I was given all of these computers for free, I've never actually bought a Dell myself and generally wouldn't consider it. But here they are:

Dell Dimension XPS D266
Intel AL440LX, Slot 1 Motherboard
Intel Pentium II @ 266MHz
160MB PC100 SDRAM
40GB IDE HDD
Nvidia Riva 128 4MB AGP Graphics Card
1x CD-Rom Drive, 1x CD-ReWrite Drive
1x Zip 100 Drive, 1x 3 ½“ Floppy Drive

OS: Windows XP Pro

I'll get around to removing XP from this 1 day. This was used as a very slow office PC in the early-mid 2000s, they definitely must have had a lot of patience with that setup. 🤣

Next 2,

Top:

Dell OptiPlex 425s/L
AMD Am486 DX-40 @ 33MHz
28MB EDO RAM
2.5GB IDE HDD
Tseng Labs ET 4000 1MB Onboard Graphics
3Com EtherLink III 3C509B ISA 10Mbps Ethernet
CD-Rom Drive

OS: Windows 95

Has a dead PC speaker, which does limit it's usefulness somewhat with regards to DOS gaming.

Bottom:

Dell OptiPlex GX1
Intel Pentium III @ 500MHz
100MHz FSB
128MB PC133 SDRAM
160GB IDE HDD
ATI Rage 3D Pro 4MB Onboard Graphics
Crystal Semiconductor CS4236B Onboard Sound
3Com 3C905B Fast Etherlink XL Onboard 10/100Mbps Ethernet
Silicon Image Sil 0680 PCI E-IDE/RAID Card
CD-ReWriter Drive

OS: Windows 98 SE

I've managed to break the Floppy eject mechanism and will need to fix this one day, but otherwise not a bad little system, hasn't had a lot of usage however.

Next up, a Dell Laptop -

Dell Inspiron 2500
Intel Pentium III @ 897MHz
512MB PC133 SODIMM RAM
40GB IDE HDD
Intel 82815 4MB Onboard Graphics
Intel 82801BA AC’97 Onboard Sound
Onboard 10/100Mbps Ethernet
Netgear PCMCIA 108Mbps Wi-Fi Adapter (Atheros AR5001X)
1x CD-Rom Drive
1x Floppy Drive

Primary OS: Windows XP Professional
Secondary OS: Windows 98 SE

This actually is quite a nice laptop, have used it quite a bit. It's floppy drive was extremely helpful when I was setting up older systems, for creating boot disks etc. With the help of a script blocker & ad-block addons, it's even quite nice to browse the internet in Firefox.

I just wish it's DOS support was better, never could get sound working.

Needs a new battery, which I'll try to get around to eventually. However I did notice that it seemed to start having graphics issues a few months back - flashes, freezes & lines on screen even in the BIOS, indicating an imminent hardware failure, but it has since seemingly cleared up.

Finally the newest Dell in my collection.

Dell Dimension 9150
Intel Pentium D 830 Dual Core @ 3.0GHz
800MHz FSB
2GB PC2-4200 DDR2 RAM
250GB SATA HDD
AMD Radeon HD 5450 512MB PCIe Graphics
Onboard RealTek 5.1 Sound
SoundBlaster 5.1 PCI Sound Card (I can't recall the model no, it's used primarily for DD/DTS digital passthrough)
Intel Pro 100/1000 PL Onboard Gigabit Ethernet
1x HD-DVD Drive

OS: Windows 8.1 Pro

Excuse the poor picture, it's in a tight space. The mess of wires and the PC itself is hidden away from view and it's currently serving as a bedroom HTPC due to it's spec & general low noise output. It pretty much spends the majority of it's time running Kodi, with the occasional Netflix & Now TV usage.

Damn that's a nice haul for free. How'd you get them?

oeuvre wrote:

Damn that's a nice haul for free. How'd you get them?

I do a lot of computer repair/maintenance work for a local church and 3 of those systems came from the same place/people who worked there. The GX1 came from somebody who attended church there also. I got them all given to me over a period of several years, the Dimension 9150 being the newest addition which I only got about 2 years ago.

The OptiPlex 425s/L I've had for years, hence why it looks the scruffiest. I got that from a friend of the family, who again I also did computer repair/maintenance for.

