best cheap/free scores 1.1

[stj]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

you can get 1gig sodimms, probably not cheap though.

[ChaosLegionnaire]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

Since it's a desktop 694T, it's 2GB max, but yeah, gonna have to tell myself good luck finding any sticks bigger than 512MB, since they're SODIMMs, not usual DIMMs (though IIRC there are some laptops that used normal desktop DIMMs, not sure if it was Chicony with their MP series laptops.)

the specs do fit 2k just great, but I feel like the match for a great 2k laptop would be one of those Compaq Presario 700 series laptops, the ones that sport ceramic Durons or Athlons. For this, especially since the "generic" look fits it so much, I decided to go with 98SE, and plan to deck it out as much as possible.

if u're going the win98se route, then do remember that the os only supports 1gb ram max with tweaks, so u can go with 512mb ram modules if thats the case.

[Dan81]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

I am running 98SE on 512MB with no tweaks, 2x256MB factory installed Samsung SODIMMs, and it's surprisingly snappy.

By the way, it seems the OEM is FIC (First International Computer) for this specific Gericom machine. Great build quality, on par with Compaq and even DELL machines of its era.

[RJARRRPCGP]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

I am running 98SE on 512MB with no tweaks, 2x256MB factory installed Samsung SODIMMs, and it's surprisingly snappy.

By the way, it seems the OEM is FIC (First International Computer) for this specific Gericom machine. Great build quality, on par with Compaq and even DELL machines of its era.

There seems to be a secret issue, that no one is known to tell anyone about:

Looks like Windows 95 and Windows 98 have a 768 MB limit. I don't know if that's RAM too, or just a wacky issue with the swap file. For me, if I set the virtual memory to any bigger than 768 MB, than on reboot, there's a false-insufficient-memory-to-run-Windows error message from the loader. Did Microsoft forget about an integer overflow bug?

Reminds me of ScanDisk telling people it requires MS-DOS 5.0 or later, IIRC, when executed under MS-DOS 7, what looks like a very obvious integer overflow bug. (if you use ScanDisk from MS-DOS 6, IIRC)

[Topcat]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

Had a couple nifty dropoffs..... The pick was a NEC Powermate all-in-one with a LCD, circa 1999; model PM 2000. There was pretty much nill out there on this thing as far as information. It was made in Japan. It had a Celeron 433 & 192mb RAM. I don't have any PC100/133 SODIMM's, so I can't upgrade that.... Originally had Win98 on it, someone up'd it to 'Miserable Edition'. No Uranium, nothing exciting on it.... Has a mega huge 6.4gb notebook HDD in it; as if by some miracle, it's good.



Firefox 1.0.6....



...so lets see what else I can do with this....the first task was of course replacing the dead CMOS battery...



hmmm...now for the CPU... The chipset (Intel i810) *should* support coppermines, but it wouldn't post with one; either 100FSB or 66FSB...so Mendocino is all. It had a 433...



Always a way fire an AIO out of the case.....well sometimes....but this one was easy.



Meh, slow 433....



replaced with the fastest one I had....a blistering fast Celeron 500.... 533 is the fastest it could take, but I don't have one...that's ok though, 500 is a nice round number.



Now to get rid of the nasty WinME....for Win2k. I thought about NT4, but working USB is nice.... Why not win98? Well that one is pretty self explanatory...



USP 5 for W2K....



The power brick wasnt included....but nothing unusual about the power requirements except of course the plug; just 18v @ 4.4a. Nothing a laptop supply and some jumper wires couldn't cure.





...and here we are....this post from it.....firefox 12.



The other system was a Momaka special; came with a 19" CRT....Aopen SKT478 Celeron. I haven't tested it yet.

[Dan81]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

There seems to be a secret issue, that no one is known to tell anyone about:

Looks like Windows 95 and Windows 98 have a 768 MB limit. I don't know if that's RAM too, or just a wacky issue with the swap file. For me, if I set the virtual memory to any bigger than 768 MB, than on reboot, there's a false-insufficient-memory-to-run-Windows error message from the loader. Did Microsoft forget about an integer overflow bug?

