OEM Computer Trash?? ... or Treasure!!
Вставка
- Опубліковано 24 тра 2024
- I found and purchased these three OEM computer systems from various thrift stores over the last couple of months. Are they complete Trash, did I waste my money....Or were they totally worth it!! In this video we will go over each system to truly determine if they are the Trash Trio or Treasure!
#trash #ewaste #thrift #thrifting #retro #nostalgia #amd #intel #core2quad #pc #acer #hp #computer #trashortreasure
I've noticed funny little thing from these old Acer machines back in the day. As you go and upgrade the hardware on them, the model number in the BIOS might change! Had one Acer Aspire desktop back in the day, after I changed better CPU and added more RAM, that machine identified itself as some kind of Acer Veriton.. :D
No way!!! That's funny. I'll have to see if it does that, thanks!
If different models use the same motherboard, it might be easier to build one BIOS image with check for RAM and CPU configuration and change model string, than build different BIOS images for every model they had.
Agreed.
that was a huge score in that first acer, finding a computer with the OEM HDD, Original Hardware, DVI card and the ability to make recovery software?! That's fantastic!!
I agree... It's a pretty great system and all for $20!
really miss the vista-era computers, loved the way they looked (at least when they weren't covered in finger prints from all the glossy black plastic)
Hahah yes!
AMD Live! is the name of AMD's initiative in 2005 aimed at gathering the support of professional musicians and other media producers behind its hardware products. The primary focus of this initiative was the Opteron server- and workstation-class central processing units (CPUs).
AMD subsequently extended AMD LIVE! into a platform marketing initiative focusing the consumer electronics segment in 2006 and focused on performance segment desktop-class processors. AMD Live! for consumer electronics segment was announced on January 4, 2006 officially through press release.
The AMD Live! is an initiative, which can be divided into two parts, one in terms of software and the other, computer hardware. The software portion focuses on users' internet and multimedia experiences, while the hardware sector focuses on the ability of a system to handle multimedia files and the convergence of consumer electronics (CE) and personal computing (PC) into one computer chassis.
Now this is the in depth explanation I needed, many thanks!!!
For some unknown reason, whenever I encounter plastic protective film, I hear an inner voice saying "You must remove it" 😆😆 Wow, surprised that it remained on those drive bay panels all these years on the first Acer. Have a great weekend👍
Agreed and thank you!!
Ah,the thrill of bring stray,thrift store pcs home and nursing them back to life. The 'experience' we had between 2020 and 2022 pretty much dried all my sources at thrift stores up for pcs. Mostly Goodwill outlets in my area and they all go to a center for refurb and online auction.
Yes, that's happening more and more unfortunately. Probably because they would sell quicker than in a good will.
TheRetroRecall, This is great! I liked it and subscribed!
That's awesome, glad to have you along for the ride!!
the Core 2 era is really nice, still super cheap, and plays well with XP. I have 3 complete Core 2 systems (2x Duo e8400s) and a Q9650. Both of them fantastic for that mid 2000s retro gaming
Agreed, the Core2 seems to be quite the cpu all the way to running Windows 10 without an issue.
The Quads were excellent CPUs for their time and still run good to this day. They can play most games up to 2015 well enough. I have a Windows 7 system with a Q9650.
@nonstopmaximum2141 for sure! I have a q9650 with a 9800 gtx+ in it. Originally had it in my Dell xps 630i but realized Dell basterized their 650i sli mobo, and hardwired both slots to 8x pcie 1.1
@@OfficialiGamer I have mine in a Dell Optiplex 780 desktop that was thrown out on the curb. I upgraded the CPU from a E8400 Duo to the Quad and threw a GTX 750 Ti in it. It doesn't look very appealing but it makes a good budget gaming PC for older games.
@@nonstopmaximum2141 nice! I have a Red Dell XPS 630i that originally had a e8400 in it and upgraded it to the 9650. Unfortunately I realized that Dell had crippled the PCIe slot and hardwired it to PCIe 1.1 x8, so put it in a MSI G41 Mobo I had (630i now has matching black and Red MSI board with a 4790k in it I've owned since new)
I built several systems with Athlon x2's. They were contemporary with Intel's Core2 line. I liked them because they were generally cheaper. Clock for clock, the intel chips were just better, but the Athlons were fine. Good enough for basic web-browsing and productivity. And even light gaming, if paired with the right GPU.
The HP is an older model. If you look at the stickers, It was still using the Athlon 64 branding, while the Acer has the Athlon II logo design, which was introduced after the Phenom chips were launched and AMD rebranded the whole line.
Ok, thanks for the clarity. I imagine the Live! had to do with a feature of the CPU?
@@TheRetroRecall It was part of a marketing initiative for Multimedia systems. Trying to appeal to Content creators like musicians. There was a software component too.
Ahhhhhhh ok thanks!
That HP Pavilion is nostalgic. A similar looking one was the new family PC back then. It was always crashing and eventually the HDD failed. Unfortunately no back up of the music library. It's pretty funny we upgraded from Millennium Edition to Vista. From one awful OS to another.
Haha, Its fun to hear how much ME and Vista were 'not loved' and given the bad outlook due to many other factors than the OS itself being bad. IE: Marking, incorrect hardware, manufacturers not keeping drivers updated, end user methods of upgrading from one OS to another, etc. I personally never had an issue with ME or VISTA, now Windows 8 - that's a whole other discussion! LOL!
