So yeah, a friend of mine just got this computer for free and we have no idea what we should do with it.
It's got an old Willamette Pentium 4 inside of it as well as 768MB PC-133 RAM, ATi RAGE Pro II 16MB VRAM AGP card, 80GB HDD, and Windows XP Professional installed. We were thinking of trying to install Windows 98 on it just to play old games like Mechwarrior 2 and Star Wars Dark Forces.
Well, I would buy an old Windows 98 machine, but I'm kind of broke right now. Slowly digging one's self out of debt takes a toll on the wallet.
As for Dells having bad capacitors and often catching fire, I've not encountered a Dell with bad capacitors yet nor experienced one catching fire. However, oddly enough, the computers that I have worked on that had bad capacitors were usually made by IBM. The problem I seem to keep on encountering with Dells is bad hard drives. Damn near every single Dell I have worked on since my old Latitude XPi has needed a new hard drive.
Windows 98 can only support 512 MB of RAM (supposedly 1 GB if you do some fancy tricks). Also, it's limited on what hardware it can support, luckily the driver standard by microsoft allows compatibility between 95/98/XP drivers (if you're lucky, you can get it to work, perhaps not at the full potential).
Some of the older games require voodo 3Dfx (old games are very picky about having voodoo and soundblaster; neither of which I have, and want).
Just scrap it and buy a good IBM like this:
http://cgi.ebay.com/Windows-98-Computer-2-4-GHz-IBM-Pentium-4-Win98-SE-DOS_W0QQitemZ170459421104QQcmdZViewItemQQptZDesktop_PCs?hash=item27b02c59b0 (http://cgi.ebay.com/Windows-98-Computer-2-4-GHz-IBM-Pentium-4-Win98-SE-DOS_W0QQitemZ170459421104QQcmdZViewItemQQptZDesktop_PCs?hash=item27b02c59b0)
EDIT: dells have VERY bad capacitors, and dell computers often catch on fire (I've been in situations where that happened far too often). And, they have an ugly logo. Where's the stripes?
EDIT: dells have VERY bad capacitors, and dell computers often catch on fire (I've been in situations where that happened far too often). And, they have an ugly logo. Where's the stripes?
When you say computers, do you mean only their laptops?
Oh, and turn it into a Linux machine.
In my Gateway2000, I've got an Intense 3D Voodooo video card. The things a foot long.
When you say computers, do you mean only their laptops?
EverythingIBM, why oh why do you have a PC 300-series in your avatar? Those things are a nightmare in every way imaginable.
The Voodoo card in question here is an actual video card, not a passthrough 3D accelerator, correct?
Well geez, shoulda came around when I had one I was giving away.
300PL came with Celerons of varying speeds, 333MHz being the most common I know of.
They're miserably, nasty machines (sorry to hurt your nostalgia, lol). Least efficient space management I've seen in any case design and with really poor cooling. The CPU did actually need its own fan but they managed to just barely prevent it catching fire with the case fan nearby.
I'm pretty sure I can find a used 300PL around here but shipping would kill ya even if I gave it away for free :)
300PL had a slot-1 motherboard...
Unless the same model had 100% different guts from submodel to submodel, it had to be a Celeron, P2 or P3 lol.
The case is the worst part. It's the only reason I didn't keep the thing, I could have dealt with cooling with proper fans where they belong. The case design (as with about 75% of desktop-horizontal-style cases) is just garbage.
But...to each his own.
HardwareFeatures
The major features of PC 300PL computers are:
Ÿ Intel Pentium processor with MMX technology
Ÿ Single bank, pipeline burst, synchronous L2 cache soldered on the system board
Ÿ Support for up to 384 MB of system memory
Ÿ Busmaster IDE controller
Ÿ EIDE or Ultra Wide SCSI hard disk drive
Ÿ CD-ROM drive (some models only)
Ÿ 3.5-inch, 1.44 MB diskette drive
Ÿ Integrated Matrox MGA-1164SG1 3D video controller with 2 MB SGRAM soldered to the system board
–Support for additional 2 MB of SGRAM
–Upgrade connectors for VESA interface and Matrox multimedia options
Ÿ Integrated 16-bit, stereo audio controller (supports Sound Blaster Pro applications)
–Built-in, high-quality speaker
Ÿ Integrated Intel 10/100 Mbit, PCI Ethernet controller
Ÿ SystemManagement
–RPL (Remote Program Load) and DHCP (Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol)
–Integrated Wake on LAN controller
–Automatic power-on startup sequence
–POST/BIOS update from network
–DMI (Desktop Management Interface) BIOS and DMI software
–Integrated system management controller
Ÿ Input/OutputFeatures
–Two serial ports
–One ECP/EPP parallel port
–One monitor port
–Four 3.5 mm audio jacks (line out, line in, headphone, and microphone)
–One Ethernet RJ-45 port
–Two USB (universal serial bus) ports
–One keyboard port (Windows 95-compatible)
–One mouse port
–One infrared port (optional)
–One multimedia port (optional)
Okay, here's the schematics:
(types 6562 & 6592)Show Image(http://geekhack.org/attachment.php?attachmentid=8435&stc=1&d=1268777685)Show Image(http://geekhack.org/attachment.php?attachmentid=8434&stc=1&d=1268777685)
I believe mine was a 6592 (because I had the front audio dial; which, the port is on the expanded riser card not found in 6562). Unless I'm wrong.
