One of the most awesome things have come around on the internet, involving classic games such as Red Baron II, which included a coupon for Red Baron pizza. One game reviewer who I greatly support, has done such an adventure, and he is Lazy Game Reviews. I highly recommend checking his website and Youtube channel! Below you will see a fine example of his work, the pizza adventure! I won’t spoil any details. 🙂
Now, I’m hungry and ready to eat some pizza, thank you LGR! 😀
Greetings everyone! I have an AT style computer case, new old stock that is waiting to be assembled. However I have several choices and thought it’d be fun to let others have some input in which board to choose from! I am considering making a build log, either by making a video or posting pictures here.
So first off, this is the computer case that I will be using:
Inside, it still has the baggy with instructions for the MHz display, feet, PC speaker and some motherboard mounting goodies. All ready to go!
Now here are the motherboards  of choice! 🙂
AMD 486 DX2 66MHz with 16MB RAM. Just needs a little bit of cleaning where the old CMOS battery was located, and a new replacement or external battery and it’ll be good to go!
FIC VT-501 Motherboard with a Intel Pentium 120MHz processor and 16MB of RAM.
Intel Socket 5 Motherboard with a Intel Pentium 133MHz processor and 32MB of RAM.
FIC PA-2002 Motherboard with a Intel Pentium 166MHz processor with 16MB RAM.
OCTEK Rhino 9 Motherboard with a Intel Pentium 166MHz processor with 32MB RAM.
FIC VA-501 Motherboard with a Intel Pentium MMX 166MHz processor with 48MB RAM.
That’s it for the motherboard list! 😀
So feel free to leave a comment of your input! 🙂
I’ve been wanting to build an Intel Pentium system for some time, and finally got around to it after obtaining a AT style socket 7 motherboard. Our very first computer was an Acer, which I think was an AcerPower style system I grew up with as a kid, with Windows 3.1 with A.C.E. (Acer Computer Explorer)
What A.C.E. looks like:
It had either a 66MHz or a 75MHz Intel Pentium processor. I wish I still had that system, but I hope to find another one or the same case. However, for the time being, I will have to be content with this latest build!
After obtaining a nice AT style case for the hardware, I began assembly rather quickly, as I began to be pretty excited. However I ran into an issue with the system actually wanting to boot. At first I would have to hit reset a time or two after it was already powered on. It was thanks to a member at Vogons, by the name of Mau1wurf1977, who helped me realize I needed to verify the jumper settings, and what would be appropriate for the CPU. Which I spent some time researching the CPU itself, which is a Intel Pentium 133 – A80502133. Then after finding the right motherboard chart (Which wasn’t necessary due to the settings being listed on my board itself.) but the PA-2005 I have, has two setups for the voltage. Single and dual. Dual being for separate Vcore. Thus having caused some instability. After getting this situated, it powers on quite well!
Here’s a close up, of the voltage selection, it was originally set to P55C (2.7V-2.9V/3.3V). Which is a dual voltage setting, former voltage being for the vcore and the latter being the I/O. Which is completely irrelevant to the Intel Pentium A80502133 CPU’s need, it is a single volt chip. So the proper setting on this board, is P54C/STD(3.3V). I recommend anyone building their own system to double check this, even if the board you may obtain has the CPU. Mine had come with it’s CPU, but the voltage wasn’t set correctly when I got it. Just be sure to verify the settings. 😉
So here, we shall begin with the motherboard, which is a First International Corp. PA-2005 board:
Then into the case it goes, having the PS/2 mouse port and serial ports hooked up and mounted on the lower slots. I wanted to help keep the wires neatly tucked away, and this seemed quite ideal:
Then I decided to choose an S3 Virge DX video card, which came with 2MB of VRAM, however I added a couple of RAM chips I stole from my Mach64 (Since I think it may be a dead card.). So I think this may be 3 megs total on this S3 now, if I were to guess…
Then next up, is my Diamond Multimedia Voodoo 3DFX card, I was going to put a Voodoo 2 in, but I decided to go ahead and put this one in instead:
As for my audio, I went with a Soundblaster AWE64 Gold, I have. This one I don’t have an add on SimmCon memory module like I do for my 486 DX4 system, but I don’t think I will worry about it for now:
Then I wanted to use an NIC here, as well, which is a 3Com EtherLink XL PCI – 3C900-COMBO:
Then all the goodies installed, and some wire management done:
How it looks on the back side:
Then going through some trial and error, which I never fully figured out why, but I ended up having some difficulty with my CD drivers loading, hanging on me after I seem to update the autoexec file, whether by memmaker or adding my mouse driver. Sometimes it seems like it started after I install my 3Com drivers, but after I managed to get things through with memmaker, and me leaving things alone, it won’t hang while trying to load the current CD drive. It had been more of a pain with a DVD drive I had that originally worked until I did a fresh install of MS-DOS 6.22. I don’t know if there’s some conflict going on or what, but right now it seems fine. 😮
Anyway, here’s the system running Day of the Tentacle from the CD drive!:
Then a picture showing more of the tower itself 🙂 :
Motherboard originally had 32MB of RAM on it, but during testing process, I ended up sticking 64MB in it, and hadn’t changed that. 😀
Specifications:
First International Corp. PA-2005 Motherboard
Intel Pentium 133MHz A80502133 CPU
64MB of 72-Pin SIMM RAM
S3 Virge DX Graphics card
Diamond Multimedia Voodoo 3DFX card
Creative Soundblaster AWE64 Gold ISA audio card.
