Is this Computer worth Saving??

I found this computer in a thrift store for $20! Is it worth saving... or should it be tossed. Let's go over the computer, see what's inside and make our decision!
#retropc #nostalgia #retro #retrocomputing #pcrepair #ewaste #pentium #celeron #intel #thrifting #thrift #restoration #pc

[@stevencamp6824]

Warms my heart seeing these old machines brought back to life

[@TheRetroRecall]

I feel the same way. When they are all cleaned back up again and running... It's a time capsule

[@NickDalzell]

People keep telling me that '2009 called, they want their laptops back' but I don't like the aesthetic of modern laptops, their disposable build, or their lack of features I want to keep using (like optical drives and firewire). I also don't like modern UI design. all modern UI design is so flat it invokes bad memories of DeskMate or CP/M, and I want my skeuomorphic UI back. Until that happens, I stick to Windows 7 and Linux.

[@stevencamp6824]

​@@TheRetroRecallyou do some really good work sir

[@TheRetroRecall]

Thank you!

[@rusticlogcabinlife9443]

Heya My first PC was a Walmart special 2k cash then after all the upgrades including dual 6mb Voodoo 2 cards and 128mb PC 133 sdram i had a winner. I sold it in 2013 with a big box of rollermice and a 15 in LCD monitor for 500.00 the buyer drove out so fast as he had a poster printer that only used win 95 he was so amazed at what it had inside and i wish i had not parted with it..... BigT

[@TheRetroRecall]

Yes, so many times others have done the same later wishing they had kept their systems. I am one of them :). Hopefully you can find another system in the future to relive that setup.

[@jasmijndekkers]

I share your meaning about the sound of a old harddrive. Awesome! Great job you did. Greetings from Steven from the Netherlands

[@TheRetroRecall]

Thank you!

[@NickDalzell]

I have always wanted to put an MFM HDD in my gaming rig to add some sound to it, as I'm used to hearing them, just for say, documents, game manuals and the like, and if they can make a PCI-E to IDE or a IDE to CF card, why not a PCI-E to MFM controller?

[@curtissimmons1085]

old RLL and MFM drives are a real treat for sound

[@tagesvaterpatrick8780]

Just loved how you showed off Unreal and Quake Arena without any comments. ❤😊

[@TheRetroRecall]

Just like to sit back and let everyone enjoy :)

[@MaskedGEEK]

Holy moly, 512MB of RAM is overkill for W98. Heck it's borderline overkill for XP as well. That's a beast of a machine you rescued there. Excellent restoration work you've put into that PC. I never played Quake but Unreal is forever in my heart. Back in the day I had a Matrox Millennium G450 Dual Head card, but that ran DirectX and at the time, I believe Unreal only accepted 3DFX for hardware acceleration, so I only got to enjoy Unreal in software rendering back then. I have Unreal now on Steam patched to accept DIrectX and replayed through it a few years ago. It looks like a different game between software and hardware rendering, but regardless of which renderer is used, it's a gorgeous game to play.

[@TheRetroRecall]

I completely agree! It's one of my all time favourites.

[@kaneCVR]

I don't think 512 is overkill for xp, at least not for SP3. 1GB was considered comfortable for SP3 back in the day, with 2-3GB being considered overkill, but for 98, yeah, it's way more then the system needs.

[@MaskedGEEK]

@kaneCVR I would say it depends on a user case scenario. After all, 32Bit XP had a recommended RAM requirement of 128MB, Pro x64 needed 256MB and 64 Bit edition needed 1GB, but 64Bit OSes were not mainstream yet and the vast majority of home users would have had the 32Bit Home or Pro version, bit from experience, while Microsoft said 128MB was recommended for XP, I'd say that's bare minimum. 256MB would give best performance and would be more than enough for casual work. 512MB was recommended for serious gaming. My first XP PC did he 1GB of DDR RAM with a 700MHz AMD processor. Don't ask me the CPU model, I can barely remember last week let alone 20 years ago. 😅 This is why I said 512MB for XP is borderline overkill. If you're just a casual using it for this newly emerging internet thing and snagging your rare AOL email, then yes 512MB is overkill. But if you were a gamer, then 512MB would be the bare minimum for a smooth gaming session, knocking that up to 1GB by the time SP3 was released and more demanding games were being released.

[@NickDalzell]

512MB might have been overkill for WinXP in 2001, but in 2024, even trying to use the 'Protoweb' workaround for KZbin (Warpspeed) lags with so little RAM, and forget modern KZbin via MyPal. You need a few gigs to do anything with that.

[@HappyBeezerStudios]

@@MaskedGEEKAgree, 128 MB is the bare minimum. You basically use that just to have the drivers running. At least for SP3. For some RTM installation it should be fine, so if you're building pre 2004 era retro with XP, 512 should be okay, but if you plan on patching it through, go for the gigabytes.

[@dalewollaston6665]

Such nostalgia for me, growing up I built my first unit back in the days of the 386sx under my dad’s supervision (I was probably about 12). I changed the shadow ram setting and wrote off the motherboard. My next unit was a 486dx which I went on to use for years. Pentium was a bit rich for a while for my dad to afford to risk me writing off. So yeah some good memories and a massive nostalgia hit watching this video. Excellent job, keep up the great work!

[@TheRetroRecall]

Thank you and awesome - so glad you enjoyed and it brough back some great memories!! :)

[@mariobrito427]

Definitely worth saving 😃 Seeing you play Quake 3 arena in particular brought back memories. Anyway just goes to show that you don't always need the latest and greatest, and that computer in particular should allow you to play a nice library of games up to maybe the early 2000s (and I'd rather play those games than the vast majority of modern games)

[@TheRetroRecall]

Agreed. I actually cut quite a bit of footage out as I got carried away playing the games lmao.

