Vintage E-Waste Special: Attack of the Dell's!!
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- čas přidán 4. 07. 2024
- It's the Attack of the Dell's... they are Everywhere and have been rescued from E-Waste!! Let's go over them, see if we can get them working and see if we find anything interesting! #dell #retropc #nostalgia #vintage #ewaste #intel #windows
Rdram must have all slots filled either with memory or terminator modules. Very Cool Machines. Great Save. I have a Dimension 3000. Thanks for the Video
Love this info and thanks! I didn't know that they all had to be terminated. I'm determined to get this going.
@@TheRetroRecall Hope this fixes it! These socket 423 based systems are a cool and almost forgotten part of Intel's history now it seems.
For sure! It's so awesome seeing this different hardware for sure... The challenges make it that much more fun to work on and get going again :)
Reran or rimms were meant to compete with dimms or dram. Hmmm I wonder who won that war lol
Haha!
Ah memories. We had all three of these kind of Dells at my old workplace, and a couple more types. They had Dell account with good terms and boy did they use it. Heck, my current employer is also 100% Dell for similar reasons. It's those great sales terms. Anyhow, the first employer consolidated locations and we had no IT people at that point so I got to be the guy who staged and palletized all the old office PCs being decommissioned. We had close to 200 systems, desktops, laptops, rack servers, even a couple Macs. None were stripped or cleaned. We just put them on pallets, shrink wrapped them, and get this, we had a freight company take them from the US where our office was and deliver to Toronto where the head office was. They were extremely paranoid about keeping the assets and wanted every single old PC exported and happily paid customs fees and international freight to do it. Tens of thousands in shipping alone, worth way more than the stuff being shipped. Over 30 skids all together including desktops, everything out of our server room, rolling rack units, UPS units, multiple huge Gaylord boxes of loose software and data tapes, mice and keyboards, monitors, and all the cables. They shipped all of this stuff up to Canada. Absolutely none of it was given to local US employees and we were not allowed to sanitize drives or throw away obviously broken stuff. Ship it all. Okay. I did just that. I am sure the poor folks on the receiving end wondered why the crazy American office was shipping them pallet after pallet of old junk Dell machines and Gaylords of crap. I can guarantee nobody ever went through those machines for reuse or whatever. You could look at a skid and just know there was no point. They would have gone into a warehouse rack and might even still be there to this day. I think even an e-waste recycler would look at that stuff and say "yeah nah, we're good. You just keep that"
Adding to my reply, I do love old Dell hardware. Still using Dell D630 laptop I got online for $60 ten years ago. It was already old. Dropped in a new battery and an SSD, maxed out the RAM and it runs Windows 10 just fine, although I prefer to run Xubuntu on it. 100% functional probably 20 years old at this point. Also use an old Dell data center gigabit switch in my home network. The fan noise from a 48-port switch is nice background noise and this thing actually moves some data, unlike consumer grade switches and hubs. Paid $30 for it non working and spent $10 on parts to fix it. Absolute beast of Dell. It will outlast me.
Haha, wow. First off I love this share, so thank you! Secondly, I'm with you, it just doesn't make sense. Clean the drives and distribute - but again, depending on the nature of the business, they may have been extremely paranoid and wanted them certified and destroyed. I have a similar story where I had to do that, however not to that scale. :)
The D630 is such a great machine, I have one new from 2006/2007. It was my daily up until 2012 when I got another Dell. Stay tuned for a video on the D630!
I got recommended this video and sat here watching it as I like Dell products. FYI, the Optiplexes are indeed workstations for businesses. Later models carry the Core i processors. They come in several form factors, mid tower, SFF, and 2 smaller form factors, including and ultra small FF that can be mounted behind a monitor if needed. The Latitudes are the laptop variants for businesses.
I am on my second Dell, an Optiplex 9020 from 2013 with a Core i5 processor in it and previously had the Studio XPS/435T desktop that was the first gen Core i7 (920) and ran Vista (yes). Thankfully it was the 64 bit variant as I understand they were not so bad, compared to the 32 bit version. A system hog for sure.
Don't know about that old Optiplex here, but the later ones are fully tooless for ease of service. My old employer, a community college used Dells, Optiplex SFF for desktops, and the Latitudes for the laptops and last year, cycled out a bunch of the 7010/7020 SFF machines from the same time frame as my Optiplex, which I bought refurbished with a 120G SSD, it now has a 500G SSD. It had 8GB's when I got it, and bumped it to 16G and do edit with this machine, running a wheezy NVIDIA Geforce 610 with a "whopping" 1GB of VRAM on it. barely can do 1080P, and definitely not smoothly but it works, for now.
I still have the original 22" 1080P Dell monitor that I bought along with the Studio XPS machine in 2009, but it finally died on me a couple of months ago and found a used Dell 1080P monitor, but it has much better image and was a work monitor so it has height adjustment, swivels, rotates to vertical and has USB, but only VGA/DVI-D capable. I do run 2 monitors, but the second one is also a Dell, but a 20" 720, max resolution and VGA only. That black Dell keyboard is the 8115 keyboards from early to mid 2000's. For rubber dome, they were some of the best I've run across, but now type away on a mechanical keyboard.
Thank's for sharing, it seems you had a lot of nice Dell equipment and are a long time dedicated user! I generally have liked Dell's - mostly the older ones. I find the newer ones seem a bit less interesting in design. Thanks for watching, stay tuned for more!
I'm watching on a 2009 emachines desktop that came with the monitor and keyboard and mouse I got for free someone was throwing away. I re-installed windows 7 and it works great! Great video
Haha that's awesome!!! Remember emachines.... Never obsolete??? :)
@@TheRetroRecall haha yes! That was a really great slogan lol.
The bit with a plastic insert blocking it off is a potential access port for a small floppy drive. By this point, most people werent using them, so many of these machines came with the port blocked off. Just like many desktops of the last few years have a space for an often absent optical drive since most people have migrated to flash media.
Thanks for this info, makes sense!