Used a dell optiplex 390 from 2011 since 2016 and this year it was replaced with a proper gaming pc of the amd 7000 series, the time with old hardware was worth it
Nice!
I am happy to be a new subscriber to your channel. I have never seen a DVI add in card like the one you showed either, but it is definitely interesting given that I have been into using computers for over 35 years in one form or another. Looking forward to enjoying more of your interesting content. Cheers from Sydney, Australia 🇦🇺
Welcome aboard, thanks for joining and I'm glad that you are enjoying! Agreed - always a new adventure learning something even after all of these years!
Nice video! I subbed just for the Vista! I'd also point out that it is likely that these could be strong XP builds. So many upgrade options. Thrifting for the win!
Thanks for subbing, it's great having you along! Agreed - it will be fun to explore them and restore them :)
Another great video. Can't wait for a refurb / upgrade vid on these old boys👍🏼👍🏼
They are going to be fun projects!
I had an AMD 4200+ 64 X2. Loved it. It ran xp, vista and windows 8 back in the day.
Awesome!
The First PC (and only prebullt) I ever bought was an Acerpower F6 Celeron with XP. It has a different front panel and a different top to the case that your Acer Aspire, but inside the chassis, cages etc all look identical to my rig. As you say it all uses standard parts which is great, mine has been upgraded several times over the years (pentiums, quad core, assorted i7s) and is currently a ryzen5900x with 2 DVD drives 2 nvme drives, 2 SSDs and a spinning rust so the drive cages are really useful and I love the retro sleeper look with more modern internals. Most modern cases do not have DVD drive slots and I use mine a lot.
100%. That's awesome. I usually keep my open for these cases for that exact reason.
That Acer is a good looking machine.
Agreed. Pretty neat and it being a Core2 Duo helps!
Nice finds! :)
Thanks for the video
You're welcome!!
With these PCs you can upgrade to 4GB of RAM (8GB if you allow motherboards that have 4 RAM slots), change the disk for an SSD of at least 240GB. There are two ways: install Windows 10 or 11 X-Lite version of FBconan or install Linux Mint with Mate environment. Excellent video and greetings from Argentina.
Agreed and thank you, glad you enjoyed!!
fantastic vis as always pal thanks for the content
Thank you and I'm glad that you are enjoying!!
That first Acer must've belonged to a grandma. They left the plastic on _everything!_ 😂
Hahahaha yes!!!
On the Acer, one big comment - is it running 32-bit or 64-bit Vista? If it is 32-bit, then this would likely be the tail end of 32-bit Windows being preloaded on big OEM consumer machines; the next year’s systems would have gone to 64.
And that would also explain the rather inadequate 4 gigs of RAM.
I'll have to check that. Also, I should call that out in future videos. Thank you!
I actually really loved Vista. I have a lot of fond memories of it and it looked awesome for the time
It did, and with the Aero features it was very cool.
I had that HP (it had a higher end cpu tho) through middle school and highschool. All of the capacitors on it totally blew lol. The integrated nvidia graphics could barely play HL2 and CS:S. Ran Minecraft and f2p games well enough though.
Nforce HP machines, EPIC, yo only needed that GeForce GTX 8800 !!
grreat machine !
Yes, the Caps of that era were definitely something that ruined so many of these systems.
That first aspire is scary looking!
I too love retro stuff. I just picked up a PC from 2002, can’t wait to dive in!
Amazing, have fun and good luck!
Love that era of AMD CPUs, the Athlon 64 was the last really big hit from AMD before the Zen architecture, it competed with the Pentium 4 but later even held its own against Core and Core2 until the latest Core2s and earliest Core i5s beat it in performance.
It introduced the 64-bit computing platform (AMD64) we use today, that Intel (EM64T) copied after the Itanium failure, I think it also was possibly the first consumer CPU to feature AMDs 16byte superscalar instruction processing, meaning it would take a chunk up to 16bytes big of CPU instructions and run as much of that as possible in a single clock cycle, with a max of running 16 instructions per clock per core, and also introducing a new interconnect to make communication between the cores, memory controller and the north bridge more efficient.
Thank you for this info!! It's always great to hear insight like this and learn something from it.
I admit to buying two OEM computers. The first was a Commodore SX386-16 from JC Penney. The second was shipped from California, a Comtrade 486DX-66. Comtrade advertised heavily in the computer mags at the time. I think there still may be computer mags, but Comtrade is long gone. JC Penney may still be around, but I cannot explain why.
They would have been cool especially if they are still working today!
the dell optiplex i got from my dad's work in 2011 (the pc it self was built in 07) came with a dell made dvi breakout card. i never used it but still have it. it apparently goes for a fair amount for a fair amount on ebay for something that was only designed to add a second display output to integrated graphics. it could be useful for some amd apu's if it still works
Thanks for the info! Much appreciated. I don't ever remember seeing one before so it was a neat find.
Love those systems how I wish people could help me with old retro pcs thank you for sharing those historical beauties
No problem at all! I would look at local Facebook groups and see if any of them offer retro enthusiast support! :)
@@TheRetroRecall I can do that but I'm not sure if there are any in S. A
I think all 3 are treasures, especially that first Acer.
