Anybody enjoys tinkering with old PCs to find out how slow they are?

[brandonwh64]

OK i brought out the big gun!

OK this build was from spare parts from my storage building that i found yesterday. So today i took the good parts and made a working computer out of all of them!

Specs (LOL)
Intel Celeron 667mhz Socket 370 Coppermine with a intel mATX motherboard
80GB hard drive
CD-ROM (NON WRITABLE LOLOL!)
512mb (2x256mb) PC133
Powerup 336 case with 400W generic PSU
Windows xp

 

[CuriousMike]

OK i brought out the big gun!

A couple of things strike me about that photo.

a) The smallness of the CPU fan.
b) The number of exhaust fans. What was the power/thermal load of a machine of your spec? Certainly nothing like a modern system... yet I think we all had a case with 3-4 fans strategically placed to cool our old Celerons.

 

[brandonwh64]

A couple of things strike me about that photo.

a) The smallness of the CPU fan.
b) The number of exhaust fans. What was the power/thermal load of a machine of your spec? Certainly nothing like a modern system... yet I think we all had a case with 3-4 fans strategically placed to cool our old Celerons.

LOL mike this system was built out of junk parts the big gun was suppose to be a joke. its only a old coppermine celeron CPU LOL hell it has pc133 ram LOL. its just something i built cause i was bored

 

[CuriousMike]

My point is that your system looks similar to many system builds of the '97->onward era.

Guys building machines with mega fans to "keep everything cool" -- even though you would barely need 250W PS.

Hell, I remember spending $50+ on fans and fan controllers... to get an extra 50mhz out of my overclock !?!

 

[pukemon]

My point is that your system looks similar to many system builds of the '97->onward era.

Guys building machines with mega fans to "keep everything cool" -- even though you would barely need 250W PS.

Hell, I remember spending $50+ on fans and fan controllers... to get an extra 50mhz out of my overclock !?!

I was thinking back... I had 2 intake and 2 exhaust fans on my beige box Antec SX830 (with a 300W Antec PSU) in addition to the PSU's exhaust fan. Still have it but it's empty...

The CPUs themselves didn't use that much power but they got really hot really quickly if your heatsink was slightly off or the fan died (and mobos weren't smart enough to shut down automatically yet) and it was easier to fry chips back then. I used a Golden Orb (socket 370) on my FC-PGA Celeron 533a OCd to 824 before kicking the bucket after a little over a year.

The early Socket A Athlon and Durons weren't much better, but I had a Duron 700 that did 1000 using a massive Vantec solid copper cooler that cost more than the CPU. It was kind of stupid but whatever it was all for fun. That also lasted about a year.

And then I went with an Athlon XP 1800+ (Palomino core) that I didn't overclock because by then I was working fulltime and just wanted a machine that frackin' worked. :\

 

[brandonwh64]

My point is that your system looks similar to many system builds of the '97->onward era.

Guys building machines with mega fans to "keep everything cool" -- even though you would barely need 250W PS.

Hell, I remember spending $50+ on fans and fan controllers... to get an extra 50mhz out of my overclock !?!

OH! i get what your saying LOL the fans were in that case from my HTPC build and i didnt feel like taking them out LOL! ones a blue antec fan and i got two 80mms in the back

 

[VirtualLarry]

The hardware got faster, the boot times got slower.

I dunno about that. Counting up 640KB of RAM on an XT is pretty damn slow, especially when it does it three times in a row.

 

[WT]

OK, now I shall show off my AT case build based on a Gateway server full tower, circa 1990.

http://wtslair.com/ProjectGW/ProjectGW.html

When's the last time anyone used an AT keyboard ??

 

[SpeedEng66]

All of you! A quick question regarding this topic.

What was a good video card back in the Pentium III days? I can't remember what was hot when I got my P3 800 Mhz.
Mine has a Radeon 7500, and it had a TNT2 on it's early days. Man that rig rocked for UT and NFS Porsche.

wow I remember buyin a gf2 gts 32mb to play kingpin but I dont recall how much

 

[BD231]

I'm running a file server on a Dell Demension L733R mATX PIII 733, 256mbs of sdram and Windows XP Pro. Super low power (125watt PSU), super quiet and *never* crashes. Its been running 24/7 since 2001 with shut downs for storage upgrades only. Works fine for internet, mp3s and mpegs. AVIs or youtube are not an option, nor can I overclock due to motherboard restrictions.

Dose anyone have any idea how well the PIII 733 dose on power consumption under minimal load? I can't seem to get a good idea on where it stands in contrast to modern CPUs. It has on board graphics and sound.

???

 

[RiDE]

I just put together a 1ghz celeron. tnt2 vid card, 512mb ram and put xubuntu on it. Runs pretty well. The only trouble i have is watching choppy youtube videos.

 

[imported_NoGodForMe]

Kingpin was the best.
Yeah, that's the problem with the older machines. Youtube videos load slowly and stutter because the machine is crunching the hard drive.

I've tried loading up the older games, fun to remember the old days, but not the same.

 

[Painman]

Oldest, still working machine I have is a PIII 700, ASUS CuBX, 512 MB, GF4Ti, and something like a 40 gig HDD running 98SE. It'll do 933 (it has one of those nice little 60mm Alpha Socket 370 heatsinks).

It runs... pretty damn well, actually. I used to use it to run DOS games and other stuff that hated XP, and to self-mule in Diablo II. Thanks to the GF4, it has a DVI port. Thanks to the 440BX, it has a couple ISA slots, and I have an ancient SB16 stuck in there for pure DOS mode antics.