Reminds me of ScanDisk telling people it requires MS-DOS 5.0 or later, IIRC, when executed under MS-DOS 7, what looks like a very obvious integer overflow bug. (if you use ScanDisk from MS-DOS 6, IIRC)

My mind might be playing tricks on me, but I remember running 1GB of RAM on 98SE at one point, on some VIA chipset based ceramic Athlon.

[whatamidoing]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

Hello,

Had a couple nifty dropoffs..... The pick was a NEC Powermate all-in-one with a LCD, circa 1999; model PM 2000. There was pretty much nill out there on this thing as far as information. It was made in Japan. It had a Celeron 433 & 192mb RAM. I don't have any PC100/133 SODIMM's, so I can't upgrade that....

i810 should take "high density" memory, 2x256 HD Sodimms ought to be cheap, as the cool 440BX retro laptop guys can't use them, and the iBook G3 people probably have long upgraded to those rare but existing 512MB modules.
(yes, I know high density means nothing, and RAM density is measured in megabits per chip, I'm talking about 256MB sticks with 4 chips per side)

Originally had Win98 on it, someone up'd it to 'Miserable Edition'. No Uranium, nothing exciting on it.... Has a mega huge 6.4gb notebook HDD in it; as if by some miracle, it's good.

I have a personal theory that i810 and i815 were the only machines they actually tested ME on, and on those it seemed to work as good as a 9x based OS can work.
After all, if you must run a 9x OS on such a computer, with chipset graphics and AC97 sound that had no DOS drivers to begin with ME is not a bad choice. Yes you lose the ability to boot into DOS, but in exchange you get USB that actually works (maybe not a big deal anymore since NUSB was created) and a better network stack.

For the HDD, if the mounting position allows, you could try a random SATA laptop drive with one of those chinese JM20330 44pin IDE to SATA adapters. I've used a couple of them (no matter where you buy them from there is only one (I think) PCB design, the only difference is in the connectors, straight or angled) and they work pretty well. Considering how even the slowest SATA laptop drive is fastest than almost all IDE counterparts the speed increase is rather dramatic. At least on the "it feels snappy when using it" side of things, if not raw benchmark numbers.

hmmm...now for the CPU... The chipset (Intel i810) *should* support coppermines, but it wouldn't post with one; either 100FSB or 66FSB...so Mendocino is all. It had a 433...

Intel pulled an Intel and the PPGA370 socket is subtly different from the FCPGA370, which again is different from FCPGA2370.
However a PPGA socket can be easily modded to accept a FCPGA CPU.
I've done it in the past and I can confirm it works.

Random guide: https://krick.3feetunder.com/370mod/
(Not my site, just a random google find. Seemed rude to tell "you can do this" without also posting "how")

Or go mad and put in a Tualeron 1400 with a Lin-Lin adapter

Would any of this be worth it? Absolutely not. But I think that NEC looks so neat that it might be.

My mind might be playing tricks on me, but I remember running 1GB of RAM on 98SE at one point, on some VIA chipset based ceramic Athlon.

Can confirm, the ram limit is not a hard ceiling but depends on what I guess is how the motherboard maps the address spaces and how it presents them to the OS.
I've seen 98 get really mad and start doing weird things with 384MB on a Via 693A board (I'll give 98 the benefit of the doubt, it was a very dodgy half-dead board that amplified the inherent crappiness of the Apollo 693A) and be rock solid without patches on 1.25GB (I think it was a KM266 with onboard graphics disabled, so pretty much a KT266A).

[ratdude747]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

I have a personal theory that i810 and i815 were the only machines they actually tested ME on, and on those it seemed to work as good as a 9x based OS can work.
After all, if you must run a 9x OS on such a computer, with chipset graphics and AC97 sound that had no DOS drivers to begin with ME is not a bad choice. Yes you lose the ability to boot into DOS, but in exchange you get USB that actually works (maybe not a big deal anymore since NUSB was created) and a better network stack.

I do know that to make some "newer" (realtively) versions of Opera browser work on windows 98, you have to mod in a couple of windows ME DLLs (relating to graphics). Is NUSB original? I always thought it was was another ME component isolated and backported to 98... but didn't actually know that for a fact.

