First post, by maximus
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Bought this from a local seller for a whopping $10 the other day. I wasn't expecting much, but it's been a real pleasant surprise.
Original configuration was:
Intel i815E chipset
Pentium III 1 GHz (Coppermine)
384 MB RAM (256MB PC133 + 128MB PC100)
10 GB Western Digital HDD
8 GB Maxtor HDD
ATI Rage 128 Pro (Dell OEM - yuck)
Sound Blaster Audio PCI 64 (also Dell OEM, but not as yuck - see below)
The CPU was already maxed out, but the rest of the machine needed some work. I yanked out the PC100 memory and the Maxtor drive, and swapped the Rage 128 for a Voodoo3 3000. I was expecting the sound card to be trouble, but the Sound Blaster PCI 128 drivers came through for me once again (Creative's latest set seems to work with all ES1373 chips, regardless of packaging). The case fan was unbearably loud at first, but a few drops of machine oil did the trick nicely.
I didn't really need another Windows 98 machine, but I'm glad I took a chance on this one. The case has Dell quality written all over it, and the performance as configured is really respectable. I'm happily tearing through Descent 3 on this rig at the moment, hoping to finally finish it this time! If I didn't already have my 1.4 GHz Tualatin machine, this Dell would serve almost as well as a go-to Win9x box. Very impressed.