any 5 V fan... eg NF-A4x20
Boards from that era powered CPU off 5V rail - and Jeff said PSU has 5V output rail, there may NOT be a 12 V DC in this PC at all!
@Komrade The power supply has only two wires connected to the board.... + and -. It is delivering 5V and only 5V. The motherboard has circuitry to step down the 5V to 3.3.
This power supply isn't a traditional AT or ATX supply. It's basically just an AC-DC 5V transformer.
@@KomradeMikhail 12v on PCI slot isn't guaranteed, especially on custom/embedded designs like this. This is a thin client so that slot is designed to attach some USB or serial or whatever, not a GPU. A lot of simple connectivity cards are 5v or 3.3v only so it's 100% possible this is a tradeoff they did.
Here i was like "ya, i love old games but why would i want to go back?"... And then you busted out Dark Forces 2 and it brought back so many memories! Absolutely loved the Jedi Knight games! Now i have to build a retro pc... Here i come StarFlight!
One word... Freelancer.
@@CraftComputing Was it Multiplayer? I swear i remember playing that for HOURS with my friend.
This video popped up right now I am building a retro pc. Great timing.
Mod the existing chassis. Even if it means having the fan on the outside of the PC, it will still retain the look you want. It's worth it for something this small and affordable.
Another option is to drill holes into the top panel until you make a "mesh" look to it. It will still look nice and retain the top shell and retro look, but then it will be as close to an open-air chassis as possible. You might even be able to fit a thin, larger-size fan onto the top cover with this config.
I've drilled grids of holes into side panels of a few SFF gaming PCs. It works pretty well and also creates a place to mount a thin fan either internally or externally. Would definitely be a good solution here 👍
I actually just setup a windows XP retro gaming machine - a virtual machine! (I also made another win7 VM for playing certain newer and GOG modified titles using a CRT monitor) I'm passing through a GPU and SoundBlaster Audigy 2 using IOMMU. I found the Nvidia Quadro K2000 is low power, comes with 2GB memory, and even has Window XP through windows 10 drivers! Display port, DVI, and VGA outputs for only about $60 on ebay. Now that I let the cat out of the bag ebay prices are going to go through the roof lol.
So far this VM seems the best solution. VM which makes it portable and easy to backup. Storage is nvme which is silent, reliable, and way overkill. Same [silent] desktop machine so it doesn't take any additional space. KVM emulates a pentium 3 and along with the actual sound card and GPU being passed through means real hardware support with zero driver compatibility issues. DOSBox for older DOS games, Windows XP for any win95 and newer. I even play on a CRT monitor and I have an older surround sound speaker set. When I retro game I _really_ retro game :D
For what it's worth, Phils Computer Lab goes in great detail on why A3D and EAX positional audio are far superior to modern day bland onboard audio devices. If you are going to build a late 90's gaming rig it is 100% worth the effort to get ahold a Soundblaster Live or Audigy and setup EAX with 4.1 or 5.1 speakers. Half Life 1 and Medal Of Honor: Allied Assault are fantastic examples of true surround sound positional audio from back then.
The old game made by Bull Frog syndicate was on of my favorite old school games runs on nothing but what it’s was designed for years ago!
Felt your frustration, but loved the journey. Phil's content is excellent as well, especially for anyone wanting to get into PC retrogaming. That Win 9x era is still best done on bare metal.
For anyone wanting some cheap and reasonably easy, and has the space for a normal sized PC case, my cheap-as recommendations would be:
Socket 478 Pentium 4 - cheap, anything over 2GHz is overkill for Win 98, but keep it the 2.8 GHz chips at most as beyond that power and heat consumption enters infamous territory.
Any decent looking ATX or micro ATX socket 478 motherboard with an Intel chipset - they all support Win 98 fine, and Intel chipsets were nicely stable (unlike alternatives which can be temperamental). ATX was the standard then as now, which makes life easy. One that takes DDR RAM is preferred.
Appropriate RAM - DDR, SDRAM, RDRAM if you find an exotic motherboard. DDR is cheap, the motherboards supporting it are cheap, and it is plenty performant, so that's my recommendation, but for low cost even SDRAM will be fine for late 1990s games.
