In this blog post I’m looking back at my tech usage during November, covering stuff I’ve not blogged about yet or provide an update.
This blog post covers:
- Co-op gaming (Nine Parchments and TowerFall Ascension)
- Core 2 Quad in a HP dx2420 PC!
- Inno3d GT520 DDR3 2GB graphics card
- Star Trek Armada II Fleet Operations
- Xeon X5450 CPU in a Dell Optiplex 380 MT PC
CO-OP gaming
I played quite a few games in November, but my favourites were Nine Parchments, which I purchased in a Steam sale and TowerFall Ascension Dark Expansion.
Nine Parchments game screenshot
My fiancée and I played both these games using gamepads, whilst sat on our sofa in the lounge, using an old PC connected to the television.
TowerFall Dark World Expansion game screenshot
Core 2 Quad CPU in a HP dx2420 Microtower PC
I updated my dx2420 blog post about how I installed a Q6600 socket 775 CPU in a MS-7525 motherboard. I’m quite excited to have done this upgrade, which you can read about here.
This hardware upgrade has made me rethink about how I’m going to use this old computer.
Inno3d GT520 DDR3 2GB graphics card
My fiancée and I purchased an old GT520 and whilst I don’t recommend buying this graphics card, we’ve happily used to play Nine Parchments and TowerFall Ascension on an old PC which uses a dx7500 motherboard, with 4GB RAM, an old Q9400 CPU and Windows 10.
I’m thinking about overclocking the graphics card to see if I can squeeze some more performance from the card. If I do, I will write a blog post about it here on the blog.
Star Trek Armada II Fleet Operations
I’ve been playing a conversion modification of STA II on Windows 10. I’ve just played a few skirmish games and it’s amazing to still be revisiting this game all these years later.
Star Trek Armada II Fleet Operations game screenshot
Xeon X5450 CPU
I placed a Xeon 771 CPU, which is a server CPU into a modified 775 socket in a Dell Optiplex 380 MT PC. Installing the Xeon X5450, which is a 12M cache, 3GHz processor with four cores, was surprising as I didn’t need to modify the BIOS, instead using the official A07 and I’m using the original PSU.
At some stage I will update my Dell Optiplex 380 mini tower blog post.
This is the second time I’ve modified a Dell Optiplex 380 MT motherboard and whilst I’m nervous of breaking the motherboard, I’m glad I did the upgrade.
What’s coming up?
I’ve still got a lot of blog posts in draft stage, but I’ve also been thinking about 2020. There are various projects I could do with my old computers, such as creating a retro gaming PC.
In the meantime I will likely publish blog posts about the PCs I use, co-op gaming, a graphics card, file recovery, LibreElec and perhaps publish a few reviews.