Discussion PC Restoration Saga

[NightHawkRMX]

Every now and again I see older or computers in otherwise rough states come up for sale locally and I have started a bit of a hobby of wanting to restore them.

I will start this thread out with a computer I purchased today for the grand total of $10 on Facebook marketplace. It was advertised as just a case but was actually an entire system (ended up not having a hard drive) as I could see from the photos.

I am already part way through restoring it but here are some photos of it right after I got it.

The photos were pretty unclear but when the seller handed to me I immediately thought "what am I getting myself into." It was in way rougher shape than I thought.

https://imgur.com/dlRrH5o

View: https://imgur.com/dlRrH5o

https://imgur.com/csMiBWa

View: https://imgur.com/csMiBWa

https://imgur.com/jIILpjq

View: https://imgur.com/jIILpjq

https://imgur.com/dyAI5VL

View: https://imgur.com/dyAI5VL

https://imgur.com/NfTtM1W

View: https://imgur.com/NfTtM1W


However that only scratches the surface. Notice how none of the panels line up properly? When I opened the case I noticed all of the front bays seemed bent.

https://imgur.com/BYO2lax

View: https://imgur.com/BYO2lax


I went to pull the front panel off. It screws on, but the 2 bottom screw standoffs in the plastic had already been snapped off.

https://imgur.com/BJilZgB

View: https://imgur.com/BJilZgB


And once I pulled off the front panel I saw the horrors that explained the issues prior.

https://imgur.com/rg1XLsq

View: https://imgur.com/rg1XLsq


The chassis looks like it was thrown off a cliff. I don't know how this occured...

It is a store built computer from a computer store called Platinum Micro Electronics in Manassas Virginia. I am told by someone from the region it's basically a mom and pop store that is still around to this day.

It has a sticker on the back which tells the specs of the computer, however the information is not all correct.

I will finish restoration soon and update.

 

[Tac 25]

@RetroGamer2022

wow, a case with a working microfloppy drive? this brings back some fun memories.
back then, when microfloppies were still being used at our schools... anyone who had a hard drive at home back then is considered a "rich person". lol

 

[NightHawkRMX]

Enjoy your salvage project! I get why you’re doing it!!! Drive on!

I just restored a 1996 Packard Bell desktop And an IBM Aptiva from 1999. The Aptiva is really my baby. I hopefully got a little more airflow in the case by adding an IBM blue LED case fan. Then I got on eBay and rounded up two Voodoo2 video cards that I put in SLI mode and installed.

Welcome back, Windows 98 (and welcome back to a bunch of games that just won’t run on modern equipment)

It reminds me of a Lenovo case.

 

[NightHawkRMX]

Just checked the power supply. All of the caps are good. Cleaned out some dust while I was at it.

The PSU's does make a bit of a high pitched frequency from the coils I believe from the moment it gets power untill the caps drain after power is removed. From what I understand that's normal for some power supplies. My last phone charger made a similar noise even when brand new.

I replaced the bad CD ROM drive with a known good Sony CD-RW drive. I tried to swap the beige facia over to the "new" black drive but it didn't work out so well, so now the colors don't match every well

 

[RetroGamer2022]

.

I replaced the bad CD ROM drive with a known good Sony CD-RW drive. I tried to swap the beige facia over to the "new" black drive but it didn't work out so well, so now the colors don't match every well

Yes, the CD-ROM drives don’t seem to last. I have to replace those on just about every old PC somebody gives me. (word is out around here that I like to tinker with old PCs so I have quite a few legacy desktops). I didn’t take out a screwdriver and try to fix any of them, just replaced ‘em

I became an A+ certified computer service technician 20 years ago. I recall PSUs being the most likely component to fail. That was probably a test question.

I’m just concerned that I recommended those stress tests. They’re really used by overclockers to check stability after overclocking. Running Prime95 on a 20 year old machine….maybe that’s not a good idea after all unless you’re in the same room watching it. It heats up the CPU and power supply big time. - way beyond any normal use.

Post some photos when it’s done.

 

[NightHawkRMX]

Yes, the CD-ROM drives don’t seem to last. I have to replace those on just about every old PC somebody gives me. (word is out around here that I like to tinker with old PCs so I have quite a few legacy desktops). I didn’t take out a screwdriver and try to fix any of them, just replaced ‘em

I became an A+ certified computer service technician 20 years ago. I recall PSUs being the most likely component to fail. That was probably a test question.

I’m just concerned that I recommended those stress tests. They’re really used by overclockers to check stability after overclocking. Running Prime95 on a 20 year old machine….maybe that’s not a good idea after all unless you’re in the same room watching it. It heats up the CPU and power supply big time. - way beyond any normal use.

Post some photos when it’s done.

