I just recieved 3 free computers from Facebook Marketplace

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Calavera
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I just recieved 3 free computers from Facebook Marketplace

Post by Calavera »

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Why would somebody just give away these perfectly working 25 year old computers! :olol:


The only one I've plugged in yet is the Gateway 2000 as it was the only one with a hard drive. The back of the case says the manufactured date is 1997. It is a Pentium 166mhz with 32mb of ram. I would have thought a 166mhz would have been kind of outdated in 1997 but I suppose not depending on what you were using it for. The most amazing thing about this machine is how long it was used. The newest file in the My Documents folder is from April 2005!

Wow! Imagine trying to use a Windows 95 166mhz Pentium with 32mb of ram in 2005! The dial-up shortcut is still on the desktop and is the same ISP and phone number that I used back in the day. If I had a landline I'd try dialing into it and see if it is still active since that ISP still offers dial-up accounts. Just thought I'd post this because I was amazed that somebody could be using such a machine in 2005.

It goes to show you how fast computer technology used to advance compared to today. That computer would have been 8 years old in 2005 and would have been considered an outdated dinosaur. Yet here I am in 2019 using an i5-3570k CPU that was first released 7 years ago and a GPU that was released 6 years ago and they are still highly usable and can even run newer games decently. Things have really slowed down since the 90s.
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Dr. Zoidberg
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Re: I just recieved 3 free computers from Facebook Marketplace

Post by Dr. Zoidberg »

Imagine all the 56k porn watched on those PCs.

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ian
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Re: I just recieved 3 free computers from Facebook Marketplace

Post by ian »

Depends what you use your computer for how quickly you think it's useless. Was the same back then as now...

My families 1996 IBM was still in use in 2004 by my father who used it for Family tree stuff, sports records (AFL and olympics) and older versions of Autocad which happened to be in use at his work, and used for designing models etc.

To ME who wanted to do EVERYTHING on it, that computer was Entirely useless by 1999 (Still have that system and it still boots faster than any newer version of windows on a hard drive BTW)

Today my 5 year old platform is ample for the "dad stuff" I'm now doing, but for a kid, they'd find it almost useless for whatever kids want to do on computers. Porn and gaming I guess.

Also.. I would love to put my Ryzen in the one on the left.. The yellowing, the grubbyness and just the vibe would make a great case..
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Calavera
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Re: I just recieved 3 free computers from Facebook Marketplace

Post by Calavera »

So I was looking at old PCs like this on Ebay just for shits and giggles and I've found many "Windows 95/98 Gaming Machine" listings that have sold for anywhere from around $150 to several $100 dollars. Is there actually value in these old PCs? I've got many old PCs laying around. Heck if I could get $50 a piece for each of them I'd be thrilled!
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Dr. Zoidberg
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Re: I just recieved 3 free computers from Facebook Marketplace

Post by Dr. Zoidberg »

My brother got an iMac 2007 for AU$26.50 yesterday. Exciting times in the BG old computer collecting thread!

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ian
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Re: I just recieved 3 free computers from Facebook Marketplace

Post by ian »

Calavera wrote: Mon Aug 19, 2019 6:27 pmIs there actually value in these old PCs?
Yes.
Just be sure to use the words: Retro, Gaming, Vintage, Original and Rare in your tags and titles, and a LOT of old working computers can be sold under the premise of retro gaming.

