best cheap/free scores 1.1

[Xenon-Codex]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

These two working things from the dump. Need to try to save the Salora speakers which were there. They are worth of at least $100.

Revisit at the dump was perfectly success. Now I have four of them again (one was sold for parts).

[momaka]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

quite a few Optiplex 755's....

The workhorse of the office back in the day, I remember.
Still decent office machines with a high-end Core 2 Duo or Quad. Onboard GPU is a little weak and can't help the CPU with modern browsers.

But with Mypal Quantum / beta, I find these machines still work very well on the web with Windows XP. Hard to believe a 20 YO OS is still capable of coping with the modern web, but it does.

Also got an old time BCN favorite from back in the day; the legendary GX270 full tower! I've recapped thousands of these back in their glory days....now they're pretty extinct. The P4 is at the threshold of retrodom!! This one has some kind of upgraded GPU and sound card in it and 2gb RAM (max it can take). I'll probably resto that just for old times.

Ha, nice!

I still see these and similar Optiplexes and Dimensions on my local Craigslist every once in a while. But too many people are asking ridiculous prices for them right now for being "retro" - like $50-100. Untested too - the nerve some "sellers" have!
And yet, there are newer Core 2 Duo machines for $30 complete, tested, and working... that don't even sell for this little. Go figure.

If there's anything to get right now for cheap, it's the C2D / C2Q and 1st and 2nd gen i-series Intel machines. They are literally at scrap prices these days... well, for the most part.

Anyone ever loved ripping their hair out installing 98SE not just on a P4, but a SATA drive no less?

P4 + Win98: OK
P4 + SATA and/or PCI-E GPU... hmmm

I really see no reason to build an ultra-powerful Win9x PC, when in reality it can't handle all of those resources. Anything more than a P4 and 512 MB or RAM is kind of a waste of time. Perhaps just to show that it's possible?
The only benefit behind Win9x, particularly 98SE or ME, is that it has native DOS which can be handy if trying to get many older 90's games to run or late 90's software/games that just doesn't like NT kernel. But anything after 2000-2001 is pretty much better of with Win2k/XP.

So to answer your question: nope, I haven't tried installing 98 on a SATA drive and don't plan to either. Already have a good chunk of my hair missing on top.

I do have a 4Core-DualSATA board and a 939Dual-SATA2 board that both technically support 98 & ME. But I don't think I'll try it on these. The newest I tried on was an Intel d845bg mobo with a 2 GHz P4 + 512 MB of RAM and 80 GB IDE HDD... and it ran beautifully.

Interior. This is the first clamshell style AIO I've ever seen that needed a hydraulic lift arm to open!

https://www.badcaps.net/forum/attach...1&d=1691881751

LOL, but nice I, must say. Definitely the first time I've seen something like this.

I was thinking about regifting this to my dad....but I think it's a bit much for his desk. This beast weighs a good 50lbs.

Dang, that's about as heavy as a proper workstation minitower.
Not for IKEA desks ... or worse, Amazon Basics

Last month I had to take apart my desk to move it. Even after having 2x 21" CRTs and a 19" CRT on it for the last 10 years (was only a 19" and a 21" before that for another 5 years), it hasn't bowed or budged a single bit. The funniest part is that when I started taking it apart, I found that the screws holding the top piece were never tightened. Yet it held fine for so many years.

In general most consumer AIOs are little more than a laptop motherboard tacked on to the back of a monitor.

Or shoehorned into the base. Saw a few Dells back in 2017 like that and they had overheating issues. What a surprise.

Revisit at the dump was perfectly success. Now I have four of them again (one was sold for parts).

^ Those look like some really nice speakers. The inverted dome tweeters are well worth going back for these.
I'm guessing the one with the slightly different dust cap was the one sold for parts?
The JVC amp looks decent too. Early/mid 90's?

[Topcat]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

Mega EDU score.

Probably ~20 or so 4th gen I-series towers, most I7's.
3x HP Pro 4300 AIO's, all 3 work, one has a cracked screen.
Tons of high end gigabit network gear.

