A Mini ITX Pentium 4 WIndows 98 Build \ VOGONS

A Mini ITX Pentium 4 WIndows 98 Build

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First post, by detritus olentus

Posted on 2022-06-13, 22:27

detritus olentus Offline

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This is my Windows 98 workhorse for playing around with old games and software because it takes up such little space. Originally I had done this build with a couple of different VIA epia boards but they were a bit too anemic when it came to playing some games. Was then planning to use a Pentium M ITX board but was outbid on ebay. Eventually this socket 478 board cropped up for a reasonable price so I bought it and waited for it to come across the ocean from Great Britain to me in the US.

The board is a DFI G4G100-N and has a spec sheet on the manufacturer website: http://www.dfi-itox.com/pages/products/mother … ol/g4g100-n.php

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Managed to find drivers for everything in the end since having all of those exclamation points in the device manager drives me insane. The ethernet took a bit of time but thankfully there is a 98 driver for it. This board also has the same frustrating idiosyncrasy as the EPIA boards when it comes to the audio header. The audio header can be jumper set to send audio to the back ports on the I/O panel or it can be connected to the front case headphone jack but not both. Oh well.

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Size makes it easy to jam into the Ikea desk I'm using.

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So as for the bits and pieces:
-Hyte Revolt 3 case
-DFI G4G100-N mobo
-512MB DDR 400 ram
-PCI Fx5200 graphics card since I only have a single PCI slot to work with

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Reply 1 of 10, by Tetrium

Posted on 2022-06-25, 05:41

Tetrium Offline

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It's difficult to see, is the PSU mounted on the side of your board?

And btw what graphics card are you using in that rig? 😋

EDIT:

-PCI Fx5200 graphics card since I only have a single PCI slot to work with

Well, apparently this is what an early morning can do to a person 🤣, not sure how I missed it xD

Last edited by Tetrium on 2022-06-25, 13:58. Edited 1 time in total.

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Interesting Vogons threads (links to Vogonswiki)
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Reply 2 of 10, by RandomStranger

Posted on 2022-06-25, 06:48

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But true, super small Windows 98 machines are difficult. You are either restricted to low-profile expansion cards or only PCI expansion cards. In your case a single PCI which means you either has to give up on positional audio or decent graphics. Though it seems the case could take a uATX board which would fix a lot of its shortcomings without size increase. Otherwise you could consider downgrading or underclocking the CPU. Half of its power is wasted on the FX-5200 PCI, but you'd get better temperatures.

I've also built a tiny Windows 98 build recentrly. Win98BOX

Reply 3 of 10, by 386SX

Posted on 2022-06-25, 07:20

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Which FX 5200 PCI brand is that video card? Anyway interesting config beside I suppose a bit power/temperature intensive for a mini itx build but still good.

Reply 4 of 10, by detritus olentus

Posted on 2022-06-25, 15:55

detritus olentus Offline

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386SX wrote on 2022-06-25, 07:20:

Which FX 5200 PCI brand is that video card?

It's a PNY branded card

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Reply 5 of 10, by 386SX

Posted on 2022-06-26, 07:54

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detritus olentus wrote on 2022-06-25, 15:55:

386SX wrote on 2022-06-25, 07:20:

Which FX 5200 PCI brand is that video card?

It's a PNY branded card

Interesting thanks. I didn't know they did a PCI version too that seems a bit different from the Zotac brand PCB layout.

Reply 6 of 10, by melbar

Posted on 2022-06-30, 04:47

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How are the temperatures in such a small case?

Have you checked some benchmarks and resulting temperatures?

Which fan speed is selected at idle or full load?

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Reply 7 of 10, by detritus olentus

Posted on 2022-07-11, 19:33

detritus olentus Offline

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melbar wrote on 2022-06-30, 04:47:

How are the temperatures in such a small case?

Have you checked some benchmarks and resulting temperatures?

Which fan speed is selected at idle or full load?

Glad you had me check, I hadn't installed fans after switching out the Epia board since it runs relatively cool. Was idling in the BIOS around 60C. After I get some fans installed what benchmarks would you like me to run?

Case also has quite a few mounts for for fans given it's small size!

https://archive.org/details/@detritus_olentus
Philly Burbs.

Reply 8 of 10, by detritus olentus

Posted on 2022-07-26, 00:02

detritus olentus Offline

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Alright, have added some very lovely Noctua fans. Tested it sitting idle and then with a very built-up save file on Chris Sawyer's Locomotion and here's the temps! Got as low as 49.5 idle and topped out at at 67.

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https://archive.org/details/@detritus_olentus
Philly Burbs.

Reply 9 of 10, by bacadd

Posted on 2023-04-08, 08:41

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Hi, really nice build! I just purchased the same motherboard (G4G100-N) and was wondering if you had the Windows 98 drivers you found handy to share? Thank you in advanced!

Reply 10 of 10, by ATi_Loyalist

Posted on 2023-04-08, 19:12

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Neat! Mini-ITX was really not common in this era. Interesting build 😊

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