First post, by GordonFreeman
- Rank
- Newbie
So I got this Sony Vaio from a local computer store. It's a PCV-RZ26G. It has a 3.06GHz P4, 2 optical drives, a floppy drive, and a video capture card with a TV tuner and video inputs that connect to the the front panel of the system. It has 4 panels on the front that open or are opened by the optical drives. I really like the design of this system.
It was lacking some things when I got it: memory, a video card, an HDD, and a HDD mount. The memory, video card, and HDD are taken care of now, but I'm not sure what to do about the HDD mount. I think I'm going to go back to the store and see if they still have the mount somewhere. It also came with a remote, which I saw in the store, but forgot to take with me.
My long term plan, if I can verify that everything works, is for this to replace my other P4 system for Win 98/Me gaming. I've already installed my Voodoo 3, and I'm going to install my Matrox m3D and possibly a Sound Blaster Live! The Vaio has a Yamaha AC-XG (YMF753, I think), but it looks like that probably isn't good for DOS games, so I'll probably end up using the SB Live! instead. I also think I'll probably remove the big stickers on the front at some point; I think it would look better without them. But I won't do that right away.
I've done a little testing so far: I installed the Voodoo 3 and some memory, and booted up the system. It powered on, recognized the Voodoo 3, and I was able to access the BIOS. I noticed something strange when I was looking at the BIOS, though. Just running idle in the BIOS, the CPU was at around 55ºC. That seems a bit high, considering the system is doing basically nothing. I haven't installed an HDD in this system yet, so I don't know how it'll run when an OS is loaded. I noticed that when I first turn on the system, the fans are running pretty high, and then they slow down a lot once I'm in the BIOS. It seems like the fans should be running faster when the CPU temp is that high, but it's hard to understand what's happening here until I'm able to load an OS on it. I'm not sure if 55ºC is actually a high temp for this CPU, either. I bought some memory and I want to wait until that arrives before I do anything else with the system. I also removed the video capture card (which is pretty cool looking, I might post pictures of that) and its cables, since I have no intent to use that any time soon and I need the PCI slots.
Updated specs:
Pentium 4 3.06GHz
P4S533-VL MB
512MB DDR-333
Voodoo 3 3000
Matrox m3D
Sound Blaster Live!
WD 160GB HDD
Sony DVD-RW drive
Matsushita DVD drive
Floppy drive
Windows 98 SE