It was a Packard Bell that first taught me that not every computer found in a thrift store is worth having. 😀

Pics pls! I can google images, but that's not as good as you showing your new toy directly. Do share.

The various Packard Bells that I've had over the years seemed to work pretty well. So yeah, I've got a little bit of fondness for Packard Bells. 😀 Bear in mind that PB had one of the highest DOA averages during the 90's, though I guess most of the true duds have passed on since then.

This reminds me, I've got a Packard Bell Legend 300CD sitting in storage right now. IIRC, the specs are

Pentium 60MHz
24MB RAM
420MB Seagate HDD
Cirrus Logic graphics
Typical PB sound/modem combo card
DOS 6.22 / WfW 3.11

Might have to pull that thing out of storage and show it off. I even have its matching monitor, with speakers still attached.

I admit I have a soft spot for them. I really like the oddball cases on some models but there system for naming models and what not was very inconsistent. I probably own 5 or 6 different PB's. my main 8088 system is a tricked out Packard Bell 500. it actually makes a really nice old school 8088 system for CGA stuff and its very compact case with built in floppy controller so you have all 5 ISA slots free. the only thing I can say negative about it is you cant disable the on board floppy controller but that's a very minor gripe.

I don't love them, but I dig the name. Packard Bell. Sounds awesome.

I dealt with lots of PB's back in the day. Contrary to what I've always heard (even then), I never found them all that unreliable. Quite the opposite actually. They were however often bizarrely proprietary which was a pain in the ass to deal with.

I can't say I like them. The only stuff I actually seem to like is OEM stuff that only exists on pre-built PCs or bought from the same company seperately. For example, there are some fancy 5.25" media control units for ESS sound cards and other very rare items that was never sold seperately (and most folks probably never seen or heard of it). Stuff like this was usually sold to the original purchaser of the PC via private catalog (or maybe a personal order with a store like Radio Shack), and is really uncommon and hard to find, but when found is usually cheap despite the high quality and obscurity and can usually be used with consumer hardware. It is unlikely this OEM proprietary hardware was ever seen by anyone but the original purchaser.

There is certainly nothing wrong with a Packard Bell like yours for retro purposes (unless you can't disable cache or change multiplier. But still). I find it amazing it has an S3 card (that is the best DOS card according to some sources). I see a lot more stuff wrong with a custom 440bx with a pentium 3 and geforce 4 or something like that which a lot of folks here seem to like. You could probably add a voodoo 1 or 2.

Congratulations on appreciating the machine (Packard Bell Pro)! Cheers!

I had 2 Packard Bell computers in the 90s.

Here are some PB sites from archive.org which may interest you:
https://web.archive.org/web/20000303155634/ht … packardbell.htm
https://web.archive.org/web/20010420114108/ht … oads/index.html
https://web.archive.org/web/20000608134250/ht … 8774/index.html

I like some of their old boards ((super) socket 7 comes to mind)), though I don't like their cases.

I remember the stigma of these machines, even though I never knew anyone who owned one. Although I always liked the phase-shifting-dude logo. I'd love to know the story behind this.

[img]http://synthetica_media.s3.amazonaws.com/images/packard_bell_logo.png[/img]

Packard Bell Legend 80386 SX-25MHZ, still working fine.

They are usually extremely stable and dependable machines. I do remember that their performance was sub-par though. But for many stability and ease of use (excellent documentation / lots of utilities factory loaded) outweighed performance but the hassle of self built machines.

I will try to get some pics of the entire computer soon. I already had it disassembled for cleaning. I never owned one and I remember poking fun at anyone that bought one because most of them didn't have any cache and were poor performers. It seems some of them do have cache and it seems the motherboard is LPX form factor and although kind of odd not proprietary. It also seems this motherboard was built by intel and is one of their Orlando series. I can't find anything wrong with the design other than I don't like the modem/sound card combo and I will not be using its TV capture card. I wonder which models had high DOA rates and why? If they all used Intel boards, i have no idea if they did, that would not have been the issue. Perhaps subpar power supplies? That's where a lot of cheap machines skimp. Hopefully I have enough time today to finish cleaning the chassis, clean the panels and get the motherboard back in. Still have to test and clean other hardware.

Here a few pics. Maybe I did the inline thing right now?

Bare chassis - almost clean

Motherboard - cleaned except for external connectors

Thanks for all the info everyone.

I used to sell Packard Bell machines in a department store back in '95/'96. I never felt there was much to love, as they were low spec entry level units (Oz undoubtedly didn't get the full PB range) OTOH, they didn't seem to have high failure rates back then. I had much more love for Gateway 2000 and Dell, which were always better value, better specced and more expandable.

That's an Intel NV430VX. I found the same motherboard in a Packard Bell a few years ago. It's the only Packard Bell I've ever had, I didn't see anything at all wrong with it. Seemed like a high quality machine, actually.
I'm comparing photos, and I see that yours has more ICs installed on the motherboard than mine. I guess those are for the TV tuner that you mentioned, mine didn't have that.
Mine has the 9pin connector that yours is missing, which I guess is a serial port. But mine lacks the 2 connectors underneath that.

We had a pair of Packard Bells with monochrome graphics in the math class in middle/high school. They were pretty much used solely for a port of space war, and moon lander.

We had waaaay more fun with the Apple IIs in middle school. Especially Oregon Trail.

I recently picked up a Packard Bell Pack-Mate X-18 386sx-16, and for what it is it's pretty nice. I like the fact that it's got both PS/2 mouse and keyboard connections, plus it came with a 387, though I doubt I'll need it. Everything on it just works, even the onboard battery still holds a charge, but I quickly removed it anyways as a precaution. Being 23 years old it's in amazingly good shape, I'm just not sure how often I'll use it. Overall I'm impressed with Packard Bells, of this generation at least. I remember some friends in the 90's had Pentiums and no end of problems.

What many Americans don't know is the brand "Packard Bell" was resurrected in the United Kingdom and Europe in the mid 2000's to sell PCs.

You could argue it never really died. First it was bought by... either Fujitsu or Samsung I think, then later part of the Acer brands.

http://www.packardbell.co.uk/
http://www.packardbell.com/

http://web.archive.org/web/20050401000000*/ht … ckardbell.co.uk gives a good summary. 😀

Harekiet wrote:

Packard Bell Legend 80386 SX-25MHZ, still working fine.

My Legend SX-16Mhz is golden too!