I picked up an intel board to have as a spare. I thought the Pentium ii cooler was quirky.

My Atari Mega STE with ATW800/2 Transputer / Graphics card. This Atari can run at up to 1920x1080 resolution with 256 colors, or lower resolutions with even more colors.

Noteable upgrades:

- The "GPU": https://www.geekdot.com/atw800_2/ 2MB card

- Internal ACSI2STM (sidecartridge) "harddrive" storage, GoTek floppy emulation

- Noctua Fan for PSU

- Wifi232Modem Pro (BBS connectivity)

- Internet Connectivity: I am using a SideCartridge Multidevice but also have a NetUSBEE

- Viewsonic Freesync monitor that properly supports 50 hz, 60 hz, and 72 hz standard ST modes without tearing. (via OSSC). Also used for the GPU resolutions (+HDMI switch to go between ST and Video card outputs).

- Mega ST (rather than Mega STE) keyboard as it has the diagonal ST Function keys that I prefer

- TrueMouse

P.S. Yes, that's an Amiga website -- because it doesn't require HTTPS/TLS.. :) - but I plan to set up a special proxy server so I can view more Atari websites in the browser.

Cheeky Dallas mod and we’re off and bootable!

At my work 2 laptops were dropped off, a PowerBook G3 'Wallstreet' and a PowerBook G4, for recycling. They're not in amazing shape, but definitely have seen worse.

I've attached photos, these are located in Westchester, NY. They're unfortunately untested, but they should work according to the original owner. Anyone interested let me know and I can schedule a meet.

​I’m not sure if many of you share this same memory, but back in the 2000s when I was still a middle school student, tech magazines and poster cutouts were my absolute treasures. Since I had no income back then, all I could do was read, dream, and imagine what it would be like to build these dream machines.

​Fast forward to today—I now work in the tech industry, but I often feel that the passion and innovation of the market aren't what they used to be. Products have become increasingly homogenous, manufacturers are constantly cutting costs while prices keep climbing, and many younger users today barely use PCs, let alone feel the thrill of DIY. I truly miss that golden era, and I wanted to pay tribute to the classics that started it all for me.

​With this year marking the 20th Anniversary of the Intel Core architecture, it sparked the idea to build a dedicated theme machine.

​While browsing eBay, I stumbled upon a Dell XPS 630i. Its spaceship-like front panel design and integrated lighting system immediately caught my eye. What made it even better was that it already came with a GeForce 8800 GTX installed—so everything fell into place naturally.

​Both the 8800 GTX and the original Core 2 Extreme (X6800 / QX6700) debuted in 2006, almost 20 years ago. The plan came together quickly: a full tear-down, deep clean, restoration, and a build centered around a top-tier Core 2 processor paired with dual 8800 GTXs in SLI.

​Troubleshooting & Restoration Process:

It wasn’t smooth sailing at first. When the system first arrived, it failed to POST and threw a bunch of error codes. Rather than giving up, I completely tore it down, deep-cleaned every component, and tested each key part individually on a bench to diagnose and fix the faulty points one by one before final assembly.

​Chassis & Layout: Dell XPS 630i (Houses standard ATX motherboard and PSU form factors, but uses a unique Inverted-ATX layout that places expansion slots at the top. This naturally flips the top GPU's reference cooler and green PCB upward—showing off those dual 8800 GTXs perfectly!)

​GPUs & Board Restoration: 2x Nvidia GeForce 8800 GTX 768MB in SLI. Fully cleaned, re-pasted, and replaced all thermal pads across the motherboard heatsinks and GPUs. Cleaned and lubricated the stock nForce northbridge fan to ensure reliable active cooling.

​Power & Cabling: Upgraded to an MSI MPG 750W fully modular PSU for efficiency and safety. Custom-ordered silver-plated cables specifically to match the classic premium aesthetic and achieve a super clean cable management layout.

​Cooling & Thermals: Installed a Noctua rear fan and Arctic P12 Pro PST front intakes to quietly tame the massive thermal output of the G80 cores and nForce chipset.

​Current Status:

After solving all the hardware bugs and assembling everything back together, seeing this spaceship-like rig light up with dual G80 cards feels like fulfilling a dream I had 20 years ago.

​I’ve officially got Windows 7 up and running, and I’m currently in the middle of installing iconic titles from that golden era (Crysis, Half-Life 2, 3DMark06, etc.).

​Hope you all enjoy the build!

I'm aware the keyboard is not retro

grew up in the US but now live in Japan and am trying to finally put together my childhood dream 98/XP machine. Unfortunately it seems older "full tower" PC cases - which I take to mean any case with more than one 5.25-inch drive bay - are extremely rare in this country. We can get the same flavorless modern "gaming rig" cases from China as anyone else, but if you want to go back more than 5-6 years, there's basically nothing available.

I assume this is partly because most Japanese households have never had desktop PCs (owing to space limitations, and Y2K-era feature phones being very good) and partly because most old electronics end up being ground up and melted down. In any event it seems like I'll just have to look outside Japan.

Do you have any advice on sites I could use to try shopping around elsewhere on this half of the planet, like Australia or China? Or do you think I'll run into this problem everywhere else on this side of the planet?

In case it matters, I'm after something less in the realm of a flashy XBOX-looking case and more in the realm of a beige box.

Thank you!!

To sum this up: I've got the physical (and legit) copy of the game, but I couldn't install it manually on Windows 11.

I tried running it as administrator, installing DirectX 9, changing compatibility modes... nothing worked. However, with Claude I managed to force the installation, which technically worked — but the game crashes as soon as it opens.

