(Re)Building the LGR Windows 98 Project PC

I absolutely loved this video. I'm trying to build my Windows 98 PC now, but man Gateway stuff can be hard to find, any recommendations on where to find that kind of hardware? I can't find anything at goodwill anymore, and the ebay scalpers are out en force these days.

That's rebuilding old PCs for ya Clint, nevermind your prettying it up... lol

Quite durable indeed, people coat their entire vehicles in Plasti Dip!

LGR

One of these days I’ll do a SLI 2x Voodoo2 build. Because why not. :) Anyhow, I liked how the case came out even if it wasn’t the shade of green you were going for. I wonder how durable it is. Thinking of spraying my fugly Windows 98 minitower purple.

Thomas Fuchs

I'll look into it, thanks

LGR

only half way thru but seeing you throwing 1.5GB Ram (21:58 in), if you hadnt within teh video, you Might want the RLOEW Ram patch to address Windows 98's Issues of Ram Past 512MB (its fully capable of addressing teh full 32Bit limit. but past that 512, you start running out of ram when you shouldnt.. Stability's a problem in some cases. drivers at times may not load etc. ) now that i finished yea i forsaw that Ram issue but yea that Ram patch works better than the config changes and you should be golden to use all 1.5GB w/ it.

Cael Thunderwing

Made me stop and work on my old school pc, then promptly give up as i cant get the dang thing to work

That was goddam fascinating. Great vid.

Awesome video, Clint. Love seeing these restoration videos, and have lots of fond memories of building my own machines in the early 2000s.

Andy Goergen

That was really pleasing and relaxing. I've been having anxiety issues and panic attacks the past couple of weeks and this was like some sort of asmr video for me. Thanks.

Justin Dotson

The epic jankiness of that machine almost too good to lose...

Isaac Roll

Absolutely lost it when the wood tiles popped out! Been there... Makes me want to resurrect our 1st Win 95 computer. DEC with a 100mhz pentium.

Dale Riley

BTW - you realise youre going to get *inundated* regarding those case badges as soon as this video goes live to the public? :D :D

Mr Lurch

Aw, man. When you said "paint it green", I was thinking "Oh, God, LGR, what are u doing now?" But that worked out incredibly well for you and the silver/metallic on the raised parts was a very nice touch. It makes me want to go through the 4 or 5 retro system I have lying around and getting them fixed up, one of which will be very similar to your own Woodgrain 486 system with a VESA Local Bus, although my AMD 486DX2-66 requires both a heat sink and a fan. Anyway, I meant to ask: that soundcard looks like it has a connector for a front panel. Do you have that panel and are it and front panels in general (like all the Creative Labs ones) something you're considering doing videos on? Anyway, a great video as always!

Johan Petur Klüver Dam

Awesome, happy you enjoyed! The transformation was gradual on my end, with it having taken a month to put together due to technical issues. But man, seeing it all at once in a video put it in perspective and got me quite proud of the result

LGR

I'm still bitter towards Creative for what they did to Aureal.

LGR

They really left a lot to be desired in terms of build quality and pleasant layouts, haha. Granted, I have no doubt this was a cheaper model of case in every way back then as I remember there being much better options!

LGR

Thanks, glad you enjoyed!

LGR

Ooh, that sounds interesting. Not a generation of CPU I ever attempted to OC, may have to look into that :)

LGR

That was great fun :D.

ewook

Seeing that slot A Athlon bring back memories. I remember overclocking it used a "goldfingers" card, which added little jumpers to set the clock multiplier.

Peter Bridger

That is a wonderful piece of work - the chassis on that case reminds me of a build I had around that time (especially those side panels), and gosh, those generic cases were so horrible back then.

Rob Caporetto

I still have my old AMD K6-III that i used to run 98 on, Dug it out after watching Clint's episode, still has all cables and a 40gb HDD... It's my next project after I get my 486 all sorted.

DOSGamerMan

nice to see an aureal card! I had one of the monster sound cards but was severely disappointed when creative bought and shelved it all :/ the windows support for it after 98 was abysmal if I remember. I went and bought an SBLive after that, but then had all kinds of conflicts with that because I had an a7v motherboard! agghh so many weird hardware conflicts back in the day!