Of course boxes full of the usual shit that breeds; cords, keyboards, mice, etc....

[Dan81]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

P4 + Win98: OK
P4 + SATA and/or PCI-E GPU... hmmm

P4 + 120GB SATA HDD (Hitachi pull from a Xbox 360) + AGP GPU was the combo (ASRock 775i65G was the MB, GPU was some random Palit FX5500 256MB I had around).
I surprisingly got it working. But I wouldn't recommend it for the impatient. I have another one that I need to get going, a MSI 865PE Neo3-V + Radeon 9550. Same stuff.

[Xenon-Codex]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

^ Those look like some really nice speakers. The inverted dome tweeters are well worth going back for these.
I'm guessing the one with the slightly different dust cap was the one sold for parts?
The JVC amp looks decent too. Early/mid 90's?

Those were the upper end of the Finnish hifi in the late 70's. Seas and Audax elements. Seas changed the dust cap (in ~1977) but the model is the same. The saved unit is the only in mint condition(!), even the grille cloth is like new.

[Topcat]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

It's definitely workstation class as noted in my original post mentioning it. Entire body is metal; not sure if it's aluminum or magnesium....but it's a friggin tank!! Entire unit weighs 50+ pounds. The foot on the base is 18" deep. Has a MXM slot for GPU upgrades, socketed for 1155 CPU's, 2nd or 3rd gen I's or E3 v1 or v2 Xeons. Long DIMM's and ECC support. RAID support. The build quality of this is reminiscent of what HP used to be. I am going to do a little build with this just for the fun of it....so hang in there!!

My GPU experiment was a success. I gambled $12 and bought the empty HP GPU housing for it (heatsink, fan, shroud, etc) and paired it with a MXM GPU that's much better than this unit ever came with. I was concerned about compatibility & firmware pairing issues. I had none, it was a success! So it's running something a bit heftier than the Quadro M1000 that HP offered.... Detail soon and this post created from it.

[Topcat]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

The workhorse of the office back in the day, I remember.

Sadly they're just scrap now.... I can't give them away.....and I would if someone wanted them.

Ha, nice!

I still see these and similar Optiplexes and Dimensions on my local Craigslist every once in a while. But too many people are asking ridiculous prices for them right now for being "retro" - like $50-100. Untested too - the nerve some "sellers" have!
And yet, there are newer Core 2 Duo machines for $30 complete, tested, and working... that don't even sell for this little. Go figure.

C2D/C2Q stuff is still quite a ways away from retro status.... Still a lot of them in use today. White socket P4's OTOH have crossed the threshold IMHO but inspite of that are not really all that valuable.....still a lot of them around. It'll take another decade or two of them being destroyed before they're more sought-after by the goofballs that collect this stuff.....but they're a long way from Pentium Pro status.

If there's anything to get right now for cheap, it's the C2D / C2Q and 1st and 2nd gen i-series Intel machines. They are literally at scrap prices these days... well, for the most part.

Funny thing, a gen-1 I-series is still perfectly usable. Heck, my office machine is a Westmere Xeon setup....which is just a fancy first gen I-series with more cores and bigger caches. My Harpertown Xeon system is still in use; albeit it's been demoted to the service bench....but it gets used every day...it's the only Win7 system remaining in my fleet.

P4 + Win98: OK
P4 + SATA and/or PCI-E GPU... hmmm

I really see no reason to build an ultra-powerful Win9x PC, when in reality it can't handle all of those resources. Anything more than a P4 and 512 MB or RAM is kind of a waste of time. Perhaps just to show that it's possible?
The only benefit behind Win9x, particularly 98SE or ME, is that it has native DOS which can be handy if trying to get many older 90's games to run or late 90's software/games that just doesn't like NT kernel. But anything after 2000-2001 is pretty much better of with Win2k/XP.

Heck, I would have said a P3 for anything Win98.....I was tickled to have skipped the Win9x/ME era on my personal stuff, but I dealt with it a lot for clients....I hated it from beginning to end. I was a NT brat from the time of its release and eventually Win2k. If it ran on Win9x, odds are I could get it to run on NT4 or newer....the better supported games anyway. Before Glide, we had what was called 'WinQuake'; a 32-bit executable that would run Quake1 on NT3.5 or NT4.

