Ha! OK LB, I'll shut up now.

No worries, I'm hoping to luck into the smallest possible case that will fit this thing. Don't have space for another obelisk. 😜

I was only kidding. ^.^ I got mine, spread the wealth!

A cousin dropped off their otherwise-would-have-gone-to-the-curb old PC. Nothing too exciting, though...

• Intel Core 2 Duo E4500 @ 2.2GHz (65nm LGA775, SLA95)
• Intel DG31PR Micro-ATX MB (AA D97573-204, G31 & ICH7 chipsets)
• 1x1GB DDR2-667 RAM (Crucial CT12864AA667.8FE)
• 160GB 7200RPM SATA-3Gbps HDD (Seagate 7200.10 ST3160815AS)
• 18x DVD-RW SATA ODD (LG GSA-H62N)
• Thermaltake TR2-430 "Dual 8cm Fans" PSU (yikes!)
• Generic black ATX case, missing a 5.25" bay cover for some reason
• Dust bunnies galore

It was running Windows 8.1 32-bit, slowly... oh well. The HDD is 100% working (no SMART warnings even) despite 32,000+ power-on hours. The motherboard can handle 45nm C2Ds and C2Qs with the latest BIOS, which is nice, and Intel luckily hasn't pulled the drivers+documentation off its site yet.

FWIW, all of the hardware carries date codes pointing to the latter half of 2007, with the HDD being from December 18th... I suppose this was a Christmas present of theirs from eleven years ago.

Last remaining rescued PC from the town dumpster.
Since it's an Apple i don't have keyboards or monitors to test it

I've always wanted to give it a try...
Plenty of addon cards inside, placed in 2 different (and never ever seen) bus slot types

Lots of memory installed too.
I'm totally anovice of old apple stuff , I wonder if i can at least build an adapter for a regular vga monitor and ps2 keyboard

xjas wrote:

One more post and then back to work. 😀 Grabbed this Gateway tower a few days ago because it looked cool & was in great shape. It has this neat tinted perspex front cover that slides up and down - so early 2000s.

That's a Nice looking case. Looks Futuristic / Space age. What model number is that ?

@mongaccio

Those cards in those apples might be kinda rare, would you mind posting a picture of them?

mongaccio wrote:

Last remaining rescued PC from the town dumpster. Since it's an Apple i don't have keyboards or monitors to test it […]
Show full quote

Last remaining rescued PC from the town dumpster.
Since it's an Apple i don't have keyboards or monitors to test it

I've always wanted to give it a try...
Plenty of addon cards inside, placed in 2 different (and never ever seen) bus slot types

Lots of memory installed too.
I'm totally anovice of old apple stuff , I wonder if i can at least build an adapter for a regular vga monitor and ps2 keyboard

That's a very nice find! Except for the case the components appear to be in good condition looking at the pictures. Though beaten up, I still like that case. 😜

Intel486dx33 wrote:

xjas wrote:

One more post and then back to work. 😀 Grabbed this Gateway tower a few days ago because it looked cool & was in great shape. It has this neat tinted perspex front cover that slides up and down - so early 2000s.

That's a Nice looking case. Looks Futuristic / Space age. What model number is that ?

Turns out it's not a Gateway at all and I'm a dope. There was a Gateway next to it that I didn't grab because it was smashed & missing bits, but I got confused when I went back for this one. No idea who made it.

xjas wrote:

Intel486dx33 wrote:

xjas wrote:

One more post and then back to work. 😀 Grabbed this Gateway tower a few days ago because it looked cool & was in great shape. It has this neat tinted perspex front cover that slides up and down - so early 2000s.

That's a Nice looking case. Looks Futuristic / Space age. What model number is that ?

Turns out it's not a Gateway at all and I'm a dope. There was a Gateway next to it that I didn't grab because it was smashed & missing bits, but I got confused when I went back for this one. No idea who made it.

Honestly, I think you got a good deal, that case is pretty unique. +1

mongaccio wrote:

Last remaining rescued PC from the town dumpster. Since it's an Apple i don't have keyboards or monitors to test it […]
Show full quote

Last remaining rescued PC from the town dumpster.
Since it's an Apple i don't have keyboards or monitors to test it

I've always wanted to give it a try...
Plenty of addon cards inside, placed in 2 different (and never ever seen) bus slot types

Lots of memory installed too.
I'm totally anovice of old apple stuff , I wonder if i can at least build an adapter for a regular vga monitor and ps2 keyboard

Monitor, sure. Depending on the board you might not even need an adapter, I run mine off the built-in 15-pin (but you have to use an adapter to change the settings first).