I picked up a rubbish GPU the other day.. They're going for $100+

List all your shit, and don't be afraid to let it sit, eventually you'll get a decent price. :olol:

Dr. Zoidberg wrote: Mon Aug 19, 2019 7:06 pm My brother got an iMac 2007 for AU$26.50 yesterday.
Not a bad little take home.
Dr. Zoidberg wrote: Mon Aug 19, 2019 7:06 pm Exciting times in the BG old computer collecting thread!
YES. The old computer collecting thread is a thing now!!!
If I should Die Hard Arcade before I Alan Wake.
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Calavera
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Re: I just recieved 3 free computers from Facebook Marketplace

Post by Calavera »

So I tried the small one on the far right. It is a 1ghz AMD from 2001. It originally came with Windows ME. I decided I would try XP on it just to see how usable it would be. Windows 95/98 is fine if you just want to put old programs and games on it. Using it to try to go online it worthless though. Maybe 10 percent of web pages will actually work.
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Big Boss Man
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Re: I just recieved 3 free computers from Facebook Marketplace

Post by Big Boss Man »

Yea a lot of the older PCs are sought after to run old games which aren't on GOG, Steam etc. and if they are XP games etc they won't run in DOSbox.

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Calavera
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Re: I just recieved 3 free computers from Facebook Marketplace

Post by Calavera »

Still have only messed with the 1ghz AMD Thunderbird PC. The motherboard has a dip switch to set the FSB speed from 95-133. The default for the CPU in it is 100mhz. I have turned it up to 110mhz so the CPU now runs at 1.1ghz. A ten percent improvement, not bad. For the GPU I'm using a Geforce2 MX200 AGP card. I tried overclocking it just because and was pretty amazed at the results. The default speeds for the MX200 is 175mhz core 334mhz memory. I was able to overclock it to 250mhz core and 390mhz memory. I was really surprised at that. I figured the core wouldn't even go up to 200mhz, but I was wrong! I was able to increase it by 75mhz a 43 percent increase! I used 3DMark2001SE to test it out. That really took me back. I used to run that all the time back in the day.

Here are the results from 3DMark2001SE with the stock settings and the 250mhz core and 390mhz memory settings.

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The only actual game I've tried on it so far is Mafia. One of the greatest games ever made! It ran pretty good at high settings at 800x600. I only tried it on stock clocks. Haven't tried it with the higher clocks yet.
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Calavera
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Re: I just recieved 3 free computers from Facebook Marketplace

Post by Calavera »

Something else I wanted to mention about the AMD PC. I have XP on it now but at first I had Windows Server 2003 on it because the XP disc I had wasn't working. I tried to run HWMonitor to look at the temps but it wouldn't load on 2003 for some reason. After I put XP on it I used it for awhile doing many things that was maxing out the CPU usage, then I remembered to try HWMonitor on XP and see if it loaded. It loaded fine on XP and it told me that the current CPU temperature was 206F! (97C) Whoops! I'm surprised it didn't burn up at those temps! I looked online and found that AMD actually lists the maximum operating temperature for the Thunderbird 1ghz at 90C(194F) So I was only about 12 degrees F over the maximum but still that is insanely high! I still had some Arctic Silver laying around so I figured I'd slap some on. When I took the cooler off there was excess dried paste all over the cooler as if way too much had been applied originally. When I went to clean off the chip itself some of the paste was actually dried onto the chip and had to be scraped off. After I finally had it all cleaned up I very sloppily applied some Arctic Silver to the chip and put the stock cooler back on. Now it maxes out at around 145F (63C) much better.

So when you are messing with an old PC remember to check your temps and have some thermal paste on hand, because it most likely will have dried out over the past 15-20 years and be next to useless.


Here are a couple pics showing how bad the old thermal paste was.
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Calavera
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Re: I just recieved 3 free computers from Facebook Marketplace

Post by Calavera »

So I plugged in my Microsoft Sidewinder Force Feedback joystick I picked up from Goodwill awhile back to see if it works. I haven't been able to test it since it is not supported in any version of Windows after XP. Not even if you actually have a real gameport! It seems to work perfectly fine. It is a real shame they can't make these compatible with modern systems as they are still really good joysticks with some high end components inside.

