IR is correct! Many of these mom and pop systems were pushed to be sold as "multimedia ready" - as that was the buzzword of the time - and often included a remote control for media and CD music and video playback from the comfort of your... chair.
@@kepstin Completely forgot about the IR syncing capabilities! And in most cases it was faster than serial but good luck not having a table bump knock it off sync :D The good ol' days
For bonus points, PPP over IrCOMM was wifi for palm pilots before wifi was a thing. The IrDA transceiver modules are an off the shelf transceiver IC, sometimes with integrated LED+photodiode, all the "intelligence" is on the motherboard if the appropriate port is available.
Me too if he only finds pentium 2 mmx 266mhz pc and test games hehe Blood monolith King quest 8 Nfs II Se KKND xtreme and krossfire Dominion ion storm over gift 3 Thief the dark project Unreal tournament And other...
What a blast from the past with the Sparkle Power Supply. I got the same noises whenever I turned on my old AMD Sempron computer. Especially when I forgot to close the window at cold mornings.
@@LGRBlerbs yeah well... Clint is being conscious... completely agree on this... I lost a QDI Legend with Chipset 440BX ... which at the time it cost me a lot.. and even today is around 70 or 80 dollars on ebay........ for a lousy PSU of 5 dollars.. that drop 8.3Volt in the 5volt rail 😩😤... DVD drive and WD800 HDD also dead that day... 😭
Looks like someone's old project PC, and I think we're all guilty of taking the lazy approach to screwing things in. Only time I really take my time and do it "properly" is when I'm building a machine for someone else, I know my own machines are just going to get pulled apart again in a few months for whatever new thing I'm throwing in there.
One time I bought a custom PC at a Goodwill like that (IIRC it was right before I graduated university). I think they only used a single screw to hold in the entire motherboard.
OH wow; instantly recognized that motherboard as it was starting point of the first computer I built entirely with my own money. Good luck building something with it! -Asus P2L97 -Intel PII-233mhz with MMX -Matrox G100 AGP (later upgraded to ATI-Rage-Pro) -64mb dram, -Maxtor 4.3gb hdd, -Dlink 10/100 PCI, -SoundBlaster AWE64 -US Robotics 56k modem. -Acer 17" CRT
Yep, I built a similar system in college - I even had all the parts except the CPU ready to go - I waited for the 333 MHz "Deschutes" core Pentium II to come out before buying the CPU. I also bought a single stick 128 MB DIMM - ridiculously expensive at the time, and overkill as most PCs were coming with 16-64 MB of RAM; to have empty slots for later expansion. This system lasted me until 2003 - I did indeed upgrade the RAM to 384 MB by the end, and a 766 MHz Celeron on a voltage-mod slotket. Radeon All-In-Wonder 9500 at the end, not sure I remember what I had originally; I know I started with my prior-system's PCI Matrox Millennium II and Matrox m3D card, I'm sure I upgraded to something AGP shortly after building the system. I know I then upgraded to a Radeon All-In-Wonder (pre-numbering) whenever that came out. Just not sure what I had in between. AWE64 Gold with the front panel 5-1/4" drive bay thingy, too. By that point, I wasn't using a modem any more - my college had Ethernet, and my first house after college my roommate and I set up a server with dual 56k modems that linked and shared it to home Ethernet until DSL came out.
A Tseng Laba ET-6000! I had that exact card in my first own PC. Paired with an Orchid Righteous Voodoo 1. Good memories. Also that PSU fan sound brings back some not so good memories.
Still have one of the Tseng cards, A Hercules Dynamite 128/Video , just don't anything to use it with currently. The Matrox cards tend to be paired with Voodoos because of their very clean 2D image, so that even after passing it through the Voodoo the quality is still acceptable. But for DOS it was more common to run a Cirrus Logic or S3 card as they are fast and have good compatibility.
It's fan-frakkin-tastic for 2D DOS games. Maybe an Nvidia Quadro might be better but it's a tough call, and a Quadro of the right age to be solid would be anachronistically new for an early P2.
"Percussive Maintenance: When you hit something with a stick, and it starts working again." Favorite solution of a teacher I had in high school. Most of the issues those old ass computers had was solved by a good smack. For the day, at least.
@@LeurakDoes it not throw off the printing? I accidentally bumped the desk once while printing and it messed a part of the print up. And it was quite a rigid desk too.
You brought a big grin to my face with your enthusiasm. My first computer was pretty similar. I miss file browsing on Windows 98. And the Start menu was so snappy. Also the old “internet connected” stuff is so hilarious lol. Everyone had some cartoon they liked as a desktop wallpaper back in the day after official websites would post a few for download…
There's still something very satisfying about the 'hardware found' notifications at startup on Windows 95 & 98, I think it's that feeling back then of getting something setup properly back then.
Yeah, the early days of plug-and-play... sometimes you could just pop in new hardware, sometimes you needed to install drivers first. It was a coin flip.
Right there with ya brother. I don't mean brother like genetic brother or really even, adoptive brother, more like, a brother in interests, although you're a stranger and so I don't really know your interests either, so I guess I'm saying, uhm..., well you know what I'm saying.
I've fallen in love with old ATX cases. I like building modern PCs in old ATX-compatible cases. Also those ASUS SLOT-1 boards all seem very similar. I have two (P2B and P3V133) and they are almost completely identical. Yours seems similar to those, although mine have three ISA slots (with one of them sharing the same bracket as the PCI slot).
I have been looking for an early generation ATX case for a build, but with the crazy increase in retro PC prices here even an empty case will cost several hundred dollars.
I'd like to find a replacement for my InWin Q500 (lost mine in a house fire), It's just disgusting how now they're selling all those mid-tower cases (don't see much in full-towers anymore) with NO optical drive bays, but they'll fill it with lights and a stupid window on the side.