LOL, but nice I, must say. Definitely the first time I've seen something like this.

It's kind of handy. Holds the screen section open while you work inside. I am very impressed with the build quality of this machine. Infact, this post is being created on it.

Dang, that's about as heavy as a proper workstation minitower.
Not for IKEA desks ... or worse, Amazon Basics

No, this is not for a pressed-wood desk. My dad has been drooling over a 27" iMac that Apple forced obsolescence on....I did a native Win10E install on it and will give that to him. Large screen, decent build quality, but nowhere near as intimidating to man-handle. He's 82.

[Dan81]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

Scored these last Sunday:

- Vortex LED-V32C02D TV - your average cheapo P.R.C-made 32incher - $54
- Xbox 360S "Trinity" - $32, came with AC adapter and a wireless controller too
- prebuilt "DAVIO GAMER" machine w/ JNC case, DEER PSU, Sempron LE-1300 and a 9400GT, 2GB DDR2 - $10, got gutted and a 1st gen 1155 i3 resides inside it at the moment w/ HD6670
- Intel 520 Series 120GB SSD - $4, all it was missing were the casing screws on the top (I did test it - 100% healthy, no issues whatsoever!)

[mariukonie]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

Found phillips tv not working all it needed was a new diode.

[Topcat]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

My ohh my....the beauty I got today!! Dell Precision 610!! These are circa ~2000; dual slot 2 workstations.

[Dan81]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

More scores:

- 2x Xbox 360. The irony - beaten up Jasper boots fine, Trinity RRODs.

- Luckytech/SYE P6VBX7 - nice lil' baby-AT mobo, VIA693 (non-A) + Celeron 433. Needs new caps and DIN socket, but it POST'd fine w/ a GF2 MX400 and 128MB SDRAM.

- a large delicious pizza, a cold Pepsi and a cold Fanta - gotta keep cool during the summer here somehow

[Topcat]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

Received yet another of those HP Z1 27" workstations and some smaller more 'normal' HP AIO's along with about 20 random I-series towers.

This Z1 workstation actually had the upgraded GPU and the HDD caddy. Nice condition....think this one will go on wife's desk.

[Topcat]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

This has been a good week for retro stuff being dropped.

First up is a complete Dell Dimension 4100 system Little old lady bought it new.....with the upgraded 19" monitor, Altec Lansing speaker system with sub.



All the paperwork, including the invoice and the service contract. She paid $1650 for this. It's a pentium3 800eb, 128mb RAM, TNT2 32mb, and a 20gb HDD.



Boxes full of software and blank media.....tons of new old stock 3.5" floppies still in the shrinkwrap.



The HDD had been wiped apparently, OS and all data was gone. Reinstalled Win2k after kicking the RAM up to 512mb. Optical was strugging to read, so just hung another long enough for the install.







The speakers, keyboard, and mouse.... That is oneof the recycle center junk bins....I'll pull these out before taking a load on Monday. The little devil on my shoulder really wants to stick a VP6 in this case, great period-specific sleeper.....but it's so complete and minty, I haven't talked myself into this yet; despite the fact that otherwise this is a pretty worthless system. Because of the CRT, I was paid to take this system.



Next up is a 14" triniton monitor; again, paid to take. It has Vaio on it in several places....so yea, was originally with some old sony vaio system. It's dirty and has a couple small flea bites on the screen....but it works well. As per the usual for a Trinitron, it has a fabulous picture on it.....I hate to scrap it....but the decision hasn't been made yet.





Now for the pick of the litter. A Dell Precision 610 dual slot-2 workstation!

I've never seen one of these, but knew they existed. They are impossible to find now. I have it's baby brother; the Precision 410 which is a dual slot-1 in the same case.