@@TheRetroRecall i.ebayimg.com/images/g/wb4AAOSwz1RclrUn/s-l1600.jpg
Everyone was right: Windows Malfunctioning Edition was worst piece of software ever to grace a PC
Haha. I just loved it. It never ran badly for me... But then again I had decent hardware and the right drivers at the time. I wasn't an early adopter which may have helped the experience :)
I’ve never had issues with it but windows 10 was the worst in my opinion.
@@9852323 I actually run 10 on 4 out of my 6 computers and it never gave me any headaches. The other 2, my main PC runs 11, and my Pentium 4 retro gamer runs XP
Me was a godsend for me. At that time, we had a PPPoE DSL connection which connected only to one PC. Routers as we know them didn't exist. So if you had more than one PC, you had to kludge getting them to share the connection. ME came equipped for this out of the box and it worked. In a family with multiple PCs, before networking or wifi or any of that, ME was a hero for that feature alone. I also had great luck with system restore which was another ME feature. It saved the day several times.
Have 2 machines running ME never have any issues out of them, ME was the first version of windows to support usb flash drives nativley
I'm sure it has been said here at least a few times, but regarding the GX400: Rambus memory needs empty RAM slots to be filled with terminator modules. They just look like blank RAM sticks. Should fire up after fixing that. The power supply isn't mounted correctly either. The plastic arm you see going across where the PSU fan vents hooks onto the back of the PSU, and acts as a kick-stand when opening the PSU upward. Definitely helps when opening up the system to have that in-place. As for the weight, every system Dell used this chassis for definitely had some heft! So much so that I would suggest when carrying the whole thing somewhere not to lift with your hand on the side that opens up. The side panel latch release mechanism starts breaking itself and the plastic hooks on the side panel when the bottom of the case gets bent upward. I have a GX400, GX300, and many other older Optiplexes that used this case and they all got affected by this at one point in their lives. At any rate, these three systems are a great find, and I hope you get the GX400 going!
It has for sure - I have learned so much about this type of memory since posting this video. I am working to source some of the memory to get this system going! Interesting regarding the call out on the PSU - I will do a deeper dive and make sure to correct that issue. Love the tips re: carrying the machine - because you are right, I was definitely carrying it that way! Again - thanks for all of this and for watching!
Two out of three ain't bad and you have a very good possibility of getting number three working again after you sort out the RDRAM problem. RDRAM was a pain in the ass and quite expensive. Maybe it was good that it didn't "pan out" in the long run and was discontinued. On the down side, that may make it expensive and hard to acquire now. Good luck bro! Hopefully you get it working and show us in a future video! 👍👍
100% I am determined to get it going!! I am sure someone in the community will help out between methods or offering to donate some. Failing that there is always the online marketplace haha. Thanks!
The slot on the first Dell was for a 3 and a half inch floppy drive. I had one of those machines with a floppy drive.
Awesome, thanks! I was also told that it was common to have a LS120 or Zip drive in there. Either way, the caddy that is missing was only supplied if the system was spec'd for a drive. Shame really, it should have come with it regardless so you could add a drive if needed. Dell saving a few dollars :).
As far as i remember you have to fill all unused slots of RD-Ram with jumper modules like you have shown.
Thanks - definitely going to look into this more closely, it's definitely worth saving!
Think it's called CRIMM
I inserted a screenshot into the video that shows RIMM. Either way, I have never seen it in person before! Determined to get this machine up and going again! Thanks for watching!
The 5150 is a BTX case - the BTX case is an interesting footnote in computing history from when Intel wanted to redesign PC cases in order to cool the ever-power-hungrier HotBurst Pentium 4s.
The D in Pentium D stands for dual core - it was Intel's first multi-core desktop chip, I believe. Wasn't too highly regarded due to its high power/heat compared to AMD's Athlon X2. When the C2D came out in 2006 and completely obsoleted the Pentium D in the enthusiast community, Intel had a lot of Pentium Ds to clear, so Dell sold a LOT of them... This is an 805, which is a special value edition of the Pentium D with a 533MHz FSB, the other Pentium Ds all had 800MHz FSBs.
For the longest time, Dell had a system with 4 little green LEDs to communicate POST status and hardware failure issues. Typically it was found in the ATX back plate, but I think it's possible they moved that to the front with the BTX models.
This is amazing info, thank you for sharing this. I just love the interaction on this channel. I know a lot but I don't know everything for sure... Comments like this are very helpful. Thanks again and thanks for watching!!
@@TheRetroRecall Also, Dell's manuals are still available online. dl.dell.com/manuals/all-products/esuprt_desktop/esuprt_dimension_desktops/dimension-5150x_service%20manual_en-us.pdf is the service manual for the 5150 - you can see the diagnostic lights described at p. 63.
You rock!!!!! Seriously thank you for this. I will heavily use this for the restoration videos. Special call out to you!
@@TheRetroRecall One other thing - you can look up service tags in Dell's system and get a list of all the parts (including peripherals, software, recovery media, etc) that the system shipped with.
And it will also tell you the shipping date, which is basically this system's birthday - in those days Dell was still building most of them to order...
That's a great idea, recommendation! I will definitely take a peak. Thanks again. Hopefully you are subscribed!
Love videos like this. I have the first machine shown except it's a 2400. I upgraded it long ago with a slow 3 GHz Pentium 4. I also have the second machine but it is a different one. I have the e521. It was Dells first AMD machine. I put an Athlon X2 5400 in that one.. I use cpuclk to overclock it to 3GHz.
Thanks for the compliment and sharing! I will always try to do what I can to bring new content. It's a lot of work... But with comments like yours, it's so worth it!!!!
Checking out e-waste and get it going is one thing, sharing or giving it to the public, since they can still be usefull, is epic :-)
That's my plan! Saving it and getting it going again for maybe people looking for a retro pc for games or whatever. For me is the nostalgic process and being able to share the experience with everyone. It's a fun ride!
@@TheRetroRecallwhere do you get this ewaste
There's a local recycling area that I touch base with. Also, so many friends, neighbors and others heard about the channel and are either donating or finding it online and pointing me in the direction. Always some out there, you just need to know where to find them :)
@@TheRetroRecall usually the recycling I see they rather you don't touch anything. I usually just try to find stuff tossed out on trash day, but I keep hearing about recycling centers that are happy to give out junk but I've never seen it
@@thisisall50charactersbeing47Whenever I try to take e-waste the recycling centers want *me* to pay for it!
