Building a Retro Windows 98 PC!!

We have some parts laying around, so let's build a Retro Windows 98 Gaming PC! In this video we will go over all of the components, install the hardware, the OS and play some classics! Nostalgia overload!
#retropc #nostalgia #retro #retrocomputing #vintage #intel #asus #3dfx #pcgames #voodoo #pc #pentium #soundblaster

[@LatitudeSky]

Just for fun, I once built a Win98 box and put it directly on the internet, no firewall, just to see what happened. Nothing happened. I found out my ISP itself was filtering internet traffic to purge the best-known Windows exploits. It wasn't possible to expose it to a true, unprotected connection. I was so disappointed. Before someone comments, Yes I do run a very expensive hardware firewall. This was an experiment for fun on a system that had no other use. No bits were harmed.

[@TheRetroRecall]

Neat experiment. I have a segregated network setup for my retro machines for various testing etc. Never really put any of mine on the direct internet lol.

[@9852323]

Yeah no need in worrying about using “unsupported” operating systems online to be honest. I use XP to browse the web all the time and have ZERO issues for YEARS now.

[@kaminekoch.7465]

@@9852323 Exposed directly to the internet with public IP, or behind 15 levels of CGNAT hell?

[@kurwamacjebanapizda]

I have win10 and also nothing happened. No one wants my stuff identity and passwords 😢

[@TheRetroRecall]

Haha

[@davidlawrenc]

Welcome back old friend, seeing that 98 build reminds me of my 486sx 33mhz with 800mb hdd, the greatest memory for me was my soindblaster 16 and the built in midi got to love Canyon

[@TheRetroRecall]

Yes!!! Canyon ❤️. It's good to be back, just getting back into things. :)

[@davidlawrenc]

@@TheRetroRecall once again Excellent job and I am glad you are back

[@playtech7165]

I love these kinds of videos, you made my day with this one.

[@TheRetroRecall]

You made my day with this comment, thank you!!! Glad you enjoyed :)

[@johnmay4803]

good to see you back pal and as always afantastic vid

[@TheRetroRecall]

Thank you, it's taking a bit to get back in the saddle. Really appreciate the support.

[@branscombe_]

beautiful case lovely system great build smooth games thanks TRR!

[@TheRetroRecall]

You are welcome as always, glad you enjoyed!

[@maxtornogood]

Welcome back TRR, hope you're doing better! Nice to see a PIII of the Slot 1 variety. Our 98 build in the day had a 20GB Samsung & 128MB RAM which never failed us. You've got double of both so you're all set!

[@TheRetroRecall]

Glad to be back, working on getting back in the saddle for sure. Agreed! It's a nice system.

[@laurencejohnson4106]

Another neat build!👍👍

[@TheRetroRecall]

Thank you! Glad you enjoyed!

[@drewnewby]

A few things, I always use a natural hair paint brush, the kind for oil painting. They're also anti-static, but softer, and easier to use. Cable management definitely was a thing, learn the fine art of cablegami, fold those pata cables. DeoxIt / contact cleaner is a must after decades. Clean and re-grease the FDD and optical drives. Load test the PSU, those cheap testers can only do so much. I always check the PSU first for bad caps,, but that's not for everyone, high voltages and all, same for the CRTs. Use both sound cards, Live! for 98, and the 16 for DOS mode. Is any of this necessary, no, but might help a bit.

[@TheRetroRecall]

A couple of things in response: - The softer brushes are definitely an idea - I would love to know how these are anti static. - I'm not sure if cable management was officially a thing as you mention. I'm happy to fold the cables as you recommend and as I've seen in the past, however my experience has been broken connections as a result. - I used deoxit (contact cleaner) clearly in the video for the cpu and edited it for the PCI / ISA slots as the video was already quite long. Did you see the video? - the FDD has already been greased and in fact was not an issue. The Optical drive was not touched, so something I will look into. - Did you watch the video? Did you see when I load tested the PSU, commented on the fact that I was load testing it with a non functional (data wise) spinning HDD? - The voltages were fine on the PSU - no reason to look / consider otherwise. If anything, it was suggested that the 350w was too little for the system where the 550 worked perfectly. - Sound card - yes - it has been suggested in other comments I should put both in and disable one in Windows and enable in DOS / dual boot set up. Thanks.

[@drewnewby]

-Can't post links, but search "bondline blog esd brush" it's a good article. -In the 80s, I worked on XTs, etc. You would see carefully folded (no sharp creases) and bound cables, and metal clips for psu cables. By the early 00s, it was plastic guides for pata cables and plastic clips with 3M backing for psu cables. -Sorry, saw the 70% IPA, missed the contact cleaner. -The optical drives are easier to clean and re-grease, just harder to get apart, start with the disk tray open :). I use silicone grease instead of lithium, better for plastics long term. -A HDD will not provide enough load, I recommend a power resistor, though I've seen others use high watt DC bulbs. -350W is enough for that configuration, if the psu is good. Cheers!

[@mackjsm7105]

Great vid !! Happy Easter!! and TY for the vid.

[@TheRetroRecall]

Thank you and you are welcome. Hoppy Easter to you as well!!

[@mackjsm7105]

Hop! lol@@TheRetroRecall

[@EmberBlitz]

A classroom has a bunch of old PC components lying around, which is hopefully Pentium 4 era from what he's told me, and I hope to build it with him one day so I can finally build a Pentium 4 XP PC.

[@TheRetroRecall]

That's awesome! Save every piece!!

[@EmberBlitz]

I really do hope he allows me to keep the PC when I'm done building, he also has another old XP PC, fully built, which he will also hopefully bring in alongside the components.@@TheRetroRecall

[@Richard.Linder]

Great video! You did all the things I was hoping you would. And your choice of components was ideal. For a moment I thought you might install directly from the Windows CD... but you knew better! 😃 Another great advantage of installing Windows from the C:\Win98 folder is that it never even _asks_ for the Windows CD in future. It just _automatically_ loads files from that location, which makes future installations and updates a breeze.

[@TheRetroRecall]

Ah, great point, I never knew that! I figured it would still ask later - nice to know. :)

[@julian7595]

You shouldn't use version 3.20.1008 of the Intel Chipset drivers for the 440BX chipset on Windows 98. Look in device manager at the driver details of the chipset devices, they are still using the exact same drivers that came with the installation of Windows 98. Believe me, it might seem like you installed the Intel drivers, especially because after the reboot it showed installing new drivers, but trust me, it was just reinstalling the same drivers that originally came with Windows 98. Use version 2.30.021, it is still available on the Asus support website. You will notice the difference in Device manager, the chipset devices will actually use the Intel drivers if you look under driver details.

[@TheRetroRecall]

I will go and look at this. I downloaded this as it was the latest. Are you suggesting the older version is better / more stable?

[@julian7595]

I'm saying that this version didn't install the chipset drivers at all. It just reinstalled the ones that originally came with Windows 98. You can verify this by looking at the "driver details" of the chipset devices in device manager. They are the exact same "stock" Microsoft drivers as before you installed version 3.20.1008. Why exactly version 3.20.1008 doesn't work I don't really know. Because like you say, it should be the latest to support 440BX on Windows 98. My guess is that version 3.20.1008 is more focused on newer chipsets and newer operating systems, and therefore 440BX on Windows 98 got overlooked (?) The version that is listed on the official support page of Asus does work, and actually installs new drivers from Intel. Just search the Asus support page for "P3B-F" and there will only be one listing of the chipset driver available. Get that one and it will work. You can verify after by looking at the "driver details" of the chipset devices in device manager. They will be from Intel and have a date of 7/31/2000.