It's funny to think that my phone has more processing power than these things...
I had a bunch of these in high school (managed to salvage about 17 computers (2-3 were IBM), even had my own room to set them up in.
An interesting thing though, was that this IBM computer had one of the fastest CD-ROM drives for installing Windows XP I've tested. Dunno how it compares to modern drives though, as I can't remember what machine I installed it in (which I probably gave away).
How about this one?
http://www.bolha.com/oglas383837445/ibm-300gl-600mhz
it's a GL tho...
The frequency on a phone, such as "800Mhz" (like my phone) does not refer to the processor's clock speed.
Your phone cannot run DOS games
support a voodoo 3Dfx, PCI soundblaster, or any of the sort.
Original spec drive for the Celeron 333-equipped model was a 40x LG CD-ROM drive. VERY nice CD-ROM drive. LG/GoldStar knew what they were doing.
Interesting, though, that the 300PL was more of a model series than a model...stupid IBM.
So? How does that affect anything?
And I really want to see some proof that Dell desktops explode - other than the ATX incompatibility thing.
Everyone and their mother was affected by those capacitors, not just Dell.
And yeah, thought the explode thing was just bull****.
Does your Intellistation's motherboard take ECC RAM?
Was it a dual CPU machine?
EDIT: Sorry, didn't see one of your links... Strange to see a single-CPU x86 machine using ECC RAM, and a bit unnecessary really. Soft RAM failures aren't that big of an issue with desktop machines.
About 95% of all computer failures tend to boil down to Windows (or some other piece of software) screwing up anyway. I'm always very cynical when I hear someone say that their machine is 'broken'
About 95% of all computer failures tend to boil down to Windows (or some other piece of software) screwing up anyway. I'm always very cynical when I hear someone say that their machine is 'broken'
Don't count on that. ALL modern computers have component reliability issues.
Consumer electronics have an intended service life of "just longer than their warranty", which is usually what, a year? I want a service life of +10 years out of anything I own, but unfortunately they just don't seem to build with that intention.
IBM/Lenovo and in some cases Dell may be exceptions because of how many of their machines end up leased in schools and offices, so they may build them to last to reduce repair costs when the lease is up and they want to sell them.
Software isn't usually the issue (unless you have a hardware level virus). Although, a lot of the poorly programmed software today really *taxes* the hardware, which could lead to problems.
A cool thing about this intellistation is that it actually has little indicator lights on the motherboard (as well as a warning LED which lights up bright orange). If there is a certain problem, the computer will light up the LED corresponding to the problem on the motherboard.
Bad capacitors definitely go beyond Dell. An office I worked at had 25 HP DC5000 SFF desktops. Last I heard, 8 of them had died from bad capacitors. Those are some horrendous odds.
@EverythingIBM - I have an IBM 300PL model 6862. Its not the model you are looking for specifically, it has a P2 350/128MB/6.5GB, and its case is showing some wear. I've had it on a shelf for probably 2 years now but I just fired it up and it seems to be running fine now. If you are interested in it and are willing to deal with the shipping, you can have it.
I have no use for it, nobody I know wants it, and I can't throw it away because it still works fine.
If it has the same case as variant A, and you can give me some pictures; I might take it.
If it's case Variant B (or a different one; there are more cases), then forget it. I don't like the variant B cases -- due to hardware reasons, I want variant A.
It's at a nice slow speed though! Probably AT HDD if it's old enough.
EDIT: 300PLs always boot up. HPs of course are cheap, that's why I wasn't pleased with my HP m8100n; just cheap trash that lasts a year. No character to it either.
I only have a crappy cell phone camera. There is a pic attached to my previous post. I'll grab a pic of the insides of it real quick too.
I apologize for the picture quality.
The audio ports are on the MOBO in the back, not on the riser in the front like in the pictures you posted.
Uh, no, that's the variant I described. Slot-1 CPU, that is definitely not nor was it ever equipped with a Pentium MMX (nor could it be; slotkets didn't exist for Socket 7 AFAIK)
Heh, I managed to get my school (college) to give me everything they were going to junk.
Complete package 8-bit ISA diagnostics card,
Toughbook CF-25,
5.25" floppy drive or two,
P4 3.0GHz HT skt478 CPU
Couple CD-ROM drives
Stick or RAM or two
Hard drive or two
Never opened OEM PC-DOS 6.3 (opened it to image the disks),
IBM 5150 Guide to Operations binder,
8088 Project Book,
and uh...I know that's not all.
Oh yeah, 1394167 keyboard that ended up going to Shawn Stanford [a geekhack member whose handle is also his name]
...annnnd the InfoWindow II terminal that keyboard went with.
Hey, if they're going to trash it, why not give it a new loving home?