My mom had ME on a Compaq presario with a coppermine and an intel chipset... probably an 815, which is why it "worked". On a similar looking presario with a Thunderbird athlon and a VIA chipset, it was one BSOD after another! I agree, with as rushed as ME was (and as far as they were pushing the hybrid 16/32bit kernel), probably used i815's for testing and didn't try anything else... or perhaps intel had a role looking to make the competition look like crap. Who knows?

[stj]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

My mind might be playing tricks on me, but I remember running 1GB of RAM on 98SE at one point, on some VIA chipset based ceramic Athlon.

the athlon was a thunderbird.

the memory thing is the jump from direct mapping to virtual/paged addressing.
i think it was called A20 control - it's a bios function.

we Amiga owners used to make great fun of it - as we had cpu's with 24 address lines

[whatamidoing]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

I do know that to make some "newer" (realtively) versions of Opera browser work on windows 98, you have to mod in a couple of windows ME DLLs (relating to graphics). Is NUSB original? I always thought it was was another ME component isolated and backported to 98... but didn't actually know that for a fact.

My mom had ME on a Compaq presario with a coppermine and an intel chipset... probably an 815, which is why it "worked". On a similar looking presario with a Thunderbird athlon and a VIA chipset, it was one BSOD after another! I agree, with as rushed as ME was (and as far as they were pushing the hybrid 16/32bit kernel), probably used i815's for testing and didn't try anything else... or perhaps intel had a role looking to make the competition look like crap. Who knows?

Yes NUSB is mostly ME stuff, with some 2000 dlls added later on. But as far as i recall came out rather late in the 9x lifecycle, around 2004ish? Before that USB on 98 was still a bit of a mess, with some vendor provided drivers with a modified .inf to work with other USB sticks and stuff.

Now that I think about it, "a bit of a mess" is quite an accurate description for the entirety of the 9x range

[Dan81]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

As far as I remember I think NUSB is ME's USBSTOR.SYS + XP's Safely Remove Hardware routine. The reason I say XP is because of both the tray icon being XP's and the fact that it doesn't ask you to stop the drive first. ME would nag you whenever you removed a drive without stopping it first.

[ChaosLegionnaire]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

yea the memory limit on win98se varies with motherboards and their bioses depending on how much pci address space they reserve. if a mobo has a large reserved pci address range, u will have less max ram available for use by the os e.g. 768mb. if the mobo reserves a smaller pci address range, u get more ram available for use by the os. i was able to get 1.1gb or 1152mb on my abit ic7-g motherboard.

another thing to note is that the amount of reserved pci address space also varies depending on the video card u use and the pci expansion cards inserted in the board. i notice some raid cards reserve some address space. the agp aperture size u set also affects this.

case in point, i was able to get 1152mb ram usable (maxphyspage=48000) in win98se with 128mb agp aperture on the abit ic7-g. but if i increased this to 256mb, win98se gets stuck in an endless self-rebooting loop. i have to decrease it to 1024mb (maxphyspage=40000) to stop the self-rebooting loop.

i believe this ram limit came about because bill gates in his infinite wisdom, programmed win98 to use the upper 32-bit address range which also conflicts with the motherboard reserved pci address space used by motherboard bioses to map pci device addresses. the motherboard bios also places this in the upper 32-bit address range.

if u want 4gb ram usable on win98se, u have to buy rloew's win98se 4gb ram patch. not sure how much it costs and if the guy is still around.

[RJARRRPCGP]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

Today's freebie is an "Access" Luggable computer made in November 1983; in the USA.

The same month I turned 3 years old, LOL.

[Dan81]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

Scored a Netburst era lappy, specifically a Gericom Masterpiece 2540XL DVD/CDRW WL 01/03.