The 15-pin Apple to HD15 adapters are like $7 on eBay, the ViewSonic ones work great, look for "Apple db15 adapter." IMHO the Viewsonic are the best, close second are the ones with the dip switches (mainly because you have to experiment), and dead last are the other no-name no-switch versions.

Even my original Mac LC works on my Dell 19" LCD.

Keyboards, eh, not so much. More like SCSI than PS2 in some ways, but mice and keybaords are not too expensive if you're patient or can get them locally. For some reason Mac peeps don't value them like old Model Ms or something like that, I keep seeing people discarding them or storing them poorly, even collectors.

There are a couple of adapters but they're more like converters, I think one is called Wombat and costs $60. Much cheaper to get an ADB set.

luckybob wrote:

@mongaccio

Those cards in those apples might be kinda rare, would you mind posting a picture of them?

I'd love to,but my 'junk storage' is at my uncle's home, which is quite far away from my house.
I'll take it home maybe next week and post some more pictures.

And thanks Merovign for the info, i'm totally lost when talking about... Apples
In the meantime, i'll post some pics of old Mainframe cards,my uncle worked for Olivetti/Bull (electronics dep.) then sold to GE and Honeywell. He salvaged some when retiring

Intel 8080 in that old fashioned golden dip case. Late seventies, i guess.

Recently visited a friend who got a whole pile of old computer parts (mostly XT motherboards, controller cards, graphics cards, and MFM hard drives) from another acquaintance.
In between, there were a couple of 386, 486, 1 Pentium 1, 1 Pentium II and then this Pentium Pro motherboard.

I never had a Pentium Pro before and wasn't actually looking out for one but, since this kind of "fell into my lap", I figured why not see if it still works and benchmark it.
The motherboard is a DTK PRM-0031I Socket 8 motherboard and the CPU is the 200 MHz 256k L2 cache version.
A quick Google search didn't give me many hits in terms of where I could still download this particular motherboard's latest BIOS, manual & drivers (the DTK website seems to be no longer up and running properly).
Anyone that does perhaps have the BIOS, manual and/or drivers for this motherboard, please pop me a PM (or upload them on this thread).

Haven't tested the motherboard and/or CPU yet but, I was thinking of installing either Windows NT 4 or Windows 2000 on it.
My understanding is that the Pentium Pro didn't run too well with hybrid 16-bit/32-bit OSes but, later driver revisions on Windows 9x made things runs a bit faster.

jesolo wrote:

Recently visited a friend who got a whole pile of old computer parts (mostly XT motherboards, controller cards, graphics cards, […]
Show full quote

Recently visited a friend who got a whole pile of old computer parts (mostly XT motherboards, controller cards, graphics cards, and MFM hard drives) from another acquaintance.
In between, there were a couple of 386, 486, 1 Pentium 1, 1 Pentium II and then this Pentium Pro motherboard.

I never had a Pentium Pro before and wasn't actually looking out for one but, since this kind of "fell into my lap", I figured why not see if it still works and benchmark it.
The motherboard is a DTK PRM-0031I Socket 8 motherboard and the CPU is the 200 MHz 256k L2 cache version.
A quick Google search didn't give me many hits in terms of where I could still download this particular motherboard's latest BIOS, manual & drivers (the DTK website seems to be no longer up and running properly).
Anyone that does perhaps have the BIOS, manual and/or drivers for this motherboard, please pop me a PM (or upload them on this thread).

Haven't tested the motherboard and/or CPU yet but, I was thinking of installing either Windows NT 4 or Windows 2000 on it.
My understanding is that the Pentium Pro didn't run too well with hybrid 16-bit/32-bit OSes but, later driver revisions on Windows 9x made things runs a bit faster.

Zdnet has a v1.02 BIOS for that board. I already confirmed that it is downloadable. Looks like it is the latest version.
https://downloadspp.zdnet.de/34179/dtk-prm-0031i-95985/

From the old DTK site - Purpose : Fix the problem "floppy disk copy error in Windows NT 4.0"

Once you go pro... ^.^

I found this video card in local recycling center today.

One pin in p2 seems to be broken. Anyone knows what kind of connector p2 is?
Does anyone know what kind of video card it is? Also what kind of pc and monitor it would require?

Probably an MGA clone. It'll require an MGA/Hercules or EGA monitor. I wouldn't count on a CGA monitor working as CGA requires a lower resolution.

P2 looks like a bog standard 0.254mm/0.1" pin header. You can get those at any electronic component shop.