I pretty much acquired the majority of my old retro computers for free through people who I did computer work for. To them this stuff was just old junk that they were more than happy to get rid of. 🤣

Dell Latitude E6430

Intel Core i5-3210m @ 2.5GHz turbo 3.1GHz
6gb DDR3 1600MHz
Intel HD 4000
128gb Samsung SSD PM830
14" 1600x900

Dell PowerEdge 2950

2x Intel Xeon E5420 @ 2.5GHz
32gb DDR2 ECC 667MHz
ATI ES1000
4x 146gb SAS HDD

From left to right
XPS T500 upgraded to 1Ghz that has its own post here
Dell makes surprisingly good retro PC's

2 Precision T5500's
Both originally had a single 2Ghz CPU running WinXP x64 with 2GB Ram and used as CCTV servers.
I got the 2nd CPU cage for the one on the left, stolen the RAM/CPU from the other and now my ESXi host (for when I get around to playing with old server OS's)

4 Poweredge R710's
All servers are single CPU running 2.2 or 2.4 Ghz, about 2GB RAM.
The 2 with Dell badges ran Win03 x32 and come with the full idrac out of band management, used to be the on site main POS server for a restaurant chain
the other 2 were CCTV servers running the exact same config as the T5500's above, with idrac express, From the same restaurant chain
Mix of SAS or SATA raid's
I like working on these servers alot, only even had 2 with failed fans (that are hot swap) and fair few HDD's and RAID batteries from looking after about 20 of these

3 Poweredge R210's
CPU's and ram about the same as the R710's, idrac express, also running Win03 x32. Ran a separate application at each restaurant.
Only negative is the lack of hot swap HDD's otherwise these would make more scene then the R710's

CCTV's have been replaced with dedicated DVR's, the Application servers were virtulised onto a single new box when upgraded to 2008 making these all surplus.
They all work, I just don't have any sue for them so are sitting in storage for now.

And lastly a Latitude E5500 with Core2 Duo 2.53 Ghz, 4GB RAM, Was my Win10 trail PC, doesnt get much use now.

Have a couple of old PDAs, including this one, the AXIM X51V

486 Needs work. Complete rebuild in progress.

A pair of GX-270 with ATI Rage 128 Pro graphics. with NEW motherboards.

Cloudschatze wrote:

Various permutations of my OptiPlex GXa and Dimension 466 DMT builds. Oh, boy... […]
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Various permutations of my OptiPlex GXa and Dimension 466 DMT builds. Oh, boy...

Wow !
You are a real DELL guy.
Are those Original dell cards?
What type of cards are those ?
Nice clean builds.

Inspirion 5150. 3.06GHz Pentium 4, Nvidia GeForce FX Go5200. I originally picked this up because I wanted the power brick it came with for another machine, then I powered it up and discovered the 1400 x 1050 display. So I'll play with it for a bit until I find out if that display will fit in any of my Thinkpads.

There are no Win 7 or even Vista drivers that I can find for the Go5200. Installing the XP drivers gets a 1400 x 1050 desktop, but isn't stable. Even trying to run GPU-Z crashes it.

dr.ido wrote:

https://i.imgur.com/R7zvGyg.jpg […]
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Inspirion 5150. 3.06GHz Pentium 4, Nvidia GeForce FX Go5200. I originally picked this up because I wanted the power brick it came with for another machine, then I powered it up and discovered the 1400 x 1050 display. So I'll play with it for a bit until I find out if that display will fit in any of my Thinkpads.

There are no Win 7 or even Vista drivers that I can find for the Go5200. Installing the XP drivers gets a 1400 x 1050 desktop, but isn't stable. Even trying to run GPU-Z crashes it.

I owned one of these when they were new with the exact same specs. I definitely had Vista running on it (briefly) with video drivers. You should be able to get them. Those laptops are tanks.

Right now I've got XP running on it and I'm experiencing the same problems I was under Windows 7. So I think I have a bad version of the driver. I've read various old posts about which versions of the drivers will run under Win 7 (and Vista) and various guides about modding other drivers to work, but ultimately I think it is a dead end. I don't doubt that it could be made to work, but with only 32MB of VRAM on this version I don't think it will ever work well. Next stop Win98, but that's another post.