Geforce 4 MX 440 for your graphics card - very cheap, in fact not hard to find for free, Nvidia drivers from the time work well and are compatible with pretty much everything sans 3Dfx Glide. Did I mention stupidly cheap? Also, plenty powerful for anything released up to around 2000. Doesn't support DirectX 8 or 9 shaders, so not good for Doom 3, Far Cry or Half Life 2, but this isn't the machine for those anyway. Get AGP if your motherboard has it (which it should), otherwise PCI. Substitute with any cheap ATI 9500 or Geforce 5600 if your prefer, but those unloved MXs are fine for cheap retro fun. Try for a GPU that has a DVI connector if you plan on using a modern monitor; that's easily converted into HDMI or DisplayPort.
Any ATX case - don't you love standards? If you have a micro ATX board, you can splurge on a micro ATX case... or find one by the roadside.
Any modern ATX PSU - Socket 478 Pentium 4s are powered by 12v, and use the same connectors as modern systems, YAY! Preference given to a PSU where the 24 pin power connector can be converted to 20 pin, but even if it doesn't have the breakaway, a cheap 20 pin extension cable from ebay will get around any clearance issues you might have. Anything 400W or above and you are laughing.
IDE to CF adaptor and card like Jeff uses, or if your motherboard has SATA headers, any SATA drive - keep it simple.
Free IDE CD/DVD ROM drive - easier then USB for installing Win 98, and if you have old games on CD you want to play, but optional really.
And with that you are done. USB mice and keyboards should work with Win 98 and a P4 system, so just use what you have. You can still pick up complete OEM P4 systems that just need a GPU thrown in, but make sure it's socket 478 to ensure Win 98 compatibility (s775 is possible, but it becomes much more specific in what you are looking for).
Those Pentium 4s, for all their faults at the mid-2000s high end gaming, are stupidly stable, it-just-works Win 98 machines. The only real issue you need to keep an eye out for is the infamous capacitor plague - watch for bulging caps on the motherboard or video card. Not fun if you aren't handy at through-hole soldering, but P4 motherboards are so cheap you can just go buy another one.
Now if you want a cheap Win XP retro box, well, look at Core 2 Duos. Loads of them for peanuts.
Can Core 2 Duo run Win 98 games?
@@heyitsdazy Win98 doesn't have any issues with a Core2Duo CPU, though it'll only use one core. The problem is finding a motherboard that both works with Win98 and Core2Duo - most are one or the other, and the few which are both are rare. Unless you are a collector or your goal is to take Win98 to its limits it is much easier to stick with a known compatible hardware generation.
3D print a top cover with heavy venting. A section over the power supply can be raised for 40mm semi-external fans. A low profile 140mm fan might sit in the middle, perhaps partially inside the case. New side profile: ▇▆▆▇▇▇▇▆
Damn you man! First you led me down the custom mechanical keyboard rabbit hole and now you got my interest peaked with setting up a retro gaming PC. Last month I found a box of hardware at my parents house which included a Voodoo2 and Geforce 256 which planted the seed though, so its not all your fault :P
I'm hoping this continues into a working solution, and i'm also hoping this doesn't make the retro parts pricing jump lol
Jeff isn't big enough to cause an ltt style death hug
@@jakobfindlay4136 i dont know…. that Sun flash accelerator Jeff featured a few months ago soared in price afterwards.
I loved this lol. Especially pulling power from pci! Here's my thoughts: I'd still take power from the PSU, and just use a relay controlled by the fan. As for the fans... Man, there HAS to be somewhere you can dremel out a small 40mm hole that doesn't kill the aesthetic.. As for getting the 12v for it... Hrm.. maybe another pull off the psu and relay to the fan, providing there is a 12v? lol
Very Cool project though, and I really feel like there IS a way to make it happen with what you have!
Relay is a great idea!
This might be dumb question but is it possible to use a modern PSU for this project?
Phil is great, a trove of back catalog videos to watch.