[@LatitudeSky]

Quake 3 Arena is on every PC I own, from a Core 2 Duo to a modern overpowered AMD. It's such a fun game and a bot game is always a great way to kill time.

[@TheRetroRecall]

Hahaha that it did. I forget how long I was playing it for, but I had to stop or this video was never getting out haha.

[@wdd6864]

That was my first Dual Layer DVD Burner. Nice find. Those LG Drives are workhorses.

[@TheRetroRecall]

For sure. I've had a few and still have some from some of my original systems. It's one of those brands I find quite often when thrifting.

[@FrenziedManbeast]

Beautiful work with this video. Glad to see the appreciation for tech history.

[@TheRetroRecall]

Thank you!!! Glad you enjoyed!

[@branscombe_]

i keep that background always. it’s perfect! although remember the “digital blasphemy” wallpapers from back in the day?

[@TheRetroRecall]

Haha yes absolutely.

[@KrissBartlett]

very nice the person printing the plug in stuff first time seen that on older computer case

[@TheRetroRecall]

Same!

[@alanarmstrong2323]

Currently working on my Gateway 2000 p5-90,we have had the computer since new,its wild just to see how far things have gone.

[@TheRetroRecall]

Absolutely!!

[@proteque]

Hard to beat a beautiful beige midi tower. Pretty high specs as well. nice.

[@TheRetroRecall]

Thank you! I am going to tweak the cpu a bit to see how much more performance I can get out of it. More for curiosity.

[@rusticlogcabinlife9443]

Heya New sub here You just brought back a lot of wonderful memories.... Thanks. BigT Alaska

[@TheRetroRecall]

Welcome to the channel, great to have you aboard! Glad you enjoyed. :)

[@littledudejoey]

These old PCs are always interesting to see! If those numbers mean the order to plug in, I find that interesting as i wouldn't plug in the power until last. Great restoration!

[@TheRetroRecall]

Thanks! Agreed - plug by number but the power last! :)

[@lemmykillmister9386]

Nice work, Man. I enjoyed video!

[@TheRetroRecall]

That's awesome, thank you!

[@stephensalex]

Awesome rig by the end. You always do good work!

[@TheRetroRecall]

I wasn't expecting to do the full cleanup but hey, here we are. Thank you!!

[@CRG]

A lovely machine and really making me want a similar setup. Quake 3 Arena takes me back to multiplayer deathmatch in college. Great memories, thanks for the video.

[@TheRetroRecall]

No problem, glad you enjoyed!

[@deepfakedvds]

I love the sound of a 7,200 RPM IDE hard drive spinning up in the morning

[@TheRetroRecall]

Hahahaha yes!

[@HappyBeezerStudios]

I could instantly recognize the vintage of those disc drives. The bottom one already has the fairly standardized modern design, but still has lots of labels about it's capabilities. So from a time when being able to burn DVDs and being able to read DVD-RW was important. The top one is a bit older. It still has sort of a unique design, form when manufactures tried to set themselves apart. It also has the analog audio out and a play button, which means it's from a time when using the drive as CD player was still desirable. The fact that it advertises 32x speed is just a bonus.

[@TheRetroRecall]

I have many of these drives and its so neat to see the evolution over the years. The oldest one I have was featured in a recent video being a 1x Mitsumi 'Tray' drive. It's amazing how they have stood up to the test of time.

[@raysmith5124]

@@TheRetroRecall i had a mitsumi tray drive came with its own interface card . painfully slow by today's standards but back then hdd's weren't that much bigger unless you had deep pockets . Not to mention imagine trying to manually install the 3.5 2 floppy's it would take to install a modern game .

[@TheRetroRecall]

Hahah yes! I remember having to do that. Fortunately I didn't have to deal with optical drives which required their own interface card for long.

[@birrextio6544]

That was the cleanest pc I have seen. When I did service for traveling companies a common failure was overheat shutdown since they had horisontal pc's placed on the floor and even a rug under. When I lifted the cover it was dust all the way up 😮

[@TheRetroRecall]

Yes - often when they were in those positions, they became vacuums and sucked in a pile of dust dirt, etc. Since they were on the floor (for example) people would forget about them until they started to over heat. A real shame to be honest :)

[@johnvosh1986]

My 1st CD burner was an LG 8x4x32x. I made so many coasters with that thing as my computer wasn't exactly fast enough that I had put it in!

[@TheRetroRecall]

Ahhhh good ol buffer under runs!

[@JamesJAKAZeldaboy14]

that MSI sticker brings back memories! I had a beige case (had a big and small blue button for power and reset specifically) that had the EXACT sticker on it. Oh, the days of windows XP systems

[@TheRetroRecall]

Yes for sure! I love how these systems bring back so many nostalgic memories for different people.

[@big-ts-tech-corner]

Nice find Last week I found a PC from the same time period at the thrift store for 14 CAD Normally I dont find anything worth taking there, I was so shocked. Years since ive seen a proper beige tower at the thrift store. Sadly a lot of the caps on it were blown. So I spent an additional 20$ and recapped it. Now working perfectly. Of course came with stuff like hard drive sound card etc... It was exactly what I have been looking for for some time now

[@TheRetroRecall]

That's awesome!!!!! So happy to hear you were able to get one and get it up and running again!

[@branscombe_]

I agree, great pick up and amazing refurbish. thanks for the rebuild this saturday night, it was real fun

[@TheRetroRecall]

Glad you enjoyed :)

[@mOddEdLiKeHeLL]

Very nice! I have a 2 celerons stored in a box somewhere. I kind of like them. One is a 1GHZ with the exposed die and then the other one is a 1.2GHZ with the heat spreader on it. That one’s a tualatin. I’ll probably build something with one of them later on

[@TheRetroRecall]

Nice! Looking forward to hearing how your build goes when the time comes!