However, the only thing that's trash about that HP is it's power supply. Bestec PSUs are notorious for being cheap and failing, often taking the motherboard down with it. It looks like you need another PSU anyway since it doesn't have any SATA connectors, which I find very odd for that era.
I think it is odd for sure - to the point that I truly think it was replaced VS an HP PSU. Either way, we will be swapping it out :)
I love the Acer, I'm one of the weird ones that love acer too. Personally, I'd look for the tool to create the restore media, then after burned the media I'd do a complete wipe and restore. If you're interested in selling the first Acer let me know.
That HP had its PSU replaced, while they didn't have their own PSUs back then, they did put an OEM sticker on all their parts. The Athlon 64 x2 competed with the Pentium D, actually more like smacked it around, but was destroyed by the Core 2 series. AMD wouldn't ce competitive again until Ryzen. With it just showing the total mem there may be some BIOS tweaking in order to to add physical slots and actually be able to use it.
As for the 3rd Acercif BIOS shows 4 mem slots you should just be able to add the physical slots and it'll just work.
Thank you for all of this!!!
I love these kind of machines. Painfully slow with the HDD they were shipped with, but add a boot SSD and maybe another 4 Gig of Ram, and you have a pretty fast system for everyday computing.
Especially with the Core2 Duo or Quad CPU's! Modern day Linux should work just fine.
Awesome retro video!😁
Thank you!
I got a similar HP but small form factor, dual core might be enough for Kodi, as a TV and media box next to the TV ... waiting for some parts to try it out
If intel, the Core2 Duo or Quad with an SSD and at least 4gb of memory, it will run windows 10. Not sure if the AMD version will do that.
Athlon II X2 is the equivalent to C2D, but generally a bit slower clock for clock.
Athlon 64 Dual core/Athlon X2 is equivalent to Pentium D, but much more energy efficient and generally a better performer with lower clock speeds.
Thank you!
Treasure , You can do a Lot with those Systems :) QC
Agreed!
Indeed I do know the drill. You got lucky with the first Acer, and that's a good thing. My experience at Value Village locally (SW Ontario) has not been good lately, with lots of junk and no way to test the now non-refundable items before purchase.
I usually look at them and I do test to see if there is power. However for 20.00, the parts alone help the channel even if they don't work so I usually just take the risk. That said, the systems are becoming less available.
Nothing is trash if you can find a use for it…
Just like nothing is worth money unless you can find a buyer for it…
True
Nice vid I like your content, altough that 4400+ is cooking :)
I added a fan haha! And thank you, I'm glad that you are enjoying :)
Have a couple of XP machines and Internet is not responding --- is it just out of date or do you think it should work?
It should work, the going to www.theoldnet.com which doesn't require anything fancy to load. It's possible the browsers are too old and need an upgrade to browse. That said, I tend to just connect it to a local network, as systems this old are sure to pick up something due to lack of security updates.
OEM systems have always been my favorite, and this was a fun video. And there's certainly no trash here---100% treasure. But the last machine is a prime example of why Vista got a bad rap; I can tell you from personal experience that 2 GB just wasn't enough to run Vista/7.....and I found that out the hard way by buying a brand new Vista machine with 2 GB. Constant hang-ups and white screen errors were common. I love that OEM Vista/7 machines have a factory partition on drive D----no need to erase the hard disk to get rid of personal info, it already gives you that option on reinstall. Thanks for a fun video
Exactly and you are welcome as always! Glad you enjoyed :)
And I thought 2GB started to be an insufficient amount of memory when websites began to bloat and add more interactive functions that made browsers to use more and more memory.
Yes, I find even on the new systems today that for example chrome just completely sucks ram!
Old machines like new. Here in Brazil this machines is easy to sold, with Windows 7 and some memory. But here not have a Acer desktops, only HP and Dell. I seem this dvi boards in Optiplex with Core 2 Duo. Athlon X2 with MCP68 is very good!
I agree!! Hello from Canada!
The first system with an era appropiate dedicated graphics card would indeed be perfect to experience how Vista would perform when installed onto decent hardware of its time. In terms of CPU, a Core 2 Quad was indeed as high as you could get (although there are somewhat better models within that family, a Q8400 which is a few bucks on AliExpress scores about 17% better). The main caveat there is that you would have to choose between installing the factory image with Vista plus all the original software that came with the machine, or make a clean install of some 64-bit edition of Vista so you can upgrade the RAM, since I pretty much presume the system came with a 32-bit one.
Nice episode, I like to watch PCs of this era being demoed and see what they can do, now that they are the unloved stuff that sells for almost nothing (or simply gets thrown away).
Agreed. So many of these systems were tossed into the landfill. The first system will be fun to restore!
you didnt even need anything that special to use it - my computer at work was just fine as a low rent, web dev machine, and it was not old, but it wasnt cutting edge and it ran Vista perfectly.
My girlfriend has a couple of PCs in her closet just collecting dust. Been trying to get her to give them to me for years😅
Haha!!! Get them!! :)
Yesterday I found a really small Dell computer at goodwill, it shocked me because they don't sell computers lol. It's got a Intel core plus in it, I don't know if that's any good or not. No hard drive, it takes the small hard drives, but I've got a stack of those. I haven't tested it yet but I'm sure it works.I may test it tomorrow, I love finding computers.
