Nighthawk, my AMD 750 Slot A build!

hey all

Here my latest Matrox /3Dfx related build, the Matrox part isdone but the 3Dfx part will be added at a later time.

So a second retro PC and yea why not I always wanted to try out a nice AMD K7 Slot A based build using the AMD &50 Irongate chipset with a G400/G400MAX + 2x V2 12MB's in SLI, slowly but surely it is getting it's shapes made.

Nighthawk

AMD Athlon Thunderbird 700Mhz Slot A

3x 256MB PC-133 Legend / Hynix @ PC-100

MSI MS-6195 AMD Irongate AM751 Chipset

Matrox Millennium G400 MAX AGP 32MB 128Bit SGRAM Rev.A (PCB Date not known yet)
2x Viewtop Vulcan2 12MBs in SLI or 2x Gainward Dragon 3000 PCI 12MB's in SLI or equivalent (Still working on this part.)

Samsung 3.5" FDD Drive

1x 40GB Seagate Barracuda V 7200 rpm HDD Main drive

1x 80GB Western Digital Caviar SE 7200 rpm HDD Storage drive
LG 40x/16X CD/DVD RW Drive

NEC 5 port USB 2.0 PCI Card + Front Panel 3 in PCI Card 2 in Front Panel

3-Com 3C 905C 10/100Mbit Ethernet PCI Card

Creative Labs Sound Blaster AWE64 Gold CT4390 4MB ISA PCB Date 3197

2002 A-Open H-600-B ATX Case

A-Open 350 Watt PSU or equivalent.

Compaq S710 17" Blackshade CRT from 2001

Reso @ 1024x768x32 ! 85Hz | 0.22.5 Dot Pitch

Win2K Pro UK + SP4

Matrox Power Desk for G400/550 series for Win2K Pro
Fast Voodoo 2 Drivers Win2K/XP for the V2 PCI 12MB's

Here some pics of the build I had done before I shipped the mainboard to Australia for a donor bios & repair & testing by SWZSSR

Here some pics of the MSI MS-1995 K7 Pro it's self, it's fully recapped as well:

More pics of the system and it's parts when they arrive and a G400 MAX is also coming with it btw as gift of kindness by SWZSSR himself.
The left pic is a shot of the G400 MAX with it's Soltek Golden Orb remake Looks nifty right
The sound card is the right pic, which I will use is my Creative labs AWE64 Gold CT4390, the entire system has a Gold Theme to it:

The good news it's all packed and ready to go, this will be a fun build and great system to play with but also use for Midi music and other retro feels.

And as wallpaper this one of course

Night Stalkers by Peter Chilelli

Quote from Vinnie

Hopefully you remember me from another tech site you used to visit, but in any case it's good to see you still have an active interest in these older hard and software

It's a nice system with the best core this Slot-A board handles. I don't remember exactly, but I believe the Irongate had some AGP or USB issues that I hope you don't have any problems with.

Obviously I hope you get the 3dfx part of it settles and all working. Looks like a nice retro machine for some Windows 2000 gaming.

Seems like I can't send you a PM or anything, but if you want to catch up somewhere, always cool

Working on a few projects myself, and it's hard with all these youngsters and their Xboxes everywhere

Cheers!

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Vinnue hmm were you Vinnie from Gathering of Tweakers.net, the one that ran the 3dfx Discussie Topics?

That Vinnie had this Finnish quote in it:

Suomi On Upea!

meaning Finland is Amazing! I think it was rofl

If you are that Vinnnnie, leuk om je weer eens te zien lange geleden zeg, echt kansloos lang haha

Anyways the mainboard, CPU , memory and G400 MAX are in transit from Adelaide, South Australia to me many thanks to SWZSSR for all the help fixing the Bios of this epic mainboard with a Donor Bios chip

As mascot, I will buy this scale 1:72 Lockheed F-117A Nighthawk with the 2008 Farewell Livery, it's from Hobby Master Diecast Models:

This will be the finishing touch to the system

Hahah nice!


Also to send me a DM all you need to do is follow me bqck by going to my profile, I also followed you, if both parties follow each other then theyb are friended, it's because of VA's new forum software, But you can also select the classic Voodooalert 2006 livery always the best looking imo the dark blue & white.

As for the Farewell 2008 livery on the F-117A Nighthawk, this was done when it did it's farewell flight in 2008, more of that here:
https://sofrep.com/news/what-do-w…ough-with-them/

I love this cool special livery


My previous retro project is complete which is this beauty here with a fully recaped V5 PCI Mac with PC Bios 1.18_DVI, the DVI-D port also works btw
Sveta 2002 is back as my 3dfx Retro Gaming Workstation!

I first ran the system with a Voodoo3 3500 TV AGP 16MB Rev.A 3199, that one I replaced with my old PC flashed Voodoo5 5500 PCI Macintosh 64MB Rev.A1 2900, which was recapped my SWZSSR & the VRAM was exchanged and several fixes were applied by VA's Voodoo healer named Backfire.

BackFire's Repairs & Reworks:

01. Renewed Ceramic SMD's on the rear

02. 6ns Hynix VRAM renewal for the main VSA

03. Renewed Heatsinks & Fans for the VSA's topside

04. Renewed Power Supply Controller Chips

SWZSSR's friend's Recap & Modifications:

01. Full Polymer Recap

02. Burnt Copper Heatsinks for the VSA's rear side

3dfx Voodoo5 5500 PCI Macintosh 64MB Rev.A1 2900

Flashed with PC Bios 1.18_DVI

Current Driver: AmigaMerlin 3.1 R11 for Win2K/XP

This is my favoritie 3dfx card of all time, it took me a while to find her again, her fans were all battered and were replaced with new industrial fans with 3dfx logo's applied to them by Backfire, here all the changes that were made to the card:

Quote from Vinnie

Ah, okay. It should be working now then.

That is one sweet 5500, I'm jealous I wish I still had mine (long story, but it got physically destroyed )

I do have a (rare?) 4500 universal AGP card, that still feels like a cheap cop-out with only 1 VSA chip XD

Oh, and funny coincedence that I also use a Compaq CRT for my retro machine, though it's a 21" model with a Diamontron tube inside.

Yaaas Diamontron was the s!it to get man daamn nooice!
That's pretty epic that 3dfx still lives deeply within our hearts even in 2021.

And here the final build she runs greatly!!

Here the main desktop in Win2K Pro + SP4

More screenshots of this relic inaction it's been a very long ride, but it feels amazing to see this oldie in to action finally

Hey all!

Again some might think, well yes again as I been up all night trying to trouble shoot what the hell went wrong lmao!!

It seems the Matrox Millennium G400 MAX didn't like this system and caused lots of instabilities such as the sound cutting out in games to random freezes.

So I was like well I remember clearly that the 3dfx Voodoo3 series runs very well with AMD Systems so maybe with this Slot A guy as well and that appears to have been just it!

Here the name & Specs for this post:

--------------------------------

Nighthawk

AMD Athlon Thunderbird-A 700Mhz Slot A

3x 256MB PC-133 Legend / Hynix @ PC-100

MSI MS-6195 K7 Pro AMD Irongate AM751 Chipset for AMD Slot A

3dfx Voodoo3 3500 TV AGP 16MB Rev.A 3199 (Eur PAL variant, mint in box)

Samsung 3.5" FDD Drive

1x 40GB Seagate Barracuda V 7200 rpm HDD Main drive

1x 80GB Western Digital Caviar SE 7200 rpm HDD Storage drive

LG 40x/16X CD/DVD RW Drive

NEC 5 port USB 2.0 PCI Card + Front Panel 3 in PCI Card 2 in Front Panel

3-Com 3C 905C 10/100Mbit Ethernet PCI Card

Creative Labs Sound Blaster AWE64 Gold CT4390 4MB ISA PCB Date 3197

2002 A-Open H-600-B ATX Case

A-Open 350 Watt PSU or equivalent.

