Oh I fully agree. Nothing like taking an unknown machine, giving a good clean and watching it come to life. The hard drive still bit iffy if it will live much longer, as soon as I find drivers and software for the bahama chips I'll more than likely replace it with an sd card
wow thats so easy install the motherborad with 1 screw ,, i own a dell dimension xps T500 iam uprading the motherborad with the onborad sound and a 850 cpu ,, REALLY LOVE THE VIDEO SHOWING HOW TO PUT BACK THE DELL BACK TOGEATHER
Have you tried "compatibility mode". Press on this. It's supposed to slow down the machine for legacy programs. Been keeping one in storage (parts) as an idea for a DOS gaming rig.
I've never tried or heard of that before. In dos or windows? Might need to try it out...once I get a hard drive for it. Went to record a video with it and it was screechy off and on. But I also have plenty of parts to build dos gaming pcs (like I've been getting stuff ready and gathered to build pcs from 386 up to p4 for different project and videos) But I'm definitely going to try that on a pc at some point to see if it works
@@definitelycasualpcs8789 I believe it's a feature built into the bios... I think it was available on P2 and P3 Optiplex and XPS machines. Current infatuation is with old IBM Thinkpads at the moment so not tested it myself. That said if I have a machine playing Quake and Wing Commander a the press of the keyboard... May need to do some fixing up and dig out the old CRT.
@@rhysholdaway oh ok. Thats makes sense..I know there was a still some pcs using things to allow older games during the p2/p3 eras but wasn't sure. And wing commander? I think even slowed down a p2 would be too quick...I think that needs a 386 or a k6-2 way way undercooked if I recall correctly from Phil's computer lab. But it's been a while so I could be way off lol
How are you trying to install it I always load a iso on a CD and copy all files over to my c: drive in dos then I go in and install it and it works like a charm for both 95 98 and me you can get the iso and product key from winworld PC then use a program like ultra iso to burn it to a CD there's also a way to install it from USB on newer machines
Oh awesome! I kinda been wanting to get this dug back out and do some benchmarks with some other 90s PCs but....the cmos battery died again and it locked the bios again. Is this a feature of these xps systems? I know I turned that off when I restored it lol
@@definitelycasualpcs8789 yes its quute common there should be a jumper on the board you can use it to reset bios also the naming structure of the pc is directly tied to the processor speed so if you upgrade the cpu the name will actually change in the bios and also big warning dont change the psu to anything other than one from another dimension xps the psu is proprietary and ive made that mistake and fried the whole pc lol 90s pc are really cool the cool thing about these dells here is the front pannel is debatable and you can actually add in molex led strips to the front and it will shine throgh the vent holes when the pc is powered on theres a site called "the retro web" that has alot of resources fof these and other retro pcs
That Riva 128 was usually made by STB. Called the Velocity 128. I had this exact computer with it, and a Turtle Beach Montego Audio card. Mine was the D333, 16.8gb HD,, Can't remember the RAM. I believe 16mb.
Yea its a pretty common agp card from that time frame...I've seen them in gateways too. Pretty nice card actually. I've been meaning soo badly to bench this against my win95 tower I build a while ago ( since I basically recased a gateway and didn't realize it at the time lol)
I had a later version of that - a Dimension 4100 with a 1GHz Coppermine Pentium 3. The Dell proprietry PSU has a different pin layout to the 20 pin plug, you can not use a standard ATX PSU even if it does have that extra aux connector, at least not unless you have an adapter. You'll note I said 'had'. Guess how I found out this little nugget of information?
Amazon does too? I saw them on Ebay and wish but forgot to check Amazon, I havent seen too much vintage pc stuff besides sd/cf to ide. At some point ill need to get one cause I think I have 1 or 2 that needs that funky connection style.
@@definitelycasualpcs8789 I may be wrong, but aren't we talking about Dell Power Supplies with proprietary connectors to the motherboard? The Original Poster mentioned Amazon sells an adapter for a standard PS, so it can be used for Dell PC's. I have few Dell Dimension XPS, and I know the PS won't last that much longer. I rarely power them up though.
Oh oh ok I see what your saying. I haven't used one yet...the psu in this is still going strong. I mentioned I hoped it work when I restored it since given its age it might be dead.
They even support their PCs and I have a Brio 80XX, Vectra Vli8, 6E and Compaq Deskpro Eps where it will be hard to get drivers. This PC even supports Midi Mappers for external keyboards. WOW!
