Ok, as I promised, today I'm posting all the photos of everything I got yesterday.
PCs apart, it was a total of a big box, two bags and a big leather purse worth of stuff of which I spent all this morning to unbox and take a photo of.
But enough talking, let's see the photos, shall we ? Be warned: the pictures are a lot and I really mean it, a lot, an entire photobook worth of photos at least.
I'll add a brief description of the items under each photo, as much as I can.
Let's start with these 3 CPUs I forgot to mention yesterday.
They are an AMD 486 DX2 66MHz, a TI 486 DX2 80MHz and an Intel Pentium (not sure if 100MHz or lower yet)
Unfortunately, the TI 486 DX2-80's and the Pentium's pins are a bit bent, so I'll have to work to straight them up first, on other hand, the AMD 486 DX2-66's pins are perfect (or at least it seems to me).
I wonder if those two 486 will work on the Socket 7 motherboards ? I can't find any info on Google, so until I won't get the Pentium fixed I'd like to try the motherboard with those, they do fit, however I don't know if the voltage is fine for these 3.4v CPUs.
Now let's talk about RAM, I got A LOT of SDRAM, some of which didn't seem to work (I'll retry them after cleaning the contacts with isopropyl alcohol and an eraser), while the others that worked I then subdivided them into 32MB, 64MB, 128MB and even 256MB.
I also found some 72p and 30p (I was wrong, I think that my AWE32 uses 30 pins DIMMs, I want to try them and see if I can get over 2MB...)
I also found only 3 DDR1 RAMs, two of which seem to work and one doesn't (but again, I'll retry it after the "treatment").
Here's a picture of all the RAMs I found.
After trying each one, one by one on one of those PCs, I then divided them into their respective memory amount.
And these are the ones that made the computers beep and never start, I'll retry them after the treatment.
These are the only DDR1 RAMs I found... maybe one day I'll finally get more of these... luckily most of those computers use SDRAM.
1st Goodies Box
Let's get a closer look of all the stuff I found in that first goodies box.
VORTEX-don't-know-yet-which-model PCI sound card
Creative Sound Blaster CT4810 PCI sound card
PCI SCSI controller
Avance Logic PCI graphics card which misses the same kind of chips as my S3 Virge
These two PCI mysterious cards, I have no idea what kind of card that is... an hybrid network and sound card ??
3 old school PCI network cards
An ISA card with a parallel port and an unknown port which is not a serial port (it has more pins than a serial port)
4 486-Pentium era CPU coolers, 3 with the heatsink and 1 with just the fan
A vintage USB webcam, I have no idea what model or brand it is, so it'll be hard to find the drivers to test it, but it would be funny to do, I still have the very first webcam I had as a kid... this one:
USB hubs, one of them it seems to come with some PS/2 ports as well for some reason 😁
I also found another (I guess) Intel Pentium, but I can't check if it is a Pentium because the heatsink is like glued on it, the thermal paste must have become concrete after 20 years...
Unfortunately, this one has some bent pins aswell... so I got a total of 4 ceramic CPUs yesterday
A handful of mouses, on the left they are serial and on the right they are PS/2.
The bottom serial one has an extra side button, never thought I'd see one of those extra buttons in a 20 years old mouse, I thought they were modern stuff... however it doesn't have a scroll wheel nor a middle mouse button, so that side button is actually a middle mouse button...
And yes, they are ALL with the tracking ball which I deeply hate, none of those (especially PS/2 is optical...), guess I'll try them all and then I'll recluse them along with all my other tracking ball vintage mouses I got over the years -_-
I also got 4 floppy drives, one of which has the front I/O broken, I'll test them all one by one and see which works and which doesn't.
An "I don't know how much really useful" Sitecom modem
These optical drives, again I'll test them and see what works and what doesn't
The biggest PC speaker I've ever seen... but with broken cables
and apparently with also the special super power of magnetical attracting small coins...
I then also found 2 mysterious things:
This mysterious cable with the car electrical plug
and this mysterious Logitech box, I really have no idea what it is, it has two PS/2 connectors only, one green and one... orange ?! WTF I've never seen a PS/2 orange connector before, only green, purple and white...
Goodies part 2: the bags
The black bag contained all of these 5" floppy disks, some more ram (which is included in the first picture in which I showed all the RAM I found) and pretty much just this.
I didn't spend much time on counting those 5" floppies, but I think they might be just 100 or less, not sure.
A nice 235W ATX PSU, enough powerful for maybe Windows 98 computers or to just test the motherboards.
Goodies part 3: The big leather purse
My professor's father also gave me this huge leather purse which he doesn't even want back (well, looks pretty neat anyway)
Inside of which there were these.
A PCI-Express ATI Radeon X800 GTO, maybe could have Windows 98 drivers like my X300SE, this one has even more VRAM (256MB), so it might be even better for my Project 98: My finally working "Project 98" computer !!!
2 5" floppy drives, one of which has the plastic switch stuck... the bottom one, not sure if there's a way to fix it.
A very useful AT PSU
And that's it with the "goodies".
Now let's see the inside of the computers !!!
Don't worry about the dust, I've took a photo of each computer in the state it was as he gave me them, I'll then disassembly and clean each part accurately and rebuild them. (these photos also will help me to get the same components exactly as they were before !!!)
This is the AST Bravo 486/25, now it's my third horizontal PC of that kind, I tried to insert an ISA sound card in there but it's extremely painful and hard, even though the metallic edge of the sound card enters perfectly between the motherboard and the case.
It has a 486DX 25MHz CPU and is also the only computer of that loot with an hardisk, it has a 212 MB Western Digital hardisk Type 6 with Windows 95 already installed (although I can't boot right in, I think I need a Windows 95 boot floppy or something), I entered into the hardisk with my MS-DOS 6.0 1st floppy and I saw that there is a Windows folder in the hardisk, I went there and did winver.exe and it says it's Windows 95.
Also the battery is dead, it uses a rectangular bulky big lithium (I think) battery, I forgot to take a photo of it, maybe next time.
Not sure how much RAM there is, I forgot to do mem
This tower PC is branded Fujitsu Siemens, I have no idea which model it is, although I believe it was a pre-assembled computer once.
It has a very unique case featuring a sliding PSU, I've never had nor seen anything like that before and I even needed a bit of time to figure out how to remove the PSU which was covering the whole motherboard.
It uses DDR1 RAM and it sports a AMD Athlon 2500 CPU
Ah yes, all these computers were given to me without any hardisk and without CD/DVD drives, so I'll have some problems to fully test them, as I don't have any good IDE hardisk anymore... I found a lot of IDE hardrives last year, but most of them were broken, doing strange sounds, not spinning and not working.
For those computers who will allow me to boot from USB, I can try something with Hiren's Boot CD, mostly hardware tests to see every hardware spec and then be able to look for the drivers.
But the ones that don't allow me to boot from USB, for now, I can only enjoy the boot and the BIOS, I'm afraid.
This one has an AOpen MX59 Pro II, a Socket 7 (yes, Socket 7) motherboard which uses ATX instead of AT, sports 4 PCI slots and an ISA slot and requires 2 SDRAMs to work.
I couldn't get this one to turn on, I plugged it in, there are no leds on the motherboard, I then pressed the button and nothing happened.
I'll have to try jumpstarting it somehow else, but I'll first try to remove the CPU from there and put it in those other two Socket 7 motherboards to see if it's the CPU dead, I don't know which CPU it is, might be a Pentium, but also any other Socket 7 compatible one...
(forgot to take a picture of the front of the case 🤣 )
This one has an ASRock motherboard (I don't know what model it is yet) with an AGP graphics card slot and 5 PCI lanes.
It requires 3 DDR rams and it didn't have the PSU already in.
I first tried with the ATX PSU I got yesterday and then I tried with another ATX PSU I had lying around, none of them worked.
Again I don't see any LEDs on the motherboard, there aren't any at all and it doesn't do anything at all when I press the power button.
This one requires a Pentium SLOT CPU, which I don't have so until I won't get one, I won't be able to ever test it.
The chip in the middle between the CPU Slot and the rams isn't a processor, but the chipset, so it really needs the Pentium SLOT.
However, it has a 3v AGP graphics card socket and some PCI and ISA slots.
This one has an AMD Duron CPU, uses SDRAMs and has an universal AGP slot, along with 5 PCI lanes.
This is another one that doesn't turn on, it uses DDR1 rams and, according to the sticker on the front of the case, it has an AMD Sempron, we'll obviously know the truth once I'll remove it from the motherboard and clean it.
It has an AGP graphics card slot and 3 PCI lanes only.
Here we have a computer with a motherboard that can use both DDR1 and SDRAM RAMs !!!
I've never had or seen one of these before, I only thought it was possible with DIMMs and SDRAMs with the Socket 7 mobos.
This one is probably custom built, because of the motherboard's box (which inside has one of those Socket 7 motherboards I showed you yesterday)
However, this one has an AMD processor (not sure which one because I couldn't see the boot on my TV and it shows nowhere in the BIOS), an AGP graphics card slow and 5 PCI lanes.
This was the computer I tested the most of the SDRAM with, along with the AMD Duron one.
And now... something very special for me, a sincere, UNEXPECTED, HUGE surprise, which I reserved for last, this computer:
(well, obviously needs a lot of cleaning, especially that graphics card...)
Do you guys recognize that motherboard ?! Well, probably not by that dark photo...
here's another photo:
I switched the dusty ATI Rage graphics card with my nVidia GeForce 7300, because...
... here's yet another photo of this motherboard... but which I took... last year and posted right here, in this thread: Are the CPUs dead or are the motherboards ?
Remember it now ?! It's exactly HER !!! It's the ABit NF7, it's the motherboard of my Windows XP age, it's the motherboard on which I could play The Sims 2 for the first time, on which I first used Internet and I registered on YouTube.
Oh my god, guys, I honestly NEVER would expect to see this motherboard among those computers, when I today recognized her, I was happier than ever before.
Especially because IT WORKS !!!
It's also the exact same model, exact same chipset and exact same CPU (AMD Athlon XP) as the one who got a bulge in a condenser. The small fan that should cool the chipset doesn't spin at all, but it's a minor problem, it might be all that dust, once I clean it deeply, it might spin again or if it doesn't, I'll just replace it with the one of my ABit NF7, after all it's the same exact model and the one in mine spins perfectly, I'll also probably (if I feel to go through the hassle) try the CPU cooler of mine which has 3 fans instead of a big one like that and see which one cools better.
The only difference between this and my ABit NF7 is just the colour of the RAM slots, it has purple ram slots in mine and black in this one, but it's the actual exact same model, I even plugged in my 2006 hardisk (which I used with that motherboard, so it has all drivers installed and it's like "plug and play") and it worked fine, Windows XP booted up, everything worked except audio, because:
1) I didn't have any speakers to try it
2) I didn't insert my CT4750 sound card
So, guys... that concludes this first part, I guess.
In the next days I'll clean the computers and double check them, especially the ones that don't turn on and I'll keep you updated.
And if you have any questions, feel free to ask 😁
Whew, this took at least 2 hours to write... seriously...