32:43 This is an CRIMM. A Rambus terminator or dummy if you like. This mainboards seems to need all RAM slots populated. So if all 3 look the same (which I would guess) that probably means that there was only one RIMM installed that is now gone missing. If it doesn't post with only one RIMM I would suggest installing 2 matching ones in the first two slots cause some board needed 2 RIMMs on one channel and wouldn't except only one and an CRIMM at all or in the first channel. Rambus was not only expensive but also not very user friendly.
The post analyser is just confused. Dell used to use their own post code system which is not compatible to the IBM AT (if I remember correctly) standard everybody else copied.
Edit: There are actally four leds on the back between the PS/2 and USB ports to indicate post codes.
Thanks for this info, definitely consistent across the board in the comments. I'm going to find some memory and get this system working! Thanks again!
I have a few of the old Dell Optiplex towers from the winxp days. Last I knew they still worked but they are just sitting around collecting dust unfortunately.
The first Dell you show with the bay under the cd rw would have been a zip drive. Had to use them in college.
Nice, you should dig one of those systems out and see if they are alive haha. Thanks... I figured it wouldn't have been used just for a floppy drive.
Some
Dvd and flopyy drive are amazing
Yup!
We still have a Dell PC just like the first one on the left which is a Dell Dimension 3600 from the early 2000s! We had ours delivered in early 2003 and it has an Intel Pentium 4 CPU! It’s currently in our attic! :)
Dig it out!!! Use that amazing machine haha! :)
@@TheRetroRecall
My parents have wanted to get rid of it but I’ll make sure it’s not thrown out! :)
Perfect!
2:00
That’s actually for the optional standard 3 and a half inch floppy disk drive which our Dell dimension PC has! :)
Thanks - seems to be consensus a cross the comments. I imagine you could use a zip or ls120 variant in there as well! Just need to locate or fabricate a cage for it to mount in :)
@@TheRetroRecall
NP! One of the options was a Sound Blaster 3 sound card which is what we have in our PC and it allowed our PC to output HD sound which was like 24 bit! Pretty much the CPU sound was crap because of it being 8 bit and it wasn’t ideal for listening to music on ITunes! :)
1:56 that’s obviously where the floppy drive goes.
Definitely discovered that as we went through the review of the inside of the machine, thanks for confirming ;)
Glad to see Dell machines getting some love, I see WAY too many OEM systems go to die all because Pentium 4s are "Worthless".
So much potential in these systems!!! Stay tuned, restorations are coming up. Thanks for watching!
That first Dell was definitely a web server
Quite possible!
The 5150 is a Socket 775 system and I believe it will take a Core2Duo. I had a similar one that I did that swap on. Makes it a lot more modern.
Awesome thanks for the tip! I will definitely be exploring the options on this machine for restoration.
16:27 that's a Dell Dimension 5150 case, I have the exact same model, it's BTX form factor, though so, not usable for modern builds unless you want to get happy with a Dremel. Side note, if you've a 3d printer, I'd love if someone could whip up an adapter plate BTX to micro ATX. (in terms of screw placement, you'd still need to mod the case) Since it's a white system box, I wanted to do a white and lue theme, kind of an "iceberg" PC, complete with blue PSU cables heat spreaders on the RAM and some cold cathode lighting tubes, for that old school look.
Thanks for the info, I didn't know that it wasnt truly interchangeable, so good to know! Sounds like you have a project on your hands. I'm sure there is something out there in terms of a design for the 3d printer that you could find online and use? Curious to see how your build turns out!
On a rimm system all memory slots have to be populated either by a blank spacer or an actual rimm module. That’s why rimm was so unpopular. The optiplex is a rimm system
Thanks! I definitely have figured that out through this process and the great feedback from the viewers! I am going to source some and I am determined to get this system going! Stay tuned :)
I have a Dell 3000 that has the Pentium 4 w/ HT and I have a Dell Dimension 9150, which is very similar to the 5150. The 9150 is still in use today as a system for playing music connected my stereo and is still running Windows XP. I used to work for a company as the IT Manager, up until they closed and got to keep a lot of the systems.
Amazing!!! I hope to get these systems up and running fully. What would you put into the 5150 for hardware upgrades and an OS??
Gotta love old Dell desktops!
Yes!!!!
Looks to be that the expansion slot was for a 56kb modem as they still were kicking around in the early 2000s then started to fade out
56k will never fade out haha! I did another video connecting using dial up in 2023! :)
I own a Dell Dimension 9200, which is similar in appearance to your Dimension 5150 in this video, but perhaps a bit taller. It has been stored in my garage for many years. I recently got nostalgic and wanted to use it again. After giving it a good cleaning, I attempted to boot it up. It started beeping and the lights indicated memory errors. I got the codes off the internet. I pulled and reinstalled the memory sticks. After that It booted up just fine. There must have been some corrosion on the contacts or the sticks weren't seated properly. All good now. It has a Pentium 4 processor (Core 2 Duo), 4 gigs of DRAM, one Terabyte HDD (which I reinstalled ), video card, floppy disk drive, CD burner drive, card reader, a bank off USB sockets, front and back, but no PS2 connectors. At one time it was my main desktop computer, until I replaced it with an HP Notebook. It was built for Windows XP, but is currently running Windows 10 Home Edition. Windows 10 slows it down a bit, but it's definitely usable. I'm surprised that it still works! The BIOS coin battery still has nearly a full charge. So there was nothing draining the battery while it was in storage. The chassis is built like a tank. I don't know what I will do with it. I doubt if it is powerful enough to play newer games or edit video files, but it plays music and video very well, plus most every other software. I subbed and liked. Sorry my comment is so long. Thanks.