@efertheredfish2 id say kinda. Back then you needed to have the original driver discs or contact the company Now its just hitting Google and hoping somehow they were archived or saved somewhere
@streamcastr right?! Like it's so weird to power on my 5170 and have it take like...a minute or so to boot dos... While my main PC takes like..5 seconds and I'm already into desktop
Thanks 😁 and yea...I bought a cheap shot gun style mic for my camera but for some reason it would have interference like crazy... And would record super low volume I had to force it louder in editing which makes it sound off...eventually I'll get it
From 15:13 to 16:26, I actually would have preferred to have seen the struggle with the side panel, rather than a black screen and that awful music. If you insist on not showing that part, perhaps cut the section rather than show a black screen. I also own one of these cases and would have been interested to see how you tackled the case. Did you find a way to remove the beige outer casing from both the top and the bottom of the chassis?
That black not supposed to be there... Something happened during export and I tried to fix it and I made it worse. I struggled a lot trying to get that panel, and the top/bottom pieces off. I couldn't find much documentation on taking it apart and didn't want to force something and break it. I'm going to keep digging and see if I can find a way to take it fully apart. (I'm planning a follow up video on most of the previous projects at some point)
On the top and bottom there is a tab that secures the plastic panels and has to be depressed and then it will just slide off. This case looks close enough to the dimension 4100, and thats how those are removed.
@@Snickerrick That would be good idea for mini extension video to the original, highlighting these well-hidden tabs. On closer inspection of the inside of the chassis, it looks like the base may be held on by screws hidden under the rubber feet, so may not be as easy to remove as one thinks.
@@jimjamz. I restored one of these last week - getting the back, top, and bottom panels off was pretty irritating, only found the tabs after removing everything else in the case. There is one tab in the middle of the inside-top that must be depressed, and one on the middle of the inside-bottom, and then I slid the whole panel assembly back until it popped out. It was much clearer how to do this after the motherboard and PSU were out, but it should be possible with them still in.
@@poprhythm Thank you for your reply. I still haven't removed them, but think I did notice the tab for the bottom panel / stand. As you said, is sits in the centre of the inside chassis panel. I'll have a look for the top. Many thanks. I wanted to remove these because I was considering retro-brighting, although the British summer this year hasn't been good enough to accomplish it.
that's not a generic modem, it was maybe the best ISA modem easily faster and stable than any other modem of its time. Back in the day you had to have a good modem if you had a weak processor. Later they came with the bullshit v90 and v92 that used the processor unlike that US Robotics that was pure Hardware.
Really? I knew us robotics were highly regarded for retro builds but had no idea that they were so highly back in the day too. Definitely will need to look up how to network vintages PCs then...have a neat retro network of old win95 and older PCs that can communicate with each other.
Awesome! The more I messed with it the more I found how neat it was....before the hard drive got really really noisy. Need to get a few sd2ide units, to get this thing back up and running.
I have a few 40 to 120gb ide drives...but just haven't gotten around to wiping them and getting them ready. I need to since I have a few 2000s era projects I'm wanting to get done
@@amberisvibin you should look into replacing the HDD with compact flash ,SD card, or even a SATA SSD you can buy the adapters cheap id recommended compact flash cards they are a little more pricey these days than the SD/micro sd card but it'll be the fastest storage option out of all 3 and it is a lot less likely to wear out than a old ide HDD plus completely silent you can even get floppy drive emulators that use USB or SD cards I like to keep most my retro PCs pretty standard but i do use compact flash or SD cards in almost every project
![Reviewing the SP2SD (The Latest Hard Drive Emulator for Apple ]['s)](/img/n.gif)
These old PC's are always fun to restore, as long as the main components are working. She cleaned up nice!
Oh I fully agree. Nothing like taking an unknown machine, giving a good clean and watching it come to life.
The hard drive still bit iffy if it will live much longer, as soon as I find drivers and software for the bahama chips I'll more than likely replace it with an sd card
wow thats so easy install the motherborad with 1 screw ,, i own a dell dimension xps T500 iam uprading the motherborad with the onborad sound and a 850 cpu ,, REALLY LOVE THE VIDEO SHOWING HOW TO PUT BACK THE DELL BACK TOGEATHER
Have you tried "compatibility mode". Press on this. It's supposed to slow down the machine for legacy programs. Been keeping one in storage (parts) as an idea for a DOS gaming rig.
I've never tried or heard of that before. In dos or windows? Might need to try it out...once I get a hard drive for it. Went to record a video with it and it was screechy off and on.