Compaq S710 17" Blackshade CRT from 2001

Reso @ 1024x768x32 ! 85Hz | 0.22.5 Dot Pitch

1995 Roland E-14 Keyboard

Win2K Pro UK + SP4

AmigaSport 3.0 for Win2K/XP by AmigaMerlin for V3 3500

--------------------------------

So yea everything is top notch not and dead stable, this is probably one of the more complicated builds I did regarding the instabilities I came across in the end once you find a way to tame the beast , this becomes one of the best retro classics I ever built up to date.

The G400 MAX will be kept for an other project, also these cards are better opted for Win98 SE as well so no loss in the end, it's a nice card for a Pentium !!!/E 650Mhz Coppermine build something Slot A based, maybe sometime in the future, but for now I am done building PC's this was a worthy one to do.

Enjoy the photo's & screenshots and my backstory for the whole of it

And here all the parts neatly installed

Quote from Early3D

Nice start. The G400 is a great fit for a V2 sli system. Giving it options like 32bit, embm and 32mb VRAM for newer games while not outperforming and outshining them too much. In your case and the golden look, a Geforce 256 by Asus would have been a nice fit as well.

The fans have to go, though

The G400 MAX gave me lots of instability issues so I am using the 3dfx Voodoo3 3500 TV AGP 16MB a far better option, as for GeForce not a fan of those due to poor image quality, I prefer 3dfx, ATi, Matrox or S3 for my systems.

The G400 MAX will be kept for an Intel P3/E 850 Slot 1 build with an ASUS P3B-F at some later time maybe tis year, don't know yet, but I'll see

But for this one the V3 3500 has all I want it to be for this build

Quote from Early3D

Oh, i totally missed your update on the stability issues. Do you think it is related to the matrox drivers, or maybe the agp implementation of the board/chipset? Never tried that combination myself. Especially not under Windows 2000.

As for the V3 3500... you could still try to find a reasonably priced Matrix M3D to hold on to the 3dfx&Matrox Combination... If a reasonably priced M3D will ever show up again, that is.

But please change the case fans I think I once had golden fans made by Enermax, if I remember correctly. Or at least they had a golden grill.

The V3 3500 stays, it's also my favorite 3dfx card of all time, every time I have issues it's always the one card I can always fall back to because it just gets the job done without any unwanted bs lol, Passed away VA member Voodoo3 proved me why the Voodoo3 3500 is so amazing especially it's image quality output which stands on par with that of the G400 MAX, so as that goes I am not missing out on much, just reliving his legacy.

A Matrox M3D would be too slow for me and utterly not of my personal interest anyway.

The case fans work fine though, it's all about function for me, also I do have a low budget, as being 100% disabled and I don't earn 2500+ per month, as some do here... so I have to use what I can find for good low prices of via friends and other contacts.

This build took me just over 4 years to complete as well, so it will have to do, then again it's been running for 24 hours nonstop, nothing and really nothing is overheating, the performance is simply stunning, CPU max temp dodn't go over the 54C so for that part the Golden orb is doing well also thanks to the Noctua NH-1 Thermal Compound I used for it.

So as that goes, it is what it is, even this is my favorite 3dfx based build top date, can't go wrong with that then right

Here a little video of my retro build in action

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SU9epTCZO3I

Made this last night forgot to add it

Here the latest updates of the build with the CR1950 Sound font Memory module I was gifted by Anthony some while back.
But since I need 98SE for this memory card it's just on for show right now since I use Win2K pro + SP4 & RU1 for SP4.

But hey it does look nice tho!

Here the CT4390 with this card applied:




That does look freaky right, the card now has a total of 4MB of it's self and 28MB on that sound font module, for a grand total of 32MB Sound Font memory, it seems that Anthony managed to fix the flaw when it came to a max usable ram amount of 28MB to 32MB, hey every little thing helps right.