Hey Bob, never be sorry for a long comment - all types of comments is what makes this channel thrive! I just love you sharing this story. I mean older PC's can have a couple of uses for sure. In your case you had upgraded to Windows 10 and extended the life of the machine into the 2020s. That said, the other use case which I feel tends to be more common is setting up the machine with era specific operating systems and playing some games of that era. I am sure that yours would do Windows Xp for example and play some of the later P4 / Windows XP era games and support them quite well! I am shocked at your coincell battery lasting that long. Then again, I've had laptop batteries still hold a charge after 25 years - still amazes me. Thank you for subbing, your support and for watching!!! I hope you enjoy :)
Awesome and no problem! Yes I love saving what I can, restoring them and sharing the experience with everyone that I can. It's a lot of work but can be rewarding with some of the awesome comments and people from around the world sharing their memories. Thanks again!
@@TheRetroRecall Thanks for your reply. It must have been a good investment because I didn't pay much for the computer. I picked it up at a thrift store for about $10 or so. I had to buy a hard drive for it back then, but that's about it. The first thing I tested was the battery. I was totally shocked that it was almost full charge. Anyway I've been into computers since 1980 when I bought my first computer. It was a Commodore 64. I used that computer onboard ship at my job as aviation storekeeper, when I served in the Navy. Later on I bought a Commodore 128, which I still have and it still works perfectly. Anyway, I'm droning on a bit. Sorry. I had many used and new IBM/Windows type of computers after that, but the best one was my Dell Dimension 9200. I've never owned an apple product. Vintage computers are fun to play around with and even use for serious stuff and gaming, especially since they can be picked up nowadays for a few dollars. It's a shame that so many people just throw them away when they buy a newer one. I'm so glad you find value in vintage computers as I do and rescue them from e-waste to give them new life. You have a great channel. Thanks.
Update: I had to edit my comment above, so that's why it's out of order. Cheers.
All good :)
Great video! I love that first Dell! I’ve heard about the capacitor plague of the early 2000s, but it doesn’t look like it affected that computer.
Thanks and yes so far so good. I will have more time to dig into each one during the restoration videos :). Thanks for watching!
@@TheRetroRecall Those capacitors next to the processor under the green plastic cover on your first Dell system are usually the first to fail because they get subjected to the most heat.
Thanks! Makes total sense. I will pay particular attention to those ones. Thanks!!
I've been looking for an Optiplex GX400 for a while now and have had absolutely zero luck, I sure wish I could find one in e-waste!
It's quite the (heavy) system!!! I can't wait to get it going!!
Got given a HP pavilion running XP, going to use it for an emulation machine.
Nice!!
I sure do love a good e-waste pc haul like this....and it's even better when they work! That's always a nice surprise. As far as o/s goes, I would just reinstall XP to avoid all of the driver hassles (especially with chipsets). I used to have a bunch of Dell GX-1's from the late 90's----those beasts were huge, and they easily weighed 60 lbs each. They were all retired from a school system, and every one had a dead Maxtor hard drive (failed heads). I installed new drives and new o/s, and they all worked great except for one----bad motherboard. I hope to see more on these
Well I will try to stay close to the builds of course but will do what I can to get them going!
@@TheRetroRecall It shouldn't be too hard; one already works, the second one should work with a hard drive and o/s, and the third just has a memory issue that should be easy enough to solve. I'm looking forward to future developments on these
Stay tuned!!!
I'm willing to bet that last dell is a server PC as it's heavy and has unusual RAM not found in everyday home/office PC's.
Possibly but definitely a business workstation at the very least. :)
Great video and subbed! you were in my recommended!
I have quite a few Dells I've saved and restored..
Dell Optiplex GX150 with a 933MHz P3 + Geforce FX 5200;
Dimension 4600 with an upgraded 3GHz P4 +Radeon 9600 SE
Inspirion 530 with 3GHz Core 2 Duo e8400 + 8800 GT
Red XPS 630i with an upgraded 3GHz Core 2 Quad Q9650 + GTX 560 Ti
That Dimension 3000 you reviewed first personally isn't worth saving. Doesn't have an AGP, and was a barebones throwaway PC when it was new. I remember when these were a dime a dozen.
That Dimension 5150 is one of the failed BTX form Factora I need to get one of these at some point
Also that GX400, probably has blown capacitors. It was right in the middle of the capacitor plague
Also 100th comment apparently ayyyy xD
Welcome to the channel - 100th comment! :). That's great info, and from what I am seeing in the comments and the post codes it seems to be something with the RIMM ram that's installed. I need to get some and see what we can do to get it going. Failing that, I will definitely be recapping etc to find the issue and get this system going! Thanks again for subbing and for watching! Stay tuned :)
Those Dells were the bane of my existence. Pentium 4 2.0ghz, 512mb RAM, 80gb HDD, Windows XP, no service pack, dial-up modem. Had to de-virus SO many of these things between like 2002-2007 or 2008. When Vista rolled out and people bought MS' crap about the specs for Vista it was even worse...so many stories, none of them good.
I did have a friend with an 8100 that I upgraded to the max. I put a 3 or 4ghz P4 in it, a 320gb HDD, DVD-R/RW, I think I gave him a Geforce 5950 too, along with 3gb of RAM (maxed out).
So happy to hear that others have experienced the same or other challenges. It sounds like you have resolved them but you have given me insight for my builds. Thank you!
@@TheRetroRecall Yeah, the last time I touched my friend's Dell about 6 or 7 years ago I stripped it down to sell for parts; someone actually bought the motherboard/CPU/RAM for like $80 which is *nuts* when you think about it. I guess they had a very specific use-case. Good luck with these.
Thanks!!
I used to work tech support at a call center, and it was much easier to communicate XP’s Control Panel instructions over the phone. I’d walk out if I had to do that with 10 or 11.
@@zeroturn7091 Same with 95 and 98. Visaster, Seven, 8, 10 and 11? Lord, forget it.
The third system has no RAM, those modules are bridges so you don’t have to populate all of the slots which that type of RAM requires.
Thanks! Yes some great feedback from viewers helping me realize what it is. Time to get some Rdram and get this system going!! Thanks for the tip and for watching!