Blair Harrison

It's my favorite type of video. Loved the bathtub scene, I'll think of that for a PC I need to rebuild (an AMD Sempron / ATI Radeon 9500 based computer I got for free, perfect for when games are too new for my main old PC). Your computer really became a slick looking PC in the end, congratulations ! :D The transformation process is the main deal of the video, and it did not disappoint at all. I could not watch it in 1080p last night and I was sad, but now I can and I will ! :)

Maximilien Noal

as im wathcing this i got super jellous over "extra bathroom" i want to live alone so bad, but im 24 and aint to close to getting my first car.

It felt like we were watching an LGR Foods episode for a second when you were putting the thermal paste on.

Jason Dupree

Hehe, thanks, I love adding little details like that. Really makes a machine feel that much more unique and worthy of attention.

LGR

It's just a small thing, but I really, really enjoyed that you took the time to put in "Manufactured and Supported by LGR" in the System Properties. It's little things like that that show a real pride in your hardware. I love it.

Steve Skafte

Something oddly soothing about watching you disassemble the computer. Then had a small heart attack looking at the mares nest of cables post-rebuild. 😂

Joon Choi

Bath time with LGR. OH MY GOODNESS!!!!!!!

GRRR, i wish my voodoo 3000d had s-video, then i could connect my win98pc up to my living room tv!

Building a Win 98SE Machine is next on my list. I've been pricing out all the parts I need and all the parts I want and so far it's a fairly reasonable amount. I'm just trying to decide if I want a Pentium III slot 1 or a Pentium slot 370. Slot 1 P3's have a certain nostalgic appeal for me. When I went back to college in 1998 to be an EET (Electronic Engineering Technician) all of the new PC setups we learned to build computers with were slot 1's. The cases we had back then were almost identical to the one you are using Clint. The first time I saw your case in a video my jaw hit floor! I hadn't seen a case like that since 2000. Thanks for the great videos!

perkindo

Heh, I used to have a passive Zalman cooler back in the day. Might look into that, I'd forgotten about 'em

LGR

I just saw a grown up man rinsing an 18 year old computer case in a bathtub for 45 seconds

LJFox

Yep, it was fixed through a couple INI file tweaks

LGR

Backwards how? There's only one way for it to go on? Either way it's been running for about 48 hours straight with no problems so I can't imagine there'd be any issue.

LGR

Just an idea for a quiet PC of that era, you could see if you can find an early Zalman 3000 series (CNPS3100), those worked with P3's and could run without a fan. As a bonus they apparently used a small amount of real gold in them - so I'd guess they'd be worth a bit of money, money you could use to pay for the media bills of trying to install a Zalman heat sink since you're always going to have your fingers all sliced up.

Chris Munch

I really enjoy these types of episodes, not sure why, but people building/restoring old electronics and computers, it's always interesting. Nice thing about the SD drive setup is you can easily make a Win95 drive and just swap it in/out if needed - AND you always have the option of making a Windows Millennium load (with load being the opportune word).

Chris Munch

I think you might have the heatsink on backwards. The heatsinks for the 370 and socket A chips had a raised portion that was meant to hang over the large border with the socket type label on it. It was a common mistake, with the old Socket A/Coppermine chips that had the die exposed, to install the heatsink backwards causing it to either crush part of the core or not seat properly and thus overheat. Thankfully though, your late gen Coppermine has an IHS to protect from that.

Carey Brown

1.5 GB of ram is great, but from memory windows 98 memory management was really crap at anything over 512. Just googled for theregister article I remember reading back in 2000 and actually found it: <a href="https://www.theregister.co.uk/2000/11/24/winme_cant_handle_more_than" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">https://www.theregister.co.uk/2000/11/24/winme_cant_handle_more_than</a>

DOSGamerMan

Unsure of the exact technical reason, but it's some kind of limitation in regards to the max physical RAM support in this version of Windows

LGR

Go for it! It's an era of PC gaming that still isn't incredibly well emulated or even visualized, so having real hardware can make sense

LGR

Yeah I did that after it was installed, but the problem was that I couldn't even get the Windows setup to complete without removing some RAM temporarily.

LGR

Awesome, and thanks for watching :)

LGR

When I have more to sell they'll be available here <a href="https://www.etsy.com/shop/LazyGameReviews" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">https://www.etsy.com/shop/LazyGameReviews</a>

LGR

I had them made through a decal manufacturer. I've only sold them in small batches so far.

LGR

Was actually just looking into that last night, I think I'll be trying that out since I'm also having some other small issues that I think the patches/updates might help

LGR

Thank you!

