StarDestroyer.Net BBS

My current 2nd Comp is a 450 MhZ pentium II shitbox with
only a PCI video card slot, shitty memory that pukes all over itself,
etc - I want to replace it sometime in the future with a cheep, yet
reliable computer at least 3-4 times faster...

Need budget first.

phongn wrote:Need budget first.

Well, keep it around $400 or under

I'm going to assume you're reusing an old case. All prices from Newegg

$90 Shuttle MN31N nForce 2 MicroATX motherboard.
$67 AMD Athlon XP 1.67 GHz Retail
$72 (2X) Kingston PC2700 256MB DDR SDRAM
$64 Western Digital 40GB 8MB 7200 RPM HD
$65 Lite-On 48x24x48x16 CD-RW/DVD-ROM
$06 Samsung 3.5" 1.44MB FDD

$364 + S&H

That motherboard should be reliable. No serial ports other than USB, but it has integrated LAN, 5.1 audio and dual-channel DDR SDRAM. It's MicroATX, so not so many PCI slots are included, alas. It also has dual VGA ports with integrated video (GF4MX...not so hot, but better than what you have now)

The RAM uses two sticks to boost performance, which is especially useful for integrated video.

The rest is straightforward.

phongn wrote: That motherboard should be reliable. No serial ports other than USB, but it has integrated LAN, 5.1 audio and dual-channel DDR SDRAM. It's MicroATX, so not so many PCI slots are included, alas. It also has dual VGA ports with integrated video (GF4MX...not so hot, but better than what you have now)

*shoots Phong*

Ah, you forget that teh MX Line of GeForces do not have native VESA, so
no old DOS games like Steel Panthers or Silent Hunter running in DOS Dual
boo

Delete the hard drive and CDROM drive (already have those) and assume
a new case please, with a slightly better mobo - I learned the hard way
with this computer that built in anything sucks major donkey cock.

phongn wrote:I'm going to assume you're reusing an old case. All prices from Newegg

$90 Shuttle MN31N nForce 2 MicroATX motherboard.
$67 AMD Athlon XP 1.67 GHz Retail
$72 (2X) Kingston PC2700 256MB DDR SDRAM
$64 Western Digital 40GB 8MB 7200 RPM HD
$65 Lite-On 48x24x48x16 CD-RW/DVD-ROM
$06 Samsung 3.5" 1.44MB FDD

$364 + S&H

That motherboard should be reliable. No serial ports other than USB, but it has integrated LAN, 5.1 audio and dual-channel DDR SDRAM. It's MicroATX, so not so many PCI slots are included, alas. It also has dual VGA ports with integrated video (GF4MX...not so hot, but better than what you have now)

The RAM uses two sticks to boost performance, which is especially useful for integrated video.

The rest is straightforward.

I got the 40GB WD harddrive for 40$- mail in rebate.

Do you even need a floppy drive these days? There's emailing stuff to yourself and CD-RWs.

Pu-239 wrote: Do you even need a floppy drive these days? There's emailing stuff to yourself and CD-RWs.

*shoots PU*

"Boot Disk"

They come on cd's these days....microsoft doesn't use 'bootdiscs' anymore...it's...'boot-cd's' now

MKSheppard wrote:Ah, you forget that teh MX Line of GeForces do not have native VESA, so
no old DOS games like Steel Panthers or Silent Hunter running in DOS Dual
boot

EEERRRGGHHH!! NOW I KNOW WHY WOLF3D, BATTLEDROME, AND TYRIAN WON'T WORK!! Now on I'll be getting nothing but TIs..

Coaan wrote:They come on cd's these days....microsoft doesn't use 'bootdiscs' anymore...it's...'boot-cd's' now

Honestly, M$ can all line up against the wall and suck my AK47 with that logic. And besides, what happens after the Kaboom, the Earth-Shattering Kaboom!?

P.S. this is not a flame against you, it's a flame against Micro$uck.

Bootdisks are convenient, yes, but still somewhat annoying to use. I have a few boot CDs around here, though. I may get a USB keychain and use that to boot off of.

Hrmm...as this seems to be primarily a DOS box, I have no idea if nVidia ever released drivers for sound or if it even does emulation. You might have to find an old SB PCI card for that. Hell, you probably could drop back to 256MB of RAM since DOS can't address much RAM at all (IIRC, 64MB max). Anything Intel-based is probably going to be more expensive - the cheapest Celeron is ~$45 and I'd have to hunt for a motherboard that could use it.

$39 Enlight EN-PA310104 300W ATX Case
$04 Cooler Master DP5-6I11A Heatsink/Fan
$06 Samsung 1.44MB 3.5" FDD
$72 (2X) Kingstom
$85 Epox EP-8RDA+ nForce 2 motherboard
$41 AMD Athlon XP
$79 Gainward GF3 Ti 200 64MB

$330 + S&H

phongn wrote:Bootdisks are convenient, yes, but still somewhat annoying to use. I have a few boot CDs around here, though. I may get a USB keychain and use that to boot off of.

Bootdisks are slow. The win2k disks take like 15 minutes to load, and you have to sit in front of the monitor to change disks. Ugh. They are *NOT* convenient. Unfortunately booting is slow anyways because the offboard HDD controller has to initiallize. Is there any way to store hard drive information rather than having the controller bios check the hard drive every time I boot, like the motherboard bios which can store the hard drive information? I have a Promise Ultra100-TX2.


65$ for a CD-RW/DVD-ROM . Cheap. I bought an overpriced Antec power supply for that much (emergency).

Anyways, if he's running dos progs, can't he just keep his old one solely for that purpose? The extra hardware isn't going to do him much good running DOS progs.

Have you tried running DosEmu on Linux, or have you given up on Linux?


*Note- I've been in the dark completely about new computer hardware. And I don't run dos crap, so I have never bothered with DOSEMU.

Einhander Sn0m4n wrote:

Coaan wrote:They come on cd's these days....microsoft doesn't use 'bootdiscs' anymore...it's...'boot-cd's' now

Honestly, M$ can all line up against the wall and suck my AK47 with that logic. And besides, what happens after the Kaboom, the Earth-Shattering Kaboom!?

P.S. this is not a flame against you, it's a flame against Micro$uck.

Ahh...flame retardant suits for ewoks

Ms is evil...enough said there....so saying that...cd's a hellava lot more reliable than a floppy..

What you should really do if you want to run dos these days...or at least the programs that did run back in tgod then I'd reccomend just building what we would all define as a completely shit machine now...for the sole purpose of playing old dos games....it saves you alot of heartache royally screwing your current rig just to get them to work

Coaan wrote:What you should really do if you want to run dos these days...or at least the programs that did run back in tgod then I'd reccomend just building what we would all define as a completely shit machine now...for the sole purpose of playing old dos games....it saves you alot of heartache royally screwing your current rig just to get them to work

Actually, I dual boot

Gotta love W2K...See, I know what to keep - get a good modern video
card so I can play Win32 games in W2K, but also one with native VESA
for all those DOS games...and get a generic PCI soundblaster
for DOS/Windoes...I mean, comeon, who needs 3d Positional sound?

phongn wrote:Hrmm...as this seems to be primarily a DOS box, I have no idea if nVidia ever released drivers for sound or if it even does emulation. You might have to find an old SB PCI card for that. Hell, you probably could drop back to 256MB of RAM since DOS can't address much RAM at all (IIRC, 64MB max). Anything Intel-based is probably going to be more expensive - the cheapest Celeron is ~$45 and I'd have to hunt for a motherboard that could use it.

Thanks for your work man, I appreciate it

3D positional sound is an advantage for FPS games but not much else. The nForce 2 is an excellent chipset for AMD processors with very good sound, but yes, DOS support may be iffy.

Lite-On makes cheap CD-RWs. I prefer Plextor, but they're quite a bit more expensive (1.5-2X as much).

If you have some sort of external drive controller (ATA[PI], SATA, SCSI, whatever) you must allow it to initialize. There's absolutely no way around it.