But I also have plenty of parts to build dos gaming pcs (like I've been getting stuff ready and gathered to build pcs from 386 up to p4 for different project and videos)
But I'm definitely going to try that on a pc at some point to see if it works
@@definitelycasualpcs8789 I believe it's a feature built into the bios... I think it was available on P2 and P3 Optiplex and XPS machines. Current infatuation is with old IBM Thinkpads at the moment so not tested it myself. That said if I have a machine playing Quake and Wing Commander a the press of the keyboard... May need to do some fixing up and dig out the old CRT.
@@rhysholdaway oh ok. Thats makes sense..I know there was a still some pcs using things to allow older games during the p2/p3 eras but wasn't sure.
And wing commander? I think even slowed down a p2 would be too quick...I think that needs a 386 or a k6-2 way way undercooked if I recall correctly from Phil's computer lab.
But it's been a while so I could be way off lol
im tryinf to get windows 95 back on mine but it gets stuck in the os load text msg
How are you trying to install it I always load a iso on a CD and copy all files over to my c: drive in dos then I go in and install it and it works like a charm for both 95 98 and me you can get the iso and product key from winworld PC then use a program like ultra iso to burn it to a CD there's also a way to install it from USB on newer machines
Ik a lot about this model and all the models in the dimension xps line if you need help let me know
Oh awesome! I kinda been wanting to get this dug back out and do some benchmarks with some other 90s PCs but....the cmos battery died again and it locked the bios again. Is this a feature of these xps systems? I know I turned that off when I restored it lol
@@definitelycasualpcs8789 yes its quute common there should be a jumper on the board you can use it to reset bios also the naming structure of the pc is directly tied to the processor speed so if you upgrade the cpu the name will actually change in the bios and also big warning dont change the psu to anything other than one from another dimension xps the psu is proprietary and ive made that mistake and fried the whole pc lol 90s pc are really cool the cool thing about these dells here is the front pannel is debatable and you can actually add in molex led strips to the front and it will shine throgh the vent holes when the pc is powered on theres a site called "the retro web" that has alot of resources fof these and other retro pcs
nice case design still
Surprisingly it is, with the oddities, its still slimmer and more compact than most other towers ive seen or torn apart
That Riva 128 was usually made by STB. Called the Velocity 128. I had this exact computer with it, and a Turtle Beach Montego Audio card. Mine was the D333, 16.8gb HD,, Can't remember the RAM. I believe 16mb.
Yea its a pretty common agp card from that time frame...I've seen them in gateways too. Pretty nice card actually.
I've been meaning soo badly to bench this against my win95 tower I build a while ago ( since I basically recased a gateway and didn't realize it at the time lol)
I had a later version of that - a Dimension 4100 with a 1GHz Coppermine Pentium 3. The Dell proprietry PSU has a different pin layout to the 20 pin plug, you can not use a standard ATX PSU even if it does have that extra aux connector, at least not unless you have an adapter. You'll note I said 'had'. Guess how I found out this little nugget of information?
Yea. Those 00s era were prone for Dell doing that proprietary psu nonsense...and I'm betting there was a lot of magic smoke? Lol
Same happened to me 😭 lol but I have learned that lesson now lol it sucks that they are proprietary old Compaqs also have this issue
I'm surprised you didn't run scandisk---that would give you more of an idea of the hard drive's condition
I...didn't even think of that. I probably should, I also need to copy the contents...make it easier once I get an SD to ide adapter.
Amazon sells an adapter with the aux plug so you can ue a regular atx power supply
Amazon does too? I saw them on Ebay and wish but forgot to check Amazon, I havent seen too much vintage pc stuff besides sd/cf to ide. At some point ill need to get one cause I think I have 1 or 2 that needs that funky connection style.
@@definitelycasualpcs8789 Please share link to that auxilary plug you're using.
@not1but2and37 auxillary plug?
@@definitelycasualpcs8789 I may be wrong, but aren't we talking about Dell Power Supplies with proprietary connectors to the motherboard? The Original Poster mentioned Amazon sells an adapter for a standard PS, so it can be used for Dell PC's. I have few Dell Dimension XPS, and I know the PS won't last that much longer. I rarely power them up though.
Oh oh ok I see what your saying.
I haven't used one yet...the psu in this is still going strong. I mentioned I hoped it work when I restored it since given its age it might be dead.
NetINS! It's from somewhere in iowa
Lol I never even thought of that..
And yep that makes sense though since I found it in Iowa
They even support their PCs and I have a Brio 80XX, Vectra Vli8, 6E and Compaq Deskpro Eps where it will be hard to get drivers. This PC even supports Midi Mappers for external keyboards. WOW!