Get a small centrifugal blower fan installed as a case exhaust. Adding any active air exchange will make a huge difference.
Put a couple old laptop blower fan's in it, they are small, and are usually 5 volt and they usually move a reasonable amount of air.
Some of those games gave me some major nostalgic flashbacks. I spent so much time playing motorcross madness and thief.
These are some of my favorite videos. Makes me feel a little better when an expert has failures like me. It really lets me know that sometimes things just don't work
13:18 I would inspect and replace every single capacitors on the board and graphics card especially those that are bulging. If just one them pops you'll have a dead board. As far as the cooling goes cut a hole in one of the side panels for a Noctua fan and power it via an external brick and slave it to the system it cools via a UPS. If you want the ability to mount a larger fan on the inside you could 3D Print an expansion frame out of beige PLA for the side panel you add the fan to. (Pay attention the dimensions of the side panel and how it attaches to the computer and model both a male side and a female side (for the side panel to snap into-- into the blueprint you create for the print.
I didn't even know Nocuia makes that small of fans.. I bet they would work in my Power Mac G4 MDD. Getting fans to fit and work in that power supply and still run silently is nearly impossible. I have a 2003 model with the updated Apple supplied fans.. it's ok, just not great. I mean it cools and it's fairly quiet, but its obvious there is room for improvement. It's a great computer, but not one of Apple's best designs. The Quicksilver that came before it was not only much more quieter, but much cooler too. If only Apple had simply updated the Quicksilver motherboard to accommodate the slightly faster hardware, it would be a fantastic system.
I know what you mean about the volume of the G4 MDD “Wind tunnel” fans.
We bought one for use in a recording studio. Once it was fully loaded, we had to put the MDD in another (soundproofed) room out back then run cables to the keyboard/monitor because it was way too noisy for the control room.
The little fans you’re describing might just work. How hard can it be, right?
Also, jumping from 2003 to (almost) 2023 - you’d expect silent fan technology to have moved on and miniaturised in both size AND decibels.
More this please. Been trying to do this for a while now and havnt been happy with the hardware configurations ive come up with.
Have you tried changing the psu for a pico power supply?
They're really small, provide around 100watts of power and should be easy to modify a connector for that motherboard. It might help with your heat problems and maybe even give you a little extra room for a fan....
Step 3: Jank the 5v onto a CF "CD"
Step 4: GPU market is still nuts from 20 years ago
Try drilling a series of holes in the case for some major passive cooling. Obviously the more holes you drill the better, add some plastic screen behind as as safety measure
This is like a nerd cross-over for me. One of my favorite retro-TH-camrs meets one of my favorite home lab guys. Too cool!
Very interesting Jeff, I'm planning a retro gaming video myself in a couple of weeks. I know exactly what you mean when you said "loosing 90 minutes.. testing" isn't it great!
Mod the case! Did you consider standoffs to hold the top/side up a little plus drill holes for mounting and airflow for fans above the power suply??
Merry Christmas and happy holidays to everyone!
Talk about the best laid plans of mice and men! Methinks the Ale was the best part of the day, but you are a persevering type and I much appreciate your work..
YES! I was impatiently waiting for, "... that's why we're talking about it."
Callback humor.... Underrated.
Just curious, couldnt you barrel plug a laptop power supply and use buck converters to step down the voltage to what you need inside the chassis? Buck converters are still going to generate some heat, but i imagine not as much as having the entire power supply be internal.
You have a fancy CNC table now right? Cut diagonal slots or a grid of holes in the top and bottom panels. Should be able to keep itself passively cool if you allow hot air to just naturally not build up
Based on what I am seeing at 11:06 I think the capacitors on your motherboard are bulging and bad. I doubt it will help your thermal issues, but might be worth replacing. Also you may be able to solve your fan issue with some old laptop fans.
you 100% right, those ones are completely toasted
Our little retro YT and Twitter community feels your pain. We do "buildoff" competitions and most of us have either had serious retro hardware/software issues or just been unable to complete our builds.