Dell 325SX

I don't have the key, but it isn't locked.
Doesn't have hard drive nor does it have math coprocessor, but I'm planning on adding them.
The battery was removed (mainboard only has small leakage damage, doesn't seem important).
I can't get past boot, because I always get a Keyboard Failure error (sometimes is a Data Line Failure, but most of the time is a Clock Line Failure)... still haven't found how to solve the problem.

Nice! I have the Dell 333P - really love that style of case 😀

I hope the battery leak hasn't affected any of the traces to the keyboard ps/2 port as they'd be under where the battery used to sit. My battery leaked too but luckily didn't affect anything.

dr.ido wrote:

Right now I've got XP running on it and I'm experiencing the same problems I was under Windows 7. So I think I have a bad version of the driver. I've read various old posts about which versions of the drivers will run under Win 7 (and Vista) and various guides about modding other drivers to work, but ultimately I think it is a dead end. I don't doubt that it could be made to work, but with only 32MB of VRAM on this version I don't think it will ever work well. Next stop Win98, but that's another post.

It should run XP no issue at all since it came with it from the factory. Did you try the Dell support site for divers? Also, the gpu can be swapped out on the 5150. Its on a small daughter board under the keyboard. You could upgrade to a 64MB FX Go5200 or possibly a Mobility Radeon 9000 from the 5100. There's a 64MB FX Go5200 for an inspiron 5150 on eBay right now for $15. I'd try the Dell site for divers first though: https://www.dell.com/support/home/us/en/04/dr … driverId=R89437

I've got the Dell drivers and various other drivers I found linked here and elsewhere... I think some of the crashes I am experiencing are from when software tries to identify the card. GPU-Z crashes hard. GTA-SA will play (slowly), but crashes if you try to change any video settings. I've also got a 1150 which appears to be the basically the same machine without the Go5200. I've been trying to get Win98 running on them without much success despite finding Win98 drivers for most components, but that's another story. I'll play with them a bit longer before I decide their fate. I do have a HP and an Acer with the Mobility Radeon 9000, maybe I'll see if I can swap them over.

Well, this is kind of crossposting from the For the Love of Optiplex thread, but I guess I may as well..

I have a very prized Optiplex, a GX110 in the small desktop form factor. I got it with a 733MHz Coppermine, 256MB RAM and a 40GB HDD. I upgraded it to a 1GHz Coppermine, 512MB RAM and a 120GB HDD. The riser I have is PCI only so for now I upgraded it to a Radeon 7000 PCI and a Terratec i128 SOLO-1. It is a very nice Win98/Win2K dual boot PC that I can use for pretty much everything from 1991-2000, it will likely end up on my current work desk under my main PC monitor as my go-to retro system; I just love the form and the case.

I would also love to use an AWE64 in this system but I can not, for the life of me, find the PCI/ISA riser card for this case on sale anywhere. Maybe someone in this forum can help me with getting one? 😎

I also have a mostly original configuration Dell XPS D333 tower that is badly in need of restoration. It lacks a 3.5" bay cover, but these cases have non-standard bay covers so I haven't been able to shut it closed. I'm in the market for a zip drive to install there for now. Internal zip drives seem to have gotten really obscure for some reason 😢

sirlemonhead wrote:

I hope the battery leak hasn't affected any of the traces to the keyboard ps/2 port as they'd be under where the battery used to sit. My battery leaked too but luckily didn't affect anything.

I'll have to check that. Thanks for the help 😀

I think GX100 and GX110 had different riser layouts than the previous GX1, GXi, GXa... so you're stuck with PCI on that.

oeuvre wrote:

I think GX100 and GX110 had different riser layouts than the previous GX1, GXi, GXa... so you're stuck with PCI on that.

A PCI/ISA riser for the GX100/110 actually does exist, but is apparently very rare.. My search for one continues..

appiah4 wrote:

oeuvre wrote:

I think GX100 and GX110 had different riser layouts than the previous GX1, GXi, GXa... so you're stuck with PCI on that.

A PCI/ISA riser for the GX100/110 actually does exist, but is apparently very rare.. My search for one continues..

I have a ton of those risers at work since we used the GX100 and GX110 extensively. Next time we do a scrap/recycle day cleanup, I will grab some.