Man, that really looks like an iR port. That would be soooooo cool if that was iR.. I've never seen a desktop with iR- maybe it was intended for sharing files with your laptop.... When i was a kid I had a Deskjet 310 with an iR adapter... I thought printing to my printer with iR light was just the coolest thing i had ever seen. You should really set something up with iR, there was so many cool things you could do with it! Anyways, great computer and great video!
@LGR Blerbs That sensor is an ambient light sensor. It's supposed to sleep the computer when the office lights are off and wake it when they are on. They never work as intended, and are a pain to deal with.
2:25 that fan went boooom it's usually fixable tho, take the fan sticker off, than the rubber cap under it and put a few drops of an oil of some kind had a psu that did a similar sound and that fixed it
NIce. The ET6000 was my first graphics card. I had to buy it secretly when I was about 15 because my mum was convinced I would destroy the PC if I opened it up ;p. It made high res mode in need for speed playable. Dreamland.
Probably. My guess is someone invested a hefty chunk in tooling back when AT was still the thing, and repurposed turbo and the LED display to sleep and IR.
I had a Tseng Labs ET6000 back in the day. As a conventional 2D only card it was well regarded. Later on, I had it teamed up with my original 3dfx card via the pas-thru cable.
In my experience, that Dell OEM Soundblaster Live 5.1 Digital is a fantastic card for EAX. Specifically the "Digital" one (SB0220) and not the normal one. I'm sure you've got plenty of good cards for EAX, but when I was building my Voodoo 3 machine in recent times, that was the card I went with. Cheap, because no one wants them. Just about every other Live card in that time period kinda sucked. Bunch of budget garbage around then, when it came to EAX. And nearly every game in the era that I built that PC for supported EAX. Some people might prefer Aureal Vortex stuff, but EAX is what I've got nostalgia for.
The SB0200 in this video is "fake" in that is doesn't have a real EMU10K1 chip. Everything is done in software. SB0220 on the other hand, has a real EMU10K1, and it performs like any other Live card (neither better or worse). However some SB0220 lack the connectors for CD input, and all SB0220 lack the Live header pins (40-pin AUD_EXT), so you can't connect a front panel. It's the cheapest version, made only for Dell.
If it doesn't do sound processing onboard, it's practically useless for gaming. Phil's Computer Lab did a comprehensive test of a number of sound cards and the one that did everything in software took off like 20 fps in all games. Most CPUs from that time will be impacted by this, unless you have something like a 1GHz Pentium III. You're better off with an AWE64, at least that does DOS somewhat properly as well. It's also one of the highest performing cards. If you get a Gold, it'll also sound very clean. Though nowadays those are worth hundreds.
Right off the bat, I thought the case style looked familiar. Then you turned it around and confirmed that you have basically the same OEM case with just a different front panel. We had two white box PCs (P3 1GHz or so) that we used for random things in the past at the office. One of them was our VPN server for a good bit of time. I just recently took the case home to use for a sleeper build or something someday. It's interesting enough to keep around. Solid case. Just not great airflow options without some more major mods.
I had a P2L97 board with a PII-233mhz, a S3 Virge and a 3Dfx Voodoo 1 addon card. Loved the thing and my jaw dropped when I saw Quake II with 3Dfx graphics for the first time.
The first computer I ever built had an ASUS P2L97 in 1998 with a P2/233. This brings back memories!! I was on the private beta test list for Windows 98 “Memphis” and WinXP “Whistler” and I did testing on that board. This video makes me happy and I’m excited to see the project video coming,
This is sooooo close to the 166 machine I had growing up as a kid, slight difference on the case (that mystery sensor) and I wished I had a sound blaster live back then but otherwise it's sooo similar. Just needed the old US Robotics modem and windows 95 plus and I could have been looking back in time. Best video in a while, hearing that PC speaker brought back some great memories
Wow amazing BLERB... looked just like of my old PCs even with all the parts... almost thought it was until I seen the weird Sleep thing,,,, great vid...
Also found an Tseng Labs ET6000 recently. Mine was in an old pentium 166MHz system in an At case. Think this card was released towards the end of 1996 in a time where Tseng Labs already lost much of its glory. I think you'll want to fill up that AGP slot quickly with something else :) Love these early ATX pentium II 233MHz systems. Have one in a nice white (no yellowing) Inwin maxi tower case on an Intel board. Been planning for ages to do something with it.
I will say that the Tseng Labs cards were impressive in the early days. They were both fastest and most compatable before the 32 bit bus came around. A lot of people like the Cirius Logic 54xx series, but I think Tseng Labs puts those to shame.
@@dintyshideaway9505 I think you're right all the way up to the ET4000. But after that they were just too late to the party. But still it's always nice to see a tseng labs card :)
Man, I absolutely love this era of Windows when you had internet and a “modern” desktop , but still could play DOS games natively. I’m pretty sure I ran 98SE all the way to 2004ish.
@@sinephase Aww you missed out on a whole period of weird Windows history. I had Win98, then went to Windows 2000. They were the last traditional Windows machines that didn't care about the Internet. Once XP came out I upgraded to that on a brand new P4 machine and it was "amazing" how it wanted to phone home to validate itself and check for drivers. More amazing was watching how before SP2 Wifi was a complete mess with different crappy drivers that failed to work properly. Then SP2 came out and it started to actually work. The first XP machine I owned was a laptop without wifi. Had to have a separate PCMCIA card poking out the side. What a world.
@@ncot_tech that's why I didn't use it LOL it still makes me laugh that people who wanted "XP back" with vista and 7 somehow forgot how big of a clusterfuck XP was too :P
I would love you to make/keep it as a "crap machine", only using some nasty thrift hardware in it, obscure branded and cheap stuff, mismatched appearance, just like a lot of PCs looked like in the 90s after they had been "upgraded". So much nostalgic feelings!
Chuck a whole butt ton of them obscure thermaltake peripherals. Make it as beastly as possible 🤣 💪🏼 Cigarette lighter, cup holders, front speaker w/ those dodgy equalisers and don’t forget those external mic holders clip things that no one ever uses afaik. That would be boss.