[@branscombe_]

beautiful idea! I’ll come back to watch this tomorrow afternoon :)

[@TheRetroRecall]

Looking forward to hearing your feedback!

[@lttbriantheelectrician]

Hello from the West end of the country! I'm glad you got it working! I've run into your PSU issue once before, oddly enough with another ASUS board of the era (a P5A super 7 board). It would do the same thing with showing power, fans would spin up etc but no display or beep codes. It would do this with several different power supplies that I had tested good with my multimeter and worked fine in other systems but I just couldn't get it to work right. I eventually got it to post with one supply but even then it had stability issues. I suspect that it's either due to bad caps, or something is up with the K6-2 I was using. Anyway, a P3-600 is a great Win98 machine and having a voodoo 3 in it is just huge bonus points haha. I've got lots of machines myself so something that new I probably would have gone with the SB Live but I have other systems that are more era appropriate for DOS (486's, Pentiums etc), so compatibility with that in a Win98 machine for me isn't really an issue anyway. I am definitely in the camp of running vintage hardware and not emulating but I understand the cost and/or space to get into this hobby can be a barrier for a lot of people too. Playing on period hardware is just another experience though, and in my humble opinion you just cant beat it. I also prefer using real hard disks as well and like you have a large stock of them, though for a couple machines I've experimented with SD and CF card solutions as well. Network cards are also very handy. My preferred method is to use the network to transfer or access disc images, and I install Daemon Tools on many of my machines so I can directly mount the iso files into a virtual optical drive. I of course also burn media and I do have systems that I haven't done this with but they are mainly Dos or Windows 95/early win98 machines. Anyway, great build and video! I hope you'll do more with this system, and show us any upgrades! Happy Easter!

[@TheRetroRecall]

Well hello from the Atlantic provinces haha! Glad you enjoyed an dyes, this system will be featured in future videos for sure! Happy Easter!

[@acubley]

God this brings back the memories. You have a good camera set-up and audio, better than most small channels. One thing I always did was put a 3.5 to 5.25 adapter for the hard drive to make for better cable reach and get it out of the way in the bottom. I wish I had room to do more retro. I'm collecting stuff to build a network rack that will eventually look like an arcade machine, with NES colors. 20U in the bottom with a removable monitor hutch (no CRT unfortunately) and an HDMI switch.

[@TheRetroRecall]

Thank you - small but mighty channel! Almost a million views, just need more subs haha, and that build sounds pretty cool. I'd be interested to hear how you make out with that!

[@PC4USE1]

Haven't messed with older pcs for about 5 years-(old dusty computers aggravate my lung issues). Love channels like yours where i can vicariously 'build' an old pc from scratch. Used to be obsessive with collecting old pcs,now I just watch guys like you,Miketech ,LGR and others do it. Some of those old graphics in the games were better than I remembered.

[@TheRetroRecall]

I'm glad you are enjoying and I'm happy to do it. Agreed on the graphics, especially if you had decent video cards back in the day - it made a world of difference.

[@jasmijndekkers]

Nice computer build. Great job you did. Greetings from Steven from the Netherlands

[@TheRetroRecall]

Thanks Steven!!

[@compugamesarg]

Great to see it running!!🙂

[@TheRetroRecall]

Agreed!

[@stevencamp6824]

I don"t care how many old pc"s you build on here, wanna see them all lol

[@TheRetroRecall]

Haha! Perfect!

[@uptoptem3392]

I'm only in my teens and had that power supply issue happen so many times. You never think its the power supply because its turn on just fine but no post. Even on modern systems with parts from the last decade. Computers are strange.

[@TheRetroRecall]

Absolutely, and great advice!

[@xBINARYGODx]

@MachtNixPasstSo THIS! I had a bad ax1200 take out literally everything - and its not just "everything died" - its insanity of everything just being less stable in various way - so get read to test everything and run around thinking its everything else before realizing - no, its the PSU, then you pray and hope replacing it will fix all other issues, but nope, just some of them, and yes, you need to RMA everything, and I did (it was all new enough for that or for store returns, so good thing it happened right after upgrading, in a sense).

[@terrydaktyllus1320]

I am envious of that ISA slot! About 18 months ago, our local office was closed that contained a computer lab that had gone back many years. I was allowed to go in and take what I wanted before "guys in trucks" came to take it all away. I did haul away a handful of nearly-new IBM Thinkpad T42 laptops and a couple of Lenovo All-In-One PCs with Core 2 Duo CPUs that I was able to upgrade to Core 2 Quad ones very cheaply. But whilst there were quite a few Compaq and generic Pentium III desktops in there, not one of them had an ISA slot for MS-DOS sound compatibility so I didn't bother with them. I'm guessing a Slot 1 Pentium III CPU is therefore reasonably rare and early enough in the product line to still come across motherboards with the ISA slot. Hence the envy but thanks for another interesting video.

[@TheRetroRecall]

Yes, I was quite pleased once I had discovered this in the box of motherboards that came my way. I have seen a few of these Asus boards with ISA slots on them and it's always a happy sight to see! So many options with these boards. Thanks for watching!

[@terrydaktyllus1320]

​@@TheRetroRecall Back in the day, when I used to be an avid Windows and MS-DOS "tweaker", there was a fantastic O'Reilly book called "Optimising Windows for Games, Graphics and Multimedia" by David Farquhar. I regret throwing away my copy when "the Linux bug" hit me but I did manage to find a PDF copy of it somewhere online and if you want the best "tweaks" for Windows 98 and MS-DOS, they are all in there. You're absolutely correct about 256MB RAM being the "sweet spot" for Windows 98 as anything above that could cause instability. I seem to remember there was a tweak in an ini file in Windows 98 where you could force it to only use 256MB RAM in situations where you had more installed - I remember that one from the same book.

[@TheRetroRecall]

I'll have to look up that book! I didn't know about the ini file hack - I'll look intot hat.

[@beegeex2jenkins850]

I watch this video and I can see and smell my local radio shack when I purchased a system similar to this back in the day. Good times man good times!

[@TheRetroRecall]

It's funny how memories are triggered haha! Thanks for watching!

[@Richard.Linder]

Great video! My first ever PC (not first computer - that was an 8 bit Commodore 64) was quite similar: Windows 98 SE, Slot1 PIII - 450, 128MB RAM, Voodoo 3 3000 (AGP). By that time, the TNT 2 was available, and I knew it was the more "sensible" and technically superior choice. The writing was on the wall for 3DFX. But I also felt it might be my last chance to fully experience that fading 3DFX / Voodoo era, and all the great games that came with it. (Retro computing was not such a big thing, at that time.) The biggest difference was the sound card. Because I was buying all new, I went for the Diamond Monster MX300 - Aureal Vortex II sound card. It was excellent for Windows, and had great Sound Blaster compatibility, right down to those iconic A220. IRQ 5, DMA 1, H 5 settings. Ah, that brings back some memories! 😊

[@TheRetroRecall]

Thank you, and nice builds!!! Such great memories of computing back during these times. Exciting to bring them back! :)

[@OfficialiGamer]

very nice! (and Happy Easter!) That Pentium 3 is right in between the onnes I have, I have a P2 300MHz, K6-2 400MHz, P3 733MHz and P3 933MHz lol. Definitely need to find one to fit that gap I have. the 733 and 933's both run XP.

