appiah4 wrote:

detritus olentus wrote:

I finally have a GX1 for my Optiplex pile! (I got locked out of my old account) This was about $10 at a thrift shop on the way home from classes and I couldn't leave it there so I will add it to my hoard. It has a slot 1 Pentium 3 and the coveted ISA riser card but I've only tested it enough to make sure the power supply works. Anyone know why these little low profile guys have 3 IDE plugs on the board? Not really anywhere to add more drives.

The GX1 ISA riser is actually rather common, I have one (accidentally bought). The GX100/GX110 one is rather rare.

I found a working GX110 in a dump weeks ago with the ISA riser (system at the bottom, under the GX1p)

https://imgur.com/a/Tt8Pr0r

Carlos S. M. wrote:

appiah4 wrote:

detritus olentus wrote:

I finally have a GX1 for my Optiplex pile! (I got locked out of my old account) This was about $10 at a thrift shop on the way home from classes and I couldn't leave it there so I will add it to my hoard. It has a slot 1 Pentium 3 and the coveted ISA riser card but I've only tested it enough to make sure the power supply works. Anyone know why these little low profile guys have 3 IDE plugs on the board? Not really anywhere to add more drives.

The GX1 ISA riser is actually rather common, I have one (accidentally bought). The GX100/GX110 one is rather rare.

I found a working GX110 in a dump weeks ago with the ISA riser (system at the bottom, under the GX1p)

https://imgur.com/a/Tt8Pr0r

So jealous..

Repurposed business throw-out

Dell Vostro 230
ORIGINAL SPECS
Intel Core 2 Duo E7500 (2/2 Core/Thread, 2.93GHz, 3MB L2 Cache)
4GB DDR3-1333 (@1066)
500GB HDD SATA2 (3Gbps)
Windows 7 Pro 64-bit

CURRENT SPECS
Intel Core 2 Quad Q9650 (4/4 Core/Thread, 3.00GHz, 12MB L2 Cache)
8GB DDR3-1600 (@1066)
240GB SanDisk SSD SATA2 (3Gbps)
1TB Western Digital HDD SATA2 (3Gbps)
EVGA Geforce GT1030 PCIe
USB 3.0 4-port PCIe controller card
Windows 10 Pro 64-bit

I haven't replaced the CPU cooler, but I intend to. I'm thinking about a Scythe Byakko 92mm CPU tower-cooler but I'll have to remove the plastic clips and replace them with actual screws, as the Dell MB has a built-in backplate that I cannot remove without risking damage to the MB. I also replaced the stickers on the front with more appropriate ones, like the Core 2 Quad and the Windows 10 Pro stickers. The picture here is an older one before I started refitting this system. It is a cast-out from a local business when the hard drive inside failed. Instead of replacing the hard drive and reinstalling the OS, they opted to purchase an entirely new system with a Haswell i5 and Windows 10 a few years ago. They were going to throw this one away and I salvaged it. It is now my mother's daily PC. I've had to take the fan out of the PSU and clean/lubricate the bearings, and the same for the GPU's cooling fan, but it still works.
UPDATE: Dirty fan was causing GeForce 8400GS graphics card to overheat. I have replaced it with an EVGA GT1030. It's severe overkill for the system, but it's also the cheapest modern graphics card to put in there.

Oh boy do I have a treat (or rather, a whole buffet) for you guys.

It'll take me a bit to get decent pictures of the rest, but lets start with humble beginnings...

This is my XPS 410. It was one of the first machines I was able to play around with (throwaway from my aunt), and it's still a pretty kickin' system.
I've upgraded pretty much everything in it.

Intel Core 2 Quad Q6700
8GB DDR2-1066
EVGA GeForce 9800 GTX+
Creative Sound Blaster Xi-Fi
320GB HDD
500W Antec PSU
Windows Vista Ultimate

Next up, my Dell XPS 730X (Formerly H2C)

This machine was rescued from a computer shop's e-waste pile. When I got it, it was plastered in "vape nation" stickers and definitely smelled the part.
After much goo-gone and a proper dusting, the machine looked great!

It originally came with the H2Ceramic liquid cooler/chiller, but I had a bad experience with one of those units, so it got pulled immediately.
Unlike my other 730X, which suffered a leak + fried motherboard/CPU, this machine was fully functional.
I added the 5970's for shits + giggles, and 'cause they go great with the case's colors.