That case looks really high quality. Those SPI power supplies were no slouch in their day either, they are FSP. Later ones used better ball bearing fans unfortunately this one is a bit early for that.
Early Pentium 2 systems are great for super fast pure DOS and Windows 3.11 builds. It's the perfect spot for early AGP cards that are too crappy for for a 9x build (pre Geforce). Also fun can be had with odd ball ISA and early PCI sound cards.
I really miss those beige AT cases. My first PC was a Baby AT PC-Chips M717 motherboard Mitac branded that had the overclokeable Intel Celeron 266 Mhz (OC-able to 400Mhz) with a sis 6326 8MB onboard and onboard SB-16 HT1869+ PCI. I miss that machine.
My family had almost this same PC prebuilt from a local shop back in the 90s. In the early 2000s I used it as a home file server. I remember updating the BIOS so it would work properly with larger IDE hard drives. I actually still have it today as my Windows 98 gaming machine. I tricked mine out with a 533 MHz Celeron processor using a slotket adapter.
Now you've got me awfully nostalgic. I haven't touched any of my old computer crap that I left at my parents' house when moving out in years, but I do know I had a P2L97-DS, as well as a whole ATX system based on a Gigabyte GA-686KDX (dual Slot 1 i440FX!) with custom cardboard air ducting to keep temperatures of its two PII-233s in check, and a retro AT machine that after two different 486 VLB boards eventually ended up with an older revision GA-586HX with a Pentium 133. Both are using Dallas/Odin RTC clock modules, and at least one of those was already dead in 2012. Had some nifty hardware in there.
Such nostalgia! P2L97 was a good board. 440LX chipset, IIRC. I had the P2L97S with the built-in Adaptec SCSI. Had a PII-233, 4GB hard drive, and a Pioneer slot-load 32X CDROM. I dual-booted that bad boy between Windows 9x and FreeBSD. Next machine was a PIII-733.
lol I had that same video card back in the day on a Pentium 133. It made non-accelerated video run significantly faster than onboard. I think that was the last video card I owned that didn't have 3D acceleration.
That bar was called the channel bar and it was part of the original Windows 98 whoever cracked that thing must’ve just stuck a windows 98 SE crack on it or did an upgrade of a pirated version of 98se on top of the original 98 because second edition ditched the channel bar.
I will forever rue the day that my Pentium II, 64 MB RAM, 8 MB Matrox GPU, 2 GB HDD, Windows 98 PC died, it was just the best. Any game from the 90s, it played, so basically the best ones from the best era. Wolfenstein 3D, Doom, Blood, Quake, Duke 3D, Need for Speed II SE, it was the best :( so whenever I see a computer like this, and this one is close, I get that sense of nostalga
Sparkle power was a super common OEM power supply manufacturer. The units were actually made by FSP, a very good power supply manufacturer that you still hear about today. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FSP_Group The fan could easily be rejuvenated with some oil on the bearings. If the capacitors look to be in decent shape and have a good manufacturer. I'd leave it in there if all you would need is 250w.
Was just looking into Sparkle Power and got suspicious about the FSP style name of the unit. Turns out they're part of FSP and even sell under that brand today. And while it's correct that ATX is ATX, in this case we got 25A on the 5V rail, and 14A on the 3.3V rail which drastically reduces the availability in recent units by reliable brands to 650W and above in case of a replacement.
I like how Win 95 and Win 98 were so well designed that you can still work with that even after 20+ years. In Win 7+ I am still looking for where to change resolution, I mostly hit it on second try. :-)
First time hearing Duke II on PC speaker, that is truly amazing. I already had SB16 by the time I got the game in the early 90's so it's interesting to see how much variation the PC speaker has compared to the original Duke "Nukum".
Very easy to adapt the SATA back to something more era appropriate. But honestly it's good to have on an old machine just for connecting if you want to connect weird SD adaptors or compatible but non vintage parts.
I always found it funny that BIOSes from this era always made sure to point out that you had MMX, even though any processor that would have been on Slot 1 most certainly supports it, even the early cacheless Celerons. I'm sure they were likely using the same BIOS in Socket 7 systems of the time, so it makes sense, but superfluous nonetheless.
@@RuruFIN I'm aware, but in recent years it's been Intel's tradition to cut some instructions from the Celeron and Pentium chips. That wasn't the case back then.
@@AliceC993 Yeah, these days they're the ultra low-end ones. At least Pentiums been having HT for few years so they're fine for browsing the web etc. basic stuff.
I ran a $400 million per year revenue company back in 2000 with an old retired desktop Pentium 100MHz cpu and 32MB of ram running Linux as the primary router/DNS/firewall for the company. I installed a CSU/DSU card in it to interface to our fractional T1. It was the central hub of virtually all network connectivity both internally and externally. It averaged well under 10% cpu usage. I had 3 identical machines on hand in case it ever failed, which it never did. It was decommissioned when the company was bought out and the transition to their systems was complete. It's amazing what you can do with garbage hardware and Linux.
I used to work at STB systems when they were still making video cards in the USA. It’s been a long time since I’ve seen that name, even after watching hundreds of retro videos!
As memey as the OS is, the creator had a constant habit of saying really, really, really bad stuff all over the net (mostly due to mental illness). Best not to professionally involve yourself with anything Terry-related lest you get cancelled.
Used to toss out these Sparkle PSUs all the time on devices I had serviced back in the 10s. Sometimes you could re-cap those junkers and get them running again.
The Asus P2L97 was one of the most popular 440LX boards, but that chipset was quickly forgotten after the 440BX came out. This first generation of AGP boards caused a lot of grief to 3D gamers, because most of them had a flawed design that couldn't supply as much power to the AGP slot as the specs required. Manufacturers didn't take the spec seriously because nobody would be silly enough to make a video card that draws 6A from the 3.3V rail. Then the silly cards came out. This is a revision 2.04 though, which is supposed to have that issue fixed. Asus actually published a rework procedure for the earlier boards explaining how people could fix their AGP power failings at home. Only 130W on 3.3V+5V is pretty skimpy for this era (which barely uses 12V), but with only basic parts installed it's probably fine. Personally I'd use the Sparkle, but it probably needs new caps and obviously needs a fan. I used Infrared to transfer a file exactly once. I guess it seemed like a cool idea at the time, but the computers had to be facing each other like 1 foot away.