First off, some specs:

P4 2.5GHz (desktop CPU, didn't find out the S-spec number tho)
Intel 845 chipset
2x256MB SDRAM
40GB IBM Travelstar HDD
Radeon 9000 64MB GPU
fake advertised WLAN (which turned out to be a Motorolla modem) - installed a Intel 2200BG in its place and will have to slightly hack the LCD frame to accomodate the WLAN antennae)

It's basically a rebadged ECS G730 (and HWMonitor further confirms this). Nice build quality (which is surprising considering it's ECS we're talking about here) and will probably make for a interesting machine once I clean it up, repaste and install a dualboot setup of 2k SP4 + XP SP3.

[ChaosLegionnaire]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

i believe this ram limit came about because bill gates in his infinite wisdom, programmed win98 to use the upper 32-bit address range which also conflicts with the motherboard reserved pci address space used by motherboard bioses to map pci device addresses. the motherboard bios also places this in the upper 32-bit address range.

been thinking hard about this and i believe bill did that as a tradeoff because win98 was a hybrid 16/32 bit os, so some libeties had to be taken and some compromises had to be made. on the other hand, the "professional" os of the time, windows nt 4, was a full 32 bit os and had no problems addressing the full 4gb of ram minus the reserved pci address space.

[TechGeek]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

2x Compaq SR5000-series systems (one with an A64 II 3800+, the other with a Sempron LE-1250)
Both systems came in for data recovery. Power cord lost to one, other didn't POST. Client didn't want them back.

First one (the no-POSTer) beeped RAM codes at me. Reseated the RAM and all was well again. Ran 7 until I imaged and wiped the drive and repurposed the system as something else as an upgrade to an S775 P4 system that was begging me to put it out of its misery.

Second one (lost power cord) worked right off the bat. Runs Vista x64 pretty well. Not terribly slow and all of the fancy graphical effects work well, likely because of the nVidia GeForce 6150SF graphics. And that means that it's got an nVidia chipset.

No issues from either system in regards to bumpgate-related failures. There seems to be a hardware bug with the PCIe x16 slot in both systems. The BIOS has an option for the primary graphics card, but if you install a PCIe GPU into the x16 slot, the system just totally ignores the card to the point where it doesn't even appear in lspci or the Windows Device Manager. The Athlon 64 II system had a Radeon HD2400-series card installed in it, but it was totally non-functional due to the aforementioned bug. I tested it in another system that already has a PCIe GPU and it worked fine with no artifacting. I've not tested the Ethernet controllers in either system, but the 2nd system's Ethernet controller does seem to be present and accounted for.

I'll post a separate thread on these systems sometime down the road.


And an eMachines laptop of some sorts rounds out the lineup of recent acquisitions. Battery was toasted and the charger was long gone. Booted it into a passworded Windows 7 install and quickly discovered that the optical drive is a dud. Booted a Linux live distro and pulled the sethc trick to get in. This system ran much slower than the 2nd Compaq system, despite being newer, but I'm going to attribute that to the software installed on it. This system seems to have a hardware bug or fault on its VGA connector. When an external monitor is connected at the time the system is powered up, the internal display comes on and soon goes blank, never to come on until you power cycle the system. If you connect it after Windows is booted up, Windows will detect it, but the monitor won't come on. Ended up pulling the RAM and HDD for future use, set the battery aside for recycling, and shelved it.

Not sure when the 1st Compaq system was last used. The 2nd Compaq system was last used sometime in mid-2018, and the eMachines laptop was last running in February 2016. I'm thinking of reusing the 2nd Compaq system as the Tech Room Firewall System (with future plans for the A64 system that Topcat recapped following that), but I've got plenty of other stuff on the table, such as a fileserver that's running very low on free space, and based on how things are looking, I'll be buying a bigger HDD for it extremely soon.

And thus ends my UXWBill-esque rambling and maundering. We will now return to your regularly scheduled programming.

[Heihachi_73]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

I'm with Topcat regarding dmill89's laptop from the previous page - Windows 98 is such a waste on anything > Socket 7. That said, you could always dual-boot 98/XP if needed (note that apparently you need to have 98 installed first for the dual-boot setup to work properly - not sure if both partitions can be FAT32 and dual-boot like that, but it would come in useful if 98 could read the XP partition).