[@HappyBeezerStudios]

The 1200er Tuleron is just a treat. Good performance as is, but also lots of headroom if you want to oc. 112 FSB would put it to 1344 MHz, 133 MHz to nearly 1600 MHz, both things Tualatin can do quite easily. And unlike the P3-S the Celerons are much cheaper to find.

[@djsalto4119]

great video! you reminded myself when building a custom celeron A 366Mhz :) with 128 of RAM

[@TheRetroRecall]

Thanks! Lots of fun! I remember building those Celeron systems :)

[@Alltracavenger]

Very good video; it was a great trip down memory lane. My first system build was probably not too long before this one was put together; I went out to visit my dad in 1999 and he walked me through building a Celeron 400MHz system to replace an aging Acer 500LB pizza box that I had back home. I think we built it with a Voodoo 2 but I don't quite remember; it was a far more capable machine than what I had. Fast-forward to now and I've built a beefed-up version of that Celeron rig with a Pentium 3 1.1GHz, a somewhat anachronistic FX5200, Win98 SE, and some goodies that allow me to play around with Protoweb and a few other Internet-type things I want to run in the future. I should probably fire up some Unreal on that rig. :) I also got nostalgic for that old Acer; it took years but I finally found one just like it(sans monitor, though). That's the Win95 rig, complete with all the factory bloatware I remember from those days.

[@TheRetroRecall]

That sounds great! Definitely dig it out and use it, they are fun! I am the same way when it comes to certain tech. When I see certain pieces, I get flooded with great memories :)

[@JohanlastZa]

VERY nice retro find. I am busy restoring another legacy computer for my Windows 7 era builds. There is an awesome AT system waiting for me to start on...but I need to look for my AT to PS2 adapters which I stored somewhere

[@TheRetroRecall]

That's awesome to hear! Hopefully you can find those adapters... Failing that they are quite inexpensive online. Good luck on your build!

[@tuxpowerpc]

I love this system and it's condition. Coincidentally I have someone looking for a PC that will run Command and Conquer red Alert 2 and Yuri's Revenge, but they require older hardware and are quite tricky to get running on a more modern system. That said, would you possibley consider selling this? Thanks for the cool content.

[@TheRetroRecall]

I really like how this turned out. To be honest I'm not selling any of the hardware at this moment as it is tied to the channel and there may be future projects requiring the system or its components for future content. If anything changes, I do keep a list here of interest just in case - I will let you know :)

[@DarKnightKilla13]

I'm about 11 mins in, just wanted to say I'm a *fairly* new sub here, and as somebody who still has their first ever working PC (a '94/'95 IBM Aptiva Multimedia with Win 3.1), I appreciate the down-to-Earth breakdown and where your mind wanders. Mine does the same, I have so many retro PC's by this point, lol. Keep it up...and now for myself, back to the video 😅

[@TheRetroRecall]

Haha thank you! I like to make it as casual as possible. The intent is to be fun and nostalgic :) glad to have you along!

[@DarKnightKilla13]

@@TheRetroRecall I really appreciate that! It's more fun to keep it on that casual side I feel, especially when dealing with the older systems. Total toss-up question or two for you (apologies if they've been answered/covered) what is your favorite older OS to find or play with, and what would be your oldest computer you've worked on? Gonna try to cram your videos in here while I can so I'm sure I'm accidentally rehashing the same topics, woops 😅

[@TheRetroRecall]

Haha no worries. Fav older OS that gives me the fondest memories is Windows 95 and Windows ME. (If we are strictly speaking PC's and not some of the older game systems that you could consider a PC) I have the NABU which has a Zilog z80 3 mhz CPU and a Zenith MinisPORT which has a 80c88 CPU (I did a video on both) :)

[@DarKnightKilla13]

​@@TheRetroRecall Ahhh Windows 95... even my mother is like "Dude, bring back 95 and 98, why mess with what ain't broken", lol. That's awesome, I'll check those videos next! Myself, I still love 3.1... first PC, I was like 4 or 5 by that point, it sat on our dining room table, completely random. I believe it had OS/2 as well... so fun to mess around with. Thanks again for the content, good Sir!

[@TheRetroRecall]

Love this memory, thank you for sharing and you are welcome!

[@ghelp1]

Having built and sold many custom PC’s in the 90’s. My best guess is the customer kept calling on the phone for instructions on how to install the peripherals. So easiest solution was having them bring it back and number everything. I had one guy so bad I had to write “ANY KEY” on the space bar.

[@TheRetroRecall]

Hahahah that infamous Any Key!

[@ghelp1]

You can cut 1/4 inch strip of thin cardboard, fold it in half. Slide a Bobby pin ( for hair ) over it. It will hold the IDE and floppy cables neatly.

[@TheRetroRecall]

Thank you for the recommendation!

[@barrybpl]

That's amusing, I have the 'same' case as that but with a different front panel, bought at the time in the UK for a Pentium 4 , later a core2 quad and i5-2500k, maybe some others along the way, not sure now. Still have it over there (points) but not currently in use. One thing that would interest me (maybe just a me thing) is seeing the power usage from the wall when fully idle after booting and when loaded.

[@TheRetroRecall]

Haha neat! Yes, I was planning on getting one of those 'Kil-o-watt' devices which will measure the exact usage of power at any given moment.

[@raysmith5124]

great job on the clean up & good decision to not use the hdd it was probably why the psu was disconnected as part of someones diagnostic process . i had a p3 1ghz back then i out together using a gforce of some discription if i remember correctly . i still have the previous p200mmx & et4000 vga with apocolypse 3dx aswell as the voodoo3 2000 i bought & put to in it to be able to play " AVP Gold edition " in 1999 . a game i still play today . as good as DGVooDoo & NGlide are you cant beat playing old games on period hardware , 3dfx & a crt ..

[@TheRetroRecall]

Thanks ! I completely agree that period correct hardware makes a world of difference. Its much more authentic Imo. Happy to hear you still have your retro rig going!