[@TheRetroRecall]

Oh nice!! And happy Easter to you as well! Good luck on your hunt :)

[@RetroBytes265]

love this. you cant beat building a windows 9x desktop pc. doesn't matter how many you build.

[@TheRetroRecall]

Agreed!!! Glad you enjoyed!!

[@RetroBytes265]

@@TheRetroRecall i have a similar motherboard to the one in your video only it is a amd slot but the caps are in really bad shape. i have no experience in recapping.

[@TheRetroRecall]

Oh no. Hopefully you can get someone to help and save that board!

[@ANN1H1LATE89]

Another awesome vid. Would love to see you do a colab vid with LGR. Keep up the good work!

[@TheRetroRecall]

That would be amazing. I love his stuff and respect him so much for what he does for the community! As always, thank you for watching and being a part of the channel!

[@georgez8859]

Very Nice Build . The Slot One systems are great for Windows 98 builds. I would open that old power supply and check out the Caps it may need recapping. Be Careful Thanks for the Video.

[@TheRetroRecall]

Your welcome and great idea. So weird that it tested fine even under a bit of load and nothing. But you are right, the caps could be the very problem. Thank you!

[@boredwithusernames]

Back when Windows was an operating system that let the user do "mostly" what THEY wanted to do! I love this video and I am now wanting to go out and buy that exact motherboard setup myself ;) Can't find anybody in the UK selling the Aopen K54A case though which is disappointing :( Great video, very inspirational and motivational, please keep these retro-builds coming along, absolutely love to watch them :)

[@TheRetroRecall]

Awe thank you!! I'm glad you enjoyed and it inspired you to build as well! It's a great hobby and I love doing it. I'm just glad the majority (lol) of people enjoy them as much as I enjoy making them and sharing my experiences. :)

[@sandgrownun66]

Does it have to be the exact model of case? There must be something second-hand for sale. What today, stops the user mostly doing what they want to do?

[@boredwithusernames]

@@sandgrownun66 No it doesn't need to be that exact model, I was just making an observation. I have a good choice of cases that I can choose from, I just like the look of the AOpen case. Not a big problem, I can adapt 😎👍

[@cliffordreynolds1835]

I want a Pentium 4 XP machine so I can play my favorite game of the era. Need for speed Porsche unleashed. I've never built before but I wouldn't mind learning.

[@boredwithusernames]

@@cliffordreynolds1835 It can be a challenge if it is something that you have never done before but this is a good guide and it is a very rewarding experience when you finally find the courage to do this ;)

[@Agoz8375]

Cool stuff 👍

[@TheRetroRecall]

Thank you!

[@strikdevroblox9079]

This is awesome! I have the same gabinete, but my gabinete version was built in 2002

[@TheRetroRecall]

Nice!

[@strikdevroblox9079]

@@TheRetroRecall yeaaaah

[@brentgoeller8257]

I had a power supply that had solder joints on the cable. Same thing, it was working fine then I started having weird errors. Eventually I figured out if I was holding the cable it would work. A little fresh solder, and it's still working 5 years later.

[@TheRetroRecall]

Nice! I'll definitely have to check out the connections and of course the capacitors.

[@VintageLizard486]

This is going to be a fun video to watch.

[@TheRetroRecall]

Awesome!

[@VintageLizard486]

​@@TheRetroRecallAll fun games there at the end! Fps games don't seem to be your strong suit, though, and that's fine!

[@TheRetroRecall]

Haha well, thanks for taking the time to call that out. The hope of the video was to show the array of games that can be played along with the quality of that time with the hardware provided. :)

[@VintageLizard486]

@@TheRetroRecall There are a lot of awesome 90s games. And early 2000s, too.

[@TheRetroRecall]

Yes. For sure.

[@DarKnightKilla13]

Curious how Deus Ex 1 plays on it, certainly fits it well! NFS titles as well, very curious with the Voodoo card as well. So cool, enjoy the build! I have Win 98, 450 MHz, 128 MB RAM, some odd ATi Rage PC that was given to me years ago from a client... ironically my cousin's old HP Pentium II 350 MHz with 192 MB RAM, and an ATi Rage card runs better for games, even though it's "slower"... man the memories on that PC, forever saved lol.

[@TheRetroRecall]

I will definitely try different titles in the future. I have the NFS titles, not sure about the Dues Ex. Yes - I agree.... The memories from these are awesome.

[@barcigian]

I had the exact same hardware but I had Windows 95 for vintage gaming and Windows 2000 for daily use in dual boot. I know W 98 was the best of both worlds but it kinda worked fine for me keeping my old OS in my old hard drive!

[@TheRetroRecall]

Nice! I considered Dual Boot on this system - however the purpose of the video was a Windows 98 build. It's so easy to go into the weeds when doin these things. haha!

[@bigdude101ohyeah]

This is nostalgic. My aunt and uncle's first computer had the same AOpen case, and very similar specs (minus the Voodoo3 though). As for emulator vs hardware, emulation has its advantages, but for me, it makes me want to try the real thing even more.

[@TheRetroRecall]

Nice!!!! Definitely need to get some real hardware and test it out :)

[@bigdude101ohyeah]

@@TheRetroRecall I've got a ThinkPad X31 in my collection, which has support for both 98 and XP. I'm slowly setting it up for games, though I've got way too many projects on my hands

[@TheRetroRecall]

That is very real! I hear ya.

[@MIJ-Tech]

That ISA slot would get a Sound Blaster AWE 64 for me, but mostly because I have like 20+ of them.

[@TheRetroRecall]

I may actually have one now that you mention it. Great suggestion!

[@kunka592]

I still use that exact case for a Pentium 2 DOS machine. It also has a Voodoo 3 and an Asus P2-99 mobo (440ZX). The P2 is a 233MHz downclocked to 166MHz for compatibility. I have another build with a P3 1.40GHz modded Tualatin on an Asus CUBX-L mobo (440BX) for high-resolution DOS gaming as well.

[@TheRetroRecall]

Now those are great builds. It was quite a common case back in the day, I built quite a few systems with it.

[@metalworksmachineshop]

I'm in the middle of a 95-98 build . I used the Asus P3B-F board , PIII 550 slot 1 . 256 ram agp ATI Rage 530 video card. SB 16 ISA slot. I'm using compact flash drive. that way one card will have 95 on it or 98 on another card. I may do a card with 7 or Vista on it. or do that on the P4 build I will do next. love your channel. and the ATX case is dated 1999. cream white.

[@TheRetroRecall]

Nice!!!! Thank you so much, glad you are enjoying :) yes - 1999 case. I wish they made these again :)

[@JorgeCarvalho_web_dev]

Hi Sir, nice build! My current W98 build is not so period correct. It is an skt 370 with via c3@800Mhz cpu (You can have grain control of cpu speed using setmul or cpuspd) Physical switch on the case back to toggle FSB, (no need to enter BIOS and set the FSB) ESS 1868 sound card for DOS with wave table card using Pi 2W, SB Live for W98 games PicoGus 1.x TNT2 Pro 32Mb 256 Mb Ram I would like to see from you in a future video some unconventional and somewhat odd W98 build like mine and ear about your impressions. Thanks for the great content here!