Windows XP is OK on 512MB, most P3s/P4s that came with XP had a lowly 256MB and still ran well enough (128MB would probably be pushing it though) as long as you weren't doing too much at once.

Browsing the web with Windows 98 would be all but impossible with today's security standards and JavaScript-heavy sites; IE4/5/6 isn't an option whatsoever and Windows 98SE only supports up to Firefox 2.0.0.20, which barely loads anything at all (it was bad enough 3 years ago with Firefox 12 in Windows 2000 and XP SP1). Even XP SP3 is now having trouble with modern websites and that's with Firefox 52 ESR.

Another up side of XP is that you're not stuck with 640x480 16 colors if the drivers aren't available. The only thing 98SE offers out of the box is USB and maybe ethernet and basic sound card support. Despite 98SE coming out in 1999, it's still very much centered around a Socket 7 era PC with some Pentium Pro/P2 support tacked on (e.g. USB, AGP).

If you want the 2000 style interface you just ditch the default XP theme and go with Windows Standard (or even Windows Classic if you want the Windows 98 look).

[dmill89]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

I'm with Topcat regarding dmill89's laptop from the previous page - Windows 98 is such a waste on anything > Socket 7. That said, you could always dual-boot 98/XP if needed (note that apparently you need to have 98 installed first for the dual-boot setup to work properly - not sure if both partitions can be FAT32 and dual-boot like that, but it would come in useful if 98 could read the XP partition).

Windows XP is OK on 512MB, most P3s/P4s that came with XP had a lowly 256MB and still ran well enough (128MB would probably be pushing it though) as long as you weren't doing too much at once.

Browsing the web with Windows 98 would be all but impossible with today's security standards and JavaScript-heavy sites; IE4/5/6 isn't an option whatsoever and Windows 98SE only supports up to Firefox 2.0.0.20, which barely loads anything at all (it was bad enough 3 years ago with Firefox 12 in Windows 2000 and XP SP1). Even XP SP3 is now having trouble with modern websites and that's with Firefox 52 ESR.

Another up side of XP is that you're not stuck with 640x480 16 colors if the drivers aren't available. The only thing 98SE offers out of the box is USB and maybe ethernet and basic sound card support. Despite 98SE coming out in 1999, it's still very much centered around a Socket 7 era PC with some Pentium Pro/P2 support tacked on (e.g. USB, AGP).

If you want the 2000 style interface you just ditch the default XP theme and go with Windows Standard (or even Windows Classic if you want the Windows 98 look).

Who said anything about Windows 98??? It is running XP SP3

Dell Latitude E6500.

-Intel Core 2 Duo P8700
-4 GB DDR2 pc2-6400 RAM
-160 GB WD Scorpio Black 7200 rpm HDD
-Matsushita UJ892 DVD+-RW
-Windows XP Pro SP3








Gotta love the "remove one screw and the whole bottom slides off" serviceability on these.

You're probably thinking of the one from Dan81:

Scored a pretty strong Gericom laptop, model Supersonic M6-T 1200. OEM'd by FIC, surprisingly.

Specs:

full blown Tualatin 1.2GHz P3
Mobility Radeon M6 32MB
30GB HDD upped to 40GB
512MB PC133
VIA 694T (according to the almost only Czech site that lists its specs with a slight error)
14.1" LCD

Came with XP recovery disc (Home), a bunch of rather retro stuff (Nero 6, CyberDVD), had Win7 set up on the 30GB drive. Swapped in a 40GB Hitachi and it awaits a 98SE or 2000 install.

[Dan81]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

Mine runs 98SE just happy, for 2000 and XP I have the other Gericom, the Masterpiece 2540XL made by ECS. i845 SDR, P4 Northwood 2.4/400 SL6GT, 512MB PC133, Radeon Mobility 9000 64MB, 60GB HDD. Quite noisy since it has two fans but I can live with that.

[Xenon-Codex]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

I got 9 decent Fujitsu PC's from work. Those were going to e-waste, but I took them to be used for spare parts. Two Core2Duo's and six i5-4440's and one i5-3470. They had minor faults preventing the normal selling in auction. One C2D has 600W PSU in it.