Why you wouldn't? I mean any manufacturer not providing such basic things is like a piss in your face. It's more work and hussle, to go and remove it. That's sad you have to archive some drivers, software and content for some hardware from company which is still on the market (and going strong). :/
I love PC's from the slot 1 era! I got my start with PCs in the early 486 days but the slot 1 era of the late 90's & early 2000s were fun times! I'm surprised that board is still working well as it's from near the start of the capacitor plague era. I lost an Abit BH6 and an Asus P3V4X to the capacitor plague. It probably didn't help that I was also into overclocking back then but both boards died to bad caps. I just wish I would have had the foresight to save both of them for a later recapping.
I've got that same case from Premio, same motherboard also sporting a PII 233. Coincidentally its the same basic chassis that Falcon Northwest was using between 2000 and 2001 for their Mach V.
I had a French made case that had a similar thing on the front. Sleep mode would pop on, and when you'd turn on the lights, it would start the PC again. So a scenario would be, you'd leave the room, shut the lights off, and then come back in the morning, by the time you'd sit down, you'd be on your merry way. However, that had a daughter board, so didn't look like this one looks on the inside.
@@LGRBlerbs Oh! According to the manual, it should be USB in that spot though… Seems the board has an IR header as well, so is that window on the front possibly an IR window after all?
Regarding that "sensor" on the front of the case...
twitter.com/lazygamereviews/status/1427391407489273857
Dangit! You posted that just as I commented about it being IR!
IR is correct! Many of these mom and pop systems were pushed to be sold as "multimedia ready" - as that was the buzzword of the time - and often included a remote control for media and CD music and video playback from the comfort of your... chair.
I've only ever had an IrDA port on one of my computers, a Compaq laptop - was cool tho, I could wirelessly sync my palm pilot!
@@kepstin Completely forgot about the IR syncing capabilities! And in most cases it was faster than serial but good luck not having a table bump knock it off sync :D The good ol' days
For bonus points, PPP over IrCOMM was wifi for palm pilots before wifi was a thing. The IrDA transceiver modules are an off the shelf transceiver IC, sometimes with integrated LED+photodiode, all the "intelligence" is on the motherboard if the appropriate port is available.
this is the best type of LGR content. could watch this every day.
I agree.
It's so nostalgic
Me too if he only finds pentium 2 mmx 266mhz pc and test games hehe
Blood monolith
King quest 8
Nfs II Se
KKND xtreme and krossfire
Dominion ion storm over gift 3
Thief the dark project
Unreal tournament
And other...
This is guud
ikr. I don't know why anyone would downvote these unless they have a channel of their own and are jealous. Damn zoomers ruin everything.
What a blast from the past with the Sparkle Power Supply. I got the same noises whenever I turned on my old AMD Sempron computer. Especially when I forgot to close the window at cold mornings.
Same.
@@PeterSwinkels Glad we're the same.
Sometimes I doubt your commitment to Sparkle Power.
I understood that reference
Donnie Darko. A vintage classic of its own kind.
@@LGRBlerbs yeah well... Clint is being conscious... completely agree on this... I lost a QDI Legend with Chipset 440BX ... which at the time it cost me a lot.. and even today is around 70 or 80 dollars on ebay........ for a lousy PSU of 5 dollars.. that drop 8.3Volt in the 5volt rail 😩😤... DVD drive and WD800 HDD also dead that day... 😭
Looks like someone's old project PC, and I think we're all guilty of taking the lazy approach to screwing things in. Only time I really take my time and do it "properly" is when I'm building a machine for someone else, I know my own machines are just going to get pulled apart again in a few months for whatever new thing I'm throwing in there.
One time I bought a custom PC at a Goodwill like that (IIRC it was right before I graduated university). I think they only used a single screw to hold in the entire motherboard.
You tell me!
I have a lot of projects going on that I don't even bother putting screws
I used to be that way. Heck, I ran computers for years without the case covers because why. Hehehe..
shoemaker usually has the worst shoes :-)
I had to put an ATX PSU on a babyAT case, and all screw holes but one came out wrong. The PSU is now held above the motherboard by a single screw.
OH wow; instantly recognized that motherboard as it was starting point of the first computer I built entirely with my own money. Good luck building something with it!
-Asus P2L97
-Intel PII-233mhz with MMX
-Matrox G100 AGP (later upgraded to ATI-Rage-Pro)
-64mb dram,
-Maxtor 4.3gb hdd,
-Dlink 10/100 PCI,
-SoundBlaster AWE64
-US Robotics 56k modem.
-Acer 17" CRT
That'd be an excellent setup. Inspiring!
Yep, I built a similar system in college - I even had all the parts except the CPU ready to go - I waited for the 333 MHz "Deschutes" core Pentium II to come out before buying the CPU.
I also bought a single stick 128 MB DIMM - ridiculously expensive at the time, and overkill as most PCs were coming with 16-64 MB of RAM; to have empty slots for later expansion.
This system lasted me until 2003 - I did indeed upgrade the RAM to 384 MB by the end, and a 766 MHz Celeron on a voltage-mod slotket. Radeon All-In-Wonder 9500 at the end, not sure I remember what I had originally; I know I started with my prior-system's PCI Matrox Millennium II and Matrox m3D card, I'm sure I upgraded to something AGP shortly after building the system. I know I then upgraded to a Radeon All-In-Wonder (pre-numbering) whenever that came out. Just not sure what I had in between.
AWE64 Gold with the front panel 5-1/4" drive bay thingy, too. By that point, I wasn't using a modem any more - my college had Ethernet, and my first house after college my roommate and I set up a server with dual 56k modems that linked and shared it to home Ethernet until DSL came out.
