Post your system.......

[retiredcaps]

Originally Posted by momaka

On that front, even the E2160 is struggling with some pages quite a bit (e.g. Outlook email takes 10 seconds to load vs. nearly instantly with any C2Q or more modern dual core.) .

If the motherboard supports E8600, you can probably get the CPU for $5 USD. Add ublock origin to browser and see if it helps with speedup?

[momaka]

Originally Posted by retiredcaps

If the motherboard supports E8600, you can probably get the CPU for $5 USD. Add ublock origin to browser and see if it helps with speedup?

Unfortunately, not that motherboard - an ASUS P5GC-MX (i945 chipset). It can only do 800 MHz FSB. That's not an issue, though, as I do have several other Dell boxes with 800 MHz FSB C2D CPUs that are in the 2.5-2.66 GHz range. And I also have about... oh 45x or so E8400 CPUs that I got for dirt cheap on eBay about a year ago (under $10 shipped! ). So what I'm actually planning on doing is putting the E8400 CPUs in the Dell PCs that support them and moving their old E4x00 CPUs onto machines that only support 800/1066 MHz FSB.

As for uBlock Origin... never tried it, but I run ABP and a custom HOSTS file. That combo has been working fine for me so far.

The problem with modern online stuff is that it uses too many scripts, and that's what does all the CPU hogging. Before anyone suggests NoScript... yes, I've tried it, and I've always been disappointed by it so far. If you disable scripts on a page, the page either doesn't display properly or at all. And if you enable most scripts to make the page work... well, you're back to square one with the same scripts that were CPU hogs anyways. Mostly has to do with those infinite scrollbars (thanks phone users! ... or rather thanks lazy bum webpage designers who do "one-size-fits-all" design for both phone and PCs users, with most features streamed towards phone users.) Outlook Webmail is notoriously bad for this, for example. It takes about a minute to "crunch through" the infinite scrollbar scripts on a "high-end" Pentium 4, about 10-15 seconds on the abovementioned E2180 PDC CPU, and 2-5 seconds or less on a higher end Core 2 Duo or Athlon /II X2 CPU. Meanwhile, Google and Yahoo webmail still offer HTML-only style, which will run on just about anything, just like Badcaps.net.

[RJARRRPCGP]

Originally Posted by momaka

But I guess what I find disappointing with these APUs is that they have a high frequency and modern instruction set, making one think they perform much better than any old generation chip. Yet, they don't. The fact that a C2D that is 5 years older than this APU and still beats it is the disappointing part.

I think it's because they're based on the Bulldozer arch.

[Dan81]

Lately I've been diving into laptop stuff. So I thought I should post a few of my picks. Some are WIP and some are finished laptops that I tend to use daily.

Laptop 1 - Acer Aspire 5738

ATI Mobility Radeon HD4570 512MB
Intel Core 2 Duo T9400 2.53GHz/6MB cache/1066FSB
6GB DDR2-800
Seagate Momentus Thin 320GB
Windows 7 x64
Sony-NEC Optiarc AD-7580S DVD-RW

Laptop 2 - Acer Aspire 7520

nVidia nForce 610M/Geforce 7000M (256MB share)
AMD Turion 64 X2 TL-60 2GHz
4GB DDR2-800
2x HDDs - WD Scorpio 320GB + 250GB Seagate Momentus
Windows 7 x64
Hitachi-LG GSA-T40N DVD-RW

Laptop 3 - Acer Aspire 6530 (WiP)
ATI Mobility Radeon X1400 128MB
AMD Turion X2 Ultra ZM-80 2.1GHz
2GB DDR2-800
500GB HGST HDD (though I can add a second one if I want)
Windows 7 x64
Hitachi-LG GT30N DVD-RW (SATA)

Laptop 4 - Acer Travelmate 2494
Intel GMA950
Intel Core 2 Duo T5500 1.6GHz
1GB DDR2-667
no HDD yet
Pioneer DVD-RW

Laptop 5 - HP-Compaq NX7300

Intel GMA950
Intel Core 2 Duo T2250 (to be replaced with the T5500 from the above Acer)
2GB DDR2-667
Fujitsu 80GB SATA
Hitachi-LG GMA-4082N DVD-RW
Windows 8.1 32bit

Laptop 6 - ASUS X59SL (WiP)

ATI Mobility Radeon HD3470 256MB
Intel Core 2 Duo T5450
2GB DDR2
no HDD
Hitachi-LG T20N DVD-RW
no OS

[RJARRRPCGP]

Newest ATX PC: (socket AM4!)

