I have some Slot A processors and motherboards. They are alright.

Some time ago i did a quick run and posted the results for 1GHz machines here:

Athlon's disappointing performance

I would keep it, if you dont have a system in the Pentium III range.. Its indeed true that the AMD K7 would be faster then the pentium III ones..
They also getting rare nowdays..

Clean it up and keep it, if you are lucky the motherboard has an AGP slot so it would make a beast of a machine for win9x.

Slot A is a keeper, this machine though... Might be outstanding the good way or the bad way. Any pics?

All of a sudden you guys are reminding me of my old 800MHz Duron Spitfire 1200+. Weid SiS chipset, but had an AGP slot that I managed to get working with a GeForce MX480 (RivaTuner FTW!). That PC held ground much better as a by-then main PC than my Pentium 3. Even with the onboard graphics it still outperformed (I think? never ran benchmarks) the P3-700 with a Savage4 Pro in Direct3D.

I suggest you keep it. If you need more horse-power just replace the processor with a Thunderbird Slot A Athlon. My Duron used to be a little beast both in Win98 and Win2000.

Thanks for your input everyone. Right now it's completely taken apart and I've started cleaning the individual components. Still has the original stickers and everything though! I'll throw some pictures up later today.

😎

The previous owner was apparently a (HEAVY) smoker..a layer of NASTY brown residue all over the inside of the case - especially on the bottom. These are the before pix but I've now cleaned it up nicely. I think we're ready for reassembly!

Awesome! These solid IBM shapes make me go crazy every time I see them.

IBM 😐
Aptiva 🙁
AMD K7 550 😠
Slot A 😢

Any good?

No, no it isn't any good. Other than the expansion cards it's a combination of some of the worst things ever made. Should be a fantastic addition to any collection and can be used as a tool to teach future generations how not to make a PC. Ugly case too.

I'm not joking, I'd have taken it based upon this if it were me.

Why is is worst hightreason? I know that these machines could have some compatibillity problems with voodoo 2 cards.. But it seems that could be patched..
Iam also dont like that IBM case at all. Its really an ugly IBM tower.. Like the designers couldnt make the right design for that case..

Can't work it out.

> Never used an IBM I liked, got shot of all but one of mine years ago.
> Never had an Athlon that worked.

I'd run a GeForce 256 or something in a machine from that era, but on that one I think I'd go with a Trident Blade T64 as I have one I'll never use and it seems like a good match.

I decided to research a little to sort out the specs of my old Duron machine and apparently it must have been a 1200MHz one. I could swear they used a PR system, because I remember seeing that processor as 800Mhz somewhere, but I guess that processor was being throttled (because I'm sure it identified itself as a Duron 1200) during the readings. Oh well, I was too young back then.

I like IBM laptops a lot. Can not comment on the desktop towers, only experience were with p4 Thinkcenters that were dreadful. Have had good luck with parts and systems in general. Even have had good PC CHIPS motherboards! Bad experiences grow strong opinions.

I'll give the thinkpad one thing, it lasted, you could send it on a trip to hell and back and it wouldn't care. But it was second rate compared with the Armada and Presario.

HighTreason wrote:

Can't work it out. […]
Show full quote

Can't work it out.

> Never used an IBM I liked, got shot of all but one of mine years ago.
> Never had an Athlon that worked.

I'd run a GeForce 256 or something in a machine from that era, but on that one I think I'd go with a Trident Blade T64 as I have one I'll never use and it seems like a good match.

It's ugly because it's hightreason. The guy with a special sense of ugliness.

Let me remind you that K7 family was the first family of AMD CPUs to dominate over Intel. For the first time in history the giant received a kick in the nuts. Athlons were a great deal faster than contemporary P3 and their lower-end offering, Duron, leaved Celeron in the dust and successfully competed PIII after some OC.

Before you say "do your research" I give you numbers: The K7 family was the first time AMD achieved 30% of world CPU market at the expence of Intel.

Why am I starting to get the impression you don't like me?

Yeah, the K7 had it's place, it was faster than Intel's solution (At setting fire mostly) and I had several while they were a relevant piece of hardware. That doesn't mean that it worked reliably, perhaps that is a factor in why they are becoming rare?

Also, it's ugly because it's ugly.

HighTreason wrote:

Why am I starting to get the impression you don't like me?

Yeah, the K7 had it's place, it was faster than Intel's solution (At setting fire mostly) and I had several while they were a relevant piece of hardware. That doesn't mean that it worked reliably, perhaps that is a factor in why they are becoming rare?

Also, it's ugly because it's ugly.

Nothing personal, really 😀 I don't like the way you judge some good stuff, I give you that, but if we ever met in real life I'm sure we'd get along just fine. Don't get me wrong, all I know about you (except for the grey-haired chick on your avatar) is the stuff you hate. That's too small a reason to not like someone for.

Only experience I've had with Slot A/K7 stuff is my yet-to-be-finished T-bird 700 build, which actually uses decent parts (MSI MS-6191 micro ATX mobo, my GF2 Ultra if I get it working properly...) I guess it's one of those situations where your mileage may vary due to the quality of the parts and stuff like that. That being said, Slot A Athlon stuff should be equivalent, if not faster, than their Intel counterparts. @OP: I'd definitely keep it, since, like a couple other posts here have said, they are becoming relatively rare, but the performance is totally worth it.

I probably won't be the last to say this, but I've actually had horrible experiences with IBM desktops in the past, mainly P4-based time bombs, and also a K6-2 based Aptiva that self-destructed on me a day or two after I picked it up from the dump. That doesn't necessarily mean that OP's system is also a dud, and, to be honest, I might have caused one or two of those systems' untimely deaths myself. ThinkPads, on the other hand, I've found to be darn near immortal, even older ones like my 365X and 755CD (the former being a dump rescue itself!).

@RacoonRider; It's not an issue anyway, just a difference of opinion. On that note, me and my best friend disagree on most things and argue a lot - sometimes we even disagree when we don't really disagree because it's almost a habit by now.

The world would be immensely boring if everyone liked the same things... It would also drive the price of hardware up a lot too I expect, as everyone would want the exact same system.

The gray haired lady in my avatar is actually purple haired, she's from a lesser known PS2 game; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nkhy16_zsAQ

@Sutekh94; Longest-lived decent Athlon board I had was an MSI. Technically the DFI lasted longer before complete failure, but was unusable in a practical sense long before the MSI gave up on life.