A Tseng Laba ET-6000! I had that exact card in my first own PC. Paired with an Orchid Righteous Voodoo 1. Good memories. Also that PSU fan sound brings back some not so good memories.
back in the day it was THE card to pair with a 3d accelerator.
Nah, Matrox Millennium was THE one 2D card to pair with a Voodoo 1 :-)
I have an Orchid Righteous! I haven't really tested it yet, one of these days... 😛
Still have one of the Tseng cards, A Hercules Dynamite 128/Video , just don't anything to use it with currently.
The Matrox cards tend to be paired with Voodoos because of their very clean 2D image, so that even after passing it through the Voodoo the quality is still acceptable.
But for DOS it was more common to run a Cirrus Logic or S3 card as they are fast and have good compatibility.
It's fan-frakkin-tastic for 2D DOS games. Maybe an Nvidia Quadro might be better but it's a tough call, and a Quadro of the right age to be solid would be anachronistically new for an early P2.
Ah yes, smacking the case to make the noise stop. Reminds me of an old P4 clone I had.
Nothing like a good case smack to quiet down the fans. Or several.
i do that on my 3D printer all the time, since the hotend fan sometimes fails to spin up and makes grinding noises
I do that to my current machine... the prices on 230mm fans are absurd or I would replace it.
"Percussive Maintenance: When you hit something with a stick, and it starts working again."
Favorite solution of a teacher I had in high school. Most of the issues those old ass computers had was solved by a good smack. For the day, at least.
@@LeurakDoes it not throw off the printing? I accidentally bumped the desk once while printing and it messed a part of the print up. And it was quite a rigid desk too.
"Hootin' around with a generic computer" is the best kind of LGR content tbh
You brought a big grin to my face with your enthusiasm. My first computer was pretty similar. I miss file browsing on Windows 98. And the Start menu was so snappy. Also the old “internet connected” stuff is so hilarious lol. Everyone had some cartoon they liked as a desktop wallpaper back in the day after official websites would post a few for download…
someone needs to make a compilation of all the times LGR started a video with plonking an item on a table
There's still something very satisfying about the 'hardware found' notifications at startup on Windows 95 & 98, I think it's that feeling back then of getting something setup properly back then.
Yeah, the early days of plug-and-play... sometimes you could just pop in new hardware, sometimes you needed to install drivers first. It was a coin flip.
There’s been lots of LGR content recently, and I fu*king love it!
Including a couple of episodes on the long-dormant LGR Foods channel!
Right there with ya brother. I don't mean brother like genetic brother or really even, adoptive brother, more like, a brother in interests, although you're a stranger and so I don't really know your interests either, so I guess I'm saying, uhm..., well you know what I'm saying.
I've fallen in love with old ATX cases. I like building modern PCs in old ATX-compatible cases.
Also those ASUS SLOT-1 boards all seem very similar. I have two (P2B and P3V133) and they are almost completely identical. Yours seems similar to those, although mine have three ISA slots (with one of them sharing the same bracket as the PCI slot).
That's why I want to do with my next computer build it's just sooo much time making the janky accomodations needed for modern heat dissipation.
I have been looking for an early generation ATX case for a build, but with the crazy increase in retro PC prices here even an empty case will cost several hundred dollars.
I'd like to find a replacement for my InWin Q500 (lost mine in a house fire), It's just disgusting how now they're selling all those mid-tower cases (don't see much in full-towers anymore) with NO optical drive bays, but they'll fill it with lights and a stupid window on the side.
My Pentium 2 board had on board SCSI. It was dope. Added an internal SyJet drive with 1.5GB cartridges.
@@Ozrichead it's a shame they don't make beige cases anymore. Now everything has to be black with RGB lights everywhere. I hate these modern designs.
Man, that really looks like an iR port. That would be soooooo cool if that was iR.. I've never seen a desktop with iR- maybe it was intended for sharing files with your laptop.... When i was a kid I had a Deskjet 310 with an iR adapter... I thought printing to my printer with iR light was just the coolest thing i had ever seen. You should really set something up with iR, there was so many cool things you could do with it! Anyways, great computer and great video!
15:00 - Gotta drop down the details box, even though it'll shed absolutely no light on anything without being a dev. :P
I'm not alone..
Always.
"Yep, that sure is an error message."
@@LGRBlerbs can it play mp3 or vcd?
I'd love to see some type of linux box DAW system made from this age of PC. That's my suggestion! Thanks for the vid.
2:15 damn that thing was moments away from becoming a Gigabyte PSU
That was my thought too. 💣
🤣🤣🤣
At least this one could have been saved with a clean fan.
@LGR Blerbs That sensor is an ambient light sensor. It's supposed to sleep the computer when the office lights are off and wake it when they are on. They never work as intended, and are a pain to deal with.
Love that view sonic monitor and the fact you always use duke nukem to test the sound card. Keep up the great content, Clint.
That power supply sounds like me just before I get out of bed in the morning.
I suggest to call this new PC "The Dustdevil".
2:25 that fan went boooom
it's usually fixable tho, take the fan sticker off, than the rubber cap under it and put a few drops of an oil of some kind
had a psu that did a similar sound and that fixed it
Yep, it's the bearings.
Mineral oil, the kind you lubricate beard clippers (and similar) with, I’m sure LGR has some.
Mr Carlson's Lab did a video on fixing a sleeve bearing fan somewhat recently, where he explains how to do it properly. Well worth watching.
NIce. The ET6000 was my first graphics card. I had to buy it secretly when I was about 15 because my mum was convinced I would destroy the PC if I opened it up ;p. It made high res mode in need for speed playable. Dreamland.
Looks like a spot for an IR remote sensor.
Probably. My guess is someone invested a hefty chunk in tooling back when AT was still the thing, and repurposed turbo and the LED display to sleep and IR.