Yea Compaqs are hard to find drivers for that's why I love dell and gateway you can still find all the dell drivers on their website
Which is kinda odd. It was even a bit of a chore finding the bios setup floppy for the portable 2
@@Tuxedocatdad correct. I am struggling with mine. Time is not as good as it was back in 2000.
@@definitelycasualpcs8789 Back 2000 anything was better wasn't it?
@efertheredfish2 id say kinda. Back then you needed to have the original driver discs or contact the company
Now its just hitting Google and hoping somehow they were archived or saved somewhere
That First Boot Device set to Removable Devices is probably for the Floppy Disk drive not USB!! LOL
Yea I kinda figured that out later on. I don't know why I thought it wasn't floppy.
@@definitelycasualpcs8789 This modern age just spoils us all!! haha
@streamcastr right?! Like it's so weird to power on my 5170 and have it take like...a minute or so to boot dos...
While my main PC takes like..5 seconds and I'm already into desktop
Nice video, enjoyed watching, but have a look at your audio setiings as there is an extreme volume difference and could be better🤗
Thanks 😁 and yea...I bought a cheap shot gun style mic for my camera but for some reason it would have interference like crazy...
And would record super low volume I had to force it louder in editing which makes it sound off...eventually I'll get it
Make an update video!😁
From 15:13 to 16:26, I actually would have preferred to have seen the struggle with the side panel, rather than a black screen and that awful music. If you insist on not showing that part, perhaps cut the section rather than show a black screen. I also own one of these cases and would have been interested to see how you tackled the case. Did you find a way to remove the beige outer casing from both the top and the bottom of the chassis?
That black not supposed to be there...
Something happened during export and I tried to fix it and I made it worse. I struggled a lot trying to get that panel, and the top/bottom pieces off. I couldn't find much documentation on taking it apart and didn't want to force something and break it. I'm going to keep digging and see if I can find a way to take it fully apart. (I'm planning a follow up video on most of the previous projects at some point)
On the top and bottom there is a tab that secures the plastic panels and has to be depressed and then it will just slide off. This case looks close enough to the dimension 4100, and thats how those are removed.
@@Snickerrick That would be good idea for mini extension video to the original, highlighting these well-hidden tabs. On closer inspection of the inside of the chassis, it looks like the base may be held on by screws hidden under the rubber feet, so may not be as easy to remove as one thinks.
@@jimjamz. I restored one of these last week - getting the back, top, and bottom panels off was pretty irritating, only found the tabs after removing everything else in the case. There is one tab in the middle of the inside-top that must be depressed, and one on the middle of the inside-bottom, and then I slid the whole panel assembly back until it popped out. It was much clearer how to do this after the motherboard and PSU were out, but it should be possible with them still in.
@@poprhythm Thank you for your reply. I still haven't removed them, but think I did notice the tab for the bottom panel / stand. As you said, is sits in the centre of the inside chassis panel. I'll have a look for the top. Many thanks. I wanted to remove these because I was considering retro-brighting, although the British summer this year hasn't been good enough to accomplish it.
that's not a generic modem, it was maybe the best ISA modem easily faster and stable than any other modem of its time. Back in the day you had to have a good modem if you had a weak processor. Later they came with the bullshit v90 and v92 that used the processor unlike that US Robotics that was pure Hardware.
Really? I knew us robotics were highly regarded for retro builds but had no idea that they were so highly back in the day too. Definitely will need to look up how to network vintages PCs then...have a neat retro network of old win95 and older PCs that can communicate with each other.
removable devices is the floppy drive bro
I have the 300 MHz version of this tower!
Awesome! The more I messed with it the more I found how neat it was....before the hard drive got really really noisy. Need to get a few sd2ide units, to get this thing back up and running.
@@definitelycasualpcs8789 nice! my 16gb drive got noisy too, I just replaced it with a nos Seagate 80gb I got on ebay for cheap
I have a few 40 to 120gb ide drives...but just haven't gotten around to wiping them and getting them ready. I need to since I have a few 2000s era projects I'm wanting to get done
@@amberisvibin you should look into replacing the HDD with compact flash ,SD card, or even a SATA SSD you can buy the adapters cheap id recommended compact flash cards they are a little more pricey these days than the SD/micro sd card but it'll be the fastest storage option out of all 3 and it is a lot less likely to wear out than a old ide HDD plus completely silent you can even get floppy drive emulators that use USB or SD cards I like to keep most my retro PCs pretty standard but i do use compact flash or SD cards in almost every project
@@Tuxedocatdad meh, I'll look into one if this drive fails. I don't mind the speed really, it's a slow PC