Here that Sound Font memory card it's self:

Here a diagram made by Anthony explaining how it works and the second pic shows how it connects to the CT4390 28 pins up tops and 26 pins at the bottom, you can't do this wrong that white arrow also indicates that the 28 pin connector is the one at tops.

So yea I would need to do a rebuild of a Pentium !!!/E 650 I still have my CPU, so if I ever do that this card will be used in that build for trying this out

Quote from 3dfxBerni

Nice interesting build which CPU you are use? A "Orion" Core or the newer Thunderbird A0xxx CPU? Which frequency? Was that a Asus k7m or a nmc Slot A build?

just read my posts man... it's all in there, Athlon Thunderbird naturally
Nighthawk, my AMD 750 Slot A build!

And no ASUS for me, never liked their poor quality tbh, they always been rather troublesome.

Main brands I use are EPoX, Gigabyte, MSI & Supermicro.

Quote from 3dfxBerni

Ahja sorry i havent Seen the Pictures below;-) why you choose a 700mhz CPU?

Hmm why not? I get on what I can get my hands on, it also came with the Thermaltake Golden Orb, it fulfills it's needs just fine.

Not something I could leave and if I wanted a faster retro PC, I'll just use my AthlonXP 2200+ T-Bred A build , that topic you can read here:
Fully recapped EPoX EP-8K7A+ with Panasonic Low ESR Caps!

Well I managed to fix my Athlon 700 systems sound card issue, when playing Red Alert 2 the sound would cut out after 10 mins usage, so I swapped out the AWE64 Gold and installed the Audigy2 ZS SB0350 and now the sounds plays just fine.

The AWE64 Gold does play Midi music and other retro game sounds like Heretic, Hexen, Doom 1 &2 as well as Descent 3 just fine, only with RA2 it gave me sound cut outs, I don't know what the issue is, but gladly the Audigy2 ZS SB0350 fixed all my issues so here the system with that sound card installed and playing RA2 of course

Current specs after this minor change:

Nighthawk

AMD K7 Athlon Thunderbird 700Mhz Slot A
3x 256MB PC-133 Legend / Hynix @ PC-100
MSI MS-6195 AMD Irongate AM751 Chipset
3dfx Voodoo3 3500 TV AGP 16MB Rev.A 3199 (Eur PAL variant, mint in box)
Vantec Cooling Spectrum Slot cooler card for V3 3500
Samsung 3.5" FDD Drive
1x 40GB Seagate Barracuda V 7200 rpm HDD Main drive
1x 80GB Seagate Barracuda V 7200 rpm HDD Main drive
LG 40x/16X CD/DVD RW Drive
NEC 5 port USB 2.0 PCI Card + Front Panel 3 in PCI Card 2 in Front Panel
3-Com 3C 905C 10/100Mbit Ethernet PCI Card
Creative Labs Sound Blaster Audigy2 ZS SB0350
2002 A-Open H-600-B ATX Case
A-Open 350 Watt PSU or equivalent.
Compaq S710 17" Blackshade CRT from 2001
Reso @ 1024x768x32 ! 85Hz | 0.22.5 Dot Pitch
1995 Roland E-14 Keyboard

Win2K Pro UK + SP4
AmigaSport 3.0 for Win2K/XP by AmigaMerlin for V3 3500

As for the AWE64 Gold CT4390, I will need to send it to Backfire some time for a Gold Recap and get it the maintenance it deserves, that is on my main priority bucket list as of now, just no money to do that yet, but maybe somewhere in Q1 of 2024, I'll see, for now the SB0350 will have to do for the AMD K7 Athlon 700 system, it seems to perform a bit better thanks to hardware accelerated sound the Audigy2 ZS provides.

Here the Creative Labs Sound Blaster Audigy2 ZS SB0350 it's self:

All runs great now