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Hey guys,
RickS has been doing his part, so has Bing, so I figured I better reach into my wallet and join the fun.
While I was going slightly out of my mind with boredom during the opening discussions at the Power Electronics Reliability Group conference meeting last week, I hit on a plan to shuffle hardware around the house and more nearly optimize the computing experience at each "station". Plus, it gave me the excuse to assemble the "Legacy 3DFx Monster Gaming Machine" I've been wanting to put together for all of my favorite older games, some of which I really haven't played all that much, due to time issues. But in case I ever do have the time to have a life, I'll be all set. (which ignores the point that playing computer games and flight sims is *NOT* having a life!) (how we delude ourselves!)
So, I donated some funds to my favorite local Chinese computer emporiom, Centeral Computer, and they were nice enough to endow me with the following:
MSI K7T-266PR motherboard
200/266 MHz FSB
PC2100 DDR Support
Ultra DMA33/66/100 on main IDE
Secondary Promis ATA100 IDE RAID controller
D-LED Boot Diagnostics
USB support included PC2PC USB networking
256 MB PC2100 DDR memory
Athlon 266FSB/1.2 GHz- under $200 retail!
Addtronics 6890 case with 300W supply
The MSI motherboard uses the VIA Apollo KT266 chipset, which doubles the communication bandwidth between the north and south bridge to 266 MB/s. Who knows if that means anything in the real world? I'll let ya know....
Also slated for installation are items at home, including a 52X ACER CD-ROM, a 60GB Maxtor ATA100 disk, the afore mentioned 3DFx card, and a Sound Blaster Live Platinum 5.1 swiped from my living room system, which is getting an M-Audio 24/96 card to replace it. The only thing this version of the MB wasn't equipped with was the USB 2.0 hardware. I think I'll be able to live without it.
You may have noticed, there's nothing about DVD-ROM- there will be another system sitting right next to it, a 400 MHz celery system, with Radeon and DVD-ROM, plugged into the RGB2 input of the NEC XM29Plus. Yes, with the hardware support for decoding that a Radeon has (inlcuding IDCT, motion comp, etc.), a Celeron 300 or up seems to work quite well for DVD. Much UNLIKE a Geforce, which is kinda power hungry to avoid audio and video stutters. I may even try something weird in the Celeron system, like a Turtle Beach Santa Cruz for Audio.
Well, I better get busy and download all the most current drivers from the web, before I try to put this puppy together this weekend. Wish me luck, guys.
Regards,
Jon
Earth First!
_______________________________
We'll screw up the other planets later....
RickS has been doing his part, so has Bing, so I figured I better reach into my wallet and join the fun.
While I was going slightly out of my mind with boredom during the opening discussions at the Power Electronics Reliability Group conference meeting last week, I hit on a plan to shuffle hardware around the house and more nearly optimize the computing experience at each "station". Plus, it gave me the excuse to assemble the "Legacy 3DFx Monster Gaming Machine" I've been wanting to put together for all of my favorite older games, some of which I really haven't played all that much, due to time issues. But in case I ever do have the time to have a life, I'll be all set. (which ignores the point that playing computer games and flight sims is *NOT* having a life!) (how we delude ourselves!)
So, I donated some funds to my favorite local Chinese computer emporiom, Centeral Computer, and they were nice enough to endow me with the following:
MSI K7T-266PR motherboard
200/266 MHz FSB
PC2100 DDR Support
Ultra DMA33/66/100 on main IDE
Secondary Promis ATA100 IDE RAID controller
D-LED Boot Diagnostics
USB support included PC2PC USB networking
256 MB PC2100 DDR memory
Athlon 266FSB/1.2 GHz- under $200 retail!
Addtronics 6890 case with 300W supply
The MSI motherboard uses the VIA Apollo KT266 chipset, which doubles the communication bandwidth between the north and south bridge to 266 MB/s. Who knows if that means anything in the real world? I'll let ya know....
Also slated for installation are items at home, including a 52X ACER CD-ROM, a 60GB Maxtor ATA100 disk, the afore mentioned 3DFx card, and a Sound Blaster Live Platinum 5.1 swiped from my living room system, which is getting an M-Audio 24/96 card to replace it. The only thing this version of the MB wasn't equipped with was the USB 2.0 hardware. I think I'll be able to live without it.
You may have noticed, there's nothing about DVD-ROM- there will be another system sitting right next to it, a 400 MHz celery system, with Radeon and DVD-ROM, plugged into the RGB2 input of the NEC XM29Plus. Yes, with the hardware support for decoding that a Radeon has (inlcuding IDCT, motion comp, etc.), a Celeron 300 or up seems to work quite well for DVD. Much UNLIKE a Geforce, which is kinda power hungry to avoid audio and video stutters. I may even try something weird in the Celeron system, like a Turtle Beach Santa Cruz for Audio.
Well, I better get busy and download all the most current drivers from the web, before I try to put this puppy together this weekend. Wish me luck, guys.
Regards,
Jon
Earth First!
_______________________________
We'll screw up the other planets later....
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