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Compaq Presario 5000

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First post, by ODwilly

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So my buddy's dad just gave me my friend's old Compaq. Courtesy of the HUGE spec sheet on the side I knew what I was getting before even opening it up. 😎 Socket A motherboard, 30gb HDD (not with the machine) a feisty little Duron 750mhz, an 8mb VANTA LT super low end TNT2 w/o even a heatsink on the dang card, a beautiful red 56k modem card, 256mb of pc133 and a 100m/b lan card. Matx system that besides a little scrubbing is to cool looking to toss! Any ideas on what to do with this thing? Should I keep it true to the original specs or upgrade the ever living heck out of it? I am not sure what the max cpu it supports is but I have a Geforce ti4200 and an Aureal Vortex2 that needs a home.

Main pc: Asus ROG 17. R9 5900HX, RTX 3070m, 16gb ddr4 3200, 1tb NVME.
Retro PC: Soyo P4S Dragon, 3gb ddr 266, 120gb Maxtor, Geforce Fx 5950 Ultra, SB Live! 5.1

Reply 1 of 5, by oerk

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I'm taking a wild guess and say it should support all 100 MHz FSB Thunderbirds, so I'd be upgrading to a 1100-1400 MHz Athlon if I were you.

Or see if you can set multiplier and voltage in the BIOS, then do the pencil trick on the Duron. These overclock well, my Duron 700 ran stable at 1049 MHz back then.

Should be a good match for a GeForce 4.

Also, take a look at the caps! Early Socket A boards are notorious for bad capacitors.

Reply 2 of 5, by ODwilly

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Thanks for the suggestions oerk. The caps are coated in nicotine but are looking to be in tip-top shape, unfortunately the bios is a bare OEM pile of crud. Il have to keep my eyes out for a good T-bird on ebay. Do you think I should swap power supplies? It has a 250watt with only like 8amps on the 12v rail currently which seems rather weak.

Main pc: Asus ROG 17. R9 5900HX, RTX 3070m, 16gb ddr4 3200, 1tb NVME.
Retro PC: Soyo P4S Dragon, 3gb ddr 266, 120gb Maxtor, Geforce Fx 5950 Ultra, SB Live! 5.1

Reply 3 of 5, by Sutekh94

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I have seen so many of these systems over the years, it's kinda crazy. (Still have one laying around, with a 1GHz PIII!) These particular ones used what's known as the "UWAVE" socket A motherboard, which is a modified version of the FIC AZ31 mobo. More info here: http://www.motherboards.org/forums/viewtopic.php?p=665585

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Reply 4 of 5, by ODwilly

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Thanks for the info! I now know what original bios to look for to attempt a reflash. The funny thing is that so far I really like this machine. All standard, has plenty of room, lots of drive bays and very sturdy.

Main pc: Asus ROG 17. R9 5900HX, RTX 3070m, 16gb ddr4 3200, 1tb NVME.
Retro PC: Soyo P4S Dragon, 3gb ddr 266, 120gb Maxtor, Geforce Fx 5950 Ultra, SB Live! 5.1

Reply 5 of 5, by ODwilly

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So the ti4200 died today 😒 weird video output on the vga (grey red and other colors flashing in different rectangles) and nothing over DVI. Looking at upgrading to a 1ghz T-bird and I have a 128mb Hercules 3D Prophet iii Geforce 3 ti-500 to swap into into it. It also recognized two 512mb pieces of pc133. Debating on either installing 98se, ME w/the original OEM key, or 2k pro.

Main pc: Asus ROG 17. R9 5900HX, RTX 3070m, 16gb ddr4 3200, 1tb NVME.
Retro PC: Soyo P4S Dragon, 3gb ddr 266, 120gb Maxtor, Geforce Fx 5950 Ultra, SB Live! 5.1