I never had a Celeron machine as my main system, but did receive a few hand me downs from family or friends who no longer wanted them, and at that time, it was more of a "what can I salvage from this old junker" than "let's preserve this future relic" so I typically took the ram and drives and scrapped most of the other stuff...
I must be a hoarder lol, I tend to keep these systems in their configuration and restore, update them. I find it so hard to toss retro tech, even back then. Maybe set the stage for this hobby haha.
@@TheRetroRecallI was living in a one-room apartment and making minimum wage back in the 90's and early 2000's the local computer store would allow me to trade in not-too-old stuff for credit (traded my K6-2 MB/CPU to get Athlon) so the stuff I really loved didn't last because I didn't have room or money, and the older lower spec stuff family would e-cycle to me, I didn't appreciate enough (and didn't have space) I guess I'm not a hoarder or I'd have had pathways through my tiny room with computers stacked as high as the ceiling :D
@@PiercedJediI’ve got 27 x PC’s of all types & sizes stacked up against the Wall in the Hallway of my Flat (Apartment), 11 x PCs stacked up in the corner of my Living Room and there must be another 20 dotted around the Flat at least! 😂
Very interesting! I agree that the motherboard is at fault, and that is why the original owner gave up on it. This is just my two cents, but unless I see leaking capacitors, I won't troubleshoot motherboards down to the component level---it's like going down the rabbit hole, you never know where it will end. I would just install another good used one (reusing the same processor, memory, etc), scrap the old one, and call it a day
I used to swap out Boards but have recently started replacing Capacitors if they are bulging or leaking and have had some reasonable success doing so, I’ve got another Motherboard which I believe has 2 x blown Mosfets and I will attempt to replace them once I’ve got a Hot Air Station and replacement Mosfets…
Hi, I am a new subscriber to your channel. I like to listen to your videos while I repair computers that we get it work although the ones that we get are much newer. Hopefully someday something as old as what you have will come through. I’m also blind for so thank you for being as descriptive as you are. Have a good night!
Thank you so much for watching, being a part of the channel and for sharing! This is exactly why I do this . Hopefully you will find something a bit older and work to get it going... There is still lots of retro tech out there in the wild just waiting to be saved :) Stay tuned, many more videos in the future!
Perhaps check the 24 pin on the motherboard with multi-meter in continuity mode, check the 5 volt pins for a short to ground, could be a capacitor shorted like you said, keep up the good work! I am still learning!
I remember when the power supply power button was connected to the case in the front. It was a lot harder to fully remove the supply at that time. I also remember building this exact system. I used to buy AOpen Cases and Motherboards from a supplyer and assemble the systems myself. Iy was costing about $1,200 Cn for parts and I would sell them for $1,500. This was in the late 1990s and early 2000s.
When I firwst when on the Internet I had a 336 modem and used Netscape 1.0. Talk about a hugh change since thoses days. I actually was on the net when I had a Dos 6.22 Machine. Windows changed everything.
Love hearing about these experiences! Yeah, the ATX form factor made a huge difference when working on these systems! I am still on the hunt for a 486 AT system. :) Thanks for watching!
I had a Sony vaio with a Celeron at 800mhz in high school. I remember putting a pny ventro Nvidia card in that was $100 or $150 but I can't completely remember. I played unreal tournament, half life, quake's, Jedi outcast, and Jedi academy. I didn't know Alot about the products back then so I was happy with what I had.
I've been on the hunt for a Vaio of that vintage. There are a few, however they are all out of range and shipping isn't cheap. Sounds like you had a decent machine based on the games! It's amazing to see just how much you can squeeze out of this older hardware - that was always part of the fun.
For sure! I was able to test afterwards with the multimeter. Definitely a bad power supply which could have caused the issue. I'm still leaving towards something that can be repaired :) The forever optimist haha!
Sound Blaster DAC/ADC chip is same as onboard chip that support AC'97, but populated way outside from noisy motherboard power sources, thats why final audio performance is better. Also this version of sound blaster have high quality headphone amplifier (PT2308 chip) same like sb4830 have.
I came across a Celeron 800 CPU not that long ago in e-waste. I threw that into my A-Bit BE6-II and overclocked it to 1.064 GHz. I couldn't get past 133 MHz due to the limiting BX chipset. Probably would have done better on an i815 or VIA 694 based board. Now that I have a Socket 462 motherboard, I need to find some Duron's to do some comparisons.
Thanks for the feedback. As I had mentioned when working on these systems, I am keeping them as original as possible. Sure - we could upgrade absolutely every system that comes through - however there wouldn't be anything unique about them if they were all P2s or P3s running 512mb of ram, IDE to CF adapters, etc. Hope that makes sense :)
am in process of building a circa 1999 era tower PC - having issues with my old i/o devices, which are a CD-ROM and 1.44MB floppy drive. Will install a SD2IDE device to see if can boot off of that. Also have a spinning harddrive but the install of Win2K but it blue screens when booting up part way with a bad storage device error. (Want to keep that drive intact to see if can get it readable later - on the hunt for old family photos.)
Difficult to say without first checking with a multimeter if there is a short, before it was booting it just didn't recognize the IDE, so it could be capacitor or broken solder. I recommend using a POST Analyzer PCI card, are any components overheating?
Sounds like great next steps. I will get one and try. That said, I didn't see anything overheating at all. My gut says it's a cap issue... where it originally worked, however couldn't power the HDD or optical drives. I will try the post analyzer card. Thanks for this!
I had that early, infamously overclockable Celeron (300 or 333MHz, I can’t remember) but Celerons after that early period were utter garbage. I made the mistake years later of buying a Celeron (2GHz-ish) on socket 478. I decided that was the last time I was ever going to use one of those things.
For sure, the earlier ones tended to be much more flexible. I do know they didn't exactly have the greatest reputation, however I didn't seem to have any issues with them!
Cel300A on a overclockable board was a killer, people got theme to run 450mhz+ and there was a fun thing about it cache speed :P Much OC Legend of old times and nothing come even close for same price. Should have few somewhere if remember right.
@@TheRetroRecall Btw, haven't seen You use bios programmer? Symptoms of this board can also be bad bios. Board turns on but has no bios to recognise stuff so it just on, nothing else. Bios programer is cheap, easy to use and helps rescue so much boards, laptops and video cards. As when they stand long time with battery around 1v or below, it can lad to corruption. Chip itself is usually fine. With nforce2 boards, corrupt bios was common thing. Time ago rescued hundreds of these :)
@@TheRetroRecall Btw, before I had it, trick that sometimes help (few times at least) when it has been with low bios bat. Remove battery, short battery connectors for minute and let it chill for 30min-1h. Few rare times have managed to get bios respond after that.
it seem something has shorted out, You can try to feel with your hand if some of the chips on the board get unexpectedly hot when the board is full on, to get clue about what chip goes shorted to ground, or maybe the psu on start was not working well and fried the board, i hope not, anyway nice video :D
I definitely felt around and did so again afterwards and nothing apparent. Going to spend some time poking around with the multimeter to see what we find - isn't this fun? Haha!
The first (original) PSU could function as far as the bios setup screen. The 2nd "known good" PSU couldn't get that far? Therefore: you should definitely invest in a PSU tester, so that: supposedly "good" PSU's aren't going to introduce damage to other components.
Thanks for your thoughts. The second, third and forth PSUs would not work either. I think either a) the first PSU damaged something, or b) the board was just one or two start ups to dying. Either way - a tester is a great idea for the future.
I have a passionate dislike of Celeron & Duron Processors etc and would always swap them out for a “Proper CPU”, That being said, I wouldn’t just bin them as there will be a use for them, I also never overclock CPUs either, I don’t see the point in trying to get more than a Pint out of a Pint pot as they say, I might consider underclocking to extend the Life of the CPU & other Components but that would be about it… Anthony - Birmingham/UK 🇬🇧
Love your comments and perspective. The Celeron CPU I had was the 300A. It could overclock and outperform its Pentium counterparts with ease. That said - you had to keep it VERY cool.
Seems like a futile effort, using these old PC's for anything internet-connected. Unless they could be memory upgraded to qualify for use with a currently supported (with regular security updates) operating system. What O.S. were you planning on using? Just curious.
I don't think the focus is necessarily getting them online. They are nostalgic retro rigs that won't see the internet. Mostly for gaming or old school testing. It's retro! :) as for OS - you will have to stay tuned for Saturdays video!
Thanks! I haven't gotten around to it yet but definitely going to spend some time looking and testing to see - I'd love to get it going - I hate getting rid of boards unless I absolutely have to as most are repairable!
Absolutely this ☝🏻 Those early Celerons were so good with their overclockability and the cache running at full speed, Intel had to gimp them or lose profitability.
For sure - that was my similar experience. Such a great point in time though when you think about the processor race and what they were coming out with in terms of what the consumer could do with them out of the box. To your point, some of the Celerons were out performing their big brother counterparts in some scenarios.
Appreciate the feedback. As noted, when restoring these I tend to keep as true to what I found the system with from E-waste. I agree, it's an amazing case. Nothing says we can't do something in the future :)
@@TheRetroRecall If possible, you switch it to Socket 370 Pentium III/Tualatin motherboard with AGP slot, you can add a good retro gaming system into that case.
I usually hav;e my case on the floor, so optical in top bay means easiest reach. *shrug* can't see why anyone cares what anyone else's choice is lol. :)
I never had a Celeron machine as my main system, but did receive a few hand me downs from family or friends who no longer wanted them, and at that time, it was more of a "what can I salvage from this old junker" than "let's preserve this future relic" so I typically took the ram and drives and scrapped most of the other stuff...
I must be a hoarder lol, I tend to keep these systems in their configuration and restore, update them. I find it so hard to toss retro tech, even back then. Maybe set the stage for this hobby haha.
@@TheRetroRecallI was living in a one-room apartment and making minimum wage back in the 90's and early 2000's the local computer store would allow me to trade in not-too-old stuff for credit (traded my K6-2 MB/CPU to get Athlon) so the stuff I really loved didn't last because I didn't have room or money, and the older lower spec stuff family would e-cycle to me, I didn't appreciate enough (and didn't have space) I guess I'm not a hoarder or I'd have had pathways through my tiny room with computers stacked as high as the ceiling :D
Hahaha ok, I guess I'm not that bad as I do have storage space, however I can definitely see myself there lol
@@TheRetroRecall I now have storage but back then not so much, hope to be getting grandma's old AMD system soon
@@PiercedJediI’ve got 27 x PC’s of all types & sizes stacked up against the Wall in the Hallway of my Flat (Apartment), 11 x PCs stacked up in the corner of my Living Room and there must be another 20 dotted around the Flat at least! 😂
Motherboard Specs and Manual are on the Retro Web. looks interesting Thanks for the Video.
Thanks - I'll take a peak, as you know if you watched the end, I will need that info!
Very interesting! I agree that the motherboard is at fault, and that is why the original owner gave up on it. This is just my two cents, but unless I see leaking capacitors, I won't troubleshoot motherboards down to the component level---it's like going down the rabbit hole, you never know where it will end. I would just install another good used one (reusing the same processor, memory, etc), scrap the old one, and call it a day
Thanks for this. I tend to waiver as I love a good challenge... However you are right - a rabbit hole it can become. Stay tuned for Saturdays video :)
I used to swap out Boards but have recently started replacing Capacitors if they are bulging or leaking and have had some reasonable success doing so, I’ve got another Motherboard which I believe has 2 x blown Mosfets and I will attempt to replace them once I’ve got a Hot Air Station and replacement Mosfets…
Hi, I am a new subscriber to your channel. I like to listen to your videos while I repair computers that we get it work although the ones that we get are much newer. Hopefully someday something as old as what you have will come through. I’m also blind for so thank you for being as descriptive as you are. Have a good night!
Thank you so much for watching, being a part of the channel and for sharing! This is exactly why I do this . Hopefully you will find something a bit older and work to get it going... There is still lots of retro tech out there in the wild just waiting to be saved :) Stay tuned, many more videos in the future!
Perhaps check the 24 pin on the motherboard with multi-meter in continuity mode, check the 5 volt pins for a short to ground, could be a capacitor shorted like you said, keep up the good work! I am still learning!
David - thanks for this, never thought to test the actual connector to ground. Will do some poking around and report back!
I remember when the power supply power button was connected to the case in the front. It was a lot harder to fully remove the supply at that time. I also remember building this exact system. I used to buy AOpen Cases and Motherboards from a supplyer and assemble the systems myself. Iy was costing about $1,200 Cn for parts and I would sell them for $1,500. This was in the late 1990s and early 2000s.
When I firwst when on the Internet I had a 336 modem and used Netscape 1.0. Talk about a hugh change since thoses days. I actually was on the net when I had a Dos 6.22 Machine. Windows changed everything.
Love hearing about these experiences! Yeah, the ATX form factor made a huge difference when working on these systems! I am still on the hunt for a 486 AT system. :) Thanks for watching!
I had a Sony vaio with a Celeron at 800mhz in high school. I remember putting a pny ventro Nvidia card in that was $100 or $150 but I can't completely remember. I played unreal tournament, half life, quake's, Jedi outcast, and Jedi academy. I didn't know Alot about the products back then so I was happy with what I had.
I've been on the hunt for a Vaio of that vintage. There are a few, however they are all out of range and shipping isn't cheap. Sounds like you had a decent machine based on the games! It's amazing to see just how much you can squeeze out of this older hardware - that was always part of the fun.
Have you checked the mosfets? Maybe one is dead or on the way.
I have not - however I will certainly test! Thanks for the recommendation!
A power supply tester is very helpful and pretty cheap. Helps with that old psus. They almost all time need new caps on the low volt side.
For sure! I was able to test afterwards with the multimeter. Definitely a bad power supply which could have caused the issue. I'm still leaving towards something that can be repaired :) The forever optimist haha!
Sound Blaster DAC/ADC chip is same as onboard chip that support AC'97, but populated way outside from noisy motherboard power sources, thats why final audio performance is better. Also this version of sound blaster have high quality headphone amplifier (PT2308 chip) same like sb4830 have.
Thanks for this info!!!
I came across a Celeron 800 CPU not that long ago in e-waste. I threw that into my A-Bit BE6-II and overclocked it to 1.064 GHz. I couldn't get past 133 MHz due to the limiting BX chipset. Probably would have done better on an i815 or VIA 694 based board. Now that I have a Socket 462 motherboard, I need to find some Duron's to do some comparisons.
Haha that's awesome... Stay tuned for Saturdays release :)
I can't believe you would keep the Celeron, it would be the first thing I'd get rid of.
Thanks for the feedback. As I had mentioned when working on these systems, I am keeping them as original as possible. Sure - we could upgrade absolutely every system that comes through - however there wouldn't be anything unique about them if they were all P2s or P3s running 512mb of ram, IDE to CF adapters, etc. Hope that makes sense :)
@@TheRetroRecall I understand, but I just hate Celerons / Duron. In particular since you can get a P2, 3, 4 in the same socket.
am in process of building a circa 1999 era tower PC - having issues with my old i/o devices, which are a CD-ROM and 1.44MB floppy drive. Will install a SD2IDE device to see if can boot off of that. Also have a spinning harddrive but the install of Win2K but it blue screens when booting up part way with a bad storage device error. (Want to keep that drive intact to see if can get it readable later - on the hunt for old family photos.)
Hopefully you can get this going. It would be cool to hear the outcome! Good luck!
Difficult to say without first checking with a multimeter if there is a short, before it was booting it just didn't recognize the IDE, so it could be capacitor or broken solder. I recommend using a POST Analyzer PCI card, are any components overheating?
Sounds like great next steps. I will get one and try. That said, I didn't see anything overheating at all. My gut says it's a cap issue... where it originally worked, however couldn't power the HDD or optical drives. I will try the post analyzer card. Thanks for this!
I had that early, infamously overclockable Celeron (300 or 333MHz, I can’t remember) but Celerons after that early period were utter garbage.
I made the mistake years later of buying a Celeron (2GHz-ish) on socket 478. I decided that was the last time I was ever going to use one of those things.
For sure, the earlier ones tended to be much more flexible. I do know they didn't exactly have the greatest reputation, however I didn't seem to have any issues with them!
Socket 370?..if so get a PIII in there lol Been wanting an Aopen for my collection
Haha! It's definitely possible!!! Stay tuned for Saturday's video for lots of goodies!
Been watching these and realized I was not subscribed lol....issue remedied
Awesome - glad to have you aboard!
I remember having a hand me down system with a Celeron 400 on an Abit motherboard, That thing could hit almost 500mhz without burning down the house.
Love this story! I remember doing the same... And always having to worry if I had enough cooling haha.
Cel300A on a overclockable board was a killer, people got theme to run 450mhz+ and there was a fun thing about it cache speed :P
Much OC Legend of old times and nothing come even close for same price. Should have few somewhere if remember right.
Yes, they were a blast back in the day, giving their full Pentium counterparts a run for their money.
@@TheRetroRecall Btw, haven't seen You use bios programmer?
Symptoms of this board can also be bad bios. Board turns on but has no bios to recognise stuff so it just on, nothing else.
Bios programer is cheap, easy to use and helps rescue so much boards, laptops and video cards. As when they stand long time with battery around 1v or below, it can lad to corruption. Chip itself is usually fine.
With nforce2 boards, corrupt bios was common thing. Time ago rescued hundreds of these :)
Thanks for the tip. I was actually just talking to a fellow retro tech friend about this and me getting one haha. Timing is perfect!
@@TheRetroRecall Was watching Your videos and thinking why don't I see it around :)
Absolute lifesaver when resurrecting pc-s, be it retro or modern.
@@TheRetroRecall Btw, before I had it, trick that sometimes help (few times at least) when it has been with low bios bat. Remove battery, short battery connectors for minute and let it chill for 30min-1h. Few rare times have managed to get bios respond after that.
I install optical drives like that too
Awesome, I'm not the only crazy one then lol!
it seem something has shorted out, You can try to feel with your hand if some of the chips on the board get unexpectedly hot when the board is full on, to get clue about what chip goes shorted to ground, or maybe the psu on start was not working well and fried the board, i hope not, anyway nice video :D
I definitely felt around and did so again afterwards and nothing apparent. Going to spend some time poking around with the multimeter to see what we find - isn't this fun? Haha!
The first (original) PSU could function as far as the bios setup screen. The 2nd "known good" PSU couldn't get that far? Therefore: you should definitely invest in a PSU tester, so that: supposedly "good" PSU's aren't going to introduce damage to other components.
Thanks for your thoughts. The second, third and forth PSUs would not work either. I think either a) the first PSU damaged something, or b) the board was just one or two start ups to dying. Either way - a tester is a great idea for the future.
wait a minute ... someone got a fancy intro, can that be? ;)
You noticed!! Yup! A good friend of mine did me a nice favor!
I have a passionate dislike of Celeron & Duron Processors etc and would always swap them out for a “Proper CPU”, That being said, I wouldn’t just bin them as there will be a use for them, I also never overclock CPUs either, I don’t see the point in trying to get more than a Pint out of a Pint pot as they say, I might consider underclocking to extend the Life of the CPU & other Components but that would be about it… Anthony - Birmingham/UK 🇬🇧
Love your comments and perspective. The Celeron CPU I had was the 300A. It could overclock and outperform its Pentium counterparts with ease. That said - you had to keep it VERY cool.
Seems like a futile effort, using these old PC's for anything internet-connected. Unless they could be memory upgraded to qualify for use with a currently supported (with regular security updates) operating system. What O.S. were you planning on using? Just curious.
I don't think the focus is necessarily getting them online. They are nostalgic retro rigs that won't see the internet. Mostly for gaming or old school testing. It's retro! :) as for OS - you will have to stay tuned for Saturdays video!
Haha thanks!!!
46:49 I would put my money on a bad cap or two.
Thanks! I haven't gotten around to it yet but definitely going to spend some time looking and testing to see - I'd love to get it going - I hate getting rid of boards unless I absolutely have to as most are repairable!
The Celeron 400 wa the start of the really terrible Celerons, even overclocked the performance was really poor.
Absolutely this ☝🏻
Those early Celerons were so good with their overclockability and the cache running at full speed, Intel had to gimp them or lose profitability.
For sure - that was my similar experience. Such a great point in time though when you think about the processor race and what they were coming out with in terms of what the consumer could do with them out of the box. To your point, some of the Celerons were out performing their big brother counterparts in some scenarios.
I would rather change better, full size ATX motherboard into that case. It is sad to waste such a good midtower ATX case with microATX motherboard.
Appreciate the feedback. As noted, when restoring these I tend to keep as true to what I found the system with from E-waste. I agree, it's an amazing case. Nothing says we can't do something in the future :)
@@TheRetroRecall If possible, you switch it to Socket 370 Pentium III/Tualatin motherboard with AGP slot, you can add a good retro gaming system into that case.
100%.
I usually hav;e my case on the floor, so optical in top bay means easiest reach. *shrug* can't see why anyone cares what anyone else's choice is lol. :)
Hha exactly!
Try another motherboard.
Chapter 2 :)
i have the same CPU in my home (no motherboard)
Awesome! Hopefully you can find a board that can support it for a cool. Retro build!
@@TheRetroRecall they are hard to find here. also have a matrox mystique with rainbow runner gpu (1997)
@@2xtreem4u that's awesome!