That's amazing!!! Good luck with it!
I'm curious about that Nvidia graphics on HP computer. I don't recall there were any integrated onboard Nvidia Graphics, I don't mean Nforce chipset, you think that discrete GPU was removed prior to dumping this PC? Athlon 64 X2 was pretty powerful CPU for its time, we used to emulate PS1 on those.
That's a great call out. I'll have to look at it again and see if there is any reference to the Nvidia graphic on the components.
Wow... I really miss the old 'CPU tunnels' as I called them, the ventilation duct to the CPU heatsink. I remember putting a system together back then and feeling how forward-thinking that seemed.
Direct airflow, outside of the case!
Plastic on the case still usually means older person. My Oma used to keep the plastic on her things and even scotch taped them back when they started peeling on their own.
Ahhhh good point! I never thought of that!
In that Acer, the DVI add-in card is similar to ASUS' own solution for the M2A-VM HDMI motherboards. The HDMI variants were the exact same as the "regular" M2A-VM, with the difference being an add-in card that would give you an HDMI, S-Video and an AV output.
Thanks, I appreciate the info!
I had some vista machines. I never had issues with the OS. 😊
Agreed! Updated drivers, decent hardware and smooth sailing :)
You can populate those unused slots and the memory will work 38:13 on the video
Thanks! I have been told that it may require additional components around the slots for them to function. The BIOS already shows the 2 banks there just not populated. My assumption as is yours is that it will work if populated.
When I get given computers I always ask if the hard drive has been removed. If it has not then I offer to remove it and give it to them so they can dispose of it, and give them tips on how to physically destroy it. If they let me keep the drive then I will create any restore CD/DVD's if there's an option to create recovery disks. I then put it in my Linux recovery system and do a full wipe to fully remove personal information and files, and then do a drive test. If the drive is OK then I will do a system recovery. I've currently got a few restore disk ISO's to upload to the web archive.
As always, another great TRR video, and look forward to the next video.
This is definitely a best practice - great work! Also, glad you enjoyed :)
My laptop from 2013 came with windows 7. It's old but I enjoy it. The problem is finding programs that still work on it,.let alone service packs and anti virus software.
Yes, unfortunately due to the discontinued support from Microsoft. Legacy update would likely have everything you need for the latest updates available.
Windows 10 will work if it has 4 GB memory and at least a 128 GB hard drive. Plop in an SSD if smaller hard disk.
I have an old laptop with windows 7 and use comodo antivirus free
On the second machine, if it only had the 32 bit version of Vista installed 2 gb would have been a standard installation, since it cannot address more than 4gb.
Yeah makes sense. It needs more though... More power!!! Haha.
Those DVI cards were a standard called Add2 that was able to add certain ports directly to the onboard graphics on certain Intel chipsets. You'd see them a lot in multi-monitor workstations that don't need anything resembling "video performance".
These computers are firmly in their "junk" age right now, but just wait 5-10 years and i bet you'll see these become retro just like pentium 4's are doing today ;)
Thank you for the added information, and yes - so true... Personally that first Acer is the one I will be restoring first - so much potential.
I bought Aspire M1201 in 2009. It cost about 400 euros. It was with Athlon 4050e (2,1Ghz 2 cores) and 3 gig of memory. Rest of the parts was same what you have. I chanced cpu first to Phenom x3 then to Athlon 5050. The computer is still functional but I planed to replace motherboard to X99 and Xeon from Aliexpress.
Nice! Good luck on the build, I love when people share these experiences - so thank you!
I have a tendency to collect OEM hardware. Most of the time I gut it for parts, but sometimes, if it's good enough, I just refurbish the entire thing, test it, and actually use it. I have 5 OEM machines currently in use (3 HPs and 2 Lenovos). However, if it's just a disco box, or has no drive bays, it's gutted and trashed - what's unwanted/unusable. With the exception of modern (the past 2-3 years) machines, I try to find excuses not to disregard them. But any AMD stuff goes straight in the trash, regardless. I've forgotten how many AMD CPUs & video cards I've trashed. But anything 2020/2021 and prior, I put an honest effort into finding reasons to save them.
Thanks for sharing this. I find with anything Lenovo - it will immediately go to the save pile.
@@TheRetroRecall Just beware of the motherboards themselves. BTX is ok, because most OEM desktops use them. But recently, Dell (you can tell by the smell it's a Dell from hell!) started making funky shaped motherboards that don't fit into anything but their stuff. But the CPU/RAM/Drives/cards are generally salvageable.
Thanks.
That HP I have a similar one I got from my aunt. Good luck finding anything that fits in that bay though.
I think I have one in storage!
Compaq (now HP lol) made 1/3-height drives that fit into those bays. Mostly floppy and zip drives, but I think I saw a tape drive or two in years past.
If you have an old PC or laptop and want to give it away, wipe the drive, yes. but don't be a scumbag and take the brackets or plates out with the drive and not replace them. ESPECIALLY on laptops. Those parts can be unobtanium and make the laptop worthless if its an obscure model. Some laptops have proprietary cables for HDDs and I've come across countless laptops that were basically eWaste because the previous owner took the cable with the drive, or damaged the cable by ripping it apart.