This unit only has one of the CPU's installed and 512mb ECC RAM. There's two 18gb SCSI HDD's in it with a Win2k install. Not sure what the GPU is. I tracked down the second CPU for 15 bucks with the heatsink (proprietary dell), stroke of luck there! It's not here yet though. The classic GX chipset can take 2gb RAM....but I haven't ordered any for it yet. The floppy doesn't work. ODD's do. The DAT drive is untested as of now.

Win2k install has a password....and my utilities wouldn't see the SCSI HD which surprised me (common AIC-78xx)....so I couldn't clear the password off it....but I'll play around with this a little more later when I have some more time.



That was the notable stuff for the week.

[TechGeek]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

Have you tried chntpw to reset the Win2K password?

[momaka]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

This has been a good week for retro stuff being dropped.

First up is a complete Dell Dimension 4100 system Little old lady bought it new.....with the upgraded 19" monitor, Altec Lansing speaker system with sub.

https://www.badcaps.net/forum/attach...1&d=1693623668

Oooo, so that's the system this monitor could come with.

I can tell you for a fact that this is truly an amazing score, particularly the CRT monitor. How I know? - I have this exact same Dell 19" CRT monitor. I can't remember the M/N right now, but it's easily the best-looking (picture-wise) CRT monitor I've ever had. Previously, I used to think this title was held by my 21" Hitachi CM-814. But after the deguass coil went out on it, I started using this 19" Dell for gaming. That's when I discovered that this is truly the best-looking monitor, color-wise: natural gray and black levels (not hued by a strong/weak CRT gun like on many Sony's), and I can set it where it reaches much brighter whites without touching the complete ultra inky black levels. At full black screen, one cannot tell the monitor is turned on, even in a completely dark room (I've tried it.) And at full white screen, it's blinding... and all of that without the focus or convergence getting soft, like it does on many Sony's and other CRTs too. Resolution-wise, it can do up to 1600x1200... though I think it looks absolutely perfect at 1280x960 @ 85 Hz. It's my "single-player" gaming monitor, because the colors make games much more vivid and lively.

That said, check the caps on yours if you do open it up. IIRC, these were built by/for Philips and then re-branded by Dell. So caps are not going to be premium Japanese brands like they are on Sony CRTs. Shame, because the tube is made by NEC, if I recall.

By far the worst thing about these... or least mine... is the case plastic - it could be quite fragile at this point. Yours looks pristine and not yellowed... but mine looks pretty close to that too. Yet, its plastic has become super brittle. I took it apart a few months ago to inspect why a crack was starting to develop on upper right corner of the front bezel. While taking it apart, I managed to snap a 2x6" piece of plastic from the side of the back cover as I was taking it off... and I wasn't man-handling it in any way. In disbelief that the plastic could be in such a bad shape, I checked on some of the plastic tabs on the front bezel and gently tried flexing each. 2 of them broke off with barely any pressure at all! So beware about that!

All the paperwork, including the invoice and the service contract. She paid $1650 for this. It's a pentium3 800eb, 128mb RAM, TNT2 32mb, and a 20gb HDD.

https://www.badcaps.net/forum/attach...1&d=1693623668

Sounds about right for late 1999 or very early 2000. The 19" Dell CRT I have has a late 1999 MFG date.

Boxes full of software and blank media.....tons of new old stock 3.5" floppies still in the shrinkwrap.

Sad.
By "blank media", I'm guessing early CD-Rs. Should still be good to record on, though, if not better than any modern no-name CD-R.
The software might be worth uploading to archive.org if some of it is not on there already.

The speakers, keyboard, and mouse.... That is oneof the recycle center junk bins....I'll pull these out before taking a load on Monday.

If it has the original KB and mouse, definitely keep them... though I do remember the early-era optical mice and never liked them too much - they were always randomly jumpy. The KB should make for a nice typer, though. I prefer the old beige rubber KBs to any "mechanical" ones (be it modern or old stuff like IBM model M) - they are just more quiet and still have great feedback.

The little devil on my shoulder really wants to stick a VP6 in this case, great period-specific sleeper.....but it's so complete and minty, I haven't talked myself into this yet; despite the fact that otherwise this is a pretty worthless system.

