Now here's the story.... About 6
years ago I bought this so called monster computer from a surplus store (take note of the
word surplus). It was the year 2000 and if my memory serves me right it was the year when
Pentium 2 was so popular and Pentium 3 was beginning to rise, Windows 95 was on its
twilight because of the new Windows 98 SE2. The year when a 10gb HDD was too big for your
computer.
"Well my rig survived the Y2K bug". I did a couple of programming exercises
with it and had fun with my encyclopedia games. I even learned how to use the Power Point
from this monster. But those days were over. In 8 months after I bought it I tried to
install Windows 98. Too bad during those times I know less about computers and its
specifications and limits. Windows 98 occupies large hard disk space, a way too large for
my rig that made my PC useless. Now, I can only run this monster on DOS because I don't
have a Windows 95 installer. Later, I noticed exclamations scattered all over my screen
then my monitor won't turn on. Worst comes worst when my father accidentally plug a 110V
monitor to a 220V line!!!This made me decide to dump this monster because repair for this
during those times would cost me much
Now, year 2006 will be the year for this monster to rise from its graveyard. With all
this modern technology this monster will surely be revived ( if I can still find parts for
this thing,hehehe).
To give you an overview with the challenge I am facing here's the original specs of my
original Dell Optiplex Rig
- Intel 80486 processor running on 33Mhz speed
- Socket 3 motherboard with on board video (video card was damaged)
- 16mb EDO RAM
- 270mb HDD with Windows 95 pre-installed (no longer has OS)
- an ISA slot with a 4 slot riser card
- one IDE connector (could only support two ATA devices)
- 3.5" floppy drive
- 14" monitor (monitor blows after being plugged to 220V line)
- PS/2 port for mouse and keyboard
- 2 serial port
- 1 parallel port (SPP mode only)
- no NIC, no PCI, no USB, no sound card, no modem, no printer
When I first look at my old rig, I said "I'm going to revive you old pal". So
I search on the auction site for RAMs.
I found a couple (I mean it, a couple) of it from a guy (fm) selling all his EDO for
Php300. And after a couple of trial and error, I realized that my BIOS would only support
32mb of RAM, that is 4x 8mb EDO......
Then I got this ISA sound card from another guy (Migz_one) for Php50......
I had an ISA video card for Php100 from the guy (Chrispc32376) who sold me the AT
PSUs.......
My old 52x CD ROM........
My multimedia speakers came from my former housemate Emerson for free,hehehe.
My Windows 95 and MS office installer from my mistah Lester.
And my monitor? Of course from my Dad's office after he was relieved from his position
for shitting on mayor's illegal businesses. (hehehe. It is the good guys who gets
punished.) Anyway it's his monitor and he was the one who destroyed my old monitor,
hehehe.
December 3, 2006
Noticed that Frankie always dies when asked to do a heavy task. At first I suspected
the memory but now its the power supply. I'll try to replace it next week.