Brackets and cover plates are the same. Drives won't sit properly or be able to be secured properly. On more obscure laptops, these parts can be impossible to find, or if they're available, scalpers know about it and will charge stupid amounts of money for them. A small oddly shaped piece of plastic or metal being sold for $20-80. Makes your $10-20 thrift find worthless.
I completely agree and have run into that, especially with laptops. It's frustrating.
Nice Video squire, Just a couple of points to mention, Not a big fan of Acer although the Desktops weren’t too bad in all fairness and both the Acer Desktops had 9 x USB Ports as theirs one on the Card Readers too, I liked the HP “Piano Black”, I actually have the SFF version of the one that you have there plus it has the Pocket Media Bay and I have a Pocket Media Drive for it although I’ve swapped the spinning Drives out for SSD’s in both the PC & Pocket Media Drives, I picked up a complete Packard Bell PC from off eBay for £35 which included Shipping although the listing stated that it would not always turn on, Turned out that the Coin Cell was low so that was resolved after I swapped that out, I wouldn’t bother trying to add Memory Slots into System 3 if it was me to be honest (Second Acer), I did like the earlier Athlons but not a big fan of the later ones and I’ve not had any experience with the Ryzens and my preference was for Intel back then except the Celerons of course, Not a big fan of Vista as it seemed to be bogged down with bloatware but if it worked then fair play! Anthony - Birmingham/UK 🇬🇧
Hey Anthony! Love when people share these perspectives, thank you!
Cool lot, I used to have two of the first acer back in the day i almost wish i can find another one for sale on the cheap i kind of miss them. I miss this era of PC's and Vista in general sure they had problems of their own but at least if haven't heard about Windows 11's new AI that could be considered spyware. I somedays miss my time with Vista or 7 especially with my old black Acer like the first one you have and i still wish i could find a decent one for sale in good shape and working for a decent price.
Keep an eye out, you never know what may pop up online!
@@TheRetroRecall Thanks for replying to me, I did find a machine similar to the first Acer in this video but it was in Germany and they wanted almost $440 + shipping and not to mention import fees and duties to add to that not happening for me. But i did find a bunch of other XP and Vista era Acer and HP desktops from $50 - 200 but no other ones like the first Acer. I would to find one just like the first one in this video and it would be a bonus to have the original install of Vista and HDD to go with it. if you didn't want to keep it i would love to buy the first one from you although it would depend on price but it looks like you'll be keeping it so no worries.
Yeah, unfortunately I'll be keeping all of these systems for the time being as they are an asset of TheRetroRecall.
The problem with Vista was when you upgraded from an older windows os. These 3 system's were purchased with Vista installed on them.
I agree - ish. Generally the issue was with the hardware support of the system and drivers. Not all upgrades allowed that transition of drivers where a clean install was fresh without any conflicts. The other challenge is that the 'ready for vista' stickers were slapped on every machine and a lot of people's systems were not able to run the features due to the resource requirements. All marketing at the time gave the OS a bad rap from the get go.
All of them can run Windows 10, I run it on 4450e 3GB DDR2 600mhz and 9200M (motherboard graphics)
Nice!
The first computer I built was on the AMD Athlon 64 x2 platform. It ran hot and almost as fast as the current gen Intel with hyperthreading. Very stable and good for the time. The last time AMD was actually relevant before Zen became a thing.
My experience with AMDs of the past were that they were always underpowered and cheaper then their intel counterparts. I also remember years ago on the older CPUs that AMD ran hotter. That said, we all know what happened with the P4s :)
Athlon 64 dualcores were quite power efficient and cool, but also quite underpowered.
The Q8200 from before scores 1700* on Passmark while That athlon scores about 800.
Says everything you need.
Probably the reason why I tended to always go with intel CPUs
@@TheRetroRecall Yup they were quite better than AMD at the time.
They were the first dualcore on the market but not that much faster than single core CPUs.
Main difference is heat generation, some of these early dualcore CPUs were quite low TDP whise.
my 4450e was used in a SSF build from Acer (Aspire x3200)
These wer absolutely not gaming parts, just desktop parts
However these CPUs can get upgraded to something like Phenom III !
The performances on the CPU would be moderately better.
But without a good GPU on the side, and by a "good GPU" I would not recommand going any further than a GGDR5 GT card.
You'll get decent performances out of these machines, for old gaming PCs.
😁 Maybe that would help
Love this added insight, much appreciated!!!
The collection value is a computer 20 to 30 years old or a story corresponding to it. A clean product appearance is essential. The computer you bought is a computer that would fit in a scrap metal recycling field.
Time will tell :)
I bought a HP system. It has card reader's floppy drive. 2 burners DVD. It's got a 4/4 eighth thread and had A1050T. I GT x card. It was absolutely fantastic and at a 1 TB S. Yes. Di paid very little for it. Cost me 300 bucks.
Nice build!
Strictly speaking you CAN upgrade those RAM slots. You will have to populate not just the slot footprints, but any nearby "passives" (resistors and capacitors) that are unpopulated as well. Most of those will be tiny tiny SMT/SMD footprints, and you'll need to pull corresponding ones off the board, temporarily, to measure what they should be, in order to be able to order new.
It's doable, but it's not for the faint of heart.
