Hi,

Since this is my first post I'll introduce myself by saying that I am a 20 something guy that enjoys tinkering with computers and video games. I get a kick out of fixing old computers, and I enjoy maxing out the hardware. Not for any particular reason other than satisfaction and curiosity. My hobby has led me to get myself certified for computer trouble shooting and repair.

Now that my intro is out of the way let me introduce this ancient budget mini tower I found on bulk pickup a few years ago.

CPU= Socket 7, 200 MHz Pentium
I upgraded this to a 233 MHz Pentium w/MMX (successful)

For the longest time I had no clue what the slot next to the CPU was, I spent many frustrated hours online, until I found out about COAST. I managed to find one module and it fits.

Drives= Had a Quantum "Bigfoot" at around 2GB in capacity. I never heard of hard drives so large in physical size when I found it. Needless to say I put in a spare hard drive of a more normal physical size. There was a modest increase in spindle speed and capacity. (successful)

The 16x CD ROM was swapped for a CDRW drive (successful)

With only one PCI slot among ISA slots I chose to put in a NIC as I've no idea where to start with a GPU. Furthermore the PSU doesn't seem standard and is of lower wattage.

The Motherboard had 16MB of RAM build in and only one slot for SDRAM which when filled to capacity gave me a grand total of 48MB of RAM. Through research I found that there were other mother boards that fit this weird case, and by getting a different board I bumped the RAM to 64MB.
Since the Motherboard is probably from a later model it may not even technically be a 4504 anymore.

Other oddities.

-It's from 1996 but it has USB
-No power button, I have to use the switch on the PSU in back
-When I first found it I thought it would be more powerful because the case looked pretty modern.
-Structurally it's completly non standard, proprietory screws had to be worked around. It was quite annoying to play with.

Now, I have some questions. It's okay if none of you know, I'm only asking because I've lurked here for a while and everyone here seems to be experts on older hardware.

(I don't expect miracles from upgrades, as explained above I simply get a thrill from maxing out specs)

1- Is the Pentium 233 w/mmx the best cpu that this model can use? I tried putting in a 300 MHz K6 but it wouldn't POST with it. What other CPU's could I try in this Socket 7?

2- Is a compact flash card with an adapter really usable? I've read about them being used as makeshift SSDs but I'm wary.

3- Supposedly there is an upgrade for the on board gpu,
model# 271435-001, I can't for the life of me find anything on it. Does anyone here know anything about this?

4- failing that, what would be some of the best pci video cards. I have some, but they use really recent chipsets, so I don't think they would play nice with this machine considering they are probably more powerful and have more RAM than the computer itself.

[img]http://repositorio2.masoportunidades.com.ar/A … 824_12_8_20.jpg[/img]

That one isn't mine, but that's what it looks like.