The 3000 model I remember quite well from CSCI classes in college (early 2000's) that drive spot on the front aTleast sat the college I went to we used Zip disks to save our projects on and turn in so there would normally at least on the machines we used had Zip drives there.
Awesome thanks - and totally makes sense! It would be really handy to have a larger capacity storage option there back then.
Pentium D was was not named so because it was the desktop processor. It was Intel's first dual-core processor containing 2 Netburst die (Pentium 4). Pentium M was much more power efficient than mobile Pentium 4s, and were designed in Israel as an evolution of the P6 (Pentium Pro/II/III). When Intel did away with Netburst, they developed the Pentium M into the Core series processors.
Thanks for the info! I understand and sorry if I implied otherwise in the video. Despite the nomenclauture the D's were aimed at desktops and the M's were aimed at mobile PC's (notebooks)
19:11 the blue plastic up by your left hand has a small spring, that often likes to go flying when you mess with the tooless bays.
Thanks!! Also good to know and keep my eye on when I do the restoration. Thanks again!
I like windows ME too
..have two machines running it..think those lights are diagnose lights...if any of them ever light up amber there is a problem..dell has the light codes online...never saw them on the front before usually on the back and they"re letters A, B, C, D
That's good to know, yes I think someone else also posted that suggestion. I definitely am going to look into that when I work to restore it :) yes - ME rocked :)
I still have a Dell dimension 4600. Twenty years almost.
Nice!!! It's great to see these systems still going!
Good to see some Dell desktops on the channel as I never really had the chance to use them over the years. Did find myself refurbing a few Dell laptops & HP desktops as a volunteer though.
Nice. And yes I was lucky to be able to find these. Man, they are great systems!
@@TheRetroRecall Hope you can get the 3rd desktop working, not seen such funky behaviour with a POST analyzer card before.
Yeah it was nuts! But from what I understand it is due to the ram. We will see what I can do!
R-DRAM is the first dual channel memory in PC's. It is mandatory that all slots are filled, either with actual RAM, or the blanks you were holding. IE: put two ram sticks in and then two blanks.
Thanks! There has been quite a bit of assistance with this which is great! I plan on locating some memory and restoring this system!
I'm working on a Dell 5150 atm, fist thing i saw was the 2 128mb modules went on the fritz. I figured that out after the I tried to recover the password from the previous owner. She said her husband passed a way and she never knew how to use the "fancy thing". So I Replaced the 256mb with 4, 1gig sticks and its now running Windows with the Pentium D CPU. x64. Good cleaning, and new thermal paste applied. Works like a charm. Moral of the story someone else may need your old stuff. :)
That is a great share, and I'm happy you rescued the system. I aim to do the same! Everyone commenting is so great and I will definitely be taking the info in to be able to restore these systems. Thanks so much for sharing and for watching!
The dell gx400 labels the usb ports bc legacy usb mode in the bios only changes the first set of usb ports I believe.
Awesome, thanks for that info! I plan on restoring this system once I get my hand on some of the RDRAM. I'll keep this in mind!
Yeah the legacy keyboard mode is required for dos that systems awesome been gaming on a similar one for years can’t wait for a follow up
:). Thanks!!
the dell 400 had no ram in it, the cards you seen are placeholders for empty slots, you need to buy a crimm module for two of the slots to get it working
Thanks a lot for the info... Yes I've learned a lot about this ram from the amazing comments just like yours on the video. We will definitely get this going!
@@TheRetroRecall Cant wait on your next video, Keep up the amazing vids.
With rdram, you need all four slots filled with eitheer terminators or actual ram for the system to post, otherwise it will beep incessantly.😅 It looks like only three slots are filled.
Thanks for this info, yes definitely a new experience for me and loving the help from the community! I'm determined to get this going, so stay tuned, there will be a future video on this system:)
All slots of Rd-ram need to be filled with RAM or terminator
Thanks - I wasn't aware and will definitely be testing some of the recommendations out. It will be great to get it going!
About that Dell Dimension 3000, yes there is a floppy cage that would be there. Seems to only be installed if you have gotten the machine brand new with a floppy drive. I have a slightly newer Dell dimension 4700 that was kept in stock config from new till I got it and it did not have the floppy drive cage.
Awesome, thanks for clarifying. I wonder if something could be 3d printed to hold a floppy or ls120 / zip drive? That would be a cool addition. Thanks for watching!
@@TheRetroRecall fortunately for me, I had gutted a knacked Dell Dimension 2350 prior which had the floppy drive cage and the floppy drive.
Thanks!!! I may also have another Dell case that I may be able to steal it from haha!
@@TheRetroRecall I think you can make your own. The cage is nothing special after all. Just note that there are 2 tabs at the bottom of the ODD cage meant to secure your cage. So, you will have to create 2 rectangular/trapezium holes to accommodate those tabs.
It seems pretty straight forward. Let's see if I can do it without losing a finger haha!
I found a Dell Dimension 3000 myself in a dumpster. It was missing its PSU however but I am going to get one for it when I get the time. There is or there was a floppy drive upgrade kit which included the caddy or mounting bracket for the FDD. They don't seem to be that common to find so I'm not sure if I will ever put a floppy drive in my 3000. I mean, I could in the 2nd 5.25" bay with a bracket but I haven't decided completely yet. I might just leave it and use it as a vintage gaming rig. I'm sure the base configuration will run games like StarCraft 1 and maybe WarCraft III well enough.
EDIT: That BTX motherboard looks very interesting. I always found it weird that from PCI onward the cards faced down, and as we know, hot air wants to go up so with graphics cards blowing hot air down before it could go up was weird. This BTX I think flips the PCI cards so a fan on a PCI or PCI-e graphics card will face upwards blowing the air away from the other cards and straight to the exhaust fan. Pretty cool. It's maybe less of an issue now since I think modern GPUs have their own exhaust (or that's what it looks like) but still, BTX looks interesting.
Hey there! Yes - I have heard through the comments that the Floppy drive and caddy were optional. I think it would have been great to have one for an LS120 or ZIP format at the time. I am sure if I wanted one bad enough, I could get one 3DPrinted or as you said, use an adapter in the 5 1/4 bay.