Thanks for the added insight, Much appreciated. I knew it wasn't going to be an easy task, but something to hone my skills a bit I think.
@@TheRetroRecall You/re going to need hot air and a LOT of skill. It's going to be especially difficult to do the slots, because they have sooo many pins, and you can't melt the plastic.
Personally, I suck eggs when it comes to solder work, but if I were going to do this, I'd get special equipment -- specifically, I'd get one of those tiny 8w USB irons and a power bank to drive it because they aren't isolated... no, not the T100 or clones, the really cheap ones that have the little ball bearing you have to keep your finger on to keep it working. Since the element proper in those isn't going to be exactly particular, I'd probably just rip out the internals entirely and wire up a simple switch and LED with a pair of alligator clip leads, and run it off a 6v lantern battery. The barely-there thermal mass would help a LOT with the sockets. No two ways about it, the chip resistors and chip caps are going to be fiddly, but if you can get a set of bent-tip reverse tweezers -- you squeeze em to _open_ em -- that might help. Look at beading supply places, my mother was into that until the arthritis in her hands got too bad for it, and she gave me her toolset. One of those tweezers was in there.
Someone with better skills than I have, however, would fare better with wick and what they seem to call a "hot air pencil" -- one of those temperature-controlled stations with the thing that looks a bit like a cross between a much-too-big soldering iron and a squirt gun ;3 mine's literally the cheapest one from Amazon, a "Sunsour" brand I got for $30, but it works fine and has never shot the cat. Just keep in mind with those, the temperature readout lies, and it takes longer than it claims to get to temp.
For sure I'd not use lead-free solder, either. It's likely lead-free on the board, but leaded solder actually, you know, melts and sticks to things (other than the iron and itself, anyhow) which is an experience I can't say I've had with lead-free. Over very long periods of time the mixture will cause failure due to heat-cycling, as a mechanical issue -- it forms a "eutectic" solder alloy, as they call it, which is a fancy way of saying that it gets kind of ceramic-like, and over time thermal expansion and contraction will make it crack like a dish you dropped on the kitchen floor. (If you remember the nVIDIA 88xx series GPUs, and in particular the HP dv9000 laptops that had them, eutectic solder was the issue that caused that whole debacle.) That said, issues like that will take multiple _years_ to surface, at best, and I don't think that's something to be concerned about at that point, as old as these machines are already.
One thing's for sure -- if you DO decide to take it on -- I want to see that in a video!
system 2 is worth keeping, athlon x2 is around the core 2 duo but slower, it came out first
Thank you, what are your thoughts on system 1?
nice few system there will be fun to see what you do with them
So many options! Can you come to Canada and do a couple for me haha. Soo many projects, so little time :)
@@TheRetroRecall I'll be there in an hour, hour 15 if the BC border guards want to search me :D
Hahahah
Man, whenever I go to thrift stores where I live, I never see old computers ever. All I see are monitors, and keyboards, and mice.
For sure, it's getting more rare to find. Also, keep your eyes open on online marketplaces - they are a good source!
Yo! I have an HP Pavilion computer from 2009. The a6719f PC has an AMD Phenom X4 9850 after I did some upgrades. It runs quite well despite its age, and will always be my favorite computer.
That's awesome!!! I am looking forward to restoring these older systems :)
I have a HP Compaq dc5800 OEM PC and honestly, it can be upgraded quite decently! Even with my Ryzen 3 3200G and 1650 SUPER PC, I plan to upgrade that OEM at some stage with a BSEL Q6600, 8GB RAM and an R5 340X.
Nice!! Good luck with the project!
You know i'm actually surprised the second Acer computer worked. That one uses a Foxconn motherboard and they were notorious for failing,also the first one uses an ECS which is also a really cheap brand. Judging by the writing font on the HP board it kinda looks like an ECS too.....no wonder lots of Pavilions and Aspires failed so much in that time period,fun fact the CPU cooler from the first Acer is still used in modern Acer systems because it's actually a really good cooler. Also that DVI adapter card was used in lots of brands,i found one of them in a Dell Optiplex too. Also usually you can't add additional sockets on the board because they are missing the necessary capacitors,traces and diodes that would make them work
I really appreciate this added info especially around the ram sockets!! I was thinking that. I'm just wondering if the spots for the caps are there. I'd have to look though to see if the traces are there already - maybe this board was used for other upgraded acers.
@@TheRetroRecall I guess it would make an interesting project video to see if it works. A lot of years ago i saw a video of someone soldering an AGP slot to one of those Dell Dimension boards that had the artifacts in place but no slot and the port itself was still unusable beacuse the bios was programmed to know there is no slot to begin with. Still i think this is the first video i got to see one of those Foxconn Acer boards still work. Usually the chipset would die because it would heat up to around 60C by itself and it was also poorly placed right near the CPU which also gave it some extra heat until it would eventually die so i assume this computer was not used much. Also about that HP power supply with no SATA connectors - HP used that same powersupply since Pentium 4 era up all the way till 3rd gen Intel processors in those Pavilions and they would just use Molex to SATA adapters for the hard drive and optical drives if they needed to. Whoever took the hard drive out probably took the adapter too
I have a few systems like that that have an AGP spot, however no interface. Those do require additional caps, chips etc. I am going to see if I can do the ram upgrade as a project after I tone out the traces. If everything is connected, Im going to assume it will work. Someonenalsonnotes the BIOS had the other 2 slots listed as empty - so there is hope!
