That's nice that someone has the full setup. I've been curious about it. My 2286 had some other cheap monitor and speakers instead of the matching Compaq ones. I don't think anyone cared about these ultra-low-end computers when they were new.

If the JBL speakers are unpowered, are they reasonably loud? I don't have them, and the random speakers I used were barely audible at full volume. I did a little mod to the amp to make it louder (and then a big mod to adjust the built-in EQ to match my speakers).

There's no way to disable the integrated graphics, so RAM bandwidth is still split between the CPU and video with a card installed. The video card might still improve performance in some applications, but it would be nicer if the RAM was fully available to the CPU for better performance. I installed a video card out of curiosity, and Windows wanted to reinstall the SiS graphics driver (maybe resources changed - the add-on PCI card is treated as the primary card). I remember it actually reducing performance in Windows-based games as well.

I still have the original hard drive (with a copy of Windows that was in active service, so it has updates until early 2003), so it might go in when the currently installed drive fails.

lti wrote on 2023-06-09, 03:28:

If the JBL speakers are unpowered, are they reasonably loud?

They get STUPID loud.

Yeah, speakers wouldn't make that much of a difference (or even enough of a difference to get a usable volume level out of them). The Desert Storm II board in the 2286 has a flawed amplifier circuit compared to the original Desert Storm in the 2266. Even headphones plugged into the unpowered speaker jack didn't get very loud (the front headphone jack is much louder). I would like to fix it properly, but I never found the application note for the TDA1515BQ chip. This board doesn't follow the application circuit in the datasheet, and I lost the schematic I made.