Ryzen 3 3200G

MSI B450 Tomahawk

16 GB Corsair Vengeance LPX DDR4 SDRAM (dual channel)

Radeon RX 580

eVGA 750W G3 PSU

Crucial MX500 500 GB SATA SSD

[BigTroll]

Originally Posted by RJARRRPCGP

Newest ATX PC: (socket AM4!)

Ryzen 3 3200G

MSI B450 Tomahawk

16 GB Corsair Vengeance LPX DDR4 SDRAM (dual channel)

Radeon RX 580

eVGA 750W G3 PSU

Crucial MX500 500 GB SATA SSD

About time you bought a ryzen! also you got the same psu as me so it looks like you made some TOP NOTCH choices! wish I knew you were building I have a ryzen 2200g ive been trying to sell for cheap. Also I hope you bent over like me and installed Windows 10!

[Retrorockit]

I'm flogging an old Dell Optiplex 380 Mini Tower I picked up for $20 witha WIN7 COA on it.
X5470 Xeon swap, 8GBDDR3 1066 Ram, MSI GTX1060 3GB OCV1 (with bracket cut in1/2 for 1 slot card mod, and trim plastic cover to length of PCB). Dimension 9150 375W PSU to run the video card.
Cooling mod is D9729 Pentium 4 BTX heatpipe cooler in an Optiplex 745 shroud, with a monstrous Precision 390 AFC1512DG 150x50mm 1.8A. Delta fan. The bare fan replaces the whole fan assy. in the BTX Mini Towers. A piece of packing foam wedges it in place when the cover is on. Plug and play.
https://www.userbenchmark.com/UserRun/11864164

[Dan81]

A few updates to my main PC:

CPU - Intel Core i5-3470 @ 3.6GHz
RAM - 16GB DDR3 1600MHz (Corsair ValueRAM 8GB + GoodRAM 8GB) (the latter is rebranded Corsair RAM)
GPU - Gigabyte Geforce GTX650 1GB GDDR5 (to be replaced w/ Sapphire R9 380 Nitro 8GB GDDR5)
PSU - FSP Bluestorm II 500W
SSD - ADATA SU650 120GB SATA3
HDD - 2x Seagate ST31000340NS 1TB
Mobo - Gigabyte B75M-D3H
Case - Delux MG760
ODD - TSSTCorp SH-224DB SATA DVDRW
OS - Windows 10 Enterprise LTSC
Audio - SB X-Fi XtremeGamer SB0730 PCI
Misc - Winfast PxDVR3200H TV Tuner

[BigTroll]

Here is my 2010 iMac, the original 4670 died a couple of years ago so I replaced it with a Radeon 5670 and while I was in there replaced the i3 540 with a i3 550 so its 3.2ghz now.Has 8gb ram and a 500GB spinner I was watching trump declare the national emergency on it today.

[Dan81]

Heh, first gen i3/i5/i7s still pack a punch today, after 10 years from their first release.

Goes to show how sturdy Intel made their chips back then. I'd drop a 1156 Xeon in there if the board and thermals allow it

[TechGeek]

Originally Posted by Dan81

Heh, first gen i3/i5/i7s still pack a punch today, after 10 years from their first release.

Goes to show how sturdy Intel made their chips back then. I'd drop a 1156 Xeon in there if the board and thermals allow it

My dad's computer has a 1st gen i7-950/965 in it. Still an absolute blazer of a CPU today.

[Topcat]

Originally Posted by TechGeek

My dad's computer has a 1st gen i7-950/965 in it. Still an absolute blazer of a CPU today.

I'm still running Harpertown & Westmere stuff, it screams.....and has zero problems keeping up. PC Processor technology hasn't made huge improvements/major breakthroughs the last 10 years save for being smaller and/or more efficient....which the mobile market demands.

[momaka]

Originally Posted by TechGeek

My dad's computer has a 1st gen i7-950/965 in it. Still an absolute blazer of a CPU today.

Yup.
Heck, even the Core 2 Quads are still pretty respectable in terms of performance if you're not into gaming (at least not the latest titles in the last 3-4 years, that is.)

Originally Posted by Topcat

PC Processor technology hasn't made huge improvements/major breakthroughs the last 10 years save for being smaller and/or more efficient....which the mobile market demands.

Indeed.
If fact, if it wasn't for AMD's Ryzen, processor technology would have been even more stagnant.