NIce! ...but 13 years old isn't RETRO lol, I still enjoy watching. I can never find anything good in the thrift shops around here.
Haha, retro is very subjective, however I am not sure if I said they were? Just calling out these older systems asking if they are Trask or not. Keep looking on online marketplaces as well.
Acer seem to always have their own cool funky computer cases. I have a few in my collection. One with multiple laptop style DVD drives. As soon as I can figure out how to remove the plastic bezel. I'll put a 2nd one in it. One thing with Acer. A couple of my Acers will only support 4gb memory that came with 64bit Windows. I end up putting 32bit on those systems.
Good to know, I will see what happens when I start to change the hardware config of the Acer systems.
I have 3 trash computers that still work well. I love them. Found a Dell 9020 on the street. Ssd fixed that one. Unknown brand running 5th Gen i7 found in my sister's garage. CPU cooler and thermal paste fixed that one. My main trash box is an old HP Z440 running 6 core Xeon@3.6 32g ddr4 nvme pci-e k2200 Quadro gpu..
Nice!! I love hearing when people save this old tech!
And Windows 10 support ends in 1 1/2 years. Then it, as well as Vista, 7, and 8.1, will be no longer updated with security patches. Win 11 might not update on unsupported hardware.
That's true. Hard to believe, it feels like everyone of these OS's were just released.
3 Vista systems! This is why I subscribe!
Some pretty neat systems!
An Acer Veriton x270 fell into my lap last week. Intel core 2 with a Nvidia nForce chipset. Did not have that combination yet. Ordered a Nvidia NVS 315 for it as it is low profile and those things can be found for dirt cheap. (and drivers for both XP and Vista). Yep that thing is going to dual boot XP and Vista.
Only 1 cap has bulged and that is sandwiched in an unlucky spot near the RAM slots and HDD. So far very stable when running memtest86+ overnight. And the motherboard seems to be made by ECS. Sooo...
And nothing beats having dinner while watching long form content.😊
Edit: RAID mode for intel controller's don't necessarily mean a RAID set has been created. It does seem to enable so extra features/bell's and whistles. Not that i have checked on that in detail. The trio of IDE/AHCI/RAID mode. I just leave it on AHCI mode. Which it natively supported by Vista and higher.
Thanks so much for this comment, much appreciated! Some great insight and happy to hear that you are enjoying. Hopefully you can get to that bad cap and replace it before it causes issues.
We use to have this exact one but the CPU it have is a Intel CPU and it had a flappy drive that came with it and the PSU have a same conditions it's a original to it😂🎉
Nice!!!!
the athlon 64x2 was amd's one-two punch to intel during late pentium 4 era. i think the pentium d was intel's meh response to the athlon x2. i think. it's all a blur.
then the intel core and more specifically the core 2 duo came out and amd was playing catch up until ryzen!
i went from an hp pavilion with an athlon 64x2 3800+ bought at a futureshop boxing day sale to my very first built myself q6600 based system.
the 3800+ was supposed to give a reference to intel clock speeds. so my 2.0 ghz 3800+ was supposed to be similar in performance to a 3.8ghz intel. or 3800mhz.
Thanks for this, it is great info. From what I recall, I found AMD always playing catchup to intel. Maybe that's why I always stayed with intel.
@@TheRetroRecall it was the case for as long as most remember; that intel was ahead. the gamer's choice.
amd was the "value choice" for over a decade after the core 2 and then core i series.
it all feels very familiar to what's going on now with intel and it 13th/14th gen high power draw/high heat woes. it's giving presc(hot)t p4 era vibes all over again.
will history repeat? will intel pull another q6600 out of their pocket? will ati (amd) pull another radeon 9700 pro? will the tables be turned? once more? again?
Get the popcorn ready, it's going to be interesting to see!
That Purple DVI header runs off the integrated graphics. Dells came with a similar one.
Awesome! Thanks for this info. It must be proprietary to this computer.
nice vid!
Thank you!
I never had a problem with Vista either. Some of the new features were annoyances but overall it was a satisfactory OS.
I agree, as I never had an issue.
Diskwipe is an essential utility for Windows/DOS systems. I keep my copy under glass... emergency use only.
AMD processors of this vintage did tend to run hotter than Intel, at least in my experience. Definitely check your heat sink coupling to the die.
The Athlon X2 64s tended to lag just a bit behind Core 2 Duo for some purposes, but were much less expensive. They represented a good price/performance point for many users.
Haha. Indeed.
I also like to bring back systems others have left for dead and make them all they can be, but I do my shopping mostly in the electronics recycling bin. I have 2 different make 80GB hdds with both sata and ide power input and sata data ports (WD800JD Caviar & Hitachi Deskstar). I think it was a limited run during the transition period, they were made in 06 & 07. Both still work, so getting a hdd with sata data and ide power should still be possible. I wish you were local to me so we could trade info and parts, to me it is a hobby I do now and then as I´m able, do you do this commercially?
