Show off your old and retro computer parts

[da na]

Extension of the post on the little IBM/Lenovo system, it uses a very peculiar 90 degree connector for the expansion slot - it has 2 connectors. One is ADD2 or PCIe 1x, and the other is PCI, but only 1 can face the back at a time. So you can unscrew the card, flip it around, and put it back in depending on which expansion slot you desire. Neat.

[sub68]

4 hours ago, Mel0nMan said:

School is retiring this TINY core 2 duo system. BIOS won’t tell me about the hardware and for some reason it’s running Windows 10, and as soon as I get to the login screen my monitor says the mode is unsupported so I’ll try and get it working on one of the it departments displays. It’s not SFF, it’s about 2/3 sff size.

 

 

so I looked at the MOBO

it comesback as a lenovo thinkcentre m55 sff

[da na]

1 minute ago, sub68 said:

so I looked at the MOBO

it comesback as a lenovo thinkcentre m55 sff

Will be helpful for troubleshooting as I can’t get it to recognize my monitor. It’s also got a few bulging caps by the cpu heat sink.

[sub68]

Just now, Mel0nMan said:

Will be helpful for troubleshooting as I can’t get it to recognize my monitor. It’s also got a few bulging caps by the cpu heat sink.

well its max 4gb so I think max you can run win 7.

hmm try a old 4:3 monitor.

[da na]

4 minutes ago, sub68 said:

well its max 4gb so I think max you can run win 7.

hmm try a old 4:3 monitor.

It’s freaking got Windows 10.

The video signal cuts out and the monitor says ‘unsupported mode’ once it gets to the login page stage but it’s got the blue Windows logo with the spinning dots, that’s visible. I believe only Windows 10 has that, 8 and 7 have different loading screens. And the BIOS is terrible and won’t tell me what hardware it has in it, but yes it has 2x2 ddr2 667 from looking at the sticks. My only native  vga monitor is a weird res (1366x768 @70hz) so that’s most likely the issue, it hasn’t worked well with old PCs in the past.

And do you think it would be worth replacing those caps? Or just using it until the board dies - seems to be working fine and seems to have been working fine for years. I’ll give it a Debian install on an SSD and that’ll make it usable.

[sub68]

1 minute ago, Mel0nMan said:

And the BIOS is terrible and won’t tell me what hardware it has in it

typical for school systems.

1 minute ago, Mel0nMan said:

It’s freaking got Windows 10.

yeah win 10 is gonna suck.

1 minute ago, Mel0nMan said:

The video signal cuts out and the monitor says ‘unsupported mode’ once it gets to the login page stage

huh are you running adapters?

[da na]

2 minutes ago, sub68 said:

typical for school systems.

yeah win 10 is gonna suck.

huh are you running adapters?

No adapter. Just a normal vga cable. It’s weird bc it goes to 700x400 on the BIOS and login screen then cuts out… maybe buying a dvi card for it will fix

[sub68]

1 minute ago, Mel0nMan said:

It’s weird bc it goes to 700x400 on the BIOS and login screen then cuts out

thats normal for BIOS to do that...

1 minute ago, Mel0nMan said:

No adapter. Just a normal vga cable.

huh werid

[Mitko_DSV]

11 minutes ago, Mel0nMan said:

The video signal cuts out and the monitor says ‘unsupported mode’ once it gets to the login page stage but it’s got the blue Windows logo with the spinning dots, that’s visible. I believe only Windows 10 has that, 8 and 7 have different loading screens.

I believe Windows 8, 8.1 and 10 have the same loading screen with the blue Windows logo and spinning dots.

[da na]

3 minutes ago, Mitko_DSV said:

I believe Windows 8, 8.1 and 10 have the same loading screen with the blue Windows logo and spinning dots.

Interesting - will look into it, I’ve got to put the hdd in a caddy to wipe it anyway so I’ll look at the files to see if it’s 8 or 10 ( usually pretty distinct), but I will say I’ve seen about 30 school machines and none have 8, apparently they went straight from 7-10.

[da na]

And last post on the ThinkCentre: It's got 2x2gb DDR2 667 and a C2D 6400. Windows 10. 