Fun hobby 🙄
When i built my 98se machine, the biggest issue was getting a flash card that would even boot in a ide converter! i wish this video was around then so I wouldnt have burned so much of my budget on an 'industrial' card XP
Aight, some thoughts
Could be me watching in 480p but some of the motherboard caps don't look fantastic
Also why not get an aftermarket cooler for the Radeon card that has a fan on it. Might get enough air movement in the chassis to solve your issues.
They make tiny ATX power supplies that take 12 volt in and supply 5 volts and 12 volts. They also make ATX breakout boards. It's possible that that combination will still be smaller than the power supply you have now, which might give you room for a fan. It also won't be an exposed power supply that will shock you.
Another option would be converting it to an external power brick.
I have a thin client HP T610 PLUS around here somewhere, might be interesting to try something like this.
Sometimes, even XP era games are PITA. Years ago, I bought a collection of all the Command and Conquer games up to Generals: Zero Hour called "The First Decade". Most of the games, if not all, require fan made patches and tweaks to work on Windows 10. The 30 € that EA asked day one for the remastered Red Alert and Tiberian Dawn were somewhat much, but frankly, I gladly paid it. I don't want to patch and tweak, I want to click download and install, then click play, and then PLAY.
I bought the Infinity Engine RPGs twice on GOG, and had some of them from gaming magazine releases, just for the ease of use. Yeah, not full price, but 2 € for the original GOG releases and 5€ for the enhanced editions during discounts? No brainer.
If the PSU can't deliver the power that you need, try looking into a Mean Well unit. There are quite a few that will fit in such a cramped space. If you do succeed in that, why not put a fan on the outside of the case lid. I know that the aesthetic will be compromised, but it will work out way better than roasting your machine to point of busting out the marshmallows and singing "Happy Trails" as it bursts into flames... 😆 🤣
I'd desolder the VGA, Serial, and Parallel ports and install a small fan. To power the fan, I'd crack open a 12v wall wart and solder it in parallel to mains. You can then use a small solid state relay or an optocoupler ... something ... off the 5v fan header to turn the fan on/off with system power.
I wouldn’t say it’s a failed project if it works with the case open; you could actually get one of those giant thin noctua fans that is the size of the chassis but lower profile and then put a thin plexiglass window with tons of perforation on top, then add some metal standoffs that you weld to the case to secure this added fan
you could install a pico psu instead of using the buidt in one. maybe i didnt see what connector it used
What you really need to get all your power issues sorted easily is an external power brick. I'm pretty surprised that the power supply in this thin client was internal to begin with.
Good to see enthusiasm in the retro space. My hot take though? Don't try playing any games that are DX9-dependent. Windows 98 may have support for DX9, but even a good GPU like the 9500 or FX 5500 will have terrible drivers late in the lifespan of Windows 98. DX8.1 is the maximum I use on all my 98 builds, and I have no problems. Sure, I can't play some late games, but that's why you'd build an XP machine with a P4 processor. It's just what DirectX 9 belongs on.
I'd try just a generally smaller card. A GeForce MX4000 may not hit the same framerates of the FX 5500 by a long shot, but the thermals are way more manageable. Or, maybe just drop to an FX 5200. Same performance, still has a cooling fan to move some air around.
I live in an apartment, so there isn't much space for big beige box. To satisfy my needs for retro gaming I bought a laptop with dGPU, the Dell Latitude D800. It's a bit new for Windows 98 but it does work, and with a bit of ini mod, the driver for the Geforce4 4200 Go installs.