[@Ferg13]

I’ve been using Lysol Advance wet wipes to clean off my cases and inside the cases. It actually works great.

[@TheRetroRecall]

That surprises me only because the Lysol wipes tend to leave a residue. I stick to 99 / 70% IPA as it cleans and dissipates.

[@TruthDoesNotExist]

the numbers are for an IT department, this was likely used in an office and instead of sending a technician or trying to explain the different ports to a non tech savvy person, someone on the phone can just say, make sure 3 is plugged in or reconnect #2 if the mouse isn't working if someone has a problem

[@TheRetroRecall]

Ahhhhhhh I never even thought about that but that makes total sense. Thanks!

[@juantirado1054]

Man thank you for such an awesome video, I subscribed😊 After watching your video I grabbed an old Intel Q9550 Quad Core Cpu with a socket 775 motherboard from 2008 and put it on my test bench just to see if I could get a post. Well 16 years later both the cpu and the motherboard are rock solid, I even have an old GTX 1070fe and 16gb of Gskill ddr3 ram..Only crazy part is this old NZXT case wirh a crap ton of molex connectors and front panel I/O cables😂😂😂 Damn what a rats nest😂 Anyways, thank you for the video it was fantastic.

[@TheRetroRecall]

Thanks for subbing! Great to have you along! Haha - now you can see the bad habits I instill in others lol. Glad to hear you were able to resurrect your old tech and that it is still working. LOL - cable management back then wasn't exactly stellar :) Glad you enjoyed!

[@juantirado1054]

@TheRetroRecall hahahahaha I happen to love this type of bad habit🤣 It's pretty awesome that most of the old e waste you come across is in really good condition. I am new to the channel but from what I've seen most of those desktops and laptops boot right into Windows👌 The ones that don't at least give you post👌 Keep up the great work, thank you for the content😊

[@TheRetroRecall]

Agreed and you are welcome!!!

[@oh2ftu]

If you plan on using this, do check the power coming to the integrated audio chip. I had one similar MSI board (could've been the same too) that blew out the audio IC. The reason is simple. The board was made with two different audio IC's. One can take 3,3V and 5V in, the other 5V. Guess what the power rail is? 5V. Elektrotanya should have a schematic.

[@TheRetroRecall]

Appreciate the info, I will check it out and circle back if I have any questions, thank you!

[@ytugtbk]

Excellent. You're right, it is snappy. Never liked Windows 98, but still a cool rebuild. Well done.

[@TheRetroRecall]

Thank you!

[@abcd1239me]

I like the realtek network cards, they just work and hardly ever stop working

[@TheRetroRecall]

I agree! Those and 3com!

[@HappyBeezerStudios]

When I was looking for network for my retro system I was hovering over some Intel i960 card for a while, but went with 3Com in the end. It's basically plug&play.

[@mmartti2k116]

I have seen bullets thru hard drives and some have got hammered but this is something new, opening it up and probably removed the whole platter :DD

[@TheRetroRecall]

Haha that's one way to ensure the data isn't captured again 😂

[@karianimation]

The sides are from different cases, the Marker is so the tech can rematch the side panels to the case. The whole machine is likely parted together from discarded PC's and the best fitting parts assembled for case. Probably a bunch of office computers that were refurbished in a one off computer repair shop.

[@TheRetroRecall]

Neat suggestion.

[@HappyBeezerStudios]

Yeah, lots of office parts. From the OEM motherboard to the fairly high clocked, but old platform Celeron to the ancient Rage 128 and a lot of slow memory.

[@wettuga2762]

The only change I would make is swapping the Celeron with a Pentium 3 1Ghz with 133 Mhz FSB, it has double the L2 cache and probably the Celeron FSB is only 100Mhz, but that's just me nitpicking. One thing I always do to my retro machines is add dual boot with OSes from around the same time, like Windows 95 + NT 4.0, or Windows 98SE + Windows 2000, but I install them on the same partition to take advantage of the full space of the hard drive.

[@TheRetroRecall]

For sure! If I did that on every though it wouldnt leave much mystery for the next one haha! :) To be honest I'm looking forward to playing with the Celeron a bit. Something about the underdog that's fun.

[@Nothuman76]

The number is used to match cables for the end user. Saw this alot back in the early 90s thru the 00s.

[@TheRetroRecall]

Thanks for this - others have mentioned this as well. I guess I never thought of it as I never really came across it. Does make sense however as some of the different OEM's did color code their cables.

[@HappyBeezerStudios]

While I don't have anything written on the case itself, I have pretty much marked all my USB devices so that I know what port they were on.

[@Nothuman76]

@@HappyBeezerStudios You can't get those mixed up! Hell, the computer might not come back on if you get those wrong.😛😛 Also, I really hope you are being sarcastic...

[@Nothuman76]

LOL you do you... I do get your being funny @@HappyBeezerStudios

[@chloeprice8]

wow. monster truck madness...that really took me back to childhood. i remember playing quite a few hours of that on an old (new back then) on an slot 1 pentium 3 with a same ati rage 128. good ol days 😩

[@TheRetroRecall]

I'll admit, I spent way too much time back in the day on these games. Great memories indeed - glad I was able to bring back some nostalgia for you haha!

[@iecasper]

Dam thing has my same LG DVD burnner with lightscribe i once had. Wait. I still have it in a box 😂.

[@TheRetroRecall]

Hahaha that's awesome!!! Did you use the lightscribe function at all?

[@iecasper]

@@TheRetroRecall only once ever. Never again.

[@TheRetroRecall]

Haha!! I've heard some not so great stories haha

[@iecasper]

@@TheRetroRecall it worked good. But it came with one lightscribe capable DVD, never bought anymore due to them being double the price of regular DVD-R's

[@abx42]

I did this with my kids when they first started to learn the pc.