Nah, IMO you should leave it as-is. Indeed too minty and you'd have to swap out the PSU too. The original is probably one of those proprietary Dell ones with the non-standard wire ordering on the ATX connector. They are really good quality PSUs, though. The ones from LiteOn were always an all-Japanese cap affair inside. Bulletproof!

Because of the CRT, I was paid to take this system.

Next up is a 14" triniton monitor; again, paid to take. It has Vaio on it in several places....so yea, was originally with some old sony vaio system. It's dirty and has a couple small flea bites on the screen....but it works well. As per the usual for a Trinitron, it has a fabulous picture on it.....I hate to scrap it....but the decision hasn't been made yet.

Clearly you're not effectively exposing yourself to the retro PC crowd / market.
A lot of retro PC builders actually prefer 15" or smallr CRTs, simply because they are easier to carry, store, and set up (less desk space.) Also usually cheaper to ship if local pickup is not possible. The smaller screen + lower resolution is also better for DOS-era and mid-late 90's games.

Should try ebay or some similar place where you get more exposure to your stock. I did monitor a few CRT monitor auctions / listings a while back, and CRTs do sell - not at the crazy prices that you see with many sellers now. For example, I regularly see 17" CRTs with asking prices for $100+, and 19" and 21" for $200-400 respectively. But I haven't seen many of these sell, if at all. Just price it right (maybe like $20-30 max, without shipping... which would probably add another $40-50 for most places in the US), and it should sell a lot quicker.

Now for the pick of the litter. A Dell Precision 610 dual slot-2 workstation!

I've never seen one of these, but knew they existed. They are impossible to find now. I have it's baby brother; the Precision 410 which is a dual slot-1 in the same case.

https://www.badcaps.net/forum/attach...1&d=1693623668

A little over 10 years ago, I used to volunteer at the IT dept. of a non-profit, and they had one wall of the server room lined up with old beige Dell Optiplexes from the same era. Among them, a few of these dual slot-1 Precisions too. I took one (after asking the IT director - he actually asked me if I wanted to take all of them) and gave it to a work buddy of mine who wanted to teach his nephew some linux. Not sure what happened to that system afterwards, but I tested it before giving it to him, and it was in complete working order, minus needing a new CR-2032 battery.
Really wish I took these and many other things that IT dept. director offerend me. They wanted the space back then, and I had the space at home too. I just didn't because at the time, everyone of my friends (and especially family members) kept making fun of me / my "retro" PC hobby and how it was "super lame". Should have not listened, but I was young and a whole lot more naive back then. Ah well, live and learn. :\

But yeah, these old Precisions are super cool and have tank-like PSUs. I particularly remember the one in the Precision I took, because it had a rating on the 5V rail for 40 Amps. And it wasn't a fake rating like on some cheap gutless wonder PSU with a bogus label. Not, the thing was super heavy and had 2x 40 Amp rectifiers for the 5V rail.

Sadly they're just scrap now.... I can't give them away.....and I would if someone wanted them.

If only I lived close by, I'd probably be your regular junk/scrap bin shopper.
I'd probably save all of the mice and KBs you scrap regularly too, lol - at least the older USB ones from the likes of Dell, HP, and Lenovo. Anything past about 2015 or so is garbage. Went to a friend's house a few months ago to show their kids how to do something on the computer... and boy did I absolutely hate it. Should have anticipated it and brought my own KB. No wonder kids don't think there's a difference between tablet, laptop, and desktop when it comes to typing... hence why they see no benefit of moving away from their tablets/phones. I can confirm that new ultra-flat USB keyboards are about as bad as typing on a touchscreen. Well, enough of that rant on this topic... but my point is that the quality of newer stuff is just not there, even if they offer more features and power.

C2D/C2Q stuff is still quite a ways away from retro status.... Still a lot of them in use today.

