This is my workroom computer, Demeter. Getting this old system back on its feet has been my sporadic hobby for several months now, since I picked it up from my grandma's house in Florida.
When I found it I originally thought it was just an empty beige case, until I got it open. She was in a sorry state, full of dust, missing a power supply, missing a CMOS battery, shredded floppy cable, disconnected drives, just awful. I had no idea what CPU or RAM or anything it had. I was originally going to part it out, but the more I worked on identifying it the more I grew attached to it.
Here's the worklog:
- Found in closet
- Installed Antec TP-480 PSU
- Installed new CMOS battery
- POST failed (freezes on Asus logo screen)
- Moved to Antec NSK6580 case, CD-ROM drive and floppy drive discarded
- POST achieved, CPU unidentified
(traveled back to NOLA)
- Removed CPU heatsink (Tt Volcano 7+), identified CPU as Athlon XP Barton 2600+ 1917MHz (166*11.5)
- Reinstalled CPU heatsink with Shin Etsu
- Antec TP-480 discovered to be faulty (bad caps), discarded in favor of Antec EA-430
- Traded Radeon 9800 Pro for X1300 Pro
- HDD identified, Windows 2000 present. Uncle did not recall password
- Tt heatsink replaced by quieter Rosewill heatsink
- Rosewill PCI NIC installed
- HDD wiped, Ubuntu 9.10 installed
- Ubuntu 9.10 corrupted after updates
- Antec EA-430 found to be badly crossloaded, out-of-spec voltage
- left alone for month or two
- Ubuntu 10.04 installed
- CPU overclocked to 2300MHz, unstable, settled on 2200MHz
- RAM replaced with 2x512MB SuperTalent DDR 400 CL2.5
- Zippy PSU installed
After AAAALLL that work... Finally, the computer is in good enough shape for me to call it "finished" though I still have a few things I'd like to do to it. Final configuration:
Asus A7N8X Deluxe
Athlon XP "Barton" 2600+ @2200MHz
1GB SuperTalent DDR 400 CL2.5
ATI Radeon X1300 Pro 256MB
Zippy Emacs 300W PSU
Antec NSK6580
Rosewill RCX-Z100 heatsink
Rosewill PCI 100mb/s NIC
Lite-On DVD-ROM
Seagate 7200.11 160GB IDE
Ubuntu 10.04
I took that little gold fan grille from the Antec TP-480. Breaks up the black and silver a little bit, a nice highlight without being really gaudy.
Cable management in this case leaves something to be desired...
The system is fairly slow. For instance, I can't watch Youtube videos without serious skipping. However it boots fast and shuts off fast, and is fast enough for browsing while in my workroom. I intend to add a SATA controller and some more HDDs for it to serve as a file server when I get around to upgrading to Windows 7, so I don't have to worry about having to scour through my drive for the stuff I want to keep before upgrading. In the meantime it works fine for looking things up and chatting while working in the shop.
It's been a very rewarding experience, bringing a system back from total death, especially one this old; vintage Pentium 3 era.
It's a nice little system and I hope I can keep it going for yet more years to come.