I do remember those hybrid drives - in fact, I may have one or two around in storage. The retro part is a hobby, however I do work on modern systems as a business today. I love doing this and seeing where it all started from through this older tech :)
@@TheRetroRecall I´m not so good at pre pentium systems as original parts are hard to find and to expensive to risk damaging. I do collect any and all pcs or pc parts I find and try to make usable systems from them. Problem is later, nobody really wants them and I hate scrapping working systems, my oldest is a 400Mhz HP Omnibook laptop from the late 90´s. My current project is a working HP DL380 G7 server I bought on auktion for 0.15 usd and are now slowly upgrading as much as possible as well as learn how to use/run a server. Good luck with your future projects an your youtube channel.
Nice, and I really appreciate it thank you!
Enjoy my Sunday mornings chilling in bed and catching up on the newest TRR clip. Everyone's favourite era, Vista! 😜. VBAT is a nice little feature, BIOS'es don't typically monitor the coin cell but 2 of the 3 here do!
Ok so it is for the coincell, neat! I'm glad you are enjoying :)
I had an Athlon x2. The only issue I had with it wwas with Valve's anti-cheat softwaree. Some bug with the CPU timing caused those CPUs to give false hack codes. IIRC, there was a patch available from AMD.
To be honest I have never heard of this. I'll have to look into it - love learning new stuff, thanks!
DVI video cards was so simple!! Almost no components for a DVI card!!
😂😂😂 Not!! Was something i haven't seen either. I wonder if it will add DVI to any PC with a PCI express slot or if these systems have specific hardware built in to the motherboard and piped though the PCI express slot?
Its specific to Intel G43 chipset with the integrated graphic.
Thanks!
Yeah I wondered that to. I guess it ties to the graphics chipset on the MB.
@@xsc1000 so any brand board with a G43 chipset will have DVI passed through the PCI express slot? That's pretty handy and a more advanced version should be used today to add extra displays without adding a whole new GPU.. like a 4x HDMI or 4x display port piped though the PCI express slot and just have a basic breakout card like the DVI card.. it could be useful for people who are using iGPUs and need the extra screens..
@@michaellegg9381 Maybe BIOS support would be needed, I think it can be find in chipset documentation.
Whats with the Nvidia sticker on system 2 if i don't see a nividia card
Great question. I think it had the onboard chipset. Others have mentioned that as well, I will have to go back and look.
Good value for your money!👍👍
Agreed!
Those OEM can run with Windows 11 if their max support ram as 16GB or 32GB, so its Treasure. You can install the modern Motherboard to the factory computer, HP is match the universal Ping :), so in MOD, it can easy upgrade with OEM HP PC case
Thanks!! I think 16gb is the max on the first Acer system. Not sure of the rest.
The C2Q won’t run Win11 24H2 :(
Yeah that was a recent release that limited it.
@@TheRetroRecall Install Windows 10 IoT Enterprise LTSC 2021 and can be safe used normally until 2032 :D
Thank you!!!
37:30 you can, I used to solder ram slots in.
Do you think / know if it would require any additional components (caps, traces) for it to work? I see the BIOS has the two additional slots present.
@@TheRetroRecall As long as the bios recognizes the missing ram slots, it will work without any mods.
Thanks!
The AMD Athlon x2 and x3 were Semprons that were unlocked or AMD Sempron was a single core where AMD Athlon x2 and x3 were dual and triple core respectively.
Thabks for the info! What does the Live! mean?
The Athlon is it's own thing. It was the phenom x3 that was supposed to be a quad core with a bad core disabled.
I've had two HPs like that, plus another PC that had an Athlon 64 X2 5000+. The Athlon 64 X2s were good for their day, however are basically unusable for day to day use in 2024. I tried to use another PC recently with a (once) high-end 64 X2 6000+ but was at full 100% utilisation just staring at the Windows 7 desktop screen. Attempting to do anything else on it was a chore.
Yeah that's always been my feeling of using these CPUs even back in the day. That's the reason I stuck with intel. Today a Core2 Duo can run Win10 without an issue.
Any working PC is worth saving as it can be made into a Linux PC HDD/SSD are cheap enough to put in. Many old PC's had DVD drives but modern PC's don't have them as any drivers for printers can be downloaded from the manufacturers site.
100% agree!
That Acer with the Core2Quad has an overpowered CPU when compared to the crappy IGPU, pretty unbalanced.
True - however it has the expansion capability which is a bonus!
Had an Acer notebook once, and the display went vad within the warranty period. Acer claimed that I damaged it, and would not repair it under warranty. I haven't bought anything Acer since then, nor will I ever again.
Yeah, I would have probably done the same if that was my experience. I am just glad that I never had any issues.
I think any computer that runs is worth saving. Worst case donate it to an elementary school to teach kids typing, or doing research for papers. We had an old Apple with the real 8in floppy drive in my 4th grade and we played Oregon Trail and Numbers Muncher on it all the time. Where I live now, there are tons of Kiosks run by Africans that send these old systems back to their home countries.
Agreed, as long as they work, there can always be a function!
These systems make me think of my old HP ENVY, that today I'll dig out and use every so often... These old desktops are never trash while they work, as you can surf the www, and do email on them...
I have been known to play WOW Dragonflight, current xpac on its Nvidia 745 GTX GPU.
Agreed and with a slight ram upgrade, an SSD and Linux... You are sailing.
Nice!!