This one is mostly original parts, save the GPU, CPU cooler, and boot drives.

Intel Core i7-965 Extreme Edition
6GB DDR3-1066 (3x2GB)
2x ATI Radeon HD 5970 in CrossFire
4x 40GB Intel SSD's in RAID 0
1kW Dell power supply

I really love these machines, and especially their cases. The XPS 730 and 630 machines use ATX motherboards, and the system board connects via USB to allow control of the RGB lighting and fans through the nvidia ESA tools (assuming you don't have an original board).

The 730X used the same motherboard as the Alienware Area-51 ALX, so there are some neat modded BIOSes out there that allow for much newer chips and more RAM.

And I'll stop with these two:

The one on the right doesn't have too much of a story behind it.
One day at the recycling center I work at, it just kinda materialized on a pallet of towers one day. I got it for $20 AS-IS.
It's a Dell XPS M1710. A little bit beat up, but works fine! The video cards are very abundant on EBay, so I upgraded it immediately.
It's a nifty system, and a HECK of a lot cheaper and easier to maintain than it's younger brother.

Intel Core 2 Duo E7200 2.0GHz
Nvidia GeForce 7950 GTX GO 512MB
4GB DDR2 (BIOS limits to 3.5GB)
120GB ADATA SSD (didn't come with a drive originally), Windows XP Pro SP3 installed.
1920x1200 IPS display

Now for my personal favorite...

The Dell XPS M1730!

I love this computer. The overdone glossiness of late 2000's is multiplied by a million with this thing.
I got this machine from a nonprofit group that sets up computer labs for other nonprofits. They had this thing lying around, and it wasn't working right, so they let me have it!
The original GPU was a GeForce 8700M, and would not output video. Since these particular cards are known to fail commonly, I resorted to the age-old tried-and-true strategy of "Throw it in a toaster oven and hope that it works..." and well... it did!
I did eventually upgrade the video card, along with everything else. I wanted to max this beast out... and that's exactly what I did.

Some neat features of the XPS M1730:
+ Integrated Logitech LCD. Is able to run the same applets that ran on the G15 and G510 lines of keyboard.
+ AGEIA PhysX module from before the nvidia acquisition. The original drivers included tech demos that you could play around with. Pretty neat stuff!

It also looks really cool.

Now for the specs:

Intel Core 2 Extreme X9000 @ 3GHz
Nvidia GeForce 9800M GTX SLI (2GB)
8GB DDR2 (2x4GB)
80GB Intel SSD
1920x1200 IPS display
AGEIA PhysX module

Now, for those who know a thing or two about these machines, I did not pay the insane prices commonly seen on EBay for the GPU. It is NOT worth what sellers are asking (often over $300). I was lucky, a seller was liquidating a whole bunch of NoS units, and I nabbed one for $80. At this price, it is very fair.

This machine has been taken apart and rebuilt and upgraded sooooooo many times now. I would like to find an original blu-ray drive just for the sake of "because why not?" but those aren't very easy to come by.

Anyways, hope you guys enjoyed these. Ive got some other XPS machines (M1530, M1640, 8100, etc) but nothing nearly as interesting.

Those XPS towers with the LEDs were really cool (and heavy!)

Also got a trio of Dell Optiplexes for cheap... Optiplex 745 pictured here that has been upgraded to a Q6600, 8GB RAM, 128GB SSD + 250GB 7200RPM HD, and an AMD FirePro V3900. Only thing is the sides are kinda scratched up so I might spray paint them.

front view after thorough cleaning inside and out

Side panel pretty scratched up. Tried magic eraser, isopropyl alcohol, goo gone... they helped but I want to remove as much as those scuffs as possible.

A pair of Optiplex 780 SFFs with E8400, no RAM (both will end up with 4GB) and no HDs.

Spray paint came out quite nice!

Other side

oeuvre wrote:

Spray paint came out quite nice!

Much better than before!

Thanks!

appiah4 wrote:

Carlos S. M. wrote:

I found a working GX110 in a dump weeks ago with the ISA riser (system at the bottom, under the GX1p)

https://imgur.com/a/Tt8Pr0r

So jealous..