as someone else pointed out that serial port space could be repurposed as a blower exhaust with a laptop cooler and a 3d printed shroud sucking air directly from the psu part. I mean that's how Dell cooled their low profile Pentium 4 Optiplexes back in the day
Nice video. Tips: PICOpsu instead of that thing... in a similar build i found the Nehemiah CPUs work best. Unlocked fsb and multiplier. Goes up to 1333mhz and performs as a P3 650 or even more. And after trying different cards went for a voodoo 3 pci for compatibility. Did a few vent holes and added a scythe mini silent fan. Done. 0 problems. And audio is not bad, via with sound blaster compatibility configurable through BIOS. :)
You just had to post this video didn’t you? Now I’m looking at fx5500s and GeForce 6800s to relive my glory days 😂
I've got an AGP GeForce FX 5950 on the shelf behind me :-D
@LabRat Knatz I’d hardly call that a mistake. It served its purpose during that time and I could play all the games I wanted to play. Definitely sticking with the glory days statement because some of my fondest memories of gaming were from then. Now I’m grown up, have kids, and can’t play the 50 hours of games I was playing a week like I could back then 😂
You don't have to mod the case or keep the chassis cover off, but if you want this to work better and run cooler, you're going to have to give up your desire for an internal PSU and go for a picoPSU, which is going to give you an external power brick, but it's fairly standard sized and not huge like an Xbox 360 or one of those early SFF Optiplex power bricks.
With that janky internal PSU out of the way, you'll have plenty of room for cooling, and you won't have to worry about the GPU getting low power.
Maybe a modern power supply could be adapted to work; you only need 5V, after all. It'd definitely be smaller and probably put off less waste heat, so you could keep it internal and maybe make a little more room for fans. The NF-A4x10 5V might be just what you need as far as size and power requirements, but I'm not sure if its air flow would be enough.
11:07 it looks like you have blown capacitors on the board there (domed tops). Also note that some 9500 non-pros (the ones with an "L-shaped" memory arrangement) can be fairly easily modded into a 9700 equivalent with a small solder mod (doubled memory bandwidth, etc). This was one of my favourite early graphics cards, until I eventually killed it by ripping off a memory module trying to remove some heatsinks that I'd thermal epoxied to the chips.
I'd cut away some of the fins from the CPU heatsink to make room for the fan.
As for 5V fans, you can buy USB-powered fans from China. You should be able to convert them to fan header.
I've seen them in sizes from 40-80mm, with 10 or 15 mm depth.
I tried to put together a W98 PC myself. Only changes I made to the PC was adding an audio card and replaced the HDD with an SD card + adapter. But I have a similar issue: when I go to launch 3D games, it crashes. I thought I got the most up to date W98 NVIDIA driver for my GeForce 6200. I'll try some other drivers, but idk what else to do if that doesn't work.
A lot of the Fremont beers cellar really well. Especially the coffee and spice ones. If you have another bottle, give it a year or two and see what you think.
Could you make a mod to the case with mesh to replace the solid top, and sides?
Remove the internal PSU, put a fan where the mains input was, add a small barrel jack and just use an external 5V PSU, could even encase the internal PSU to use externally to keep within a budget.
It'd remove your main source of heat and add cooling though 👍
"Hello, My name is Jeff and I like to fail."
"Hello, My name is Jeff and I perform like a Russian dancing bear in a cage for my fans."
thank you for this classic turmoil.
"It's like walking into Joann Fabrics"
I'm dead from laughter.
I am glad I am not alone with this, For now I use IBM thinkpad T42 which works quite well, but I would still prefer something like this
linode should send you a larger t-shirt...
You forgot the basics of yester year.
Hardware is touchy, and you can only mix certain hardware.
PSU quality is highly important as well as it's ability to deliver.
The only problem seems to be that you wanted a very small form factor. Or office terminal only box.
I would suggest a Compaq desktop en series. There are available, and small. (They do make a big one). And they work week and can be upgraded with fair ease as they are a normal SFF. That's my retro 98 and prior, but it runs me and XP too and we also get basic and DOS.
USB was a later thing and serial and parallel was the "best". But there fairly simple as.long as the software has support... It's not as much as you think.
However.. I much prefer my later 2002+ systems, they can look just as good as new systems and have two smoked glass sided copper covered gaming rigs, which were over £3,500 when they were new and you desperately wanted them on your Christmas list...(if you old enough).
But playing the first COD or Battlefield and many forgotten titles just reminds.you that development was never as promised, (see Nvidia 2007 bench and marketing) or look up the history around Stalker SOC.
Perhaps next you may try a retro server?
I'd recommend a Compaq gen 1 360 with its 275w peak power draw, and dual pentium 3 tulatins. They are still "fast" today and perform. I don't think you can multi user and GPU it?? But you can try.