I had a Tseng Labs ET6000 back in the day. As a conventional 2D only card it was well regarded. Later on, I had it teamed up with my original 3dfx card via the pas-thru cable.
Oh love the bad fan bearing sound. Takes me back
Dry bearings man, if there's a more 90's PC death sound, i wanna hear it. :))
In my experience, that Dell OEM Soundblaster Live 5.1 Digital is a fantastic card for EAX. Specifically the "Digital" one (SB0220) and not the normal one. I'm sure you've got plenty of good cards for EAX, but when I was building my Voodoo 3 machine in recent times, that was the card I went with. Cheap, because no one wants them. Just about every other Live card in that time period kinda sucked. Bunch of budget garbage around then, when it came to EAX. And nearly every game in the era that I built that PC for supported EAX. Some people might prefer Aureal Vortex stuff, but EAX is what I've got nostalgia for.
The SB0200 in this video is "fake" in that is doesn't have a real EMU10K1 chip. Everything is done in software. SB0220 on the other hand, has a real EMU10K1, and it performs like any other Live card (neither better or worse). However some SB0220 lack the connectors for CD input, and all SB0220 lack the Live header pins (40-pin AUD_EXT), so you can't connect a front panel. It's the cheapest version, made only for Dell.
@@agevenisse3252 And it (mainly) eats more CPU, resulting in more micro-stuttering and a few fps less...
If it doesn't do sound processing onboard, it's practically useless for gaming.
Phil's Computer Lab did a comprehensive test of a number of sound cards and the one that did everything in software took off like 20 fps in all games. Most CPUs from that time will be impacted by this, unless you have something like a 1GHz Pentium III.
You're better off with an AWE64, at least that does DOS somewhat properly as well. It's also one of the highest performing cards. If you get a Gold, it'll also sound very clean. Though nowadays those are worth hundreds.
Right off the bat, I thought the case style looked familiar. Then you turned it around and confirmed that you have basically the same OEM case with just a different front panel. We had two white box PCs (P3 1GHz or so) that we used for random things in the past at the office. One of them was our VPN server for a good bit of time. I just recently took the case home to use for a sleeper build or something someday. It's interesting enough to keep around. Solid case. Just not great airflow options without some more major mods.
"sleeper case" LoL
I'd love to see a classic Linux build made with this case.
Red Hat or SCO Unix build!
Compile SUSE Linux on it 😉
@@amirpourghoureiyan1637 Slackware doggoneit.
Or maybe that BeoS build he said someday in the future, sometime in the past
I learned Red Hat and Gentoo on a box just like this.
I had a P2L97 board with a PII-233mhz, a S3 Virge and a 3Dfx Voodoo 1 addon card.
Loved the thing and my jaw dropped when I saw Quake II with 3Dfx graphics for the first time.
The first computer I ever built had an ASUS P2L97 in 1998 with a P2/233. This brings back memories!! I was on the private beta test list for Windows 98 “Memphis” and WinXP “Whistler” and I did testing on that board. This video makes me happy and I’m excited to see the project video coming,
That Sparkle PSU running like a champ, that noise is just an added feature 😅
This is sooooo close to the 166 machine I had growing up as a kid, slight difference on the case (that mystery sensor) and I wished I had a sound blaster live back then but otherwise it's sooo similar. Just needed the old US Robotics modem and windows 95 plus and I could have been looking back in time. Best video in a while, hearing that PC speaker brought back some great memories
Wow amazing BLERB... looked just like of my old PCs even with all the parts... almost thought it was until I seen the weird Sleep thing,,,, great vid...
If only we had property harnessed MMX technology, maybe the GPU shortage could have been averted
INB4 Crypto miners start harnessing THE POWER OF THE PENTIUM for their nefarious purposes.
LOLNOPE
@@Deadguy2322forreal thank you for taking the time to argue with this 1 year old joke on the internet 🫡
Heck yeah, a video of putting old NT or old Linux on it would be sweet!
Also found an Tseng Labs ET6000 recently. Mine was in an old pentium 166MHz system in an At case. Think this card was released towards the end of 1996 in a time where Tseng Labs already lost much of its glory. I think you'll want to fill up that AGP slot quickly with something else :) Love these early ATX pentium II 233MHz systems. Have one in a nice white (no yellowing) Inwin maxi tower case on an Intel board. Been planning for ages to do something with it.
I will say that the Tseng Labs cards were impressive in the early days. They were both fastest and most compatable before the 32 bit bus came around. A lot of people like the Cirius Logic 54xx series, but I think Tseng Labs puts those to shame.
@@dintyshideaway9505 I think you're right all the way up to the ET4000. But after that they were just too late to the party. But still it's always nice to see a tseng labs card :)
Man, I absolutely love this era of Windows when you had internet and a “modern” desktop , but still could play DOS games natively. I’m pretty sure I ran 98SE all the way to 2004ish.
Me too. I didn't use XP until after SP2 and had no regrets!
@@sinephase Aww you missed out on a whole period of weird Windows history. I had Win98, then went to Windows 2000. They were the last traditional Windows machines that didn't care about the Internet. Once XP came out I upgraded to that on a brand new P4 machine and it was "amazing" how it wanted to phone home to validate itself and check for drivers. More amazing was watching how before SP2 Wifi was a complete mess with different crappy drivers that failed to work properly. Then SP2 came out and it started to actually work.
The first XP machine I owned was a laptop without wifi. Had to have a separate PCMCIA card poking out the side. What a world.
Bought my WinXP machine in 2006 because I needed the power to study programming C# and Oracle at college. I used my Win98 machine up until that point.
@@ncot_tech that's why I didn't use it LOL it still makes me laugh that people who wanted "XP back" with vista and 7 somehow forgot how big of a clusterfuck XP was too :P
I ran XP SP2 till 2012
My old P2 -350 MHz was the machine I installed W2k for the first time. So stable.