I agree... though I'm starting to see quite a few people wanting to built a "late XP era" rig with C2D/C2Q or 1st/2nd gen i-series CPUs. IMO, that's not quite right, because C2D/Q was the era of Vista/7. Sure many corpo's hung onto XP even well into the late C2D/Q era and even a bit later... but I think we can agree that these were just the "new era" CPUs. With that said, I can still see the appeal of having a really powerful XP "retro" PC, though.

White socket P4's OTOH have crossed the threshold IMHO but inspite of that are not really all that valuable.....still a lot of them around. It'll take another decade or two of them being destroyed before they're more sought-after by the goofballs that collect this stuff.....but they're a long way from Pentium Pro status.

For retro gaming, they are becoming well sought-after, though, simply because they are more than powerful enough for any late 90's games and even some early 2000's games.

I was goofing around on eBay the other day and somehow eBay's suggested auctions started throwing some old P4 OEM towers at me. Saw one for an Optiplex 170L with pretty much the same specs as my main XP rig, but without an HDD. Price: $60. I laughed and thought, who'd buy that for this price?! Turns out, 8 sold and only 3 left in stock. :wft: So I guess people do buy these. Granted S&H was included in the price, and these older towers are somewhat heavy, so I imagine at least half of that will go towards the shipping. But surely, even $20 is not bad for such an old piece, especially without an OS and HDD. Basically a no-effort sale for a PC just tested to boot to BIOS.

Funny thing, a gen-1 I-series is still perfectly usable. Heck, my office machine is a Westmere Xeon setup....which is just a fancy first gen I-series with more cores and bigger caches. My Harpertown Xeon system is still in use; albeit it's been demoted to the service bench....but it gets used every day...it's the only Win7 system remaining in my fleet.

Yes, anything decent quad core from back then or very fast dual core at least, is still usable for modern internet.

Heck, I would have said a P3 for anything Win98.....I was tickled to have skipped the Win9x/ME era on my personal stuff, but I dealt with it a lot for clients....I hated it from beginning to end.

Can't blame you. Anything on the NT kernel is a lot more stable and harder to crash. In contrast, 9x was like biking... naked... on a dirt road... with skinny road tires. It didn't take much to bring it down. However, it did have much lower overhead on the old hardware at the time. So for games, it just made better sense, at least until more powerful CPUs and systems came out.

No, this is not for a pressed-wood desk.

Well, clearly you haven't dealt with any Amazon Basics furniture. You'd be lucky to get any real pressed-wood pieces. Most of it is more like a mix of OSB with recycled cardboard material in it. Many pieces can barely hold under their own weight... and they don't even weight that much to begin with!

[Dan81]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

Moar stuff:

- Gigabyte GTX1050 2GB GDDR5 - $22 - working fine, just needed cleaning
- XFX Radeon HD7970 3GB GDDR5 - $6.60 - working fine, needs fans
- Chaintech 5IFM1-M202/430HX - unfortunately dead from what I can tell... no POST or beeps with three different CPUs (P166 classic, P233 MMX and Cyrix 6x86) - $1
- Xbox 360 controller - $11

*prices roughly converted from RON to USD.

[Th3_uN1Qu3]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

Want to sell the 7970? I've got fans and need a spare card...

[Topcat]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

Oooo, so that's the system this monitor could come with.

I can tell you for a fact that this is truly an amazing score, particularly the CRT monitor. How I know? - I have this exact same Dell 19" CRT monitor. I can't remember the M/N right now, but it's easily the best-looking (picture-wise) CRT monitor I've ever had. Previously, I used to think this title was held by my 21" Hitachi CM-814. But after the deguass coil went out on it, I started using this 19" Dell for gaming. That's when I discovered that this is truly the best-looking monitor, color-wise: natural gray and black levels (not hued by a strong/weak CRT gun like on many Sony's), and I can set it where it reaches much brighter whites without touching the complete ultra inky black levels. At full black screen, one cannot tell the monitor is turned on, even in a completely dark room (I've tried it.) And at full white screen, it's blinding... and all of that without the focus or convergence getting soft, like it does on many Sony's and other CRTs too. Resolution-wise, it can do up to 1600x1200... though I think it looks absolutely perfect at 1280x960 @ 85 Hz. It's my "single-player" gaming monitor, because the colors make games much more vivid and lively.