Originally Posted by Dan81

Goes to show how sturdy Intel made their chips back then. I'd drop a 1156 Xeon in there if the board and thermals allow it

If you want pretty good OC, socket 1366 with X58 or similar chipset can get you quite far with them Xeons too.
Speaking of which... I have another PC project on the horizon: dual socket 1366 behemoth with 12 slots for triple channel DDR3... but thread with pics of that will come another day.

[RJARRRPCGP]

Originally Posted by momaka

if it wasn't for AMD's Ryzen, processor technology would have been even more stagnant.

I highly suspect that! In 2015 and 2016, it looked like we had a "processor malaise" era. Intel wanted to price gouge HT quad-cores.
And for their 2012 and 2013 CPUs, Intel allegedly cheaped out on IHS TIM!

People complained about "Ivy Bridge" having bad cooling.

This looks like a minor problem in comparison, but 2015's and 2016's "Skylake" has a thin PCB and some people apparently have problems with that when mounting coolers!

[momaka]

Originally Posted by momaka

Let's see if we can keep pushing our Pentium 4 PCs until 2020 - that would be sweet!

Well, folks, this “suggestion” (seen here) by me turned out to be true – at least for myself. Here we are in 2020 (with almost a 3rd of it gone, actually) and I’m still pushing an old socket 478 Pentium 4 in my “main” PC. I’ve had this PC in service as a main rig since 2013, yet never made a post about it here nor posted pictures. So here comes that…

I suppose this will probably be one of the dullest and most boring PCs you’ll seen in this thread, because it’s more or less a nearly bone-stock Dell OptiPlex 170L “mini-tower” office PC.

Pictures:
https://www.badcaps.net/forum/attach...1&d=1585012855
https://www.badcaps.net/forum/attach...1&d=1585012855
https://www.badcaps.net/forum/attach...1&d=1585012855
https://www.badcaps.net/forum/attach...1&d=1585012855

What did I tell you – boooooring!

But this thing has been an absolute workhorse. I saved it from getting scrapped / junked around the end of 2012 through a co-worker, who picked up 2-3 of these from another friend of his, but said he didn’t need this many and was wondering what to do with them. All of these PCs were doing front desk / office duty for a local park authority, from what I was told, IIRC. I picked up two that he didn’t want. They were extremely dusty and came with only 40 GB Western Digital HDDs. I cleaned up one and gave it to close family friends of ours, who before that had only an old AMD Athlon 1.2 GHz desktop that was extremely slow. This was also quite outdated when I gave it to them (end of 2012 or thereabouts), but loads better than what they had – especially with a clean Windows XP SP2 install.

The other one of these Dell PCs, I kept for myself as I was about to start college again in a different university a little further from home, and wanted to have a nice reliable PC to do [home]work on. This OptiPlex 170L did exactly that – has been 100% reliable and solid!!! I set it up in my college apartment at the beginning of 2013 and used it until I graduated in 2015. Then I moved back at my parent’s place and continued using it as a main PC. At first, I thought I’d only used it for a year or two more, as I had many other PC builds planned. But day after day passed while I still planned and experimented with these other PC builds / parts… until here we are in 2020, and I’m still pushing this thing as a “daily driver”. Amazing how much an old machine like this can do, at least in regards to mundane tasks like email duty, online shopping, and word processing (well, when it comes to emails, most modern providers will bog it down unless switched to HTML or more friendly and compatible view.) Back when I set it up, I also used it a ton for YouTube (in the days when Flash was still a thing, that PC could easily do 720p), along with a few early 2000’s or older games (whatever could run on the on-board IGP.)

The specs of this Dell OptiPlex 170L:
CPU: Intel Pentium 4 Prescott HT 2.8 GHz (800 MHz FSB), socket 478
RAM: 1280 MB DDR PC3200 @ 400 MHz single channel ( 1 GB + 256 MB ) --> now upgraded to 2 GB as of this writing.
Video: on-board Intel Extreme Graphics 2 through motherboard i865 chipset
HDD: single 80 GB Samsung Spinpoint SP0802N (7200 RPM, 3.5”, PATA / IDE)
Optical: Hitachi-LG Data Storage (HL-DT-ST) GCC-4482b CD-RW / DVD-ROM
PSU: HiPro / Chicony HP-P2507FPW rev-A01, 250 Watt ATX with original Teapo caps
OS: Windows XP Professional SP2 32-bit (OEM COA on case) with select patches

System screenshots:








I know … It’s embarrassing POSTing this PC in this day and age. At the same time, I’m still amazed a PC like this can still manage to be somewhat useful today (granted with a tad of patience, given how slow some websites can be.) That being said, I was really ready to retire it when Badcaps.net did the server upgrade in February and my Opera 12 stopped working due to not having the latest / last release of Opera 12. But after getting that squared out (thanks to hints from members’ suggestions here), I’ve decided to push using this PC a bit longer again – at least until I decide what to upgrade to next.