I would love you to make/keep it as a "crap machine", only using some nasty thrift hardware in it, obscure branded and cheap stuff, mismatched appearance, just like a lot of PCs looked like in the 90s after they had been "upgraded". So much nostalgic feelings!
Its like a cage match, elimination where each part that dies loses
Chuck a whole butt ton of them obscure thermaltake peripherals. Make it as beastly as possible 🤣 💪🏼
Cigarette lighter, cup holders, front speaker w/ those dodgy equalisers and don’t forget those external mic holders clip things that no one ever uses afaik. That would be boss.
That case looks really high quality. Those SPI power supplies were no slouch in their day either, they are FSP. Later ones used better ball bearing fans unfortunately this one is a bit early for that.
Early Pentium 2 systems are great for super fast pure DOS and Windows 3.11 builds. It's the perfect spot for early AGP cards that are too crappy for for a 9x build (pre Geforce). Also fun can be had with odd ball ISA and early PCI sound cards.
I really miss those beige AT cases.
My first PC was a Baby AT PC-Chips M717 motherboard Mitac branded that had the overclokeable Intel Celeron 266 Mhz (OC-able to 400Mhz) with a sis 6326 8MB onboard and onboard SB-16 HT1869+ PCI. I miss that machine.
2:15
Oof, I know that sound.
My old CPU fan made that sound for 3 days while it was dying.
When the sound stopped, so did the fan. Forever.
My family had almost this same PC prebuilt from a local shop back in the 90s. In the early 2000s I used it as a home file server. I remember updating the BIOS so it would work properly with larger IDE hard drives. I actually still have it today as my Windows 98 gaming machine. I tricked mine out with a 533 MHz Celeron processor using a slotket adapter.
Now you've got me awfully nostalgic. I haven't touched any of my old computer crap that I left at my parents' house when moving out in years, but I do know I had a P2L97-DS, as well as a whole ATX system based on a Gigabyte GA-686KDX (dual Slot 1 i440FX!) with custom cardboard air ducting to keep temperatures of its two PII-233s in check, and a retro AT machine that after two different 486 VLB boards eventually ended up with an older revision GA-586HX with a Pentium 133. Both are using Dallas/Odin RTC clock modules, and at least one of those was already dead in 2012. Had some nifty hardware in there.
As a parent of two young boys, 8 & 11, I will attest to having requested they use their earbuds or headphones whilst gaming. 🤭
Ha! Naturally
"Drive Bay Weirdness." Definitely makes the picture I saw from your Twitter make a lot more sense, Clint!
Heh, indeed 😁
Such nostalgia! P2L97 was a good board. 440LX chipset, IIRC. I had the P2L97S with the built-in Adaptec SCSI. Had a PII-233, 4GB hard drive, and a Pioneer slot-load 32X CDROM. I dual-booted that bad boy between Windows 9x and FreeBSD. Next machine was a PIII-733.
lol I had that same video card back in the day on a Pentium 133. It made non-accelerated video run significantly faster than onboard. I think that was the last video card I owned that didn't have 3D acceleration.
I have had some old loud PC power supplies before, but that Sparkle Power is a freakin' drill.
That bar was called the channel bar and it was part of the original Windows 98 whoever cracked that thing must’ve just stuck a windows 98 SE crack on it or did an upgrade of a pirated version of 98se on top of the original 98 because second edition ditched the channel bar.
My family had a p2 233 from gateway, I have fond memories of that machine
My first computer was actually a clone PC with a PII-233 MMX processor back in 98. Good old times.
That thing having the USB card added in is pretty cool. They really decked it out if those were usb 2.0
I will forever rue the day that my Pentium II, 64 MB RAM, 8 MB Matrox GPU, 2 GB HDD, Windows 98 PC died, it was just the best. Any game from the 90s, it played, so basically the best ones from the best era. Wolfenstein 3D, Doom, Blood, Quake, Duke 3D, Need for Speed II SE, it was the best :( so whenever I see a computer like this, and this one is close, I get that sense of nostalga
Clint is the Mr. Sparkle of PC enthusiasts... "Can you see that I'm disrespectful to dirt?"
Sparkle power was a super common OEM power supply manufacturer. The units were actually made by FSP, a very good power supply manufacturer that you still hear about today.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FSP_Group
The fan could easily be rejuvenated with some oil on the bearings. If the capacitors look to be in decent shape and have a good manufacturer. I'd leave it in there if all you would need is 250w.
Came to say more or less just this. When i started building PCs 22+ years ago this was a good brand.
Was just looking into Sparkle Power and got suspicious about the FSP style name of the unit.
Turns out they're part of FSP and even sell under that brand today.
And while it's correct that ATX is ATX, in this case we got 25A on the 5V rail, and 14A on the 3.3V rail which drastically reduces the availability in recent units by reliable brands to 650W and above in case of a replacement.
Oh, listen to the HDD reading. That's some old school nostalgia shit. I'm so used to SSDs now.
Mr Sparkle, awesome-a power!
Ah you know, um Mr Sparkle?
I like how Win 95 and Win 98 were so well designed that you can still work with that even after 20+ years. In Win 7+ I am still looking for where to change resolution, I mostly hit it on second try. :-)
The board has USB, the breakable part in the I/O plate is just of its way of the USB connectors.
Man, the first PC I built wholly for myself was a PII 300 iirc. Good times.
that LGR badge added a few extra Mhz....
It looks like it's from the perfect era to run the x86 version of Apple Rhapsody, that could be interesting.
First time hearing Duke II on PC speaker, that is truly amazing. I already had SB16 by the time I got the game in the early 90's so it's interesting to see how much variation the PC speaker has compared to the original Duke "Nukum".
Really cool Pentium 2 hardware. I hope to get my hands on some of the older Pentium and Pentium 2 computers again at some point. Great video
Very easy to adapt the SATA back to something more era appropriate. But honestly it's good to have on an old machine just for connecting if you want to connect weird SD adaptors or compatible but non vintage parts.