I just need to install a force feedback game now. I remember back in the day it had a demo program with it. It had a few different force feedback demos. The one I specifically remember is one called chainsaw. I can't find it to download anywhere and for all I know if could only work with 98. I actually do have the original driver CD that should have the program on it. The only problem is finding it!
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Re: I just recieved 3 free computers from Facebook Marketplace

Post by Calavera »

The price for ancient video cards is crazy! I thought about getting a decent AGP card to throw in the Thunderbird PC as even with a 1ghz CPU and an AGP 4x slot it could still do better than the Geforce MX200. Looking on Ebay some of the prices are insane! IMO $20 is too much for such an old card, but I was seeing a lot of them for $50 and higher. The only two reasonable ones I've found are a ATI 9550 and a GeForce MX 5200 128MB both for $10 shipped. I've got several old systems that I mess around with here and there and it would be nice to have a decent AGP card. Just think how many of these went in the garbage! Nowadays I'd expect to be able to get a lot of 10 old cards for $10 or so since they are pretty much worthless except to a very small group.
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Re: I just recieved 3 free computers from Facebook Marketplace

Post by ian »

Prices are just where they need to be. That rubbish card I mentioned is a 3850 AGP.
Turns out they're going for around $200 simply because it's basically is the best AGP GPU you can get.

old GPU = Rubbish
Retro gaming, best in class GPU = $200
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Calavera
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Re: I just recieved 3 free computers from Facebook Marketplace

Post by Calavera »

ian wrote: Sun Sep 01, 2019 4:54 pm Prices are just where they need to be. That rubbish card I mentioned is a 3850 AGP.
Turns out they're going for around $200 simply because it's basically is the best AGP GPU you can get.

old GPU = Rubbish
Retro gaming, best in class GPU = $200
The HD 3850 AGP! I actually had one of those back in the day. I still had an AGP motherboard and wanted a better video card but didn't want to upgrade my system. Looking back at my Newegg order history I can tell you that I purchased it on June 21st 2008 for $156.99. I didn't have it for very long before I upgraded my system. I can't remember how it worked out but I think I sold my old system and the 3850 AGP and was able to get a new system and a 3870 PCI-E for what I sold it all for or like $20 extra. The 3870 I bought to replace it is still in use to this day in a family member's computer. A AMD Athlon 64 X2 5400+ Black Edition with 3GB ram and an HD 3870 GPU. Still works great for web browsing and video streaming over a decade later!
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Re: I just recieved 3 free computers from Facebook Marketplace

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I'm not sure if anybody is that interested in reading my adventures in old computing but I'll still continue cause I have fun messing around with the old machines. So I've been using a Geforce2 MX200 for the GPU. The 3DMark01 scores are posted in an above post. (1584 stock, 1884 overclocked) I also have a board that just says Geforce2MX. It is a bigger board and also has s-video out on it. I'd read online that it may be faster than the MX200 but I was having problems with the screen going black once loading into Windows when using it. The card was fairly dirty so I cleaned it up with alcohol wipes hoping maybe somehow that would fix the problem. And it did!


The main difference between the MX and MX200 is that the MX is 128-bit while the MX200 is 64-bit. So now that the MX was working I ran 3DMark01 with it to see if there was much improvement over the MX200. There was a huge improvement! The 3DMark01 score went from 1584 to 2562! I also tried overclocking this card and was able to get the memory to the same speed as the MX200 but the core would only go to around 200mhz. The overclocked score went from 1884 to 2809. I am surprised there is such a performance difference between the two cards. Not knowing anything about them one would assume that a MX200 would be more powerful than a standard MX. I've included screenshots of the 3DMark results for the new card if you are interested in seeing the differences. As you can see the difference in frame rate is substantial, gaining nearly 30fps.
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Overclocked to 200mhz core 390mhz memory
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Re: I just recieved 3 free computers from Facebook Marketplace