[Bitter]

Boot in safe mode, if you interrupt the boot a few times it'll default to the windows boot options menu. In safe mode it'll run a crappy default res that should display on anything.

[ZeblodS]

I think people don't use those that much anymore: Gigabyte i-RAM with 4GB of DDR (first gen) and a SATA connection (first gen too)... The battery died a long time ago.

 

[Inevitable_tech]

Old and retro hmmm I have a NvdiaG210 that can be put in a museum by now I guess..........
 

[SimplyChunk]

So club secretary's upgrade was a success

Bonus is i got to keep his old tech

Here's the graphics card.  Not sure what it is but it's 128MB and made by Asus

Also got his old board, chip and RAM

 

The board is an MSi MS 6577 Rev 2.1

the Chip is a Pentium 4 2.66

The RAM is just some generic value stuff

[Bitter]

That's a Geforce4 MX440.

https://www.techpowerup.com/gpu-specs/geforce4-mx-440.c781

I don't recall it being any good when it was new, it was a small step up from their most budget card at the time and found it's way into a lot of laptops as a result of it's low power draw. The MX420 I think was even used as onboard graphics for some motherboards here and there but I can't dig anything up on that now.

[SimplyChunk]

7 hours ago, Bitter said:

That's a Geforce4 MX440.

https://www.techpowerup.com/gpu-specs/geforce4-mx-440.c781

I don't recall it being any good when it was new, it was a small step up from their most budget card at the time and found it's way into a lot of laptops as a result of it's low power draw. The MX420 I think was even used as onboard graphics for some motherboards here and there but I can't dig anything up on that now.

Thanks man

[Radium_Angel]

A very long time ago, in the Pentium iii era, I had either a mini tower Dell or Gateway (the case was beige, I recall that much) that was about the size of a shoebox, stood up on its end. It was also pretty squared off (unlike some of those weird Compaqs that look like they'd been designed in a wind tunnel) on the edges.

I wanna say the P3 was around 933Mhz, but I cant say for certain. I'd like to get one again, just for the Hell of it. But darned if I can find the system again, any help here?

[da na]

7 minutes ago, Radium_Angel said:

(unlike some of those weird Compaqs that look like they'd been designed in a wind tunnel)

Pretty much describes all Compaqs from '94-'06.

Like this sort of case design? Or even more square?

[Radium_Angel]

1 hour ago, Mel0nMan said:

Pretty much describes all Compaqs from '94-'06.

Like this sort of case design? Or even more square?

Much more squared off, and smaller (only room for a single cd-rom external slot). IIRC (and I may not) the side panel was one piece, like an inverted U, but this was some time ago, so my memory could be way of.

[Radium_Angel]

@Mel0nMan

 

I think this is it

https://www.ebay.com/itm/294227136197

 

Thats as close as I could find anyway

[Bitter]

2 hours ago, Radium_Angel said:

@Mel0nMan

 

I think this is it

https://www.ebay.com/itm/294227136197

 

Thats as close as I could find anyway

Ehhhhhh those old OEM systems are not really worth it unless you just want an old looking case (and there's better old cases), you'll have more fun parting something together that's not all locked down so you can play with it more.

[da na]

20 hours ago, Bitter said:

Ehhhhhh those old OEM systems are not really worth it unless you just want an old looking case (and there's better old cases), you'll have more fun parting something together that's not all locked down so you can play with it more.

Yeah, really wish my Pentium 4 HT system wasn't in a SFF case. It'd be a great test bench otherwise. 

[Bitter]

3 hours ago, Mel0nMan said:

Yeah, really wish my Pentium 4 HT system wasn't in a SFF case. It'd be a great test bench otherwise. 

Is it a standard size/shape motherboard otherwise? I've got two of these I use to tinker with, they're decent.

https://www.amazon.com/Mining-Machine-Thickened-Motherboard-Bracket/dp/B092VZ5RZH/

[da na]

2 hours ago, Bitter said:

Is it a standard size/shape motherboard otherwise? I've got two of these I use to tinker with, they're decent.

https://www.amazon.com/Mining-Machine-Thickened-Motherboard-Bracket/dp/B092VZ5RZH/

It's standard BTX as far as I can tell