[@TheRetroRecall]

Nice

[@johnhudson7055]

Back then I used to hate the celery CPUs but now I want to put one together. After I finish my 3.06 northwood and 1.4 thunderbird I probably start looking to do a socket 370 celery or maybe a northwood celery.

[@TheRetroRecall]

Haha I haven't heard it called celery in decades lol. My brother used to call it that. Made me want it even more lol! Good luck on your build.

[@HappyBeezerStudios]

The Pentium 3 and Core 2 era Celeron were pretty great. The Coppermine/Tualatin Celerons had half the cache and 100 FSB, nothing else was changed. But for Netburst they cut the cache to a quarter and reduced the bus on a bandwidth starved architecture. Basically cutting down the most critical part they could cut down. The Core 2-era Celerons again had less cache and bus than the Pentium and Core 2, but since the entire lineup clocked equally well, there was no issue buying a $60 E1500 or E2160, clocking it to way past 3 GHz and getting the same performance as a 300+ Core 2. I still have a Celeron 440 here, which is a Conroe-L chip, and that destroys basically all of my netburst chips, and that is before it put it from stock 2 GHz to a stable 3.5 GHz oc.

[@simonlathwell]

Those LG CD-RW drives were really popular in the early 2000's here in the UK in the big computer and electronics shops. I've got several of them in various different speeds, and a couple of black ones as well. My first one was an LG and I bought my parents the same one in 2002 for christmas so my dad could copy his music CD's to play in the car rather than his original CD's, and so I could do mix CD's for my mum. It took me an hour to teach my dad how to use it, but after that was soon copying his CD collection. I've still got the one I got my dad and it still works like a charm.

[@TheRetroRecall]

That's awesome, and thanks for sharing that memory! They were quite plentiful over here in Canada as well, but always slightly more expensive. Either way, great drives.

[@HappyBeezerStudios]

I just checked, and I have one Philips, one Lite-On, and the rest are LG. from a simple DVD drive, to DVD/CD-RW combo, to super modern ones with DVD-RAM, LightSribe and MO-Disc

[@mauricewoods-r7t]

Awesome

[@TheRetroRecall]

Thanks!

[@johnstancliff7328]

I had the same chassis at one time.... loved it for expansion. but as time went on, had to upgrade to a better chassis....

[@TheRetroRecall]

Nice. Yes for sure, we all eventually upgraded which landed us where we are today - always looking back loving this old tech :)

[@Ferg13]

I say Yay. It’s a great starter if anyone wanted to upgrade it. Heck. Can put a Creative Aw64 ISA sound card in it. It would still most likely be better then the onboard sound. AGP - skies the limit. Loads of PCI slots. If anyone wanted to go that route. Or just leave it stock. It’s still a good PC to give it some TLC like you said. IMHO I think all PC’s should be saved. No matter the make or model. They were part of our growing up era. Great stuff :)

[@TheRetroRecall]

Thanks and I 100% agree. It's a fun hobby and each system tells a story.

[@Ferg13]

@@TheRetroRecall 100% agree :)

[@slaustsen2]

I enjoy watching your video😊😊 here the video where you got the three six 80s up and running and post it I just saw I just saw this 14 day old video of the Cellron processes that is two weeks old that's you sitting here it brings back good memories for me because right at that time here but do you want to see 98 there it is in my teenage years for between ten and 15 years at the time here so I know that for me to see it does Jonas the games you have played also in this video video it also knows mine knows it does it all all your videos to do or many of them those those who have with PC and do here from the start 90 up to now the mega they bring back memories to me they make me remember my childhood and I would like to say thank you for 90% of all the computers you have your hands on they are worth saving so keep doing what you are doing you are doing everyone a great service and show what it was like to use a computer in the 90s for all those who don't know wh😮at a landline phone is and on the television with round pictures pipes and a plumbing video from all those who don't know that this is a window back in time for them😊🎉

[@TheRetroRecall]

That's awesome, I'm glad that you are enjoying and that it is bringing back great memories for you! Thank you for watching!

[@kg4wrq]

That was fun to watch, and brought back lots of memories. I agree that Win-98 SE was the best choice. Just for grins, I would be tempted to also install Linux as dual boot.

[@TheRetroRecall]

Agreed - what distro?

[@badger67]

@@TheRetroRecall Elive or Bodhi 👍. Do you know about 'Distrowatch'?

[@TheRetroRecall]

I do not!

[@Xpun3414]

Great video. Love how it turned out. & for 20 bucks. I think you might have robed someone. ;-)

[@TheRetroRecall]

Haha thank you!

[@shirley-h2o]

where do you find computer parts that cheap ,, awsome retro pc gaiming

[@TheRetroRecall]

I'm fortunate to have a lot of people that keep an eye out for me and help find good deals. Also, our thrift stores don't test any of the equipment so they do relatively cheap.

[@Yandarval]

The numbered ports could have been for a teaching machine. Handouts showing what port four looks like and what it does.

[@TheRetroRecall]

That's definitely a possibility.

[@Androx74]

nice machine i think you will even try to run dos games with audio using the sbemu emulator because of that ac 97 audio card, maybe when you decide to give it an upgrade you can try that. nice work

[@TheRetroRecall]

I was messing a bit with that and was struggling a bit. Some DOS games worked while others didn't even after the emulation was added / turned on in the BIOS. There's something to be said about Sb16 cards.

[@Androx74]

if you are using sbemu it's better to use the sb pro mode it's more compatible than the sb 16 one@@TheRetroRecall

[@TheRetroRecall]

I'll check that out, thank you!

[@phetzer504]

Did you open the drive that came with the computer, I remember that sometime people would pull the platters out of the drives. Curious if this is happened here?