LGR

If needed for some particular game, sure! Typically I stick to Glide mode games on this machine though

LGR

Why do windows report 1022MB ram?

Oh man now I want one of these PC's too.

Akselmo

"Tired of watching me screw yet?" made me audibly snort at work.

Peter Metzger

Great video! Was working on my Win98 retro PC while watching that. Any plans on upgrading the GPU? Maybe a GeForce 2 GTS or Pro? Cheers!

Timo Schmidt

You really make me want to build a windows 98 pc, maybe I'll do some research and try to get an old gateway like my family use to have back in those days

Zachary Outen

I used to run dual-boot systems with Windows 98 and more than 1.5 GB RAM. You need to set MaxPhysPage in system.ini. You also need to set MaxFileCache to 524288, but that already applies for systems with more than 512 MB of RAM.

Michael Steenbeek

Videos like this are actually among my favorites. Thanks for sharing!

CubicleNate

Fantastic video! I'm looking forward to an announcement of those case badges, I'll be getting a few for sure!

Travis Howard

Dude where can I get those LGR PC case stickers?

Allan Au

How did you to the icon decals on the front of the case. Is that just something you can buy?

Steve Lovelace

Windows 98 actually has major issues with large amounts of RAM. Have you tried using the unofficial Windows 98 Third Edition? That resolves a lot of the weirdness, from what I remember. I seem to remember the actual culprit is your RAM + page file have to be less than 2 GB though.

aetherspoon

Very fun video!

Zem Hysong

Thanks man! Must place those badges on all my custom builds

LGR

Sweet job, Clint! Definite great finish and the badge just the final icing. :D

Anders Enger Jensen

Haha, and borne out of pure necessity with the storms outside. Otherwise it would've been even more like one of his videos with a garden hose on the driveway.

LGR

Heck yeah, can't wait to reinstall it and play a bit more TS1 on this thing again

LGR

Sounds like a nice solution actually. No need to fix what ain't broke :)

LGR

Nice! How's that GF4/Voodoo 2 combination work out for you, any conflicts or weirdness?

LGR

Heh, seems like people reference him on every video with Windows 98 and a hard drive upgrade. Figured I'd get ahead of the curve this time.

LGR

Thank you, really enjoyed making it!

LGR

No kidding, I hate doing that! Such stress!

LGR

Druaga1 reference was unexpected and 💯

J.R. Williams

That was a great video, so satisfying to watch!

MrMattan

Those Intel-type heatsink installs are terrifying. "Now take the blade of your screwdriver, jam it into the spring, and just lean on the SOB until it snaps into the mobo."

moosemaimer

<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Audio/modem_riser" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Audio/modem_riser</a>

kalleboo

What's the slot above the AGP slot?

Eric Siegel

The scene washing the chassis in the bathtub was like a scene from the 8Bit Guy, except zero f's given. Love it.

Mr Lurch

also, seeing The Sims icon on a Windows 98 desktop hits me in dem nostalgic feels

David La Roche

*sees new video at 11:50pm* oh good, here's a nice vid to watch before bed *40 minutes later...*

David La Roche

40 minutes of LGR PC building goodness. Always very welcome. Fantastic work Clint as always. :) I've been considering a 98 build for so long now but I have an old Dell Inspiron 3000 laptop that actually fulfils that role very well: P233MMX, 64MB RAM, Win98SE and a SB Pro compatible on-board sound adapter. The BIOS even has SB-specific IRQ/DMA options!

Chris Wigman

When working on old games, a Windows 98 PC is essential. Can't wait to see the video ! Permission to flaunt mine below ? :) ASUS P2B-F with 1.04 Beta 3 BIOS Intel Pentium 3 (Slot 1) @ 800 MHz (thanks to you I finally found that one. Didn't believe it was possible to find/make it work) GeForce 4 Ti4800 SE (AGP2X) 3DFX Voodoo 2 Realteak 8029 Ethernet Card Sound Blaster AWE64 512 Mb of SDRAM PC100 160 Gb Hitachi 7200 RPM HDD Cooler Master Sileo RC-500 Case Corsair VS350W PSU 2X Optical CD/DVD Burner/Reader Windows 98 SE / Windows XP Pro SP3 It's... my baby, ya know. &lt;3

Maximilien Noal

Can't wait :D have fun with the project Clint!

Lucy Dejima