[@TheRetroRecall]

Nice build! I wouldn't have considered some of the above in a build for sure. I will definitely take that into consideration. :) Thanks for the suggestion and for watching!

[@TheDuumiMuumi]

New video yay! I'm also planning to create Windows XP retro desktop system, as I found pretty powerful IBM ThinkCentre system running XP from the e-waste a while back :) Has 3GHz Pentium 4 with HyperThreading, stock 512MB(which I already upgraded to 2GB) and GeForce 6200 LE. Just for fun I tested newest Debian on it, you can even surf modern internet! :)

[@TheRetroRecall]

Nice!!

[@enilenis]

Nice build. In the early 2000's I was on a P3-800. Started with a P2-266 and then switched to a socket 370 adapter. Ages later I was able to get 2x 1GHz CPU's in Slot 1 form factor. I didn't even know they made those. I also have a pair of Tualatins, but no proper heatsinks to use them, and an off-spec Asus motherboard that will work, but is not officially recommended. So, for now P3-1GHz is what I use for 2000 era retro. A DX2-66 486 for pure DOS and anything newer doesn't really need a retro rig. Only game I can think of that may require a dedicated P4 build with a 7800GT is the first FarCry. It can be hard to run it on modern hardware without shader issues. Then again, there's always a dozen VM's to try out. Voodoo3 is great. My P3 alternates between GeForce3, Matrox G200 and Voodoo 5500. I like 3DFX the most, but I'm also most worried about wearing it out, so if I'm not playing Glide, I'd rather be using something else. But that wears out the AGP port and all the connectors. There is no hiding from entropy. I wish I could enjoy this retro another 20 years, but I don't think it'll last that long. Replacing capacitors is easy. But what about when BIOS fails? What about the chipset? Eventually, I think we'll have a huge surplus of processors and virtually no motherboards remaining. Someone will have to start reverse engineering them and crowdfunding open source motherboards, to keep retro alive. I have crates of spares, but as time goes by, more and more things go bad. Doing nothing. Just sitting on a shelf in perfect climate conditions. Doesn't matter. Time destroys everything.

[@TheRetroRecall]

Although mostly true - it hunk we like to live in denial until something actually breaks. At that point, there are a lot of brilliant people in the retro community that to your point will reverse engineer these boards. I think it will remain very much alive for the foreseeable future :)

[@acorredorv]

In the late 90s to early 2000s in Mexico those AOpen cases were about the best you could get, and most importantly, the only way to get a semi-decent and safe power supply. Good hardware was available, but we only got Chinese junk for cases and power supplies.

[@TheRetroRecall]

That's one thing about Aopen - I've always had excellent experiences with their hardware.

[@2xtreem4u]

Bought a Samsung CD-Master 32E for less than $2 and used it as a CD player with my AT power supply and headphones :)

[@TheRetroRecall]

Haha that's awesome!!! Retro!

[@mbwoods2001]

My 1st pc was the windows 98se pc with the socket1 Pentium3 500mhz/100bus cpu, 128meg pc133 ram(which in bios i set to +33mhz) and Savage 4 3d gfx with 32meg vram. Then was upgraded to 700/133 and doubled ram to 256meg. And finally to 933/133 using a slocket converter and geforce 2ti gfx card😁

[@TheRetroRecall]

Nice builds! Do you still have these in use today?

[@mbwoods2001]

​@TheRetroRecall unfortunately no, it was sold at the time when i went to upgrade to a newer pc! Having started to use Internet at the time was able to get the Compaq Prolinea 486, and the Deskpro Pentium MMX which i still have today. My main pc is still the 1st gen core i7 having not been upgraded since then due to lack of funds. Anyway, the past year i have been buying a few bits, cpu's(core i3's core2quad, Pentium 4's and D's, and Pentium 3's slot1's), ddr2 and ddr3 ram, pc's, which i bought a 3nd gen Ivy Bridge core i5, a 4th gen Haswell based Pentium upgraded to i3, and a core2duo! Oh, i also have a Sony vaio pc with a Pentium 3-s which i think its a Tualatin based, but has a weird monitor connection which the keyboard and mouse is plugged into. I wanted to upgrade the graphics but due to the monitor having a different connector(due to providing ps2 signals as well as the vga) im forced to use the on-board graphics.

[@TheRetroRecall]

Nice builds. That Sony sounds pretty neat - I've always been a fan of the Vaio line.

[@mbwoods2001]

@TheRetroRecall the pc is a Sony vaio pcv-lx1 slimtop, and someone reviewed here on KZbin- kzbin.info/www/bejne/f53FpGp7rL5kbNUsi=OK4s4RORvKb1AsNA

[@Marfprojects]

For the power supply, it is possible that it didn't had enough Amperes available for the 5 Volt rail. Modern power supply tend to put all their watts towards the 12 Volt rail now They used to do this to 5 volt during the P2-P3 era. I myself had some issues with a modern PSU with my P3 build, when replacing it with a PSU that did had more ampres there, it worked flawlessly.

[@TheRetroRecall]

Yes it is quite possible. Many have mentioned that as a potential issue. I guess I'll know more when I dig in a bit deeper into testing. Thank you!

[@OrbitalSP2]

I have a working Pentium 3 slot 1 too. Nice

[@TheRetroRecall]

Nice!!! What's the config

[@lindah6954]

One of my first major jobs was cleaning and upgrading 110 Dell PCs for a company. Most of them had beards growing inside. One by one I stripped them down and cleaned them to new. Replaced some fans and up graded to 512 memory. took me 2 days. I made enough to build 4 gaming PCs.

[@TheRetroRecall]

Nice that you had some decent PC's out of it - NOT nice that you had to deal with all of that gunk. I mean, I only deal with a few PC's here and there that are REALLY bad, I can only imagine that many....

[@RandyDarkshade2]

I recently got a couple of compaq deskpro's working which had slot one processors. I also got asked on my channel "why?" and my reply was basically the same as yours, because I wanted too. I also went with hard drives on them more for the nostalgic feeling, he sound and whatnot.

[@TheRetroRecall]

100%! I'll also go check out your channel :)

[@chrisrudi7162]

Those beautiful round shapes on the cases of the time had their charm. Very nice device. I also had very strange power supply problems with my Athlon Thunderbird. The system has an ISA slot and every ISA sound card started to warble and distort extremely under every operating system. Sounded like an old cassette producing tape tangles. Horrible. I spent days looking for the cause until I accidentally replaced the power supply and the error disappeared. I suspect there was a problem with the -5V line.

[@TheRetroRecall]

Very good catch.. Glad it ended up working out for you. I'm floored at this solution, however others have suggested that 350w was too small for this build and that the 550 I put in was what was required. I'll have to do more checking on this to confirm but it is possible.