[@TheRetroRecall]

I did not yet - but it is on my 'To Do' list. I figure that there is definitely something missing from the drive and my guess is a platter or two given the weight of it (or lack thereof). I will report back when I get to it. If you don't hear back, poke me to remind me :)

[@HappyBeezerStudios]

@@TheRetroRecallit could be a single platter drive. I have a 10.2 GB WD drive with single platter. That is also incredibly light.

[@kopspijker3515]

Nice system. I got lucky today with a Slot 1, Intel 440BX based systems today fished out of the trash. Including a Voodoo 3 3000 AGP card! And a Abit motherboard with 4 IDE ports. 2 from the chipset and 2 from another controller that is actually twice as fast.(UDMA/33 vs UDMA/66). Though i need to go through my stack of slot processors to see if i have anything faster to pair it with. Comes with a 450MHz Katmai P3 that does not really fit. There is a back bracket that bumps into some caps.

[@3dfxvoodoocards6]

Wow, that is an early 1999 dream PC.

[@TheRetroRecall]

That's an awesome find!! That voodoo card alone is worth it!

[@TheRetroRecall]

Agreed!

[@ABRetroCollections]

Sounds like you landed on the same config that I have. ABit BE6-II with a Voodoo3 3000. Mine originally had a 500 MHz Katmai, but I upgraded it to a 933 MHz Coppermine.

[@TheRetroRecall]

Nice setup

[@a_DiGiTaL_Slave_Labs]

My first homebuilt PC I used that Mobo specifically for it's Overclocking ability. Put in a 900 mhz Celeron and by changing the fsb from 100 mhz to 133 (like a pentium) it ramped up to 1199mhx and got me into the 1ghz club on the cheap...

[@TheRetroRecall]

Awesome!!! Yes - these CPUs were so easy to OC and gave their counterparts a run for their money.

[@marcovtjev]

Add-on board on the video card: TVOUT (SVHS or yellow cinch to connect to TV) was a premium feature in that time. Probably this card was $30 more because of that daughter board than without it.

[@TheRetroRecall]

Thanks for this info! Makes total sense.

[@jasmijndekkers]

Celeron have a special place in my heart. I will start my own IT company in 2005 and use Celeron as my daily driver. So the CPU means a lot for me and i have much memories

[@TheRetroRecall]

I agree. I know the earlier ones got a bad rap, but the later ones weren't terrible. That said, they were me at to be a budget CPU, so you can't go into them expecting that they are full fledged power houses haha. That said, I overclocked some earlier Celeron CPUs faster than their Pentium counterpartsl

[@sandmanxo]

I thought I knew the socket 370 lineup pretty well, but I didn't even know there was a 1ghz P3 based celeron released, much less that there were Tualatin based celerons later on. I think by that point I was firmly using Durons for low end PCs, and the remaining socket 370 machines I maintained usually got a Coppermine 1ghz P3.

[@TheRetroRecall]

I'll be honest, I was a little surprised as well. I'm curious how much I can squeeze out of this cpu with some tweaking :)

[@sandmanxo]

I would think it's as nearly as fast as a 100mhz fsb 1ghz P3 coppermine too. I don't think the 128k less of l2 cache is going to equate to that much extra performance, this was probably a hell of a deal at stock speed and even better if you can get an overclock out of it.

[@TheRetroRecall]

Agreed

[@HappyBeezerStudios]

The Tualatin Celerons shouldn't clock any lower than the Pentiums, and those can run 1600 MHz without much trouble, and at that point you're running >150 FSB, so usually it's the PCI and AGP devices that set out. Putting the Celeron on 133 FSB (like the Pentiums) paired with it's 10x multi should put it at 1333 MHz, which isn't anything special for Tualatin. The 1200 Celeron would hit 1.6 GHz on 133 FSB, which is probably the peak on the platform without shelling out crazy money for a 1400-S And I totally believe that it gets performance parity with a Coppermine at the same clock. I mean, both would be at the same 1000 MHz clock with 256K L2 and 100 MHz FSB while on the same architecture.

[@sbhinze]

I have several of these types of computers. Just getting into what these machines can do. Is it possible to connect them to the internet? If it’s possible, how do you do it. Or is it best just to game on it etc.. Thanks.

[@TheRetroRecall]

I wouldn't connect these to the internet. You could connect them to a local network and utilize ethernet to transfer files or any potential games that might have connectivity functionality. I would say mainly for having some retro fun with some older games and playing with some older software.

[@TheToylander]

Yes def worth a save. Great retro experience. If you could only choose one retro machine what specs would you go for?

[@TheRetroRecall]

Ohh that's tough! I think I would want to rebuild my childhood pc - 486 dx4 100, 16mb ram, 2.1gb HDD, ATI VLB Mach 32 card, SB 16, creative 4x cdrom.

[@branscombe_]

just noticed you used the Sun Monitor you got. i was too busy admiring the case 😆

[@TheRetroRecall]

Hahaha yes!!! I love it.

[@laurencejohnson4106]

It cleaned up well and the build quality of the case looks good.

[@TheRetroRecall]

Agreed!

[@Ferg13]

I say yay. Keep it. It’s worth it. Have a great sim o on the mobo. AGP. PCI. And ISA. Can do a lot with those. :)

[@TheRetroRecall]

Agreed!

[@branscombe_]

25:20 absolutely beautiful. an engineering marvel, really

[@TheRetroRecall]

Agreed. It's a beautiful looking board. I also have an Aopen version of this as well.

[@Ferg13]

Are you Canadian? I’m from Ontario. Well born in Hull Quebec (June 3rd) but been in Ontario for 50 yrs in august.

[@TheRetroRecall]

Yes I am, Atlantic!

[@Lewman211]

The only thing missing is the 5-1/2" drive, then it would be perfect. It cleaned up very well. I'd use it!. I love the old Vintage computers!

