Hi and welcome,
What specs are you looking for?

For what I can tell:
I think the sound card is a vanilla Aztech Sound Card common in late 16-bit HP Vectra PCs.
The G400 is an old hardware, so it has its place here in Marvin. It's a Vectra 6 desktop, so I suppose the video card is not embedded. But the same as for the sound card, a Matrox G400 is common in P2/P3 Gen 6, so it is probably vanilla too.
I'm not sure for the 3Com though. Maybe you have PCI EtherLink III of some kind. I don't know if it is vanilla or not. HP could have used 3Com on Gen 6, but as they were making their own NIC with different chipsets too, I can't tell but can be.
About the RAM... I suppose the MB have an Intel 440GX so that means 3 Gigs max with 1 GB split on 3 slots. Depending of what you want to do with it, a lot of RAM is useful for Windows NT 4.0 / 2000 but absolutely useless for Windows 98SE or ME that should be be kept at 512 MB max to avoid problems.
Please send pictures of the motherboard and PSU. HP had a LOT of variations on their Vectras, that can help to see things more clearly.

Original specs can differ quite a lot between markets, sometimes even within same model number. In any event motherboard and sound card are original, a P2-333 actually would be a downgrade in most i440BX systems (as 66MHz FSB), but wouldn't be the first OEM system nerfed for marketing purposes. The 512MB DIMM isn't even supported fully by the chipset, so no way is that original. I doubt the G400 too, that's a 1999 card, I'd sooner expect a G200 in a 1998 system.

How about just looking in old magazines online (pretty much every Personal Computer World is available online) and looking in things from mid-1998 (i440BX was released in April 1998...) for HP Vectra advertisements where you can see HDD, RAM and VGA specs, and whether that 3Com NIC was original.

You can get a fairly good idea of the original spec from here - https://store.emprgroup.com.au/hpi-970162455- … s-8-d6561a.aspx

- video would have been a Matrox Productiva G100

- there was a BIOS update to fix issues with the G100 though not sure that is the problem with the G400 - https://www.driverguide.com/driver/detail.php … riverid=1372706

- your audio card is likely an HP / Aztech AZT1008 (AZT2320 chip); this one possibly - https://www.philscomputerlab.com/hp-mm-pro-16v-a.html

- netwok was 3Com as per the first link

An HP Vectra workstation with Pentium II @ 333 was probably designed to run Win NT 4.0
Most likely built before 1998
But it can run Win98 okay. But a little slow for Win2000

I think you should consider SPEED first and what Operating systems would run best on this computer.

For a Pentium II @ 333mhz:
DOS/Win3x ( Fast Performance )
Win95 ( Fast Performance )
Win98se ( Fast Performance )
WinME ( Fast Performance )
Win2000 ( Okay Performance )
WinXP ( No, Not good )

Once you decide which OS to use then select supported cards.

So If you can tell us which OS you want to run then we can help recommend appropriate cards with driver support.

Datadrainer wrote on 2022-03-18, 09:51:

Hi and welcome, What specs are you looking for? […]
Show full quote

Hi and welcome,
What specs are you looking for?

For what I can tell:
I think the sound card is a vanilla Aztech Sound Card common in late 16-bit HP Vectra PCs.
The G400 is an old hardware, so it has its place here in Marvin. It's a Vectra 6 desktop, so I suppose the video card is not embedded. But the same as for the sound card, a Matrox G400 is common in P2/P3 Gen 6, so it is probably vanilla too.
I'm not sure for the 3Com though. Maybe you have PCI EtherLink III of some kind. I don't know if it is vanilla or not. HP could have used 3Com on Gen 6, but as they were making their own NIC with different chipsets too, I can't tell but can be.
About the RAM... I suppose the MB have an Intel 440GX so that means 3 Gigs max with 1 GB split on 3 slots. Depending of what you want to do with it, a lot of RAM is useful for Windows NT 4.0 / 2000 but absolutely useless for Windows 98SE or ME that should be be kept at 512 MB max to avoid problems.
Please send pictures of the motherboard and PSU. HP had a LOT of variations on their Vectras, that can help to see things more clearly.