It'll be a sad day when that CuBX finally dies... one of my favorite mobos ever.

 

[bendixG15]

The "old" machines ran DOS and not the bloated gui OS you got today.

 

[DominionSeraph]

Some of the remnants of my first build are still going strong after being repurposed to run a local airport's accounting software. It's now a PIII 700 on the BH6 instead of the original Slot 1 Celeron, with 192MB.
Darn thing goes from power on to Win98 desktop in 10 seconds.

 

[Tsavo]

I think we are finally getting to the point where we are spoiled brats with technology.

Well, not really, but compare what we have now to what's in closet archeological digs and we've come a long way in a short period of time.

Pics in some random order:

P3/450 with "Katmai New Instructions" lol.

Voodoo II with 8MB (!) ram. I had two of these.

Pentium Pro 180 next to an Athlon 64 3700+ single core.

Dual Pentium Pro board...180's OC'd to 200 (live dangerously!) with 512MB of ram. I ran this with 2 Voodoo 2's and a Matrox Millennium II that had like 8MB on board or something and had connectors for a daughter card that doubled the ram. PC also had Hollywood DVD decoder card and Creative Labs DVD drive...bought as a kit for $300. Original decoder DVD decoder card was HUGE and ran HOT and never worked well so it got junked. Less than a year later software players were good enough and the hardware got trashed.

 

[jjj807]

To the OP

that computer is not old. Lets talk some 486 with win 3.1

 

[novice]

To the OP

that computer is not old. Lets talk some 486 with win 3.1

Windows 3.1? Now you are talking about my first PC. Of course, I couldn't decide whether to order a "time tested" 486 or one of those expensive but "future proof" PENTIUM cpu's. Since it was a big investment and I knew nothing about computers, despite spending hours with Computer Shopper, back when it was the size of the old Sears and Roebuck catalog, my wife finally got impatient and ordered it for us while I was at work. She went whole hog:
Pentium 75 cpu
8 mb ram
1 mb Trident video card
850 mb Conner Hard Drive
15" color monitor
CD-Rom Drive
14.4 modem
and Windows 3.1
Lucky for us, my brother worked at Microsoft at the time and came to our rescue with tons of sotware, which he was able to purchase almost for free with employee discount, including the then brand new Windows 95. It was pretty exciting.

And a bargain at only $1595 plus shipping!

 

[jjj807]

Windows 3.1? Now you are talking about my first PC. Of course, I couldn't decide whether to order a "time tested" 486 or one of those expensive but "future proof" PENTIUM cpu's. Since it was a big investment and I knew nothing about computers, despite spending hours with Computer Shopper, back when it was the size of the old Sears and Roebuck catalog, my wife finally got impatient and ordered it for us while I was at work. She went whole hog:
Pentium 75 cpu
8 mb ram
1 mb Trident video card
850 mb Conner Hard Drive
15" color monitor
CD-Rom Drive
14.4 modem
and Windows 3.1
Lucky for us, my brother worked at Microsoft at the time and came to our rescue with tons of sotware, which he was able to purchase almost for free with employee discount, including the then brand new Windows 95. It was pretty exciting.

And a bargain at only $1595 plus shipping!

i had the trident video card 1mb. oh man windows 95! Win 98se is still my favorite OS ever.

soon well be looking back at our current rigs saying wtf quad cores? ewwww

 

[her209]

All of you! A quick question regarding this topic.

What was a good video card back in the Pentium III days? I can't remember what was hot when I got my P3 800 Mhz.
Mine has a Radeon 7500, and it had a TNT2 on it's early days. Man that rig rocked for UT and NFS Porsche.

Paid $300 for it back in the day
Hercules Geforce 2

Also, the 3dfx Voodoo cards were popular.

 

[Yowen]

Windows 3.1? Now you are talking about my first PC. Of course, I couldn't decide whether to order a "time tested" 486 or one of those expensive but "future proof" PENTIUM cpu's. Since it was a big investment and I knew nothing about computers, despite spending hours with Computer Shopper, back when it was the size of the old Sears and Roebuck catalog, my wife finally got impatient and ordered it for us while I was at work. She went whole hog:
Pentium 75 cpu
8 mb ram
1 mb Trident video card
850 mb Conner Hard Drive
15" color monitor
CD-Rom Drive
14.4 modem
and Windows 3.1
Lucky for us, my brother worked at Microsoft at the time and came to our rescue with tons of sotware, which he was able to purchase almost for free with employee discount, including the then brand new Windows 95. It was pretty exciting.

And a bargain at only $1595 plus shipping!

Hah! I started out with dos on a 286 with like a 13 inch black and white monitor. It had the weirdest printer ever and Commander Keen, lol.

My next upgrade wouldn't be untill a 166 Pentium, with MMX! I got a voodoo II card in that bad boy. Windows 95... Thats what that had, avoided the whole 3.1 OS.

 

[Maximilian]

Yes! I had fun doing that a few years ago, i built:

Pentium II 333mhz on some old AT mobo and case (AT was so crap, the power button was wired into the PSU and the monitor was like that too, sucked)
Dual PII 450 on tyan tiger 100
Dual PIII tualatin 1.4ghz
Dual athlon MP
Dual Opteron 840's

They all had the same case/PSU etc except for the AT build. They all ran pretty well except for the PII rigs, windows XP chugged a bit on them. The dual opty eventually inherited a 9800 PRO which turned it into a decent enough gaming rig, if only it didnt bluescreen every few days :/ Ah well was still fun making them, in the end you learn theres a reason they dont make this stuff anymore and you end up being happy with your C2D or whatever