[@TheRetroRecall]

Same here :)

[@randomanalogue]

The purpose of keeping the original components is like keeping a 1968 Firebird in immaculate stock condition. Sure you could put a huge blower and ridiculous chromed dub rims and DOT spec tires on it and go really, really fast. But in the process the car loses its soul. The stock car is like picking out a piece of time from 60 years ago and plopping it right in your garage. These restored computers are no different. BTW, this gave me the feels for my first PC which was a P3 Coppermine 500Mhz from around the same generation. I bought that at a tech expo that was advertised weeks in advance and held at the local convention center... ever wonder what we did before Newegg and Amazon? Can't remember what video card it had, I think it was a Rage 128 too. This was a big deal for me because it was when I finally gave into my gaming hobby and made the switch to PC from Mac, as Apple was phasing out truly gaming capable systems at the time. Honestly, I really regret selling my previous computer. It was a Power PC 8600 running Mac OS 9, with an XLR8 G3 400Mhz upgrade CPU, and a Mac specific flavored 3dfx Voodoo 2 displaying on a Trinitron 19" screen. That was a true relic of history, a real beast of a gaming Mac. Nothing around to compare it to these days really, had some good times playing Unreal on that rig. Makes me wonder what happened to it, but then again, I probably don't want to know. 😂 Good stuff, looking forward to looking through your video library!

[@TheRetroRecall]

I 100% agree! Restoring these systems as is, makes it feel more authentic. If I upgraded everything, wouldn't everything be the same then? Haha. I'm glad you enjoyed, the older content is a bit rougher lol - hope you equally enjoy! :)

[@jonsmith5087]

good find - well worth keeping - takes a 1GHZ coppermine - great 3dfx voodoo build material

[@TheRetroRecall]

It is! I find this board very versatile with an array of compatibility.

[@maxtornogood]

Strange that someone would evidently tamper with a hard drive & put it back inside the case! Our Win98 build back in the day was a PIII 866Mhz with 1/4 the HDD & RAM capacity.

[@TheRetroRecall]

Nice and yes, I have no idea. I didn't take it apart yet, but it feels much lighter than it is supposed to be. I wonder if they took a platter out.

[@mbwoods2001]

Early celerons based on Pentium 3/4 are not too bad since it only have less cache and slower bus speed than the p3/4 unlike the celerons nowadays are the lowest crappiest cpu's compared to a reasonable priced core i3 chips! I have a pc which had a celeron 1.7ghz, then upgraded to celeron 2.4ghz which i had on hand, now has the p4 2.8ghz that i just bought recently, all on a 400mhz bus speed since the pc can only run 400mhz bus cpu's. At least ive increased the speed by a gigahertz!😁

[@TheRetroRecall]

Yes!! I agree that newer Celeron cpus today aren't like the ones of the past. I remember Celeron 300a being able to overclock that faster than the Intel Pentium counterparts!

[@livefreeprintguns]

Awww man, I miss playing quake3arena so much!

[@TheRetroRecall]

It is a great game. I won't lie, I got carried away and had to edit out a bunch as I forgot that I was recording lol.

[@matthewday7565]

Would have been best to start with "load setup default" . If I recall, that is equivalent to "optimal" on other systems. BIOS default or CMOS cleared may be slower

[@TheRetroRecall]

Very possible, I vaguely remember doing that years ago. I also remember it causing other issues if I recall correctly (depending on your configuration)

[@SilverX95]

i think the only GPU's that would be fitting for this system would be a Rage 128 Ultra or a Rage Fury MAXX as the Rage Fury is only 2x AGP unless there were models that had 4x AGP. I'm just going off with windows was showering there 40:40 it's not more of a upgrade then just getting the most out of the rage cards.

[@TheRetroRecall]

Yes good call, same family and keeps within the spirit of this system... I like it. Im sure I have one of those kicking around.

[@walterlegere1403]

I've noticed that most all the newer SATA drives are all black. Only the older IDE optical drives seem to come in beige. Do you know of a product that can bring these components back to their original beige color to get rid of the yellowing? The reason why I'm asking is that I have an original VPR-Matrix tower case that was made in 2001 that is in perfect condition but the faceplates of the two optical drives have yellowed and don't match the case color. I would like to refurbish them because they are original to this system. Any ideas?

[@TheRetroRecall]

For sure - Google 'Retrobrite'. This is a process of using hydrogen peroxide and UV light to restore the plastics to a much lighter color. Again - it is a process and will require a bit of practice. I believe there are also a lot of videos online about it as well. Good luck with your project!!

[@walterlegere1403]

@@TheRetroRecall Thanks for the tip. I've watched a few videos on how to do it so I'm going to try and see how it turns out! Wish me luck!

[@TheRetroRecall]

Good luck!! Most of all, have fun :)

[@EvilTurkeySlices]

I just worked on a socket 370 machine. Mine uses the Pentium iii-s 1266mhz(a tualatin server processor) 256mb of ram(eventually will be 1.5gb), a GeForce 3 Ti 200, and an Asus TUV4X motherboard.

[@TheRetroRecall]

That's a nice build!!!

[@HappyBeezerStudios]

That is like 80% my build. Also on a GF 3 Ti 200, on a CUSL2 with 256 MB PC133 and a 933EB. Getting a Tualatin is somewhere on the list, and the 1266-S is pretty much the sweet spot. Not as crazy expensive as the 1400-S, but still all the Tualatin-S benefits.

[@EvilTurkeySlices]

@@HappyBeezerStudios yeah, could have gotten a CUSL2, but I wanted a board with official Tualatin support and support for more than 512mb of ram.

[@EvilTurkeySlices]

@@HappyBeezerStudios my one regret is that the TUV4X uses the Apollo Pro 133T, which apparently has a buggy AGP4x interface. It doesn’t like some cards running at AGP 4x, unfortunately the GeForce 3 ti 200 is apparently one of them. Unfortunately when I have the agp 4x driver installed 3d is unstable and crashes sometimes, while I have that driver uninstalled the card still thinks it’s running at 4x and no 3d works. So I have to have the driver installed in slow mode, or AGP 1x mode. Works fine there though. Suffice to say I won’t be installing the driver under windows 2000 when I install it.