[@wettuga2762]

I'm using that exact same board on my Windows 95/NT4 machine with a GeForce 2 MX400 and a Voodoo 2 PCI for all those delightful 3Dfx DOS games and a few older Windows games! I would recommend you to check what HDDs have healthy. I checked ALL my HDDs on a XP machine with Acronis Drive Monitor to see which drives were at 100% health, and HDD regenerator (I went with the 2011 version which runs on Windows) to check the entire surface to make sure there were no bad sectors yet unmarked. A good bunch of my drives are at 100% health and I can use them with confidence, while most had unmarked bad sectors and/or were below 100% health, I use those for tests only. It was a tedious process but at least now I know which drives I can trust. By the way, one HDD is not enough to test if a power supply is good, you need to add much more load and let it run for a few minutes to check if the voltages stay stable. MikeTech adds a bulb with a few watts to increase the load on the 12v rail if I'm not mistaken.

[@TheRetroRecall]

Thanks for the recommendations. I did test / setup the HDD prior to using it in this system (I actually call this out in the video). That said, I was under the impression an HDD would be enough to test the load. Since you brought up Mike Tech - he has done similar things in his video without a bulb - so this may be a new thing - please check out his older videos. That said, I will certainly add additional load for a test in the future. Thanks for watching!

[@wettuga2762]

@@TheRetroRecall Yes, I've watched them all and you're right, he didn't use a light bulb at first but he started using one later on, not sure if it was because he encountered a similar problem to yours, but more load is always welcome to stress the power supply a little more 🙂

[@TheRetroRecall]

Yes makes total sense. I did just see Adrian Black use the bulb trick - I may setup a similar test! Thank you :)

[@outtheredude]

LGR once showed a cigarette lighter drive bay on his channel. That ought to add a load onto the PSU. Just don't do any smoking, especially magic smoke. ;-)

[@TheRetroRecall]

Haha yes, I saw that video! Such a weird thing to see... Hence oddware! :)

[@ChrisNIN64]

"Why? Because I want to." the best reason to do things.

[@TheRetroRecall]

Absolutely!

[@aires69uk]

I bought a copy of W98SE off eBay and I intend to put together a build. I even found a W98 beta on the internet believe it or not. But finding the right motherboard is another matter. lol

[@TheRetroRecall]

Keep an eye out for them on local online marketplaces, recyclers etc. You never know when one will pop up! Good luck on the hunt and the build :)

[@bryans8656]

My first "gaming" build was very similar to this, with a Slot 1 P3, 256MB of RAM, and Windows 98. I don't remember which GPU I used, but I did have a SoundBlaster card. I had that PC for over 5 years, and did several upgrades along the way.

[@TheRetroRecall]

Nice!! Do you still have this hardware or plan on building another one like it?

[@bryans8656]

@@TheRetroRecall Not any more. I sold it to a friend in the early 2000s. I've done several gaming builds since then. My favorite was one I called the "cube", a square SFF that had just enough room for the components. The nVidia 1060 had just released, and it was quite a powerhouse for its day. My son still has it, he uses it as a media center PC.

[@TheRetroRecall]

Nice!

[@EvilTurkeySlices]

My main slot 1 machine has a Asus p2b-f, with a 733mhz copper mine Pentium iii, and a GeForce 2 GTS.

[@TheRetroRecall]

Nice build!!! I love hearing these configurations :)

[@magoffin]

Even after all these years I had no idea you could pause a PC during POST

[@TheRetroRecall]

Haha! You learn something new every day!

[@martli837]

Awesome build! I have a very similar one: same motherboard and cpu, Voodoo 3 2000 (AGP, but seem to recall the AGP and PCI cards have similar performance), 40gb real hdd (seagate barracuda) and 256mb SDRAM. I went with an audigy 2 sound card for EAX support, great for games like half life and unreal tournament. The audigy and live! cards are pretty good for DOS games, especially when you load in a nice sound font for general MIDI, but there are a few games that have crackled PCM sound. I tried pairing my audigy with an ISA sound card to cover those edge cases but it seems to Bork my audigy when I go into pure DOS mode (even with resources disabled and no conflicts) and I have to reinstall drivers, so I’ll leave the ISA sound cards for my Pentium mmx machine…

[@TheRetroRecall]

Thank you and thanks for sharing your build! I love hearing what others are using / have tested. Gives me ideas :)

[@lindah6954]

Power supplies have capacitors too that can pop open and leak. Don't go touching anything inside the power supply. They can store power and kill you even unplugged.

[@TheRetroRecall]

For sure, appreciate the warning. I do need to get something to discharge the caps - not only for this, but for when I want to work on CRT's as well (as I have a couple of those lined up).

[@priosmithsarkar2862]

What's your other channel lol? Again, Great Video.

[@TheRetroRecall]

Thanks! This is my only one lol

[@AmazedStoner]

I’ve seen a 2004 hp media center machine go from running before shutting it down to failed power supply at the next boot. I’ve also witnessed a power supply failure on a 2004 dell latitude d610 laptop while it was running. It didn’t damage anything but I had to dig out my spare while it ran off the battery 😂.

[@TheRetroRecall]

Yes I think in this case the PSU was too little for the requirements.

[@TheSulross]

went on ebay to look for that Voodoo 3 3000 PCI graphics card and dang, the bottom pricing was $160 but most were listing for more. Ouch! My build project is a circa 2007-2008 motherboard and have a single core Pentium CPU, clocked around 3GHz. I bought a Nividia PCIe card that was manufacture released in 2009 and was only $11. Now that PCI Sound Blaster card, I found one for $5. I do have an ISA bus Sound Blaster card but this particular motherboard doesn't have any ISA slots. Well, building a Win98 PC can be rather spendy if want a graphics card for which there's Win98 driver support. WinXP era PC can still be built on the cheap, though.

[@TheRetroRecall]

Absolutely. Yes the 3dfx cards are quite sought after by collectors. They are amazing cards. I'm lucky to have 4 of them.

[@williamjones4483]

I've got an Asus TUSL2-C motherboard that I've had for years. It's got a CPU and memory installed. I've also got an IDE HDD and IDE Optical drive. I also happen to have a copy of Windows 98 SE. I'd have to scrape up some IDE ribbon cables, case, PSU & a graphics card for AGP.

[@TheRetroRecall]

Sounds like you have the main components.... The rest are the easier parts :) good luck on the build, let me know how it goes! :)

[@williamjones4483]

@@TheRetroRecall I will definitely do that. I've been thinking of doing this and since I watched you it's given me a push to go ahead.

[@TheRetroRecall]

I LOVE this! This is exactly what this channel is all about!!!

[@1leggeddog]

Power supply issues were very common from what I remember back then. I'm hoping to build a retro rig when I finally get some more space

[@TheRetroRecall]

Yes, and to be honest PSU issues continue to plague me today haha. That's awesome!! Any idea what kind of retro build you plan on building?

[@cgwworldministries83]

As a 40 year old who lived through this era, I can tell you that I am so glad for current gen hardware.

[@TheRetroRecall]

For sure... I mean it's all relative to the era in which we grew up in (to your point). I just find the new stuff not as exciting (Imo)

[@cgwworldministries83]

@@TheRetroRecall really? I have an 8k monitor. 128gb of ram, 22 core CPU running at 6.2ghz... idk why that doesn't excite you.

[@TheRetroRecall]

Haha! Maybe as I deal with Enterprise Servers, etc where performance feels limitless. Back int he day with this older tech, an upgrade of 4mb of ram was a big deal lol. Ps - nice build!

[@cgwworldministries83]

@@TheRetroRecall yeah I like it. A bit overkill but that's computers. 4k is still too much. 1440p is the perfect resolution. But it's fun to play with. You have to look at it like a more powerful pentium 2. The pentium 3/4 windows me/2k felt like the soul died though. There was a shift for sure.

[@TheRetroRecall]

Agreed re: 4K, but it depsnt mean I can't be jealous of your 8k monitor! 😂

[@danthompsett2894]

i like how clean and beige the pc case looks as weird as that sounds, i really miss the 90's.

[@TheRetroRecall]

Yes, and I've seen white cases coming back to market - even though they aren't exactly the same. Would be nice to see these coming back in some form.

[@junkaholic95]

A few years ago I put together a 98 build. (It was originally a Windows Me machine but I prefer to run 98.) It's an old HP Pavilion 6835 I picked up for free that I beefed up with what parts I could find. Here's the specs: 1ghz Pentium III socket 370, 256mb PC-100 ram, 120gb WD hard disk, Intel gigabit ethernet adapter (because I could), some kind of Creative sound card (can't remember exactly which one), ATI Radeon 9250 256mb PCI, Sony CD-R/RW/DVD rom drive I've had since 2001. Not sure on the exact type of motherboard but it's whatever came with it. Perhaps a bit overkill on some of the hardware for Windows 98 but it plays all my old games like a champ and even has my original CD burner from back in the day. You just can't beat playing old games on old hardware.

[@TheRetroRecall]

Nice build and man, that awesome 1ghz cpu!!!!! Agreed - old hardware just feels right.

[@TSteffi]

You might have fallen for the PSU trap that got me a few times as well. When dealing with retro hardware, you can not just look at the overall power rating of the PSU. In modern times, the CPU and GPU draw their power from the 12V rail, and the 5V is mostly used to power USB ports. Therefore, modern PSUs provide most of their power on the 12V rail(s). But back in the old days, everything ran on the 5V rail. That is a common problem for Athlon XP CPUs that are quite power hungry, and modern PSUs often don't provide enough 5V power.

[@TheRetroRecall]

Much appreciated. Yes, since this video I've started to do that.

[@Schattennebel]

I build my Windows 98 PC based on Socket 370 with an Asus CUSL2 and a 500Mhz Pentium. Combined with a Radeon 9000 and 3x128 MB DDR1 RAM and installed Windows on a 80GB IDE HDD. I even added a Soundcart to hear that iconic startup sound but It don`t work yet.

[@TheRetroRecall]

Nice build and keep at it, you will get it going. What's the soundcard?

[@johnjunior5421]

And I have PC windows 98 and ME in 2003 pentium 4 2,8 GHz cpu, 256 MB of ram 133 mhz, motherboard Asus p4p800s , nice system, I like it, it is older than the one I have!

[@TheRetroRecall]

Awesomell

[@KevinSills]

When it comes to reworking old computers I never reuse the old power supply, I always buy a new one. Where Windows 98 is concerned, it will only cache 256mb of ram, so that is how much system memory I always use. Insofar as the "system panel connections", I always install those before I even seat the motherboard in place. When you have the opportunity, as you do in this build, to add a "puller" fan in the front of the case to increase airflow, I always add one. As he mentioned the 3dfx cards run hot, so what I did was add a PCI slot exhaust fan right below the 3drx card. And, when it comes to mechanical, or platter hard drives, I gave up on them as even the brand new ones failed on me, I started using IDE to Compact Flash card adapters for old builds like this one, much, much faster, and more reliable.

[@TheRetroRecall]

Thanks for the insight.

[@Dathansmith91]

Great video! What games were you playing at the end of the video?

[@TheRetroRecall]

Thanks! Doom2, Heretic 2, Hexen, Quake 3, Jedi Knight Dark Forces 2.

[@Dathansmith91]

@@TheRetroRecall thanks!

[@TheRetroRecall]

Any time!

[@lindah6954]

I still have my motherboard, CPU, Memory all together in a show case. It's from my first build almost 20 years ago.

[@TheRetroRecall]

That's pretty sweet! What are the build components?

[@alaricjeard269]

Very nice system. Don't bother for the PCI V3, AGP one aren't faster anyway... i have both and there is only 3-5% difference,.

[@TheRetroRecall]

Thanks! Good to know. I love the Voodoo3 card.

[@johnjunior5421]

As long as we have the same mouse and keyboard

[@TheRetroRecall]

For this system?

[@mealot7613]

For the psu, how many watts can it do on the 5 volts rail? System like this doesn't use 12v. Total system will need at least 20 amps on the 5 volt rail to function properly.

[@TheRetroRecall]

I will have to check to see what it was drawing when fully connected - or test with a greater load in the future. Others have suggested that either the PSU has bad caps and couldn't keep up with the draw, or that the 350w wasn't enough for the system where the 550w was fine. Either way, I have some more testing to do :)

[@PrestissimoMasterStation]

After installing Windows 98 SE including the required device(s), will you install Microsoft Plus 98?

[@TheRetroRecall]

I do not have it to be honest, but am looking for the boxed copy! I love the plus pack!

[@NguyenHoang-pv2xd]

Imagine like, many school Japan include kids using Windows 98 on these modern days

[@TheRetroRecall]

Very possible..

[@RiggityWRECKED]

Mine has an AGP Nvidia GeForce 256 32MB (the "world's first" GPU), passed through two 3dfx Voodoo2 12MB in SLI. 🔥🔥 I then have an ISA Sound Blaster 16 **and** a PCI Sound Blaster Live 5.1, and the audio out of the former plugged into the audio in of the latter, and then my speakers in the audio out of the SB Live. Gigabit ethernet card (Win98SE compatible) for LAN parties, and a WD RaptorX HDD which has a window in it so you can visually see the platters spinning in the drive.

[@TheRetroRecall]

This sounds amazing. Thanks for the insight so I can add a few things to mine!

[@edsiefker1301]

There's really no debate, if you have an ISA slot you use an ISA sound card.

[@TheRetroRecall]

100% agreed.

[@406Steven]

I love the period-correct builds but the cost is getting crazy! I have a line on an old P3 system that I can get for free but I don't know any of the specs on it, I've been looking to do a DOS and Win98 retro system for a while so hopefully I can find some compatible hardware to complete it for cheap. Otherwise I've got 7 Pentium 4 systems and 5 various Athlon 64 systems laying around and one of them will work just fine, as well as an array of graphics cards from GeForce 2 to 6600 GT to make sure I shouldn't run into compatibility issues.

[@TheRetroRecall]

That's excellent. I hope your P3 setup works out for you. Yes, you are correct. There is quite a jump in cost on this older hardware. I've been fortunate as I have a few people who scout for me and donate to the channel to showcase it. I recently went o line and just the Voodoo3 cards PCI or otherwise are crazy in price.

[@Pulverrostmannen]

This is a bit similar to my own PIII system which is a PIII 550 with 256MB and a GF MX4000 except I had my system since the 90s. my system began as a 500mhz OC 333Mhz PII with GF4. and the reason your power supply did not work is probably because it likely have a ton of ripple in the output which can only be seen with an oscilloscope, the caps are probably bad in it one way or another

[@TheRetroRecall]

Appreciate it. It has been suggested that it is either the caps in the PSU or there wasn't enough wattage for the system. Either way, should be easy enough to test the caps. Thank you!