Today responded to a 'come save this stuff from 486 to P4 from the dumpster' ad. It was worth it:

Nine systems, from AT minitower via OEM cases to ATX bigtowers. Will take stock & pics of what I have here later this evening.

Right, here goes, first impression (no testing or disassembly, just what I could see):

1:

- AT minitower
- Via chipset So3 VLB board
- So3 CPU w HSF
- 30p (1MB parity?) & 72p SIMMs
- Cirrus Logic GD542x VLB 1MB with sockets for 2MB
- SB 16 CT2950
- NE2000-compatible ISA NIC

2:

- AT minitower
- i430FX So7 board w PLB cache
- So7 CPU w HSF
- 128MB EDO (incl 2x 32MB 50ns!)
- Diamond Stealth II S220 Verite Rendition V2100
- SB AWE32 CT3900
- RTL8139 PCI NIC
- PCI modem

3:

- Compaq Presario 5030 minitower
- Proprietary form factor motherboard w i440EX and RagePro onboard
- P2-300
- SDRAM (probably 2x 64MB or 2x 128MB)
- RTL8139 PCI NIC
- PCI modem

4:

- Inwin (?) ATX miditower
- FSP 235W PSU
- Chaintech 6BTMO i440BX motherboard (amazingly, no visible bad caps)
- P3-500 (Katmai)
- 4x 128MB PC100
- Creative CT6970 3DBlaster Annihilator Pro DDR (Gf256) 32MB
- Creative CT4810 SoundBlaster PCI (CT2518 = ES137x)
- RTL8139 PCI NIC
- ZIP250 ATAPI

5:

- *Really* cheap crap ATX miditower
- LC-Power "300W" timebomb
- PC Chips M789CLU v1.2 FlexATX board with Via C3 Samuel 2 "1500+"
- 2x 256MB PC2100 DDR

6:

- AOpen OEM ATX bigtower
- FSP 300W PSU
- Asus P4PE motherboard
- Some So478 CPU
- 2x 1GB DDR
- GeForce 8200 AGP
- Nasty little RaLink-based Sitecom WiFi-g PCI NIC

7:
*Pic somehow lost, can't be bothered to re-take right now*

- AOpen OEM ATX bigtower
- CoolerMaster 500W dual 12V rail PSU
- Foxconn 945G7MA So775 board with bulging caps all round
- So775 CPU under Intel stock cooler
- 2x 1GB, 2x 512MB DDR2
- GeForce 9500GT PCIe with big passive heatsink
- Nasty Sitecom WiFi-g PCI NIC

8:

- Heavy but plasticky ATX miditower
- AOpen-branded FSP 300W PSU
- MSI K8MM3-V MS-7181 ver 2.0 K8M800 So754 board
- Some So754 CPU (case says P4-3.0, but obviously not)
- 2x 1GB PC6400 DDR
- WinFast Titanium 200 (Gf3Ti200)

9:

- Dell Dimension 2400
- Dell OEM ~ATX So478 board
- 2x 256MB PC2100
- onboard everything
- two HDDs dangling loose in the case

All systems have optical drives and HDDs, most also have floppies.

Definitely worth the 7 liters of LPG it cost me to pick them up. Both aesthetically and in terms of interesting hardware the AT systems win hands-down, even before I know which CPUs are involved and how much RAM is in the 486. The 2x 32MB 50ns EDO is probably the find of the evening, but I'm not at all unhappy with that Diamond Stealth 2 S220 or the WinFast Titanium 200 either, and if the Via audio on that PC Chips Samuel 2 board works in DOS, that's the perfect all-in-one run-any-DOS-game board. The VLB CL542x card and Soundblasters are less special, but better than a kick in the teeth any day of the week. If any of it works, of course...

Best bit is that I even have a sensible purpose for this much hardware. The principal of my son's primary school asked me to show some of their 11 year-olds around my lab at work a few weeks back. That was great fun for all involved, so much so that she immediately had another idea: they had been saving up old and faulty computers at school for the past few years, and she wondered if I could supervise the children taking it apart without physically breaking stuff as part of their "technology" classes. I think I could do that, but I'm a little bit more ambitious given the level of interest I saw in them. I doubt most of those PCs are beyond repair, and I suspect not even beyond what a bunch of motivated 11 year-olds could manage. So I want the children to fix up as much as can be fixed - and for that more fixable stuff is always welcome.

But that's for the Athlon/P4 and later stuff that can easily run a modern OS. The old stuff is for me, so tomorrow I tear down that 486 and Pentium 😀

Those systems look amazing.