3Com EtherLink XL PCI – 3C900-COMBO card.
Samsung 3.2GB IDE Harddrive in a 5.25″ removable HDD Bay.
Some CDRW drive I have.
3.5″ Floppy Drive
MS-DOS 6.22 and Windows 3.1.
My recent project ended up with me rebuilding my old system, due to the CMOS battery leaking acid, really eating up some traces on the board.
As much as I had hoped to of saved my older motherboard, which was a TMC Research PCI48AF Version 3.0 board, I could not. Here are the traces on the old board…
Then the backside:
It looked a lot worse than this, before I cleaned up the corrosion it with vinegar and rubbing alcohol. It had one of those barrel shaped batteries, I would definitely recommend anyone with a classic working system, to be sure to have these changed out. Even if you are in the market for a motherboard, like if you were hunting around online, never overlook the battery, and see what possible mess it may have left. And if it still works, then it’s best to replace the battery immediately and clean up the corrosion.  😉
Now I had been using a AM5x86 CPU, which ran at 133MHz in here, as well as a ATI Rage LT Pro AGP 8MB PCI graphics card. Along with 32MB of RAM and 256k cache. I miss that old configuration…
However my next step was to  find another motherboard, and fortunately, one came up, which is an Elitegroup Computer Systems, UM8810P-AIO. Which had a nice AMD DX4 100Mhz processor, and 64MB of DRAM. 256k of onboard cache.  Which turned out to be pretty sweet, even came with an S3 Trio64 GPU.
So let the build begin! First picture shows both motherboards, UM8810P-AIO on the left and the PCI48AF on the right.
After getting all the components installed I decide to work on a little bit of wire management.
Then here I have it running Sim Tower, in Windows 3.1. 🙂
I then decided, that it’s complete, after having the video drivers installed in Windows 3.1, and everything in good working order, I can finally close up the case. 😀
I was originally going to put my ATI Mach64 in, but nothing would display on the monitor, the system would boot as it does, with out any output… but the S3 Trio64 works pretty well, so I can’t complain. The main reason from straying away from the ATI Rage LT Pro card I had in it with the older motherboard, was due to Commander King 4 having compatibility issues with it. Mainly with the rough horizontal scrolling in the game. Not an issue to worry about with the S3. 🙂
Also for anyone curious about the 72-pin SIMM RAM on the audio card, this is a SimmConn memory adapter with a 32MB SIMM installed. Expanding the memory on the Sound Blaster AWE64 Gold audio card, however, the card is limited to 28MB max total. Great for loading sound fonts.  🙂
Here’s a picture comparing two of the same card, one with and one with out the SimmConn module:
Rear view of the tower:
System Specifications:
AMD 486 DX4 at 100MHz
ELITEGROUP COMPUTER SYSTEMS, INC. UM8810P-AIO motherboard (Capable of 128MB of RAM, max!)
64MB DRAM + 256K Cache
S3 Trio64 86C764 PCI Graphics card. Not sure on VRAM amount.
3DFX Voodoo 2 3D Acceleration Card
Sound Blaster AWE64 Gold with Add-On SIMMConn Memory Adapter expanding the audio RAM up to 28MB!
2GB Transcend Compact Flash Card in place of a Harddrive, using a Syba Compact Flash to IDE adapter, that mounts in the rear brackets.
Memorex 52x CD-ROM/CD-RW Optical Drive.
3.5″ 1.44MB Floppy Disk Drive.
5.25″ 1.2MB Floppy Disk Drive.
MS-DOS 6.22 and Windows 3.1 with all the appropriate drivers installed.