[@michaelwood9866]

i will say that i have been watching miketech lately and he does what you do, but he takes the cover off of the power supply(he is a pro) and checks for capacitor plague issues. even if it powers a hdd just fine and not the entire system leads me to believe it could be caps or possibly a weak transformer.

[@TheRetroRecall]

I'll definitely take a look!

[@LatitudeSky]

I also watch Mike but I think it is unfair to call him a pro. He just has an OCD to take everything to pieces. It isn't necessary. Most people don't do that. TRR has a different way of doing things and he is totally free to make videos how he wants. He doesn't have to be just like Mike or LGR or Dawid or J2C or anyone else. He's the one doing the build and it's his choice. I really do not understand why people want to tell someone "oh well, channel X does it this other way" when it's already bad enough every commenter can't seem to resist offering up their own better ideas. Come on. It's TRR's channel. He's unique. He has his own style and approach. It's good. Let him do his thing.

[@michaelwood9866]

@@LatitudeSky ok first he works for a dev company so he has experience. 2. I never told trr to do anything. It was just a suggestion if the wanted to peruse the psu issue further and mike tech is a point of reference. 3. Pc and i.t. Techs share information whether it’s taken or not and that is how we can learn from each other. Stop using a teenagers mentality of no one can tell me what to do when that’s not the case here. It’s a reference point and nothing more.

[@kokodin5895]

3 things to note 1 this board technically have 2 isa slots, one of them is simply unpopulated so if you know how to suck out solder you technically can populate and make it working pretty easyly since all isa slots are basically wired in paralell 2 reflashing the bios witheven the same revision could be beneficial in long run, since this board uses early eeprom that with time suffer from bit rot and it was most likely last programmed 20 something years ago and i seen pentium 2 boards randomly loosing bios in the past 3 this is asus mobo so if you ever want to populate front usb look out for the crazy asus pinout with missing pin

[@TheRetroRecall]

I didn't know about the ability to remove the pci and add a second ISA slot - thanks for that! I did see configs of this board where they came that way, but never that you could easily swap it out. I did flash the bios to the latest BIOS at the 35:00 min mark. That should take care of that :) I actually do have that USB cable in my parts bin! Thanks for this and for watching!

[@kokodin5895]

@@TheRetroRecall do you have to remove the pci slot though? i was more thinking if the space is not obstructed there is isa footprint already on the board and if it fit it would just work there are also thise narrow pci slots asus used on tusl2 but removing pci is much harder than just puting isa in already empty holes

[@TheRetroRecall]

Sorry, I misunderstood. Yes - there seems to be space there and would be an easy installation.

[@wrlrdqueek]

Was there a cut there? That BIOS update was really fast. I just updated the UEFI on my sister's system and it took several minutes. I've never done one on that era of system before.

[@TheRetroRecall]

Yes definitely a cut, however not several Minutes. It was approximately 45-60 seconds.

[@wrlrdqueek]

@@TheRetroRecall Good to know. Thanks.

[@TheRetroRecall]

Not a problem at all!!

[@Bewefau]

I like older hard drives too. I like how they can have unlimited reads and writes unlike SSD's . Also I herd windows 98 can wear out SSD's faster or something ?

[@TheRetroRecall]

Yes if you don't align them first due to the way the OS writes data.

[@stevencamp6824]

I like the sound blaster live cards but they can be tough getting drivers for i guess because there are so many variants of them..i have bad luck thinking i have the drivers but 9 times out of ten there are always isses with things like the game port not working or something else

[@TheRetroRecall]

Yes I've had those issues before, however with the Sb16 I have not had the same. Each card has their strengths for sure.

[@stevencamp6824]

@@TheRetroRecalli have a CT2770 isa card defo good option for dos compatibility nice machie...i tell my wife old computers are like potato chips, can"t have just one lol

[@TheRetroRecall]

Haha yes!!! I still don't know how I get away with it lol.

[@KainiaKaria]

Specs of my Ultimate 1999 Gaming PC that I just recently got up and running of which most if not all of the parts are from 1999. I even have not just a LITE ON 52x CD-RW Drive installed but also a Creative PC-DVD ROM Dxr2 installed. I even have a HP CD Writer Plus 8200e External USB CD-RW Drive plugged into the system. Looks simillar to the HP CD Writter 9200 Plus that was on my dad's AMD K6-2 build which was clocked at 450 Mhz with a ATI 3D Rage 128. Motherboard: Abit BE6-II Revision 1.0 Processor: Intel Pentium III clocked at 650 Mhz (Originally I wanted to either go with a Pentium 3 clocked at 550 Mhz in order to have something that was close to what I had with a Dell Optiplex GX1 or a Pentium 2 clocked at 266 Mhz so that I could slow the system down significantly) RAM: 256 MB Hard Drive (Currently): 60 GB QUANTUM FIREBALL PLUS AS (Extremely loud) Video Card: 3Dfx Voodoo 3 3000 (AGP Varient) Sound Card: Creative Sound Blaster AWE64 Value CT4520 (Used this in a Gateway Essential ESS 450 SE from 2015 to 2017 that I used to have and even though I have Yamaha OPL3-SA as well as ESS AudioDrive this card being the only Sound Blaster 16 compliant card around makes it a really good choice) Network Interface Card (NIC): Linksys EtherFast 10/100 LAN Card Version 2.0 (I use this primarily for playing online video games) Other: Adaptec UBS2Connect USB 2.0 Card (For use with loading ISO files from a USB thumb drive)

[@TheRetroRecall]

Excellent build! I love that you have multiple optical drives! I generally build my systems like that as well.

[@KainiaKaria]

@@TheRetroRecallI went ahead and removed the USB 2.0 card and re-enabled the HighPoint (LowPoint) HPT 366 Ultra DMA 66 controller that is onboard and hooked up a 2 TB Western Digital hard drive as the replacement for the Quantum drive. I am using a StarTech IDE to SATA Hard Drive or Optical Drive Adapter Converter that was not playing nice with the Intel i440BX chipset.

[@TheRetroRecall]

Interesting. I hope it's working well now though.

[@KainiaKaria]

@@TheRetroRecall It is going well, other than Windows 98 SE crashing on occasion.

[@TheRetroRecall]

Yes it's funny you mention that. My win98se build on my primary retro machine literally started crashing out of the blue the other day. Going to have to look into why, it's all NOS parts and have been working flawlessly. Ah well, that's retro hardware!

[@skeletonsn5884]

I like how you configured your hardware for this particular build. However, there's one thing that I want to point out because it's a possibility that almost no one is taking the advantage of. You can use both the Sound Blaster 16 and the Sound Blaster Live on SLOT 1 motherboards in order to retain compatibility with EAX/A3D and also MSDOS games. In Windows 98 you install the latest drivers for the Sound Blaster 16 (optional step) and than disable the device from Device Manager. Afterwards install the drivers for Sound Blaster Live in order to use the card as a primary sound device in Windows 98. Remember to NOT install the MSDOS drivers for this card because you'll use the genuine Sound Blaster 16 for the matter. Now the Sound Blaster 16 can be used by manually installing its MSDOS drivers in Windows MSDOS mode, or (the way that I like to do), to use a separate installation of MSDOS 6.22 on a compact flash or SD Card. In this way you can choose from your bios the storage drive on which you want to boot from or install a free customizable bootloader.