I always found it funny that BIOSes from this era always made sure to point out that you had MMX, even though any processor that would have been on Slot 1 most certainly supports it, even the early cacheless Celerons. I'm sure they were likely using the same BIOS in Socket 7 systems of the time, so it makes sense, but superfluous nonetheless.
The cacheless Celerons were just practically P II without cache.
@@RuruFIN I'm aware, but in recent years it's been Intel's tradition to cut some instructions from the Celeron and Pentium chips. That wasn't the case back then.
@@AliceC993 Yeah, these days they're the ultra low-end ones. At least Pentiums been having HT for few years so they're fine for browsing the web etc. basic stuff.
I ran a $400 million per year revenue company back in 2000 with an old retired desktop Pentium 100MHz cpu and 32MB of ram running Linux as the primary router/DNS/firewall for the company. I installed a CSU/DSU card in it to interface to our fractional T1. It was the central hub of virtually all network connectivity both internally and externally. It averaged well under 10% cpu usage. I had 3 identical machines on hand in case it ever failed, which it never did. It was decommissioned when the company was bought out and the transition to their systems was complete. It's amazing what you can do with garbage hardware and Linux.
I like it. Seems like a solid P2 system. Nice that it has AGP and ISA too!
I used to work at STB systems when they were still making video cards in the USA. It’s been a long time since I’ve seen that name, even after watching hundreds of retro videos!
Love old PCs...
Just the way they worked. Very awesome.
Yep, that was a rather dirty generic computer case.
My first build when starting job at CompUSA..a.century ago..
Make it a permanent TempleOS machine.
As memey as the OS is, the creator had a constant habit of saying really, really, really bad stuff all over the net (mostly due to mental illness). Best not to professionally involve yourself with anything Terry-related lest you get cancelled.
TempleOS cant run on it, it’s 64 bit only if i recall correctly.
@K T dont be such a pussy, that wont happen at all.
@@ToTheGAMES A shame.
Those case badges look amazing!
'This is dirty and gross'. Starts touching it
Definitely the kind of set up some kid in the late 90s would have booting BeOS, OS/2, or Linux with some funky themes.
Reminds me of the garbage we chucked out at Futurist computers. Our most common on the job injury was case lacerations.
I'd love to see some videos of old Linux stuff!
Used to toss out these Sparkle PSUs all the time on devices I had serviced back in the 10s. Sometimes you could re-cap those junkers and get them running again.
I miss debugging this kind of hardware and messing with BIOS and trying to get Windows 95/98 to behave properly. Good times.
The Asus P2L97 was one of the most popular 440LX boards, but that chipset was quickly forgotten after the 440BX came out.
This first generation of AGP boards caused a lot of grief to 3D gamers, because most of them had a flawed design that couldn't supply as much power to the AGP slot as the specs required. Manufacturers didn't take the spec seriously because nobody would be silly enough to make a video card that draws 6A from the 3.3V rail. Then the silly cards came out.
This is a revision 2.04 though, which is supposed to have that issue fixed.
Asus actually published a rework procedure for the earlier boards explaining how people could fix their AGP power failings at home.
Only 130W on 3.3V+5V is pretty skimpy for this era (which barely uses 12V), but with only basic parts installed it's probably fine. Personally I'd use the Sparkle, but it probably needs new caps and obviously needs a fan.
I used Infrared to transfer a file exactly once. I guess it seemed like a cool idea at the time, but the computers had to be facing each other like 1 foot away.
I love that Duke voice when you got "Get this crap outta here!" as a line. Please put that as a wav file so I can make it a sound function. Lmao
**haha
You can still find the product support page for the motherboard on ASUS website…..🤯 Full manual and all drivers/bios….WOW! 🤯
Why you wouldn't? I mean any manufacturer not providing such basic things is like a piss in your face. It's more work and hussle, to go and remove it. That's sad you have to archive some drivers, software and content for some hardware from company which is still on the market (and going strong). :/
I love PC's from the slot 1 era! I got my start with PCs in the early 486 days but the slot 1 era of the late 90's & early 2000s were fun times!
I'm surprised that board is still working well as it's from near the start of the capacitor plague era. I lost an Abit BH6 and an Asus P3V4X to the capacitor plague. It probably didn't help that I was also into overclocking back then but both boards died to bad caps. I just wish I would have had the foresight to save both of them for a later recapping.
Thanks for the video LGR. I still have a PII chip as well as that Sound Blaster and 3Com NIC card. Would be a great WinME machine!
I would totally load some different GM soundfonts on that card and then retest Duke 3D
I've got that same case from Premio, same motherboard also sporting a PII 233. Coincidentally its the same basic chassis that Falcon Northwest was using between 2000 and 2001 for their Mach V.
Holy crap, throw a Gazelle brand badge on that thing and you have my first PC. Quickly upgraded it to a 333 K6-2.
Thats a pretty decent setup there to install X86 BeOS. That could be a fun video to do.
I ran it on a similar system
I had a French made case that had a similar thing on the front. Sleep mode would pop on, and when you'd turn on the lights, it would start the PC again. So a scenario would be, you'd leave the room, shut the lights off, and then come back in the morning, by the time you'd sit down, you'd be on your merry way. However, that had a daughter board, so didn't look like this one looks on the inside.
The window next to the sleep button is probably an IrDA transceiver or the place to put one, IrDA was the hot new thing at that time
"Almost too short, but it just barely reaches." Story of my life.
That's what she said.
That is a Good Gamer case. Full size ATX, Easy work in and repair. Steal construction. It can take a beating and still keep on working.
There appears to maybe be something next to the PS/2 ports on the main board, but it’s not punched at the back. Possibly USB?
I believe it's SCSI-2
@@LGRBlerbs Oh! According to the manual, it should be USB in that spot though…
Seems the board has an IR header as well, so is that window on the front possibly an IR window after all?
looks like an optional LAN port
The retro PC prices have gone up to such crazy levels here that a noname PC case like that is going for around $200-300 even if empty.
I remember playing Baldur's Gate using this processor.