Great call out on the PCI facing down. I have a 3DFX Voodoo3 PCI and its SUPER hot. I have to passively cool it by a fan close by, however the heat rising principle definitely hinders the process!
I wasn't truly aware of the 'BTX' format until I posted this video. I have learned so much through this process thanks to viewers like you - so thank you for watching and for commenting!!
@@TheRetroRecall Oh, yes, an LS120 or 240 drive would be pretty sweet to have. I am always looking for a box to do small tasks with and one of them is making floppies for other systems like the Commodore 8-bit or Amiga or Atari ST. PCs like these are perfect for that.
Thanks for the tip about the Voodoo 3. I recently got an AGP version (also fan facing down), so maybe I should use that in a desktop case and not in a tower case.
I actually learned about BTX myself from this video but it caught me straight away since PCI cards would here be facing upwards and that intrigued me.
My guess the Chipset has a bad connection on one or more connections. Re-ball the chipset. A continuous beep is memory the light in the front would light up yellow or orange with bad memory.
Thanks for the tips! I assume you are referring to the optiplex (as the first two worked great) ? If so, I think we've determined the issue is with the ram and it being RDRAM.
i have 2 dell towers. one is a xps 420 with a q6600 core2quad the other is a xps 435mt studio with an i7 920
Nice!
a note about the RDRAM if you do buy a set make sure the nano seconds are the same too.
you can tell when you look at the label on the ram it be something like this 800-40 the most common ones I've seen are 40ns and 45ns, also make sure you get the right one there's PC600 up too PC1600 you can read more about RDRAM on the wiki
look up the specs for the GX400 to make sure what speed ya need.
Thanks so much for this tip. For sure - I plan on doing the research and am hoping we can get this beast of a machine working again!
I remember the first Dell! Not sure if it had the same model number, but I could have sworn it was the same chassis. These were at school, and I wouldn't be surprised if they had these in computer class at the time. Takes me back to playing Kid Pix and the Edmark learning house games (Bailey's Book House, Millie's math house, Sammy's Science house, and Trudy's time and place house). Those were the days! Even though I had a 1999 Compaq Presario at the time (dunno model number but the same chassis was used in the 5461), I never played those games so those were first experiences for me back then!
I always love when you share your experiences. This is exactly why I do this! Thank you for sharing yet again and for your support! Ps - I am hunting down some Compaq and Packard Bell machines now!
@@TheRetroRecall Anytime! I look forward to those machines!
Stay tuned for more!!
@@TheRetroRecall Absolutely!😁👌
Happy to have you along for the ride!
Seems funny how just a few days ago I got a junky Gateway from around the same time… working on getting it to run again! If it works, it will be nice to have something that works with IDE drives!
100%. That's awesome! Nothing like using all of the original (or as close to) hardware of the time! Good luck with your restoration!
vista capable was kinda like windows me
it was put on computers wich had hardware that barely met the requirements and the drivers on those system were kinda rushed (since vista was quite a leap forward in technology)
once vista was run on adapted hardware it was a rly good system (like ME with the good drivers), even as good as W7 with the SP2
Never install Vista on a "capable" branded machine as it's usually too weak (tho with your 2 gigs of ram it would have been fine)
Exactly. Well said!
Hi, the only similar machine i owned that i really liked was the Dell 2400
The beauty was it still had legacy ports ( serial / parallel ) and also usb
The CMOS menu had a option on cpu for Legacy - this turned of the memory cache and the pc droped down to a 486 performance level for older dos games
It died in 2020 and ended up in the trash - i could not decipher the test lights with what was on the dell help site so made the decision to give it a final burial ( psu gave out correct voltage, it may have been a capacitor issue but as no screen at all or beeps i gave up )
That would have been a great feature! To slow the system down for legacy games, etc. It's a shame yours gave up. In hindsight it was probably something like a cap or other component that could have been saved. Either way, it sounds like you have it a long life!
That buzzing is defo ram..had that issue before
For sure - I was able to find the beep codes and it indicates a RAM error.
@@TheRetroRecalldells of that era have always been annoyingly picky with ram
If you ever get a chance to get a Dell Precision 490 cheap, grab it as they're still pretty powerful. But beware of your back as they are heavy as hell. Got mine for £10 with a single quad core Xeon and 8GB ECC RAM, now it's got dual Xeon's and 32GB RAM.
That sounds amazing and for 10??! Even better! That Optiplex was crazy heavy.
Pentium D is 2 Pentium 4 CPUs built in to one die. Some of them had a TDP of 130 watts!!! This one is 95 watts TDP
130 watts! Holy! Talk about your own private heater haha.
@@TheRetroRecall Pentium d 830 .... 130W TDP at 3.0GHZ. Good for up north.
Haha! Absolutely
I just grabbed a 2007-ish, Dell Vostro 200 out of the garbage, it works, it has Windows XP black edition on it lol
Nice save!! Black edition???
@@TheRetroRecall seems it's a hacked/pirated version of XP lol, from Web "XP Black isn't an official Microsoft release, it's pirated. As a result, you're not going to find one standard Black Edition, nor are you guaranteed it will be free of malware." anyway, it looks cool lol
Haha got it!!! Either way.... Pretty awesome.
I might be the worst retro enthusiast - but I'm all about adapters and solid state storage. Disk on module, SSD, don't care - I have very little nostalgia for spinning rust.... Floppy drives are completely different - I love those, LOL.
I'm into AGP cards however - possibly more than PCI-e slots. I love the idea of late era Radeon 4850 cards and 6800s and the like. I like the idea of the graphics card being on its own bus, or whatnot - I think it was scrapped, like a lot of 2000s tech, before it got a chance. It was especially valuable when everything else was so, well, slow. So the third grumpy system is definitely my favorite...
Bear in mind I restore old Macs from this era - and that AGP slot meant a lot to them, and was possibly the last era where Apple computers could actually put up a fight 'toe to toe' with similar PCs. I've been using Macs since I was kid, my first "REAL COMPUTER" was a pre-G3 PowerPC prior to the original iMac (I was a Commodore kid).