More pics of the unit

https://imgur.com/a/h73petv

Dell Optiplex GX1p

https://imgur.com/a/0biKGwK

Picked this up the other day in a box of assorted stuff for £2 at a local auction. No power supply, but managed to make one up from an old Asus laptop L1A PSU and a dell plug. The HDD was missing along with its tray but the cover was present so can only assume someone cut it away trying to squeeze a STA drive in there. Again the broken Asus and some tinsnips came to the rescue and I managed to bodge something together to fit an old IDE disk.
No cdrom or floppy so partitioned the HDD into 2 gig and 8 gig, xcopied win 98 cd to D drive and ran the first stage of setup on another machine, swapping to the laptop on first reboot.

Found an old generic no name PCMCIA lan card in my stuff, luckily google image search found it and a driver! I have an old BT home hub 3a that runs openwrt and shares a 64 gig USB drive across my old machines (no connection to main network) so future transfers and LAN games should be ok if a little slow..

Fresh install of win98 with win95 shell, Dell as usual doing sterling work hosting old drivers, video and sound installed without a hitch once id installed the win98 USB drivers.

Dell Latitude CSx, Piii 500mhz, 256meg RAM.

I have brought this

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Dell-Optiplex-GX1-Pe … 872.m2749.l2649

What do you think of this? Of course if I had more patience/ lived in an area where retro pcs were not rare, I could have gotten one of these for $5. But most of what is in my area is overpriced pentium 4/ Core 2 Duo machines.

way too much money for one of those but they're pretty solid... should give it a good cleaning, put the RAM at 64MB or so and I would put in a 4GB CF card... it should have a PCI slot so toss in a nice late 90s PCI gfx card

Help me troubleshoot a GX110 Vogons?

Dell Optiplex GX110 Slim Desktop, P3 733. When I plut it in, the CPU fan spins for a second, then stops - everything is dead. The AUX PWR light stays on, as does the green light on the riser card. The front panel led flashes yellow yellow green.

I have unplugged every IDE device from the mainboard, I've tried the riser card unplugged, still nothing. I replaced the CPU with a known working 866 and still same behaviour.

Power supply failure? It's what I think the issue is, but this unit used to work fine a year ago when I shelved it. In the meantime I changed the CPU to a P3 1GHz then back down to a 733 (I did not power it on during the CPU switches), but now it's not working.

I opened the PSU up, partially, to look inside and see if there is any obvious capacitor failure but the thing is a bitch to open up fully and I couldn't see anything wrong from the limited view I had of it.. Maybe I should just start looking for a replacement PSU. Screw DELL and their proprietary PSUs 🙁

Got a quick question about a free Dell Optiplexz 755 I picked up. It has a PCI-E and PCI slot in it. On the board it has written "Slot 1 pci-e X16 (25watt)". I assume that means the slot only delivers 25watts instead of the usual 75watts?

Do you think I can get away with a 27watt AMD 7470?

Is this likely due to the power supply or the board itself? I ask as I'll be replacing the 3.5" HDD with an SSD and removing a little fan in the HDD compartment, so I think I'll be saving a couple of watts here?

A 7470 should be fine in that rig.

Update on the XPS T500...

Dell Dimension XPS T500 case
400W FSP Group 80+ power supply
Dell Optiplex 390 motherboard + cooler
Intel Core i5 2500 3.3GHz quad core processor
8GB DDR3 RAM
AMD RADEON HD7770 1GB PCIe video card
TEAC DV-W524GSB DVDRW drive
3.5" USB 3.0 front panel
3.5" floppy drive (not connected)
640GB 7200RPM Western Digital HD
180GB Intel 520 SSD
Windows XP Professional
Windows 7 Professional
USB 3.0 PCIe card
Dell PS/2 + serial port add-in card
HP Compaq LA2405wg 1920x1200 24" display
Altec Lansing ACS495 2.1 speakers
Logitech G500s mouse
IBM Model M 1391401 keyboard

side

rear

inside

Not very tidy + front panel shenanigans

Drive bays!

BIOS screen

BIOS screen 2

Windows XP desktop

Programs + games

Windows 7 desktop

Speccy

Welcome

No longer in my possession, but the photos are mine:

At primary school I played around with a similar one but with an i386DX-33 (Dell 333P).