In the mean time, I’ve increased the RAM to the maximum this OptiPlex 170L can take: 2 GB of DDR PC3200. Now I can run FireFox 52 ESR (or newer) and not run out of RAM like I did before with the 1.25 GB. The next (and possibly last) upgrade I have planned is to add a PCI video card that is better than the onboard. For this, I have a PNY GeForce 8400 GS PCI with 512 MB DDR2. It’s quite a weak video card by 2020 standards too, but many times better than the on-board i865 / Intel Extreme Graphics 2. At least the 8400 GS offers H.264 hardware decoding / encoding, so it might actually off-load the CPU for online video watching / browsing. Once that is done, I don’t think there will be anything else worth upgrading on this PC. I actually also have two 3.2 GHz Pentium 4 Prescott HT CPUs here. But I will have to check what TDP they have as I’d rather keep the thermals the same. Might not be worth it for the extra 400 MHz, which probably won’t make a difference on a CPU that old (especially the P4 dinosaur architecture.) Another possible upgrade I’ve been thinking about (for fun, at least) is add in / solder the missing AGP slot (have one from a scrapped Dell OptiPlex 260 board) – probably won’t ever happen though.

Anyways, this post was made not so much to show off this PC, but more as a tribute. It’s served me well, so I think it deserves an honorable mention here.
And will continue serving me until I come up with another machine that I feel is equally reliable.

[BigTroll]

Funny story, around 2013/2014 we had a 170l at the school, my co-worker gave me a soyo board with the beautiful Silver Sacon caps none bulged, it had an AMD duron in it so I put it in the 170L since I needed a case and wanted a vintage AMD rig, my co-worker and I took the same day off and the assholes up north took advantage by cleaning our room out and throwing my soyo duron 170L away, I was really pissed that they thought it was great......

[ChaosLegionnaire]

damn i hate it when good stuff goes to waste! i hope u trolled the hell outta them and told them off good! that would act as a good deterrant against those focking looters from taking away your stuff again!!

[BigTroll]

Originally Posted by ChaosLegionnaire

damn i hate it when good stuff goes to waste! i hope u trolled the hell outta them and told them off good! that would act as a good deterrant against those focking looters from taking away your stuff again!!

heh yeah, the person who helped with that cleanup is no longer working for us and nothing like that has happened again but it is very sad to see how much stuff gets thrown away, even 4th gen haswell systems are being sent to the recyclers now. I know in fact some of the systems we recycled made it on ebay, so at least some got a second chance. I would love to just give them away but that would be gifting of public funds or some bs like that.

[Dan81]

Restored an oldie, which basically is my old Q9400, before it got replaced with the i5 3470.

Specs:

Intel Core 2 Quad Q9400
Gigabyte EP45T-DS3R
2x2GB DDR3-1333
Leadtek PX9500GT 1GB DDR2
Scythe Mine SCMN-1100 LGA775 cooler
Western Digital WD1600AVJS 160GB AV series SATA HDD
Allied AL-8400BTX 400W (recapped and with big ass transformers + upgraded sillicon)
ASUS 16x DVD-RW (white)
JNC TAC-FQ-70 case (made from parts, has lotsa leds lol)
Windows 10 Enterprise LTSC 1809

[Curious.George]

Originally Posted by BigTroll

heh yeah, the person who helped with that cleanup is no longer working for us and nothing like that has happened again but it is very sad to see how much stuff gets thrown away, even 4th gen haswell systems are being sent to the recyclers now. I know in fact some of the systems we recycled made it on ebay, so at least some got a second chance. I would love to just give them away but that would be gifting of public funds or some bs like that.

The usual way around that is to either donate them to a non-profit or auction them off.

Local university has monthly auctions where damn near everything that you would consider saleable is up for grabs (including items that were placed in their "lost and found").

Local hospitals tend not to want to be bothered hosting an auction so just gift the items to non-profits. This is where I tend to come across most of my NiB items (hospitals are notoriously wasteful and tend to also stick to the short update cycles of most businesses).