But I digress, but... damn Pentium 4 AGP is hot to me :)
Haha! For me there is something about the old hardware. As long as I have the old rust drives (haha) I will use them until their demise. Don't get me wrong, I am more than happy to switch to a much more modern solution if required or if the troubleshooting process requires it :). I was never really an Apple person except for our IIc. Loved it. I had many friends however that had Apple machines and although neat to play with at the time, it just seemed like my machine was faster, had more options etc. In fact, I was one of the first people to own a cd burner 1x! So people always came over with these requests to make that favorite 'mixed tape' haha! Thanks for sharing and for watching!
I had a 5150 with the Pentium D processor. That system was always annoying for me. While it sounded like it would perform a lot better than its single core P4 cousins, the Pentium D just didn't perform well. In particular I found I/O performance to be very poky and inconsistent for things such as copying files over the network. Other systems I had at the same time always outperformed it, even systems that shouldn't have been more powerful. It would be low on my list of retro hardware to play with.
Thanks for sharing and good to know! To be honest, I have never had a lot of experience with Pentium D CPU's. I am looking forward to restoring this PC, adding some hardware upgrades and seeing how it performs. Who knows... it may run well or be completely disappointing :)
Those old Dell Dimension computers were very basic but they are durable as heck. I had an old person bring me this exact Celeron Dimension 3000 around 6 months ago for "repair". He wasn't able to use the internet anymore and he thought the computer was virused because of that and wanted me to fix it :) It even still had the original Dell Windows install and the 256MB of RAM it came with. We ended up giving him a newer computer because there was obviously nothing to upgrade on this computer anymore
Haha! Challenge accepted! I wonder how much more memory it could support and if an SSD solution would improve the performance - even slightly to make it a bit more bareable. I mean it works, and I was very lucky to have it going with minimal effort, however it was sooo slow to start up :)
@@TheRetroRecall If i remember correctly it supports a max of 2GB of RAM. The main limitation would be the socket 478 processor because they can barely load a webpage anymore no matter if it's Windows or Linux
Would be good for some P4 era gaming, even with a PCI video card added :). I don't think the intention of these PC's would be to go online / load websites. I think they would be more aimed at the gaming, or retro printing, scanning (hardware support) of the time without having to rely on emulation. That said, it's good to know that not even a Linux distro would work for that purpose. Thank you!
@@TheRetroRecall Yeah. In a way i was always thinking if those old computers could support a PCI version of the Geforce GT 610 or 730. Those cards are awful for modern systems but with older systems like these it should be able to make them run anything at their max potential. Was thinking about doing that with my old Athlon XP system
I’m thinking that you can swap motherboards on these. Sandy Bridge with an SSD is still usable for basic tasks, and will run Windows 11 all for less than $100.00
Ditto for Haswell with maybe using an Inspiron or Optiplex platform parts, of course you would need to do some rewiring.
the 5150 should run win 7
Nice! Thinking of what type of upgrades, build I should do with that system.
dell 3000 - classic - you can put a pentium 4 ht in these !!
That would be awesome! With slightly upgraded ram and dare I say it... An SSD? It may bring it back to usable life! Thanks for the tip!
That optiplex GX400 looks like my GX1 MT, Did GX400 use the same case style that GX1 MT used?
I think they shared the same platform amongst others. It's the real first time I had an opportunity to dig into one, again - with the crazy RDRAM.
I had a dell just like the first one. It had that folding front cover you mentioned seeing back in the day.
Mine was equipped with a Pentium 4 with 512MB of RDRAM.
I have fond memories playing Heroes of Might and Magic III with it.
Quick question, since we both live in Canada. Where do you go pick up your ewaste machines? I've only ever got mine from work, but the stuff they give away isn't of the vintage that I would like having.
That's awesome - I knew I wasn't crazy, the front did open to expose the front I/O (if equipped)! I usually get them from the recycling center's, online marketplaces, friends & family, viewer donations, etc!
Ugh. RDRAM. My Dell dimension 8200 had that. It was just a gimmick and made upgrading the RAM so much more difficult and expensive.
So I have discovered lol. Ah well, we will get it going!
Pentium D (Pretty much two Pentium 4's stuck together on a single chip)
Thanks!
Windows ME was bad because DOS compatibility was the only good thing about win98 and they they took it away
Windows ME was still based on DOS. That said, you could use a boot disc to run any native DOS games, or you could patch Windows ME to populate the DOS mode option on shut down. There were always ways :)
maybe the last pc does not turn on because of the 'open case' switch
I checked that out. I think the issue is the RDRAM setup. I'm working on sourcing some to test.
that dimension uses the dead btx form factor. the pcie x16 slot is annoying because you can only use single slot cards in it. it's even worse in their low profile cases because even the internal thinckness of the card can't be over a single slot, because by default, a drive cage is in the way.
Thanks for the info, it's helpful! - maybe another contributing factor as to why the format died!
@@TheRetroRecall i don't know why they couldn't have moved the pcie slot to the edge of the board. it would have made things easier. it was supposed to be thermally effecent which sounds like a good deal with how hot moderen hardware gets.
Agreed. It's funny though after working on these systems I always think - why did they design it this way?? Then again - I'm just a lowly end user haha!
@@TheRetroRecall if i were to guess it would be because the pcie slot would have to move depending on the board which would have made them more expensive. smaller boards like mine only have 2 expansion slots. it was a fun expereince finding a low power low profile graphics card that worked with xp
At least you were able to get one, which is nice. I wonder if these systems were aimed more at entry level business VS full fledged gaming or enthusiasts - hense the limited functionality and or expansion compatibility.
I've got 6 of them I think 😂. I have a room.. I have a problem 😂
Hahahahaha never a problem!!!
@@TheRetroRecall I hope your right! 😂
Hahah! I'm not kicked out of the house just yet....hopefully that's a good sign? Lol
@@TheRetroRecall I'm single but I may get over run! I enjoy your videos
Oh oh, no one to keep you in check! We'll until then, hopefully my bad habits rub off on you haha!
