The story of my My Pentium 3 Coppermine to Tualatin Computer

[scharfshutze009]

I've had my Pentium III computer in some form, since 2000, which started at least the Antec SX830 then switched to this case shown first, the sound card that I sold on eBay or Amazon before 2005:

The Antec SX-840

and

The Creative Sound Blaster Live+5.1

The system originally had an iwill VD133 motherboard but died either due to overclocking or some strange reason. It also originally had two Voodoo 2's, a FireGL 1000 Pro, a Voodoo 200 TV card, a Creative Dxr3 DVD decoder card, and a slot 1 Pentium III 533 MHz Coppermine, which I accidentally damaged while living in my dorm room while in the USAF back in North Dakota and ended up replacing with a slot to socket adapter using a Celeron 500 before returning the Celeron to my friend and ending up with a Socket 370 1 GHz Pentium III Coppermine with complications due to accidentally ordering two. The original heatsink used was a dual fan slot one until the Pentium III 533 MHz Coppermine was discovered to be broken. Then an orb heatsink of some brand was used when using the Celeron 500 and when switching to the Pentium III 1 GHz Coppermine Socket 370 before switching to the Thermaltake Dragon Orb 3.

The fan cap on the Dragon Orb 3 broke off eventually while trying to obtain insanely high clock speeds that were never possible with it in the first place and the iwill VD133 was replaced anyway with the Abit ST6 RAID when I switched to this heatsink, so when the fan cap broke the heatsink was eventually replaced with this:

The Thermalright SLK-800A

Years later I scratched a trace on the Abit ST6-RAID motherboard and I could no longer use it, which I eventually would donate to the community college I would start attending in 2008 and the Abit ST6 was replaced by the Asus TUSL2.

 

[scharfshutze009]

Then years later I replaced the case that replaced the Antec SX-840 whatever it was, which might have been an HP server Proliant case with this:

The cooler master elite 330 before I gave all of them to a friend because they wouldn't sell on eBay

The computer used on board video until I got an ATI Radeon 9600 XT 128 MB later, even though I had an ATI Radeon 9500 SE that I killed by flashing the firmware because the memory couldn't handle the clock speeds of the unsupported firmware flashed to it. Also I might have used an ATI 9800 SE 128 MB in this machine to but sold it for some reason and the reason might have been to buy a better video card for my Pentium 4 that was built later. I might have also used an ATI Radeon X-1600 AGP in this too, but I'm no longer sure and I didn't document it at the time.

The computer would also eventually use a Creative Sound Blaster Audigy to Platinum, which I believe is what this is in this picture:

 

[scharfshutze009]

Finally, I don't have the specs of the original or previous specs, but here are the current specs as well as prices paid for parts and some pictures of it now. As you can see it's using a Pentium III Tualatin 1.4 GHz now, which I bought from Star Micro for $5 compared to the price of $255 back around 2001 when it first came out:


My Pentium 3 (TUSL2) Computer

-Motherboard: Asus TUSL2 Intel 815EP socket 370 motherboard $100

-Processor: Intel Pentium III Tualatin 1.4 GHz 133 MHz FSB 512 KB L2 cache 32 KB L1 cache $5 ($255 new and considered rare)

-Memory: Corsair PC150 256MB x1 + 2 sticks of Kingmax PC150 128MB sticks $ $225

-Heatsink: Thermalright SLK-800A $40

-Heatsink Fan: Vantec Tornado 80mm Double Ball Bearing High Air Flow Case Fan - Model TD8038H $13.99

-Sound: Sound Blaster Audigy 2 ZS Platinum $199

-Video: ATI Radeon 9600XT 128MB AGP $40

-USB: StarTech 7 Port PCI USB Card Adapter Model PCIUSB7 $20

-LAN: D-Link 530TX+ $20

-RAID controller: PNY SPU5103PPB PCI SATA S-CURE Storage Card $39.99

-Optical Reader: MSI 18X DVD-ROM 48X CD-ROM IDE DVD-ROM Drive Model DH-18DP $19.99

-Optical Writer: Plextor PX-716A IDE DVD-RW Drive w/gigaburn $100

-Floppy Drive: SAMSUNG Black 1.44MB 3.5" Internal Floppy Drive Model SFD321B/LFBL1 - OEM $7.49

-Case: Lian-Li Silent Series PC-B10B / Advanced Mid Tower Case / Black $229.99

and the pictures:

The pictures of just the empty case first:

and now the system as it is today unchanged:

I've had this computer for a total of about 17 years in some form and it still works. The Pentium III 1.0 GHz Coppermine has been retired now and the machine is very slow compared to modern machines now, but it can still support a lot of games and even some that are almost still modern. I remember playing Half-Life 2 for the first time on this and it being really slow especially when trying to run the game at 1600x1200 on my Acer 78c monitor before it died and was replaced by a Sony 19" Trinitron that was messed up then a Viewsonic of some model. The computer can't run WIndows 7, even though it has a processor rated at over 1 GHz with a 1.4 GHz. Therefore, considering it can't run WIndows 7 32-bit it's running WIndows XP Professional and I'm aware it could run Linux, which I'm considering and will be Ubuntu or some other form of Debian if I do or it will dual boot. It's not for sale at the moment and I'm not price checking either.

 

[scharfshutze009]

Here's two video's of showing this computer working, which I know are terrible. However, I'm was using my cell phone and I can't afford a better video camera:



and

 

[jojo69]

lol

still running the TUV4X/Tualatin setup in my sig 24/7 here as the audio server, it runs some ancient Ubuntu Studio, the last one with the realtime kernel. Recapped the mobo about 4 years ago, thing is a trooper