Think you got carried away with the photos, there. 😜

Looks nice, but I foresee problems with that 120GB drive and the Aptiva's BIOS. (These machines shipped with ~1-2GB drives, to provide some context.) You may need to use a CF-to-IDE adapter or source a smaller HDD.

Very nice Aptiva! I have a thread here on mine which is a 2144-m51. I still have all of the original software as well and more. Let me know if you need the software or anything because I would bet they are so close mine would work for yours. The mobos look identical as well as the soundcard. Also have quite a few vids of it on my youtube/keith1212.

SW-SSG wrote:

Think you got carried away with the photos, there. 😜

Looks nice, but I foresee problems with that 120GB drive and the Aptiva's BIOS. (These machines shipped with ~1-2GB drives, to provide some context.) You may need to use a CF-to-IDE adapter or source a smaller HDD.

Haha ok cleaned it up a bit.

I got a ide ata133 pci card attemping to have a reliable drive solution of some sort. What is my best option here? I put up this thread to try and work this out.

IBM Aptiva 2144 NEED HELP

Keith1212 wrote:

Very nice Aptiva! I have a thread here on mine which is a 2144-m51. I still have all of the original software as well and more. Let me know if you need the software or anything because I would bet they are so close mine would work for yours. The mobos look identical as well as the soundcard. Also have quite a few vids of it on my youtube/keith1212.

That’s awesome. I did see your thread and my first post was to you asking for diskette and cd images.

Just picked up a set of ALTEC Lansing AC522 speakers new in box. I would love the orignal Aptiva speakers, but these will do for now.

Cant wait to get the monitor in to have the whole desktop setup.

Still waiting on my cdrom drive and ATA133 controller card.

Found the original mic

Finally the monitor is in... Mint condition

IBM G40 800x600

WOW! That is awesome computer! Great condition, like it!
That`s cool you found new Altec Lansing speakers, wish i`ll find one sometime=)

Nick4 wrote:

WOW! That is awesome computer! Great condition, like it!
That`s cool you found new Altec Lansing speakers, wish i`ll find one sometime=)

ebay has been a big help. i got few items new in box from that era that i'm excited to unbox and install.

These are seller pics - still waiting on shipping...

i/o magic 56x cdrom

i/o flex ide ata/133 controller pci

Ram, processor, video card, mouse and mic were purchased used.

Shes finally running with some changes to my plan.

Now sporting a 120gb patriot blaze ssd on a sata to ide converter running on the ata133 ide controller.

I couldn't get the floppy image of the original diskette to work for a original windows 95 restore. I had a sealed copy of windows 98 se oem, so i decided to install that and work out the drivers. I am also giving up on the mwave card because of such limited support and replacing with a isa Yamaha ATC 6631 that is on its way. im also going to decrease my ram count from 120mb to 32mb because of my 256kb l2. I'm out of expansion slots so i wont be able to use a isa ethernet adapter that i have, and find another solution.

ssd config

56x cdrom installed (perfect color match!)

98se oem sealed

This is where i started to get excited!

That IBM is seriously beautiful I hope it gives you years of fun.

It's been a long time since i did this, but i was lucky enough to find the original Quake shareware disk. Sourced qcrack.exe (i do not support pirating software; this was only done for demonstration purposes), and unlocked the entire id library up until that point. I remember unfortunately doing this with my $9.99 shareware disc i picked up in compusa. I'll never forget it because i received all those games when i wasn't supposed to.

Quake
Doom 1, 2, final
Hexen
Heritic
Wolfenstein 3d

chrismeyer6 wrote:

That IBM is seriously beautiful I hope it gives you years of fun.

Thank you sir, and without a doubt it will. 😀

Cooling upgrade by replacing the single 80mm fan intaking in the front of the case...

That's an amazing system, man.

Yamaha ATC 6631 isa card. Setup was extremely easy, windows 98se picked it up immediately and via the windwos disc it was able to install everything. The mwave card i have is still in perfect condition and stored away, but the limited support and issues with it makes the yamaha well worth it.

I'm out of expansion slots. I bought a isa ethernet adapter card, but unless i remove my video card i won't be able to use it. For onboard i have a 2mb trident video adapter. Is there a external solution via serial? i wouldn't mind connection sharing to my surface pro with a null cable if anyone has a walk through.

The mwave adapter (modem soundcard combo). I never realized they had a class action lawsuit until now about compatibility issues that IBM had to address. Good thing its gone.

bjwil1991 wrote:

That's an amazing system, man.

i am having alot of fun with it. its a computerized time capsule.running quake on it and realizing how much we were willing to put up with back then is really amazing. the 3drage ii isn't exactly "killing it". i cant even run it at 640x480 on my 800x600 monitor 😲

processor upgrade...

Socket 7
Pentium 120 -> Pentium 133

arctic mx-2 paste
arctic silver cleaner
Stock heatsync

Gravis gamepad in, and in really good shape!

Decided to juice up the 3d capabilities for quake and nfs3. Voodoo 2 12mb pci on the way and should do the trick... replacing Ati ALL-IN-WONDER 4mb 3d rageii pci card.

Ill have to depend on the onboard trident 2mb for 2d, and its performance is pretty good surprisingly.

Congrats on Voodoo 2 12 Mb, it is a great card! A little bit overkill for pentium 133 cpu, but still great=)

Nick4 wrote:

Congrats on Voodoo 2 12 Mb, it is a great card! A little bit overkill for pentium 133 cpu, but still great=)

I’m definitely expecting a bottleneck. Since I had the 3D rageii back then and in the system now I’m curious what the performance difference will be at 800x600 in games like quake and nfs3 because the ati card leaves a lot to be desired. I’m treating it as if I upgraded after owning it for a couple years and had the money to buy a 3dfx card back then. Period correct in my mind.