I haven't taken the 19" apart, but it does work. Brought the keyboard, mouse, and speakers in, they are original according to the invoice. Keyboard is a dell branded microsoft. Mouse is a logitech with that rubberized shit on it that's all sticky & gooey now....but original according to the invoice, as is the speakers.

The whole system.....

By far the worst thing about these... or least mine... is the case plastic - it could be quite fragile at this point. Yours looks pristine and not yellowed... but mine looks pretty close to that too. Yet, its plastic has become super brittle. I took it apart a few months ago to inspect why a crack was starting to develop on upper right corner of the front bezel. While taking it apart, I managed to snap a 2x6" piece of plastic from the side of the back cover as I was taking it off... and I wasn't man-handling it in any way. In disbelief that the plastic could be in such a bad shape, I checked on some of the plastic tabs on the front bezel and gently tried flexing each. 2 of them broke off with barely any pressure at all! So beware about that!

Zero yellowing on any of the pieces except for a little on the keyboard. Monitor & computer plastics are solid. I broke nothing working on it.

Sad.
By "blank media", I'm guessing early CD-Rs. Should still be good to record on, though, if not better than any modern no-name CD-R.
The software might be worth uploading to archive.org if some of it is not on there already.

Yea, I keep that stuff, especially floppies. Good ones are getting scarce. New old stock even more scarce. Retro stuff still requires their use now & then.

Nah, IMO you should leave it as-is. Indeed too minty and you'd have to swap out the PSU too. The original is probably one of those proprietary Dell ones with the non-standard wire ordering on the ATX connector. They are really good quality PSUs, though. The ones from LiteOn were always an all-Japanese cap affair inside. Bulletproof!

For now, it's sitting complete in the corner. It'll make its way to the back room; climate controlled & clean where the better retro stuff lives. The only thing that's been changed is up'ing the RAM to 512mb and pulled the dialup modem. I still think a VP6 would be great in one of these cases as a retro sleeper....but perhaps this particular one isn't the right candidate. I have quite a few VP6's and BP6's here, I grab every one I find on ebay that's either live bidding with low openers, or low BIN's. As a rule, I won't spend more than $50 on one....and they do pop up once in a while. Several with $200+ BIN prices, I laugh.....but I have sold a couple of them I refurb'd (and marketed as so), live bidding they'd go for 125~150.

Clearly you're not effectively exposing yourself to the retro PC crowd / market.

Not sure where they all hang out....if it's VOGONS, I just never warmed up to that site. Nothing against them, they're a great resource.....I just never got the warm fuzzy feeling about it as a whole.

A lot of retro PC builders actually prefer 15" or smallr CRTs, simply because they are easier to carry, store, and set up (less desk space.) Also usually cheaper to ship if local pickup is not possible. The smaller screen + lower resolution is also better for DOS-era and mid-late 90's games.

Not sure if this one is worth saving. Screen has a couple small blips on it....but it's still here.

Really wish I took these and many other things that IT dept. director offerend me. They wanted the space back then, and I had the space at home too. I just didn't because at the time, everyone of my friends (and especially family members) kept making fun of me / my "retro" PC hobby and how it was "super lame". Should have not listened, but I was young and a whole lot more naive back then. Ah well, live and learn. :\

I enjoy the retro stuff even more than modern stuff.....I can't explain why. The growing retro collection has forced a lot of newer stuff from the climate controlled inner sanctum to out to the garage.

But yeah, these old Precisions are super cool and have tank-like PSUs. I particularly remember the one in the Precision I took, because it had a rating on the 5V rail for 40 Amps. And it wasn't a fake rating like on some cheap gutless wonder PSU with a bogus label. Not, the thing was super heavy and had 2x 40 Amp rectifiers for the 5V rail.

This is true, especially in the Netburst era Precisions (530, 470/670, etc). Those PSU's were real beasts!

If only I lived close by, I'd probably be your regular junk/scrap bin shopper.