[@EvilTurkeySlices]

@@HappyBeezerStudios although apparently these older cards like the GeForce 3 series can’t really even saturate AGP 1x, so I’m probably not losing much performance.

[@kevin1970]

i think you missed an opportunity in the bios to enabled "sound blaster" and see how compatible it was for the likes of doom or duke3d etc

[@TheRetroRecall]

I did afterwards and ran into a pile of issues. I then installed the dos driver pack that came with the via chipset and still issues. Some games played, others didn't.... Mostly didn't. Going to install a Sb16 ISA card and see how that works. The one thing I'll say is Sb16 has always been extremely reliable for DOS gaming.

[@snowdog993]

You know, as I watch your videos, I have noticed you haven't set up a Windows NT 4.0 system? The 98SE us a good selection for the same time period. You "could" set up a second hard drive with NT 4.0 and then you can dual boot by using CMOS setup to select boot device. Best of both worlds.

[@TheRetroRecall]

Actually it's funny you mention that. I was just thinking the other day that it would be cool to do an NT 4.0 setup! I will add it to the list.

[@kopspijker3515]

Or just install NT4 to another partition and let NTLDR do all the work. Sorry OSLOADER. It was renamed to NTLDR in Win2K.

[@TheRetroRecall]

For sure. There are a lot of options.

[@3dfxvoodoocards6]

Interesting video, like!

[@TheRetroRecall]

Thanks!

[@cregberger4451]

good review & resto but instead of a Voodoo card, which re expensive and rare - plus they peaked in 2000/ why not a Geforce 3 / 4 series? as period correct, but better performance at a fraction of the $$

[@TheRetroRecall]

It's what I had I suppose. There will always be 'period correct' hardware and multiple configs so there never is a true perfect system. That said, there is a lot of fan fare around 3dfx that's fun to showcase :)

[@Lewman211]

If the capacitors show a " ^ " (tented up top)" on them when the motherboard is out of the case looking at it horizontal, then the Capacitor is blown, and it'll have to be replaced, if multiple are blown get a new motherboard if you can find one.

[@TheRetroRecall]

Appreciate it. When I have those issues with capacitors, I tend to replace them to save these boards. I've done a couple of recapping videos in the channel. Thanks again!

[@johnmay4803]

was that a msi board pal? it looked like a aopen 1 u had before with a via chipset

[@TheRetroRecall]

Yes, it's an MSI 6309 v2.1 MB. I had another p3 board that is Aopen. I can't remember exactly what the model of that is.

[@curtissimmons1085]

i think you of two side panels from different computers. The one on the right looks like its upside down based on where its notches are at

[@TheRetroRecall]

Definitely possible, never thought of that!

[@neillrutherford]

Well Done!!!

[@TheRetroRecall]

Thanks!

[@jaimecosta2966]

Excelente vídeo.. saying that i dont remember if one neads ti activate windows 98 SE

[@TheRetroRecall]

Nope, no activation required. And thank you!

[@jaimecosta2966]

@@TheRetroRecall brilhante no activation.. i will defenatly be trying to build one.. wish you well

[@TheRetroRecall]

Likewise!! Good luck!

[@brightshadowdenmark]

just bought 64gb ddr4-2666mhz (4x 16gb) for 73usd (including shipping) on Facebook Marketplace in Denmark ;-) (talking about RAM-prices)

[@TheRetroRecall]

Haha!! Nice. Hard to belive how much it cost back then.

[@blaster-vv8so]

when I was in college we had old pc to show how to assemble a computer and mabie this was a learning computer

[@TheRetroRecall]

Very possible.

[@Natures_Intentions]

well worth saving runs games very well too Perfect

[@TheRetroRecall]

Absolutely! Lots of fun for sure.

[@theexpndables2022]

you do great job

[@TheRetroRecall]

Thank you!

[@leegriffin1584]

My dad does the numbers too, each cable has a sticker on it with a number so he knows what goes where. He's colourblind, so colours are not as useful (for example on the various audio jacks). You and I know some are obvious, I mean RJ-45 won't go in any other socket and only one way in the one it's meant to go in, but dad likes the order of his numbers.

[@TheRetroRecall]

That's awesome to know! I never thought of that to be honest. Thank you!

[@michaelfowler8248]

That was a steal 14.83 US You should start a computer museum

[@TheRetroRecall]

Agreed. Haha not sure if I would have the time :). For now I'm enjoying the restoration process and preserving these amazing systems.

[@iamperplexed4695]

My god, i must have built hundreds of systems of exactly this variety and specs, all to farmers in Alberta. I have an infinite fondness in my heart for AMD at this threshold. The Thunderbird era (minus the caps) was a golden age of computing all around.

[@TheRetroRecall]

Haha that's awesome, great memories :)

[@Felix_Fausto554]

I`ve seen some people using silicone oil for treadmills on ram and pci slots. Do you think it can cause problems?

[@TheRetroRecall]

Oh my. I have never heard of that nor would my mind even go there. I'll happily stick with the proper deoxit/contact cleaner.

[@StyxAnnihilator]

What are you supposed to use the PC for? I have stored away some of my old gaming computers, but have not had any need to start any of them.

[@TheRetroRecall]

There are a number of uses for retro enthusiasts - specifically games on period correct hardware without emulation. There's also a level of nostalgia that goes along with building / using these older rigs.

[@StyxAnnihilator]

@@TheRetroRecall Thanks for answer. So no practical use for most peoples then.

[@TheRetroRecall]

Depends - if you are able to install a Linux distro on them depending on the particular distros requirements, you can get online etc. Again, depends on the hardware.