Mike Dragon

So a few weeks ago I was "playing around" with a Pentium 4 system I put up together using some leftover parts I had laying around that I don't even remember how or when I got them in the first place. I put the stuff together, installed Windows 2000 Professional and set it up as if I were going to "daily drive" it:

Part 1: https://forum.truckersmp.com/index.php?/profile/666-mike-dragon/&status=114499&type=status

Part 2: https://forum.truckersmp.com/index.php?/profile/666-mike-dragon/&status=114783&type=status

Part 3: https://forum.truckersmp.com/index.php?/profile/666-mike-dragon/&status=115117&type=status

That was a fun little project that sure got rid of a lot of boredom and I hope to revisit that sometime soon and hopefully to one day, give it its own case and power supply so I can actually daily drive it as a retro computer for some retro software and games. For now though, I sadly cannot do that so the parts are sitting in their boxes in a bag, safely kept away in a corner in my bedroom. My thirst for working with vintage hardware has not been entirely quenched yet, though. I want to work on some other little project like that soon. I still want a year 2000 IBM Thinkpad and to build a high-end Pentium III gaming system at some point (must be period-accurate, though. As in, the best specs a Tualatin Pentium III computer could have back in the day) but since I lack the money for any of that, I have to cope with that I have, and I think I know what to work on next: My very own, very first computer.

The first computer I could ever call my own was built mostly with used parts (motherboard, processor, RAM and graphics card were bought used) and built by myself. It was an AMD AthlonXP 2000+ running at 1.67GHz with merely 1 GB of RAM and a 64 MB NVidia GeForce graphics card (I don't remember what model, though. I still have it, however), originally. After a couple shy upgrades I eventually replaced it by the system I use currently, my trusty Core i5. And when I did that, when I migrated to a new system, I disassembled the old AthlonXP and put its parts back into their boxes and reused the case for the Core i5. But as time went on, nostalgia began to knock my door and the urge to play some of my old games grew stronger by the days, especially the urge to play King of the Road. So after saving a bit of cash I bought a new, though simple, computer case (which came with a PSU, btw) and rebuilt the old AthlonXP system into it and installed Windows Millennium Edition in dual boot with Windows XP Professional so I could run all my old games again, since the Core i5 system is too modern for them.

That happened in 2014/2015 and I had a lot of fun with those games, especially King of the Road. I even recorded some gameplay of it and made a video, a couple years ago! It's a low quality production, though. :\

At any rate... A few days ago I started to feel the urge to play some of those old game again (mostly because I have worked on that Pentium 4 so recently) and overall, do something with old hardware, so I took that old PC for a quick revision before turning it on and realized I had to replace the CMOS battery. Which is fine. Though after doing so I noticed a lot of oddities and strange behaviors in both operating systems such as games not launching on Windows ME and the few that did, would cause the whole OS to freeze and require a hard reset and on the Windows XP side, Need for Speed Most Wanted would cause a blue screen of death when the cutscene for being caught by the police would play.

So what is this next little project that I am thinking about working on? Well, it's this old AhtlonXP PC of mine! About a year or two ago I upgraded the AthlonXP 2000+ to a 3200+ and I have the impression that the processor might be incorrectly set up in the BIOS, so it could be causing a few instabilities. My goal in this project is to troubleshoot the system and hopefully, sort out the processor situation and all other issues with the OSs, which should include installing a new copy of either (or both) on another hard drive for testing purposes.

This should be fun and frustrating at the same time, but I'm looking forward to it.  I might get started on it this afternoon, and depending on the outcome of it, I might finally make the decision of whether or not I take the AthlonXP apart once more and replace by that Pentium 4 from a few weeks ago or keep it in the case. After all, replace it by the Pentium 4, although good in terms of performance, would also mean sacrificing all my DOS-based games since the Pentium 4 motherboard doesn't offer driver support for Windows ME/98, while the AthlonXP motherboard, does. :\