-MS product were not enabled and required MS data center, and some "support adjustment" to run multi... As in all multi so you either want Linux/Unix or after 2005/7 software.
Have fun and a good Christmas
PCem... used it to play NFS Porsche Unleashed
How come only you mentioned this gem in the comments and no one else knows about it? Makes me sad xD
@@GabrielZ666 mhm.. especially the woman that programmed this emulator for like a decade and all her effort.. and no one knows about it.. its rly sad
Have you checked the capacitor status on the motherboard ? Some of them seems bumped out or broken. Maybe the artifact problem is caused by a wrong voltage regulation caused by these capacitor.
Mount the fan externally?
I need to run to Fremont and grab that Winter Ale!
8% and sounds lovely.
As a combo cheapskate/hoarder I have a number of period-correct systems picked up back when they were basically being given away for free. I always find it amusing when people nowadays go out and _buy_ things from this era for an order of magnitude more than I would ever consider paying. I have a relatively small Sony VAIO minitower I'd be glad to part with if you're interested. Features include an 800MHz Pentium III, 256 megs of SDRAM, and four PCI slots for your choice of graphics and I/O upgrades. With the fan dialed back it's quieter than the average 90s hard drive yet still stays cool.
Will £1200 be enough?
😂
@@stevearkwright Sure. If you're willing to pay that I'll even throw in free international shipping.
ah yes, the "what can go wrong" series continues
Rather than leaving the top off, you should take the opportunity to experiment with passive updraft airflow. IE, take out all the components, and perforate the hell out of hte top and bottom - or just replace both with steel mesh. stick the thing on generous rubber feet, and the buoyancy of hot air should pass a fair amount right through the system. If you're feeling adventurous/janky, you can get some fans designed to run off USB power, and put them on the bottom as intake to speed things along, though you'd want even taller feet for that. If you have a drill capable of making a hole in that aluminium, this project is by no means sunk.
A top-level WinDOS PC would be a restored BX board. There were small form factor ones too at that time, fit in a ventilated case. Maybe with a slocket and P3 Tualatin for ultimate performance.
I just got back from a trip to Seattle
Might I recommend the following
: scotch scotch scotchity by rooftop, the Jolly Roger by maritime and the coffee porter from island hopping brewery on orcas
Motocross Madness!
98 yeeeeeea! Intel Penium (1) and Penium MMX! S3 graphics, SoundBlaster sound!
@Craftcomputing ... Tweeted out I have a working GT730 low profile video card just sitting around doing nothing. AND I even have a low profile bracket for it too. Has DVI port, HDMI port and VGA port... FREE ... Interested??
I built a pretty neat retro rig. I got a hold of an HP rp3000. It's powered by an atom cpu, so it's clearly no powerhouse. But the system has a PCI port so I stuck in a Geforce mx4000 video card. I swapped the mechanical hard drive with a small ssd (that was also nearly just as big as the 160gb mechanical drive it replaced) I doubt the Atom CPU could even keep up with system as a whole but it seems to be a fairly balanced system. It plays most DOS games fluidly, much better than the internal gpu, and with taking the load off the cpu allows the cpu to perform a little better too. Again not some crazy powerhouse. Heck it was a point of sale system after all. But the smallish case and hardware make this a pretty good option for retro gaming. The case itself is quite a bit bigger then this. Probably close to twice as big. But it has full sized fans too. Easily cooling the system. The standard HP bios also has options like turning up the fans in the event things do get a little warm. The system came with Windows 7 32-bit and can run embedded images but I use Windows XP pro. I have the HP installer so I don't even got to mess around with activation. It just works.
I'm currently shopping Atom/Celeron ITX systems, and plan on doing something very similar. The Atom may not be fast by modern standards, but they do blow away Pentium 2/3 machines. Plenty of power for systems like this.
MCM2 makes all this worth it. I would go to AMD based thin client, as those had reasonable on board graphic chip.
Think it'd work if you could replace the power supply with a picopsu? Since you're not afraid to solder things.