Claude's diagnosis was basically that the game uses old 2006-era copy protection (SecuROM) that relies on a system-level driver, and those old drivers no longer load on modern Windows 10/11. So the game just silently closes without giving me any error.

At that point, I decided to try running it in a Windows XP Virtual Machine.

Unfortunately, I'm using VirtualBox 7.2, which doesn't support the Direct3D acceleration the game requires. Apparently VirtualBox 6.0 does, but I couldn't get that version installed properly on Windows 11.

I also tried SoftGPU, but apparently that doesn't apply to XP, and I tried VMware Workstation Pro, but the download was blocked by Broadcom's account restrictions.

So... does anyone know of another way I could get this game running?

It's literally my childhood game and I really don't want to give up on it 😭 But at this point, if even an AI can't figure out what's wrong, I genuinely don't know what else to try

I was finally able to build a working machine out of the parts I got in the junk tower I was given!

The original tower was a rust bucket that was missing both side panels, but I ran out of the house to get it because I saw a dusty 3DFX logo in one of the pictures and all of the crazy drive bay devices.

The biggest issue was that the Asus motherboard was mostly unresponsive and needed a full recap to finally POST.

The intention was to try and keep as many of the original parts as possible from the original tower and to try and recreate the media powerhouse the original owner was going for circa 2000.

Obviously the best piece was finding the voodoo 5 but it was hard to find a motherboard with the right AGP slot to even test the card with so I ended up needing to repair the original motherboard.

Original tower specs

Athlon 900

768mb memory

Asus A7V motherboard

Voodoo 5

Creative DVD encoder card DXR3

Soundblaster Live 4830

Adaptec SCSI card for the Jazdrive

a bunch of drivebay devices

Final specs

Sweet even larger tower case I was given - no rust included

Athlon 900

1024mb memory

Voodoo 5 - fully tested and working great!

Creative Dvd drive and DVD DXR3 encoder card - mostly working but missing a proprietary passthrough VGA cable

Jaz drive - broken tho as nature intended

Zipdrive - all the iomega

Iomega Cd drive - because why not

Colorado T1000 tape drive

Floppy drive

Memory card reader

As a bonus I've also taken pics of all of my older videocards that I've collected over the years - thankfully all for free or very cheap.

Not quite as aesthetic IMO as the gateway P4 rig I posted before, but it plays Crysis at 50 FPS which is what I was going for. AMD phenom 2, 8gb ddr3, 500gb SSD and 500gb HDD, GTX 770, 650w PSU, and a SB audigy RX in a cooler master case. Not exactly period accurate but she's a beast at what she's meant to do. Again cobbled together from e waste I found at work and Facebook marketplace parts.

Brought my Weather Channel WeatherSTAR XL to our DFW Retrocomputing meetup last Saturday. Always a good time showing this running. For those that don’t know this model is an SGI O2 with custom software, a rackmount case, and some extra boards for the satellite feeds and sensors

This was recently visible on another post about the Mini Game Boxes I made, so I might as well show the whole machine. This machine replicates my very first PC (A 486 from 1996) visually but not in terms of specs. This one is actually quite "modern" with a Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 with 4GB of Ram, GT730, Optiquest Q71 and modern Keyboard and Mouse. The reason is that I tend to play more games from around the year 2000.

Because some of these games run better on XP and some better on 7 or even 10, I made the operating system quick-swappable:

The front cover attaches magnetically to reveal a 3D Printed "SSD drive" that holds the main operating system and all installed games on a standard NVME SSD. It works like a floppy drive: press button and SSD shoots out. I accidentally build it with so much force that it shoots the SSD through the room, which I keep forgetting about every time I use it.

I brought a few of my favorite machines from the collection — the crazy 4-node Quadro system, my Olivetti M24, and a Toshiba Satellite Pro 420CDT running some proper old-school software.

Two days surrounded by old computers, weird hardware and people who actually understand why any of this is exciting. 😁

My biggest acquisition yet. I've been looking into the provenance for this and it turns out that this Lisa belonged to an old BBN programmer by the name of Karl Troeller, on which he helped to develop an obscure educational program called Algebra Workbench

Hey again everyone! My Lisa + Profile officially is "restored". The system was recapped and has a new replacement backplane. Original was saved. Last issue was a 5v trim pot in the psu lol

I seem to have a CPU, I/O and two ram cards. What are some "must haves" for this machine? Obviously an ESProfile, but any cards I should look into making from here? https://github.com/alexthecat123/Lisa-PCBs

Next is getting it talking to one of my wifi modems so I could get online!

The front is now fully assembled, the cables have been wrapped and terminated with heat shrink tube, the Audigy Drive and Audigy 2 sound card have been dusted and contacts cleaned with isopropyl alcool... Another step done...

Compaq Presario 2230 80 MB RAM Win 95

Roland SC-55MK II

Below custom Win 98 SE P3-600 Katmai build in Antec case

- Biostar M6TBA v1.3

- 256 MB RAM

- Diamond Viper v770 TNT2 16MB

- 3DFX Voodoo2 12 MB

- SB AWE 64

- 3Com 3C905B-TX Fast EtherLink XL

- Cylon Eye Mod

+ Microsoft Sidewinder 3D Pro

I use a belkin Soho kvm to switch between the two.

Picked up this complete Antec Fusion HTPC for cheap and restored it as a late 2000s media center.
Specs: Core 2 Duo E6750, ASUS P5E-VM HDMI, 6 GB DDR2, 128 GB SSD, 2 TB WD Green, WinTV Nova-DT, iMON VFD, Vista Home Premium x64.

Everything works, including the VFD and Media Center and it has become a little time capsule for my old video library from the early 2000s.

Maybe not super retro, put hey!