This original drive was a "CD-MASTER 52E Model SH-152" designed by "Toshiba Samsung Storage Technology (TSST)" and was manufactured in May of 04. The replacement SONY CRX217E CD-RW drive is barely any newer, with a DOM in mid 05.

However, I would assume drive quality has a fair bit to do with how long it would last. The still working SONY drive feels much heavier and more solid than the drive it replaced, and apparently is better quality. I think this SONY actually came from the same Dell that the Lite ON PSU came from, so that dates them to about the same age.

Not surprising it had failed to be honest. CD drives have a lot of things that can break, and the beating this computer took definitely could have caused harm to it.

I've had a few PSUs fail, but luckily never violently. Just "oh this PC won't turn on anymore" sort of failure. Swollen caps in each case here. As much as people call differences in capacitor quality between countries and brands snake oil, I continue to see notably less capacitors from "good" brands fail as commonly as lower end brands.

I am waiting on some thermal paste in the mail and planning on ordering an IDE drive, then I'll update when its complete. In the meantime, just waiting. Still unsure if I want a PCI GPU or not.

 

[NightHawkRMX]

I purchased Visiontek Radeon X1300 256mb PCI as well as a 40GB IDE HDD for this system.

I also picked up an off white can of spray paint from the local hardware store and am giving it a fresh coat of paint to help cover up the scratches. I'm not sanding it all down to bare metal first or anything.

Also my thermal paste came today so I will put it all together shortly.

 

[JohnBonhamsGhost]

is this just like a retro Halloween costume all for fun, or is there some real reason you're bothering?
ie; data on an old floppy you'd like to retrieve?

i really don't see any benefits from a project like this except maybe a couple seconds of nostalgia that would soon be overwhelmed by the loss of income spent.

 

[NightHawkRMX]

is this just like a retro Halloween costume all for fun, or is there some real reason you're bothering?
ie; data on an old floppy you'd like to retrieve?

i really don't see any benefits from a project like this except maybe a couple seconds of nostalgia that would soon be overwhelmed by the loss of income spent.

Little bit of fun, I'll definitely play some games on it.

No need for a floppy drive. This PC doesn't have one, although it likely did at some point judging by the missing front cover.

 

[NightHawkRMX]

Thermal paste, hard drive, and graphics card are all in, installed, and appear to be working.

https://imgur.com/bbF9ZUY

View: https://imgur.com/bbF9ZUY

https://imgur.com/h8RfQjo

View: https://imgur.com/h8RfQjo


I got some off white spray paint and tried to paint the chassis to cover up all of the scratches and other paint damage. Despite the paint cans cap matching the case's paint color, when sprayed on it was more white than off white, and it makes the yellowed front stick out a bit. I painted the bezel to the optical drive but it didn't turn out well so black it is. I wanted to put another coat on everything but ran the can dry.

https://imgur.com/fYVVlhe

View: https://imgur.com/fYVVlhe

https://imgur.com/wQQRsUl

View: https://imgur.com/wQQRsUl


It did to a good job masking the damage though.

The video card was brand new in box with shrink wrap and all. I don't understand why visiontek just has a wearhouse full of 15+ year old GPUs, but it's kind of neat. The video card came with a low profile bracket installed and a full size one in the box. But the full size bracket included was not actually for this card and was for a GPU with a dms59 connector, so I had to get creative about mounting it.

 

[NightHawkRMX]

I type to you from this computer. Its all up and running. Its painfully slow browsing TomsHardware, of course, and I am not sure why exactly I am forcing myself to deal with this honestly.

After completing a rebuild like yours, I run memtest for a few hours from a boot CD or floppy and Prime95 in Windows for a few hours after that.

PCMark02 thoroughly tests hardware after that. It’s free!

https://benchmarks.ul.com/legacy-benchmarks

SAFETY:

Don’t leave the thing unattended while running any of those tests. I’d feel bad if the PSU caught fire!

The good news is that if it makes it through those programs, it’s probably quite reliable.

But I will be stability testing it soon. So far I have run 3dmark 2001 SE and it has not given me any issues.

The GPU i'm not quite sure what it is. The Radeon X1300 and X1550 share a pcb and this card says X1300/X1550 on it. The X1550 is just an X1300 but with higher clockspeeds and ddr2 ram vs ddr1. It shows up as an X1550 to the system with DDR2, but with slower clockspeeds than an X1550 should have. First time ive used a driver disk in awhile lol.

 

[Tac 25]

amazing, you were able to revive that thing, and you even found a gpu to match it. This really remind me of the days, when the pc in our house used an X300 SE video card, that was somewhere in the early year 2000 or 2003 -- it was the very first video card I've encountered, and i thought it's amazing. Had to stop using it though, when we upgraded from XP to Windows 7.