Reguarding the Dell Dimension 3000 Dell hides a Screw for the hard drive caddy on the bottom of the Case
Thanks! I figured it was right there....
RIMM / RDRAM is strange, you must have either 2 pairs (if different, highest capacity first is stated as the rule), or one pair (first) and one pair of terminators / bus continuity cards (second)- I forget to proper name. If there are only 3, that's a problem, the rules are very strict.
PS. I have a RDRAM system with 2x 256 and 2x 128, and an extra pair of 256 to go in, probably cost too much to ship international though!
This is great info, I'm in Canada where are you located? I'd be willing to chat it through! Would be great to get this system going. Special call out too! If you want to work it out, email me at youtube@bravtech.ca and we can chat. Again zero pressure. :)
Fine fettling projects and was the third computer an early workstation?
I think so, it was definitely extremely heavy and extremely sturdy and performance parts (based on that era of course). My guess is that it was a workstation.
@@TheRetroRecall It looked well built.
I have found that once old computers are refurbished and the maximum amount of ram., and an SSD., are installed. Then a lightweight Linux OS., such as Linux Mint really gives them a new lease of life, for 32 bit computers I use Sparky Linux LXQT..
Nice!!! I've been told to try Kubuntu, so I'm going to try that.. But will note your distro!
@@TheRetroRecall There are many Linux OS., to chose from, but not so many as there used to be for 32 bit computers and I have noticed that some very lightweight Linux OS., do not have a pre installed firewall, that can probably be added, but I prefer to have it already installed and just requiring activation.
Sounds awesome, thanks for this info.
Bonjour, mon premier pc était un Aptiva IBM pentium 90, avec 4 M de mémoire vive. Après que la marque Dell. Optiplex, precision un peu de server powerEdge 1950. J'ai jamais accrocher la marque HP.
Awesome!! Thanks for sharing! Hopefully this being's back some memories for you :)
lol my main pc is a dell optiplex running 4 gig ram 250gig hd win 10 stripped down to basic and connected to wifi card and on the interwebs
Nice!!! I think we can get this one going pretty easily... Just need to get the RDRAM for it configured properly :)
ive got a box full of rdram if ya want it
Really? That would be amazing! Email youtube@bravtech.ca and we can discuss :). Thanks!!
Always seemed like dell was annoyingly picky about ram..almost every one of those grey/dark grey ones i have ran across was full of bad caps
I guess I got a bit lucky. As for the ram in the third machine, I guess the RIMM standard requires certain pairing, etc. Something new to learn!
Hey, I love your channel and have thourghly enjoyed your videos. I have a few pc motherboards of various ages that are untested or I just can't get to work. Was about to send them onto e-waste. Do you want them for some content? They're yours for free if you'll tell me where to ship them!
That would be awesome! I am working to accept donations and will be doing a viewer donation unboxing of sorts. It would be cool to see if we could get them going! Send a note along to youtube@bravtech.ca and we can discuss there. Thank you!!
@@TheRetroRecall sent you an email. let me know if you got it.
Awesome, thanks and I did! I will reply later today:)
Do you have a PC with a Microdrive system? Thank you 🤓 have a Dell 2350 & 2400, &... a 3100 i believe! Have an eMachine with a Microdrive system built in!
I do not have any PC's with microdrives. And to be honest, this is the first I have heard of them haha! I will definitely have to check it out. Thanks!
@@TheRetroRecall I got a hold of some mostly Win XP PCs, one an eMachine. I had to look up what kind of drive it was, too! I don't have any of the Micro HDDs, so I don't quite know if it works! As a kind of hobby I look in dumpsters and curbside stuff for electronics - PCs laptops Chromebooks gaming systems or tablets 🤓
You never know what goodies you will find / rescue!
@@TheRetroRecall that's for sure! 🤓😁
33:35 CPU died, i've seen this..
Thanks for the recommendation. Upon additional research, The post codes indicate its an RDRAM pairing issue. I wasn't aware that they were so particular on how they are used and empty slots require blanks or terminators.
@@TheRetroRecall Oh.. Haven't had this issue with rdram before.. thanx for this
No problem, thanks to everyone else also in the community for helping!
Got a high performance PCI video card to put in it?
I may.. What are you thinking??
@@TheRetroRecall One with 1 to 4 gigabit memory that can game old titles.
I will dig through my parts bin and see what we can do to get it going!
Can we install hp m1005 printer on windows 98 plz help me
Based on what I am seeing they only provide drivers for Windows 2000 / XP being the oldest. Have you tried to install using the windows 2000 or xp drivers to see if Windows 98 would pick them up? Also, I would ensure you are running the latest Windows 98 SE version.
Yes i have tried but it didn't work
windows me was awesome
100% agree with you!!!
@@TheRetroRecall i ran win me untill xp was a year old
Awesome. Don't get me started on Vista hahah!
That’s a ram code err
If you are referring to the third system, yes - I found out later that I need to get some RDRAM. Thanks for this info and for watching!
Just found the channel. Would love to see a restoration vid on all three of these machines. 👍
Welcome!! Happy to have you! It is definitely the plan, stay tuned!! :)
Rdram needs a perfect pair or terminator blocks installed. Very finicky design, no wonder it failed, only used on gen 1 p4s.
Thanks! Definitely understanding more and more about it since this video with all of the great comments. Rdram is something I was never exposed to much!
Some PIII higher-end workstations and servers also used RDRAM. Like my Dell Precision Workstation 220, produced from late 1999 - ~early 2001. Very nice dual CPU-capable workstation with an AGP slot. Mine's in the tower form factor, but it was also offered in the desktop form factor. Not all that common, so it's very awesome to have one in my collection. I can't imagine how expensive it was in the year 2000. Intel tried really hard to push the RDRAM. It was expensive to purchase at the time, and finding RDRAM sticks nowadays is all but easy.
Awesome! I definitely will locate some and get this system going.
Is it just me or does this guy sound like LGR?....
Thanks for the compliment? Just doing my thing and what I love to do - sharing all of this cool stuff with everyone.
@@TheRetroRecall I love the content, subbed a couple days ago :)
Amazing! Glad to have you on board!!!