Granted, my laptop is a bit faster, but I needed a desktop computer so I could throw my DVD burner in it. Over the last couple of years I've been donated a lot of old systems, which I've salvaged for parts to fix other computers with and such.

Well, today I finally built something using every good part I had. And its a beauty.

Motherboard : ASUS P4V3X, Apollo Pro 133 based chipset.
Processor: 600 MHz Pentium III using an FC-PGA2 to Slot 1 adapter.
Front-Side Bus: 133MHz, overclocked a hair to 135MHz.
RAM: PC-133 SDRAM, CL3, 640Mb worth.
Network Card 1: SMC 1255TX with Wake-On-LAN.
Network Card 2: Realtek 8139D network card.
Graphics Card 1: ATI 3D Rage IIC AGP, 8Mb.
DVD Burner: BenQ DW1655 DVD writer.
Hard Drive 1: Fujitsu MPE3136AT (30Gb).
Hard Drive 2: Maxtor 9 1531U3 (15Gb).
Hard Drive 3: Fujitsu MPG3307AT (13Gb).

Oh, and twin floppy drives. I didn't want to keep a zip drive that was originally installed, and I had nothing to fill the hole in the case, so this solved everything!

Old? Yes. Slow? Possibly.

Kick-fucking-ass to hear all three of those hard drives gracefully click in succession when booting up? Well, kinda cool, at least.

Not bad.

What OS are you using? I run Fluxbuntu on 600MHz 192MB RAM laptop. It works well. I also run minimalist XP on a similar desktop.

Throw your swap onto the 3rd drive. The 3rd should be the faster of the small drives.

Would make one hell of a DOS gaming PC..
lmao

Right now its running Windows XP, but I've been thinking of dropping Xubuntu or something light on the second disk for an occasional change. Windows, for simplicity, mostly since I can run all the same tools I'm used to on my laptop quick 'n dirty.

I hear you on the swap file. Currently its on the second disk, since the third one actually reads the lowest benchmark (its probably older than the others, so, figures).

Though I have an old Xbox 1 Western Digital I might throw in, at a small loss in GB's. They've proven to be quick little buggers.



Well, if I ever have to run tools like PartitionMagic or DriveImage or something, its moderately more convenient, lol. Swapping 1 floppy disk was always so tedious.

Woot, upgrade!

Pentium III 1000EB 1.7v.
1024Mb PC133 CL3 SDRAM.
GeForce 2 MX400 AGP card.

I should also say that, while this 'budget brand' graphics card was designed to run without a heatsink or fan at all, I didn't like that. Real homebrew fix - I JB Welded a huge Slot 1 heatsink on it and it runs ice cold.

Oh, and an Si3112 SATA PCI card. Sucks for Xboxes but it works for additional storage (eventually).

Total cost is now $4.95, since the JB Weld epoxy was a needed purchase, lol.

Haha I've built several salvage machines, but never put that much ram into any of them! I'm jealous! lol I also have an old PIII laptop with 64mb of ram.... Barely runs xp, but it gets the job done (Starcraft!!!)

I have a spare P2 computer (that was my first computer) sitting here, I need to do something with it, it needs a new case, it's in a dam tiny case but it looks ugly as hell, got the case from the junk yard when my old school was throwing out all the old computer stuff. Dunno what to do with it though, any ideas. Nice PC RiceCake though think mine is a P2 400Mhz and the fan won't fit on it lol it's a slot cpu.

i ditched my linksys router in favor of a p3 running ubuntu server and shorewall, im sure your p2 can handle it too

specs:

Pentium 3 550mhz
192mb PC-133
15gb HD
2x 10/100 NICs
Ubuntu Server 7.10
Webmin 1.441
Shoreline Firewall 4.2.3

i actually have another one, same specs (just 128mb RAM) that im trying to set up with OpenVPN

^ Are you running Gnome? I was thinking about doing the same thing. I would be running CUPS too on mine.

no, im not using any windowing system (ubuntu server doesnt include one by default)

webmin lets you do most configuration remotely through a browser, without having to know all the shell commands, it even has a module for administering CUPS

Well, working at a computer store has its advantages. Any parts heading off to recycling are in my hands before they leave. Since I started working there my 'project' computers change rapidly. Since I got a KVM switch for $35, I had everything I needed to add something to my collection...

Seanix-branded Generic PC Case
Pentium 4, 1.7GHz with some aftermarket heatsink
Intel D850EMV2 Motherboard
386 Mb of PC-800 RDRAM

I was given the processor for free since we had a bunch laying around anyhow, the motherboard was bound for recycling because RDRAM is a piece of crap that lost brutally to DDR, though I fortunately scrounged up an extra two 64 Mb modules.

The case is from a generic brand of custom-order PC we see a lot. Its a very plain, big case, which is great because you can fit anything you want in there. CPU temp, at full load, will hit maybe 32 degrees . Without running a fan utility like SpeedFan its easy to tell why. It runs full-out at 4000-odd RPM like a crazy hairdryer.

By the way - I decree that I have received the stupidest injury possible while working on computers. The CPU fan wasn't working so, holding it in my right hand, I was meddling with the wires until it raced up to its crazy speed. Like an idiot, I thought I would put the fan down carelessly while it was running.

I suppose they wanted to get everything they could out of the fan, because I've never seen the blades so razor-sharp.

Slot 1 though, I loved it. Its like the NES cartridge of computer processors. Especially since, at the time, they came with absolutely massive heat sinks in contrast to the bitty things K6-2's and whatnot ran.

I still have a Pentium Overdrive that came with a dinky heat sink affixed to the CPU from the factory, though I doubt heat was a big concern in those "Wow! 100 MHz!" days.

Edit: Thinking of heat, I actually had to undervolt my Pentium III to help bring it down. Since the 1000 MHz processor has such a high thermal design power, the heat sink for the old 600 MHz processor was less-than useful when cranking out instructions. Surprisingly I got it down to 1.5v from 1.7v, which basically means it went from 30 watts to about 22 watts of heat. Nifty stuff you can do behind the scenes with computers.

I was thinking more a retro PC, since I have a bunch of old console's here, and old windows 95/dos games it might make the place a bit tidier, I was thinking of moding the case to make it look retro some how, but ya I used smoothwall before but the thing put out to much heat on 24/7 & my HDTV has a VGA port that I don't use so I could use that.

Man this has just turned into a challenge to see how much crap I can throw in one case.

Same PIII, same mobo, same case...

Now featuring three OEM LiteOn CD-RW drives (one is 24x10x40, the others are identical 8x4x32 drives).
Two hard drives (Western Digital and Seagate, better known as the two found in our friendly Xbox'es ).

Of course, this meant adding an IDE controller, and my VIA card for Xbox flashing fit the bill.

I need to take a picture of this. It looks like it should belong in an illegal floppy/CD duplication lab.
Currently serving as a connection hub serving CD-ROMs, RAMdisks, and a USB hard drive over iSCSI and SMB.

Edit;
I actually got my mitts on a 1266 MHz processor I was itching to drop in this thing, an actual server-class processor! But, of course, it refused to boot.