[@TheRetroRecall]

I had no idea, this is awesome! Thank you!!! I really appreciate it.

[@skeletonsn5884]

@@TheRetroRecall Maybe it's an idea for a followup video :).

[@TheRetroRecall]

Hahaha it's so funny, I wrote it down 20 min ago!!! Lol

[@skeletonsn5884]

@@TheRetroRecall Happy to hear that :)

[@TheRetroRecall]

Love these suggestions!

[@Eyetrauma]

I haven't encountered the problem you described with the PSU, but just thinking it through is it possible that the PSU that you thought was working just provides noisier / higher ripple power and that the system it's feeding is more sensitive to that?

[@TheRetroRecall]

Yes definitely possible. I Think I need to test the voltages while it is connected and tuens on to see what is failing.

[@lexluthermiester]

@TheRetroRecall Who are these people who say 128mb for Win98 is "more than fine"? I think you're smart enough to know that such a statement is silly beyond all reason. That board can take 512MB DIMMs and for Win2k or XP I would fill those slot up. For Win98, 98SE or ME, 384MB should be considered the standard, 512MB the sweet-spot. Anyone who states otherwise never knew that period of computing. You can get by with 256MB, but you will hit a memory wall for many programs and games of the time. I always highly recommend the age old advice: "The more, the merrier!". But as you said, you do you! Also, the VooDoo, is great for non-AGP systems. Try to find an AGP version of that card. EDIT: The SB Live is an excellent choice!!

[@TheRetroRecall]

Love all of the above. I never thought to out both SB cards in together. As for the 128, I know the difference, I always do 256, never really needed to go higher in my experience. You can thank the keyboard warriors for the 128 lingo :). I'll continue the hunt for the AGP version of Voodoo 3. They are becoming quite hard to find, unless you grow the tree in your backyard and produce dollar bills 😂

[@lexluthermiester]

@@TheRetroRecall Fair point about the VooDoo AGP cards. Running 2 soundcards is totally doable. Sound card are not an exclusive resource. Windows will utilize anything it finds. DOS is a different thing. Here's my reasoning behind the 384/512 point. With Win98/98SE, when RAM usage gets within 20% of maximum RAM usage, Windows will start dumping data into the swap file, even for programs/games that are running. As you likely know, this can make things run a lot slower. With 384MB, 98/98SE does this less and with 512MB it happens a lot less, which can prevent performance dips. With Windows ME, bumping up to 1GB makes a big difference as well. Even though Windows itself will not use anything above 512MB, 32bit programs/games can use above 512MB and will if needed. For that reason WinME is still my favorite 9X kernel Windows. I'm well aware that I'm in the minority on that one, but I'm one of those people that did a deep dive on that OS and figured out what Microsoft was trying to do with it and then I was able to make it work perfectly. I ran ME for 4 years until SP2 for XP came out and all of it's issue were mostly solved.

[@TheRetroRecall]

Thank you for this breakdown, it makes sense and is great info 1 much appreciated. I agree, I really enjoyed ME as an OS as well as I never had any issues doing anything I needed on it.

[@sergiobisonte]

in this particular board you dont need the 80pin ide cable.. its very old, only UDMA2 capable (up to 33mb/s) you can see when you load DOS, both hdd and cdrom are UDMA2. the cable is required for boards with modes faster than UDMA2. ps: the hdd is capable of UDMA6 (up to 133mb/s) if you use it on a more modern board

[@sergiobisonte]

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UDMA

[@TheRetroRecall]

Thank you for this info and the reference!

[@ricarnuninho80]

We recommend you should use any CRT monitor for Win 9x/Me because the lack of driver for thin monitor may affect the OS stability. 😉

[@TheRetroRecall]

All I can say is I've never had any issues of instability as a result of using the Plug and Play monitor - again that's me. Also, Windows detected the LCD monitor driver in this case.

[@ricarnuninho80]

@@TheRetroRecall ok. After driver installed, I changed the color depth to 256-color or higher to restart Windows... but Windows failed, with or without artifacts of screen, higher color depth to back to 16-color. This is abnormal. 😂🤣 Lol. 🙂😉

[@TheRetroRecall]

Weird that the video driver didn't correct the 16color depth.

[@rthefish]

Pretty sure the power supply would just need a re-cap.

[@TheRetroRecall]

I'm going to take a look at it. It's been suggested that 350w may have not been enough for this system. The replacement was a 550w. I will definitely be checking it out.

[@stefanlelieveld6779]

You miss the aidio cable from the optical drive to the soundcard

[@TheRetroRecall]

You are correct. I had thought about that after and connected it haha! Good catch.

[@lindah6954]

I went back to your test and saw you had 5 volts. The motherboard takes 12 volts. So, most likely one of the 3 capacitors are blown.

[@TheRetroRecall]

Nice Catch - I will take a look further when I do additional testing on the other PSU.

[@KevinSills]

The chipset radiator should be removed, and new thermal paste applied, that's what I always do, you've got the motherboard out anyhow, why not do that too!

[@TheRetroRecall]

Fair point. Will do!

[@bojinglebells]

ah yes, the times when systems not only had sound cards, but they dwarfed the video card.

[@TheRetroRecall]

Haha yes. So true lol. Especially when they had the multi ports on them for the various standards of optical drives!

[@freeroamification]

If I remember correctly, the old psu could have the wattage but not the amperage sometimes and tha would stop the mb from booting.

[@TheRetroRecall]

I think there is definitely an issue with one of the components in the PSU - possibly a capacitor causing this. I'll have to test out the rails and report back.

[@freeroamification]

@@TheRetroRecall a bad capacitor could definitely mess with the amperage.

[@TheRetroRecall]

Good place to start looking! :)

[@mbwoods2001]

Question mate, do u think its worthwhile to upgrade to a newer pci graphics card instead of sticking with something like a TNT cards(or similar)? I recently bought a geforce 6200 pci card last month after trawling thru a minefield on ebay to upgrade for better performance than using on-board graphics or older cards.

[@TheRetroRecall]

I would say yes. Is your board limited to PCI?

[@mbwoods2001]

@TheRetroRecall yeah it is. I know that certain low-mid range geforce's and radeon's can be on pci cards. Think the latest geforce is a gt210, not sure what radeon goes up to. This mobo doesn't have a dedicated agp slot, only a weird amr slot in its place and 3 pci slots

[@TheRetroRecall]

Yes I've had those boards. To your point you can find models that would give you decent performance on pci... Far better than using on board graphics. I've been told at that time the performance boost using AGP is 3-7%. Which may not be required for you. Similar to this build where I chose to use my Voodoo3 3000 PCI card due to its capabilities even though it is PCI.

[@toreopp]

I would be very happy if you can put the names of the games you played on screen or in the description. 🙂

[@TheRetroRecall]

Great idea. For reference, they were Doom2, Hexen, Heretic 2, Quake 3 Arena, Jedi Knight Dark Forces 2.

[@strikdevroblox9079]

Make more videos with this pc bro

[@TheRetroRecall]

I can certainly add it to the list!

[@strikdevroblox9079]

@@TheRetroRecall that’s good!! Make a review of how to install the 256 colors and the process on it, I loved this pc