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One thing I was looking forward to was being able to try out my Sidewinder FFB Pro joystick. But they barely supported it even in XP! The Sidewinder software doesn't work on XP so there is no way to test the FFB. The PC has two gameports, one on the motherboard and the second on the Soundblaster Live card. I've never been able to get it to work with the Soundblaster card. When I plug the joystick into the onboard gameport the green light on the stick lights up solid green and is able to be recognized just fine. When I plug it into the SB gameport a couple of different things happen. Sometimes nothing happens, the green light doesn't come on at all as if the port is doing nothing. Other times the light will come on by just barely, as if the port isn't putting out enough power. Then sometimes when plugged in the stick will activate the motors and jam itself all the way to the forward right. I guess there is a problem with the gameport on the SB card but I don't see how. The card works fine otherwise. I guess I will put a different drive in it and install Windows 98 and see if it works there. The stick is recognized and works in XP but there is no FFB. I've tried several games that support FFB with the Sidewinder and nothing happens.
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Re: I just recieved 3 free computers from Facebook Marketplace

Post by ian »

The problem is you have a sidewinder pro when what you want is a Force Feedback 2. Still one of the best joysticks ever made.

I saw a force feedback 2 and a strategic commander at a pawn shop within the past year, and had the price not been insane, I would have picked up both.
I've had both before, and both were amazing.. Microsoft used to make such good peripherals... now a controller is shit after a year..
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Re: I just recieved 3 free computers from Facebook Marketplace

Post by Calavera »

ian wrote: Fri Sep 06, 2019 7:48 am The problem is you have a sidewinder pro when what you want is a Force Feedback 2. Still one of the best joysticks ever made.

I saw a force feedback 2 and a strategic commander at a pawn shop within the past year, and had the price not been insane, I would have picked up both.
I've had both before, and both were amazing.. Microsoft used to make such good peripherals... now a controller is shit after a year..
If I ever come across a cheap FFB 2 I'll get it but so far I've not found one. I've read that the original actually uses higher quality parts. I think it uses digital potentiometers which will work just as good today as they did 20 years ago. Apparently even the high end expensive joysticks of today don't use them for some reason. It really sucks that they abandoned it so soon. It came out in 1997 and was basically abandoned by 2001-2002.


In non Sidewinder related news I've increased my 3DMark scores even more!

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Calavera
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Re: I just recieved 3 free computers from Facebook Marketplace

Post by Calavera »

So the first GPU I was using was a Geforce2 MX200. It scored a 1584 on 3DMark01 stock and 1884 overclocked. After that I tried a standard Geforce 2 MX that I had laying around. With that I was able to up my 3DMark01 scores to 2562 stock and 2809 overclocked. I found a Radeon X1650 256MB for $10. A decent price and I figured it would be more than powerful enough for a 1GHZ Thunderbird with 4X AGP.

When I first installed the X1650 I tried the latest drivers under the legacy section of the AMD website that supported the X1650 in Windows XP which is 10.2. With that driver the card would not produce any 3D. So I tried a random older version just to see if it was a driver problem or a bad card. I tried 7.2 and the card worked and gave me a score of 6545 in 3DMark01. So then I decided to see if a newer driver would work and give better performance so I tried 9.12. It worked but gave me a slightly lower 3DMark01 score.

I remembered in the old days there were custom drivers that would improve performance over the stock drivers. First I tried a driver called DNA. It gave no improvement and was still slightly lower than the 7.2 driver. I saw somebody mention ATI drivers called XG Warcat on an old forum. So I downloaded the Warcat drivers. The version I downloaded is based on version 7.4 drivers. I'm not sure what those drivers are doing different but it gave a huge increase in performance! My 3DMark score went from 6545 with the 7.2 driver to 8769 with the Warcat drivers. I wouldn't have thought a different driver could give some a big performance increase!

Here are the results using the Warcat drivers
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As you can see many things are way higher than they were with stock drivers. Those stock drivers must have really been holding the card back. The High Polygon (1 Light) test went from 26.1 to 138! Game 4 71fps to 133fps! Those Warcat drivers are pretty awesome for this card.
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Re: I just recieved 3 free computers from Facebook Marketplace

Post by melancholy »

Are those drivers overclocking the card or something? That doesn’t make sense that a driver would have that much of a performance increase.

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