Streets of Sim City, a man after my heart
I see lots of advice to change out caps. While many vintage PC maintainers also replace the tantalums with electrolytic caps, which are supposed to be somewhat more reliable (actually tantalums are technically also electrolytic, but the more usual are aluminum electrolytics, with their own issue of being labelled "aluminium" for outside the US) Often vintage Mac users feel a sudden, obvious "blow up" and magic smoke is better than the slow, less detectable failures of the aluminum electrolytics. It seems to me, it comes down to personal preference, or whatever traumatized you the least. 😂💥💨
that winter ale caught my interest. sounds tasty.
I have two old video cards. One says Rage Pro Turbo and one Rage LT Pro. Which one is better?
"What could go wrong?"
you just had to summon Murphy's ghost didn't ya?
I would see if it's possible to change the power supply to a external brick. It might not be, given the proprietary nature of the design, but it would improve the heat issue and might give you enough room for a fan.
Have you thought about making say a cooling mat for the unit to sit on, you could maybe design and print a unit with internal fan to blow upwards into the unit base?
Maybe install a 12V DC PWM PC 4 Wire Fan Temperature Speed Controller from ebay to operate power to the fan.
I am really sad that I don't know what happened to my whole collection of X-Wing games. My 7 year old would love those.
Those VIA boxes are meant for dumb terminals and maybe machine control. They were never meant for gaming.
A good gaming rig for that era would never be that small.
Very glad I just kept my old rig and upgraded the drive to a PATA SSD (albeit *just* before the HD died).
If you can find an older system with Socket A or 370, you could use a slimline case that uses a TFX PSU. Or just put it in a modern case with big quiet fans. If you get a later board with SATA you're golden and can use basically any 2.5" SSD.
Then you'd have room and power for the video cards and a sound card because you're not a barbarian willing to settle for the onboard audio.
You'd also be able to get a game port so you can use a joystick. USB Controller support was still mostly awful at the time.
DOS games you can do Tiny Retro, but in the Post DOS Pre-XP era, the options tend to require something more substantial.
Take a dremel and cut the CPU cooler fins down to fit the 40mm fan on to the top of that. pull the 5v from the power supply and connect the fan speed to the header.
Just cut the shape of the mini fan in the giant aluminium heatsink, maybe u can put two of them.
Was my first thought as well
I’d laugh if the fan surrounds melted!
Okay, perhaps I wouldn’t.
If PSU is the problem for heat, then move it outside and on the back perhaps or get external power brick. I this for my improved high end brand bluetooth speaker and it works wonders, while also removing mains voltage from the system, so if something goes wrong its just 12-18v ruining my day.
Did you try using the onboard S3 graphics? Not the greatest by any stretch, but may be adequate for 90's PC games.
There are 5V fans made for the Raspberry Pi that have dupont connectors for the header. Amazon has them for like $6 a pair and are 30mm fans. I use them on my MagicMirror/smartscreen project to keep the RPI cool and they move a decent amount of air for a 30mm fan and are slim.
oh god, I had a fx 5500 back in the day. I bought it cause of vram. My friend then showed me how bad the card actually was. Also couldn't you mount a couple 40mm fans on the side of the cpu headsink?
Same thing the noctua fans 40mm thin would fit and not kill the visuals of the case of cutting 40mm holes on the side of the case for 2 intakes and two exhaust I think could work
I love the half-life reference in your conclusion
Dosbox can run win98SE Lite build with no problems and can run most games that you will throw at it, but tbh if you install games on a win XP VM and then move to win 10 most games will run kinda ok at their supported resolutions
There's a weird intermittent noise coming over your mic. Almost like a fan blade scraping against something. Best place to hear it is between 11:54 11:56, there's a slight pause were you stop talking were it's easy to hear.
Why didn't you just cut holes in the case and attach a 120mm fan externally?
You successfully made a Gen 1 red ring of death Xbox 360 😂🤝
1:35 that's why it's good to keep an old windows xp potato around... Y'know - back when compatibility mode actually did anything as opposed to winblows 8+
Maybe add a fan in a location that’s not really the best or maybe try adding it to the side panel with molding.