First post, by chinny22
- Rank
- l33t++
Reading the P/N it started life as a Compaq Evo D51s P4 2.53 with 128MB RAM 20GB HDD
It came from a client for the IT Company I worked for who had around 40 PC's.
I believe in 2006 all PC's were upgraded to have at least 256MB RAM by 2008 I was responsible for the upgrade policy and decided to replace anything below a 3GHZ (more to standardize hardware then anything else) this left about 6 PC's that didn't make the cut.
I was after a basic internet PC so grabbed 2 similar machines, the other I'd use to test stuff without breaking my 'live' PC.
I upgraded the RAM in both to 768MB with spare stuff lying around, the main PC also got an 80GB HDD shoved in where the PCI cards would sit & a wireless card & does its job just fine to this day & was happy enough to make do for games.
But thanks to vogons I re caught the bug recently so the test box which has been abused all these years with windows getting more and more unstable is about to be rewarded with better hardware.
The Evo 51s is the small form factor brother of the Evo D510, a good honest workhorse. Say what you like about HP, Dell, etc but the business ranges are pretty rock solid so make a good base so I'll be keeping the motherboard, A Compaq board based on the 845G chipset (nothing else would fit anyway)
CPU: is a P4 Northwood 2.53Ghz. Should run any Win9x game quite nice, it can stay
RAM: 768MB, People say Win9x doesn't like more then 512 but I've never had a problem, maybe it's a bit slower addressing everything but I haven't noticed so it can stay, more for Win2k which is also loaded.
Video: Onboard Intel 845, It can handle most my favourite games RTS's, NFS 3-5, Diablo's, GTA3 ok, I can upgrade using the 4x AGP but is the annoying low profile style so wont bother upgrading besides I have.
Video2: Diamond Monster 3D II 12MB Voodoo 2, Most my games support this natively so that's what they use. Voodoo's are meant to run too hot in P4’s I kept checking and it was never too hot to touch, its in direct airflow of the CPU's Fan (be it the warmer air from the CPU) I also attached 2 fans to the card with cable ties just in case.
Sound1: Onboard AC97 ADI Soundmax nothing to brag about but means I can use the front headphone portsd
Sound2: Sound Blaster 2 ZS, sounds beautiful compared to the onboard, pretty gold connectors, this is connected to the speakers when I'm not asked to be quiet. It may be the speakers but this sounds much better then the SB Live Value I had 10 years ago?
HDD: Seagate Barracuda ST32001A 20 GB, just what came with the PC, does the job so can stay.
Also has a FDD (one of the reasons I got these in the 1st place) DVD-ROM/CD-RW drive as the other PC is always full of crap & onboard network so I don't need to use floppy & CD's
I also got a Logitech Wingman Formula Force steering wheel. I have one in Australia & loved it. I used to race Dad in NFS3 so much he got the Formula Force GP a few years later, which just felt cheap compared to the non gear driven "old red" so got myself another!
OS's
Win98SE: lives on C:\ which is a 2GB fat32 partition, no updates, nothing stripped (just the options in setup cleared) also has DirectX again just the final official supported by MS (Dec 06) Winamp, WinRar, Daemon Tools & that's it. Windows is stable & even shuts down correctly! But can't restart so have to have to do a full shutdown each time, pain when I want to go into 2k. Also the onboard sound drivers blue screened windows when installing, hung on reboot, then worked fine since. This leaves 1.40GB free for windows to play with, an emergency or anything I find that NEEDs to be on c:\
Win2k: Lives on E:\ which is a 8GB NTFS partition, SP4 & rollups. Mainly used for burning CD's so I wanted the extra stability of NT but not the large footprint of XP also has Office 03, Cooledit & various burning software.
The other 8GB is on D:\ which is where games and general data are kept.
Things I don't like/would change with this setup
The fact it's a Small Form factor. This is a double edge sword. At the moment it really needs to be SFF, I tend to move a lot & rent small rooms so need the space. Long term in a more permanent setup I'd want something with a bit more room to fit things like the front 5 1/4 panel of the Audigy & a decent D3D AGP non low profile card
I need another PCI slot. I have another identical Voodoo2 just waiting to go into SLI, but most games I run at 800x600 on my 15" screen so not a big deal, but there are other SFF PC's with the 3rd slot
No DOS support as yet, I may look into getting the Audigy working in DOS but the AC97.
Below shows the lack of space, the darker card is the SoundBlaster and you can see 3 memory chips from the Voodoo2 underneath. Lucky the underside has all the chips so in the limited space below 2 fans are cabled tied to the Voodoo, the CPU fan is directly in front (under the HDD) & Power supply fan also gives a bit of extra air flow
My other PC has a HDD sitting here!
