Here's my brief work log of a retro gaming rig I have been wanting to build for a while, but finally had a little time to work on. It took a little while to figure out all the parts I needed that would be fully functional, with all the right hardware and drivers to be fully compatible with Windows 98 SE. Overall cost was under $400, sourcing most parts from Ebay over a span of a month.
Parts list:
Case: Silverstone Raven RVZ02B-W
Power Supply: Corsair SF450
Motherboard/CPU: VIA EPIA CN10000EG (VIA C7 1GHz)
Graphics: Creative Labs 12MB Voodoo 2 SLI (2x CT6670)
RAM: Corsair Value 512MB DDR2 533
Optical: Sony Slot Loading Slim SATA DVD-RW
Hard Drive: 32GB Sandisk Extreme Compact Flash w/ Startech IDE-->CF adapter
Riser: Electronic Product Solutions PCI-32BIT-DUAL (PCI arbitration + clock sync chip -- plenty of bandwidth for two Voodoo 2's)
Other: USB 3.0 to USB 2.0 front panel adapter, HD Audio to AC97 front panel adapter, 2x programmable 30cm LED light strips
2D graphics is done by the motherboard's Unichrome Pro VGA port, connected into the Voodoo 2 SLI primary card which outputs the 3D graphics. Luckily, the OEM length male to female VGA cable was just long enough.
Case from the front:
Marking the upper graphics bay riser area to be cut out:
A nibbler tool works great to fit in this tight space:
Almost done:
That's better:
Riser mounted:
One graphics card installed, along with the IDE to CF adapter:
Two graphics cards in SLI, along with the 32GB Sandisk Extreme:
Motherboard side:
It works! Installing Windows 98 SE. I had to use a USB floppy drive with a modified Windows 98 SE boot disk, adding GCDROM.SYS for it to recognize the SATA DVD-RW drive. The SATA controller is set to IDE mode in the BIOS.
All drivers installed, SLI activated, no yellow exclamation points.
Finished:
Parts list:
Case: Silverstone Raven RVZ02B-W
Power Supply: Corsair SF450
Motherboard/CPU: VIA EPIA CN10000EG (VIA C7 1GHz)
Graphics: Creative Labs 12MB Voodoo 2 SLI (2x CT6670)
RAM: Corsair Value 512MB DDR2 533
Optical: Sony Slot Loading Slim SATA DVD-RW
Hard Drive: 32GB Sandisk Extreme Compact Flash w/ Startech IDE-->CF adapter
Riser: Electronic Product Solutions PCI-32BIT-DUAL (PCI arbitration + clock sync chip -- plenty of bandwidth for two Voodoo 2's)
Other: USB 3.0 to USB 2.0 front panel adapter, HD Audio to AC97 front panel adapter, 2x programmable 30cm LED light strips
2D graphics is done by the motherboard's Unichrome Pro VGA port, connected into the Voodoo 2 SLI primary card which outputs the 3D graphics. Luckily, the OEM length male to female VGA cable was just long enough.
Case from the front:
Marking the upper graphics bay riser area to be cut out:
A nibbler tool works great to fit in this tight space:
Almost done:
That's better:
Riser mounted:
One graphics card installed, along with the IDE to CF adapter:
Two graphics cards in SLI, along with the 32GB Sandisk Extreme:
Motherboard side:
It works! Installing Windows 98 SE. I had to use a USB floppy drive with a modified Windows 98 SE boot disk, adding GCDROM.SYS for it to recognize the SATA DVD-RW drive. The SATA controller is set to IDE mode in the BIOS.
All drivers installed, SLI activated, no yellow exclamation points.
Finished:
Last edited:
