200(1)? Dell Tower disassembly

[classicmuse]

Hey guys!

 

I went and took a look at the old family computer: a Dell Dimension 8250, and went to check out the original parts. Its horrifically dusty so be prepared for the viewing of some heart-wrenchingly ill treated parts  

 

If anyone has anything to share about these older parts who has more experience than me feel free to reminisce

 

[emosun]

RD ram , very oddball

[classicmuse]

Is the first pic a Sound card? I can't tell myself.

[emosun]

1 minute ago, classicmuse said:

Is the first pic a Sound card? I can't tell myself.

that there be ye old telephone based internet device

[classicmuse]

This is the modulator! It has 2 ethernet ports 

[Electronics Wizardy]

6 minutes ago, classicmuse said:

This is the modulator! It has 2 ethernet ports 

thats not ethernet

[emosun]

Just now, Electronics Wizardy said:

thats not ethernet

mini ethernet

[classicmuse]

Just now, Electronics Wizardy said:

thats not ethernet

are those literally phone lines then?

[emosun]

1 minute ago, classicmuse said:

are those literally phone lines then?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dial-up_Internet_access

[Letgomyleghoe]

2 minutes ago, classicmuse said:

are those literally phone lines then?

yup, gotta love dial up

[classicmuse]

So this Build had 512mb Ram? very nice  

[Bitter]

9 minutes ago, classicmuse said:

So this Build had 512mb Ram? very nice  

That's pretty unique, a very early Pentium 4 with Rambus RDRAM. 2 of those are 128MB for a total of 256MB, the other two are just place holders to resolve signal issues with empty slots.

[Cavalry Canuck]

I had the exact same rig as a kid...

[nbrowser]

You got some history there...dial up modem, RD-RAM hell I remember all the buzz around RD-RAM when it came out and I'm kind of glad it didn't take. The nVidia card is an unknown unless there's stickers on the backside of the card with actual nVidia info or a complete Dell part number. That sad if the Service Tag is still on the machine you could probably run that on the Dell site for how it was built back in the day. Just an idea is all.

[Pickles von Brine]

Oh man RD Ram with terminators. I just recently had a system come through with that. 

Honestly, I wish I had a picture of it, but I recently fixed a Dell DX1


This bad boy had a Pentium II with MMX and 386MB of ram  or something. 

The other system was a Pentium III system used for CNC routing systems that I had to fix. 

 

Other than that, a system with a 7800 GTX

[classicmuse]

3 hours ago, nbrowser said:

The nVidia card is an unknown unless there's stickers on the backside of the card with actual nVidia info or a complete Dell part number.

So it says the nVidia card is an nVidia tp601

 

Then again i dont know much about this

[Bitter]

39 minutes ago, classicmuse said:

So it says the nVidia card is an nVidia tp601

 

Then again i dont know much about this

Put that into google, should tell you what it is.

[Spoiled_Kitten]

On 3/9/2020 at 10:20 AM, classicmuse said:

Hey guys!

 

I went and took a look at the old family computer: a Dell Dimension 8250, and went to check out the original parts. Its horrifically dusty so be prepared for the viewing of some heart-wrenchingly ill treated parts  

 

If anyone has anything to share about these older parts who has more experience than me feel free to reminisce

 

Ive seen worse myself, my friend had one from like 4 years ago and it was filled with dust! could barely see the board! wish i had got a photo

 

[JoostinOnline]

On 3/8/2020 at 9:23 PM, emosun said:

RD ram , very oddball

 

On 3/8/2020 at 9:54 PM, Bitter said:

That's pretty unique, a very early Pentium 4 with Rambus RDRAM. 2 of those are 128MB for a total of 256MB, the other two are just place holders to resolve signal issues with empty slots.

I didn't really get into computers until ~2006, so I've never worked on anything that didn't have DDR RAM and later. Were those heat spreaders purely decorative like today, or were they actually necessary? It seems strange that they'd be included when windowed cases weren't much of a thing (outside of the fad of clear plastic, which applied more to consoles). Or was it just to distinguish them from the placeholders?

[Bombastinator]

On 3/8/2020 at 9:26 PM, classicmuse said:

Is the first pic a Sound card? I can't tell myself.

My guess is ethernet card.  Ethernet wasn’t always built into monos back then.

[Bombastinator]

26 minutes ago, JoostinOnline said:

 

I didn't really get into computers until ~2006, so I've never worked on anything that didn't have DDR RAM and later. Were those heat spreaders purely decorative like today, or were they actually necessary? It seems strange that they'd be included when windowed cases weren't much of a thing (outside of the fad of clear plastic, which applied more to consoles). Or was it just to distinguish them from the placeholders?

Not really necessary.  I’ve got a theory about heat spreaders involving static protection.  They’re waaay too popular to be reasonable even if they are cheap. Seeing them on an old prebuilt like that only supports it. I suspect they’re there because they reduce ram returns

[Bombastinator]

1 hour ago, Spoiled_Kitten said:

Ive seen worse myself, my friend had one from like 4 years ago and it was filled with dust! could barely see the board! wish i had got a photo

 

Agreed.  That’s not bad at all for a 20 year old machine.

[Dylanc1500]

49 minutes ago, JoostinOnline said:

 

I didn't really get into computers until ~2006, so I've never worked on anything that didn't have DDR RAM and later. Were those heat spreaders purely decorative like today, or were they actually necessary? It seems strange that they'd be included when windowed cases weren't much of a thing (outside of the fad of clear plastic, which applied more to consoles). Or was it just to distinguish them from the placeholders?

20 minutes ago, Bombastinator said:

Not really necessary.  I’ve got a theory about heat spreaders involving static protection.  They’re waaay too popular to be reasonable even if they are cheap. Seeing them on an old prebuilt like that only supports it. I suspect they’re there because they reduce ram returns

RDRAM memory chips put out a significant amount of heat which necessitated the use of heat spreaders, unlike standard SDRAM at the time. It was one of the downsides to RAMBUS.

[JoostinOnline]

1 hour ago, Dylanc1500 said:

RDRAM memory chips put out a significant amount of heat which necessitated the use of heat spreaders, unlike standard SDRAM at the time. It was one of the downsides to RAMBUS.

This seems to suggest otherwise. 1.1 watts isn't much.

[Bitter]

4 hours ago, JoostinOnline said:

This seems to suggest otherwise. 1.1 watts isn't much.

I can recall the modules in my friends system getting pretty toasty. Also open air test bench isn't even close to the same as a closed up OEM system with barely any airflow. RAM is working hard even when the CPU is not and in that system the case fan was also the CPU fan (BTX?). May have also been an issue with the RAM working better when kept cooler, like HBM.