I can't say I'm crazy about them, and every time I supported someone with one it was a pain. I can't remember if they were always shoddy, or good at first, then shoddy, then good again, or shoddy for a really long time and then finally good. But I do know they have a reputation as being a bit crap.

I'm a big fan of Packard Bell. So much that I currently own 9 of them and yes... they all work great!

My first machine as a kid was a brand new Packard Bell Legend with a 486DX2-66, 8mb of ram, a 420mb hard drive and Windows 3.11. I enjoyed that machine so much. It lasted us from early 1995 to late 1999 when the power supply finally died in it. I know a lot of people love to crack on PB for the failure rates, but it wasn't as bad as it was portrayed. Couldn't have been too bad considering I have 9 working ones and know many people that have multiples that all work as well.

If anyone needs any PB master CDs, let me know.

Never liked the pre-build machines. Very often no agp slot even when pci graphics became outdated, fewer pci slots, no updates for support of newer cpu`s that could easily fit the boards, non-standard psu`s, no overclock options, only 1 or 2 ram slots etc. etc.

Compaq made a good machine with the p3 EN series en Dell made a couple of good ones too (and loved their laptops).

Since my second pc back in 96 or so i was always a fan of buiding pc`s with the options i needed. And much better upgrade paths.

Never had one myself, but my uncle bought one in 1991 to help with his accounting job and learn about computers in general as well. All I remember is that it was a Legend 486DX-33 desktop model with 14 in. monitor, 3.5 and 5.25 floppy drives, 60MB Seagate hard drive, 4MB of ram, integrated 512K Oak video chip and 1200 baud modem. It was upgraded several times, and also became my personal computer lab and experimental subject 😈 . It took a lot of punishment from both of us, but always came back as if nothing ever happened. I learned a lot from it about how computers worked and behaved. Sadly, it's no longer around; by 1997 my uncle got tired of looking at it just languishing inside a closet and gave it away to a local church, complete with manuals and floppies. Haven't seen it since.

And since we're talking about Packard Bells, can anyone tell me to which model(s) this Master CD, Multimedia CD and set of floppies belong to? I got them in 2001 at a swap meet along with other PC software and manuals inside a couple of boxes. Can't find much info on them online.

JayCeeBee64 wrote:

And since we're talking about Packard Bells, can anyone tell me to which model(s) this Master CD, Multimedia CD and set of floppies belong to? I got them in 2001 at a swap meet along with other PC software and manuals inside a couple of boxes. Can't find much info on them online.

I don't know specifically, but I notice they use the term "Multimedia" on those discs. I think that places them in the socket-7 era. They used that word in the branding of their PCs at that time. I think I even remember seeing that buzzword on some late 486s, but I know it was on the socket-7 I found a few years ago.

Since it's a CD, maybe it works on a broad range of systems from the time period, but I've never actually seen or installed one of those discs.

Those restore floppies seem to imply they might predate the use of bootable CDROM drives. Otherwise it seems they would have used a CD.

The CD on the left would be late 1994 or early 1995. I believe it's for the Pentium models they had at the time. The CD on the right is probably late 93/early 94. The floppies appear to be late 94/early 95 as well.

My first and only new pre built computer was a Packard Bell 286-12 back in the late 80's, hated that thing (probably because of the PB .4x VGA monitor). It was reliable even after changing hands a few times.

The only PB's in my collection are a P60 or P66 desktop and a Statesman laptop.

My first computer was a PB C115
Pentium 120
16mb Ram
8x CD Rom
S3 Trio64
1.2 GB HD

I still have this computer from 1996 and it works just the same. I recently picked up to PB 486 systems PB 610 and PB Multimedia. The only difference is one comes with CD Rom and the other doesnt. But all the hardware is identically besides that.

Don't upload big photos that are wider than the forum. They get cut off now to prevent side scrolling.

Anyway, I had a Packard Bell Pentium 150 machine that I overclocked to 200 when it was starting to get long in the tooth. I had read somewhere that the P-150 and the P-166 were the same chip, just labeled differently for 60 and 66mhz bus machines and that the 166 could handle 200mhz easily so I tried it with the 150 and it worked fine. That damn Packard Bell was the worst when it came to upgrades, though. It only had 2 RAM slots and the case had so many useless supports inside that it made it impossible to get a hand in there to change anything. I had to do some serious cutting before I could do any upgrading on that machine.

No real love for PB here, especially not the laptops with the brand stuck on them that are around today - though I doubt they have much if anything to do with the original company.

To be fair to them though, the Pulsar 16 is a resilient little bastard. Unfortunately, even with 64MB or EDO RAM and a Pentium 233 MMX it is outstripped by a 486SX in several tasks... Mostly games. Ran demos OK though until I replaced it with a much more flexible Cyrix MX custom build. Now it houses a P75, the performance drop-off is marginal implying some kind of bottleneck, so it's found it's niche; As a slower machine, it is very compatible, very reliable and very quiet. The expansion slots are horrible though, as the CPU is in the way of the bottom ISA slot leaving you only the slot above which shares with the bottom PCI slot, this leaves only top PCI slot for Ethernet and the tag is up against the case making it a pain in the ass to take the cable out. But it cost somewhere between £5-£10 around a decade ago, so I've never really complained about anything.

Oddly, I discovered that the parts, other than the PSU, were identical to an AST machine from the same era. I suspect Intel made the motherboard. The PB even has the spare header space for the YMF719 that the AST system had onboard. Strangely, despite identical layout and parts, the AST board is a tiny bit faster.

Lol Yes I love Packard Bell computers! I only own one at the moment but I hope to own more. 😁

My fathers first computer was an old 386 Packard Bell, however the one I remember using was a designer model case from the mid 90's. I just love the way those cases look. For a long time that computer was my main rig. Much like my IBM PCjr it was a love / Hate relationship. 🤣
But now that I own another one that is very similar I love it to bits, it's my "time machine" of sorts because it takes me right back to using computers for the first time, if I could only find a matching CRT it would be perfect.

Also contrary to the whole "packard hell" stuff everyone was saying back in the day I find these computers to be extremely reliable and easy to work on. Oh sure I've had some compatibility issues but that was solved by swapping out the aztech soundcard.

Here's mine as I'm sure you've all seen it by now:

heres the PB I most commonly use

DOS 3.3
NEC V20 4.77mhz and 10mhz turbo
8087 math copro
640KB RAM
720KB floppy drive
20MB MFM drive
ATI small wonder CGA card
Sound Blaster 2.0 w/CMS chips

Its probably getting a upgrade to the hard drive controller soon so I can use a CF card or a microdrive and open that bay up to install a 360kb 5 1/4 floppy drive. I'll have 1 slot open after that and I may add a mem expansion board just for the heck of it.