You'd have a field day around here!!

desktop when it comes to typing... hence why they see no benefit of moving away from their tablets/phones. I can confirm that new ultra-flat USB keyboards are about as bad as typing on a touchscreen. Well, enough of that rant on this topic... but my point is that the quality of newer stuff is just not there, even if they offer more features and power.

I think my newest keyboard is ~2005-ish.... Logitech g-15 game keyboard.

For retro gaming, they are becoming well sought-after, though, simply because they are more than powerful enough for any late 90's games and even some early 2000's games.

I don't have a lot of P4 stuff, but I do have a few. I don't think netburst era xeon's really count.....

Can't blame you. Anything on the NT kernel is a lot more stable and harder to crash. In contrast, 9x was like biking... naked... on a dirt road... with skinny road tires. It didn't take much to bring it down. However, it did have much lower overhead on the old hardware at the time. So for games, it just made better sense, at least until more powerful CPUs and systems came out.

I remember NT4 before SP1.....so flaky. SP1 didn't fix much either. SP2 really cleaned up the instabilities....but I remember using SP1 with SCSI (Adaptec 2940UW) and it was wonky as hell....and my sony 2x scsi burner wouldn't work. SP2 came out shortly after, and it magically began working.

Well, clearly you haven't dealt with any Amazon Basics furniture. You'd be lucky to get any real pressed-wood pieces. Most of it is more like a mix of OSB with recycled cardboard material in it. Many pieces can barely hold under their own weight... and they don't even weight that much to begin with!

LOL.....no, I haven't....... My wife has a nice sturdy desk that can hold one of these HP's.... Dad's desk, not to much...I'll give him the lighter 27" iMac that I modded....he's been drooling over it since I got it.

[Dan81]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

Want to sell the 7970? I've got fans and need a spare card...

Thanks but I'll keep it. I already found a donor XFX card that is heavily artefacting that comes with the complete heatsink.

I'll order it sometime this week and transplant its HSF onto my 7970, then it'll be a good replacement for the already tired 7870 I have from Gigabyte (which already went through a reflow once - that card has had a rough life way before I got it...)

[Topcat]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

Have you tried chntpw to reset the Win2K password?

I didn't. I just did a quick reinstall of Windows without formatting; leaving all the data there. Wasn't much on it. Some MP3's, but nothing I liked or didn't already have. No naughty pics. I think someone wiped it shortly before taking it out of service. The 'last accessed' data on all of the files I checked were ~2007. Apparently it's been sitting a long time.

I added the second CPU, no issues. It's running the fastest CPU's it can take; Tanner (or earlier) cores only. It apparently won't run a Cascades, unit wouldn't even power up with them installed....apparently Cascades support didn't come along until the Precision 620 although the GX chipset technically did support them. The Tanner 550MHz 512K L2 is what it's got. The only CPU upgrade would be the same speed but the 2MB L2 caches....not really worth it IMO....just going to run with what I've got.

Still need to get some RAM for it. 512mb will get it by....but I'll max it @ 2gb. The GPU has been identified as a Dell branded (made by visiontek) Geforce 2 GTS 32mb. Looking through the drivers for this system at Dell's site, this card isn't listed....I wonder if it was offered as some 'unofficial' upgrade over the FireGL and some of the other cards offered with this system..... I had a heck of a time tracking a driver down for it....the legacy Forceware driver wouldn't work it.....but I did finally find one from visiontek on archive.org.

I haven't decided if I'm going to stick a 3DFX card in this or not, I already have a bunch of them already. May keep this one more 'workstation' oriented. It can also take an Adaptec ARO-1130 zero channel RAID upgrade; which essentially turns the onboard SCSI into a RAID controller. Those can be had pretty cheap, may grab one.... The HDD's are not a matching pair. One is an 18gb 10k RPM Quantum Atlas U2 SCSI...and lives up to the memories I have of them...when accessing data, it sounds like it's full of gravel....very noisy drive. The other is a 9.1gb cheetah. I'll probably pull those in favor of a matching pair and a RAID. When I get time to build this one up, I'll create it's own thread.