So basically I'm looking to find out which components have been changed/upgraded from the original setup. I'll send pics soon.

dionb wrote on 2022-03-18, 10:28:

Original specs can differ quite a lot between markets, sometimes even within same model number. In any event motherboard and sound card are original, a P2-333 actually would be a downgrade in most i440BX systems (as 66MHz FSB), but wouldn't be the first OEM system nerfed for marketing purposes. The 512MB DIMM isn't even supported fully by the chipset, so no way is that original. I doubt the G400 too, that's a 1999 card, I'd sooner expect a G200 in a 1998 system.

How about just looking in old magazines online (pretty much every Personal Computer World is available online) and looking in things from mid-1998 (i440BX was released in April 1998...) for HP Vectra advertisements where you can see HDD, RAM and VGA specs, and whether that 3Com NIC was original.

I found an official manual of some kind mentioning that the vectras at that time had a g100 or g200. I think all three DIMMs installed are different. I'll try to figure which one is the original one since they clearly have been mixed. I'll check those magazines. I didn't even think of that. Thanks.

PC Hoarder Patrol wrote on 2022-03-18, 10:46:

You can get a fairly good idea of the original spec from here - https://store.emprgroup.com.au/hpi-970162455- … s-8-d6561a.aspx […]
Show full quote

You can get a fairly good idea of the original spec from here - https://store.emprgroup.com.au/hpi-970162455- … s-8-d6561a.aspx

- video would have been a Matrox Productiva G100

- there was a BIOS update to fix issues with the G100 though not sure that is the problem with the G400 - https://www.driverguide.com/driver/detail.php … riverid=1372706

- your audio card is likely an HP / Aztech AZT1008 (AZT2320 chip); this one possibly - https://www.philscomputerlab.com/hp-mm-pro-16v-a.html

- netwok was 3Com as per the first link

Yes. We are getting there. Thanks.

Intel486dx33 wrote on 2022-03-18, 11:21:

An HP Vectra workstation with Pentium II @ 333 was probably designed to run Win NT 4.0 Most likely built before 1998 But it can […]
Show full quote

An HP Vectra workstation with Pentium II @ 333 was probably designed to run Win NT 4.0
Most likely built before 1998
But it can run Win98 okay. But a little slow for Win2000

I think you should consider SPEED first and what Operating systems would run best on this computer.

For a Pentium II @ 333mhz:
DOS/Win3x ( Fast Performance )
Win95 ( Fast Performance )
Win98se ( Fast Performance )
WinME ( Fast Performance )
Win2000 ( Okay Performance )
WinXP ( No, Not good )

Once you decide which OS to use then select supported cards.

So If you can tell us which OS you want to run then we can help recommend appropriate cards with driver support.

There's a windows 95 sticker in the front so I'm going to go with that.

I'll post some pics soon.

Here are some pics.

StopNot wrote on 2022-03-18, 13:29:

[...]

There's a windows 95 sticker in the front so I'm going to go with that.

That's relevant, because it dates this system between early April 1998 (when the i440BX became available) and late June 1998 (general release of Win98; HP was on bandwagon from the start). So you have <3 month timeframe to work with.

dionb wrote on 2022-03-18, 19:03:

StopNot wrote on 2022-03-18, 13:29:

[...]

There's a windows 95 sticker in the front so I'm going to go with that.

That's relevant, because it dates this system between early April 1998 (when the i440BX became available) and late June 1998 (general release of Win98; HP was on bandwagon from the start). So you have <3 month timeframe to work with.

Oh! Well that's interesting. Now I have a good starting point. I need to check those magazines when I have time.

I found this ad in PC World from October 1998. I think it is close to what I have. Although the my Vectra is a mini tower.