TPU's Nostalgic Hardware Club

[stinger608]

I can honestly say in all my long years on this planet i have never ever ever hesrd of anyone washing electrical components

I would not do this to any electrical component even if i had pulled it out of a rubbish bin.

I have personally been doing it for several years now. To insure there is no problem, I normally use distilled water that I purchase at any grocery store. Works great!
However, as @Trekkie4 pointed out, make sure to remove the CMOS battery and as @JunkBear also mentioned, short the power pins out.

Manufactures actually use this same method when repairing boards or prepping for sending out as refurbished.

Of course manufactures have a much better "wash" station that most individuals would ever have.

 

[debs3759]

I can honestly say in all my long years on this planet i have never ever ever hesrd of anyone washing electrical components

I would not do this to any electrical component even if i had pulled it out of a rubbish bin.

I used to routinely wash computers in the shower. If I bought a truck full of computers that were full of dust and cobwebs, opening them up and hosing them down was the fastest way of cleaning it all, even allowing for two days drying in a warm room.

 

[JunkBear]

I can honestly say in all my long years on this planet i have never ever ever hesrd of anyone washing electrical components

I would not do this to any electrical component even if i had pulled it out of a rubbish bin.

I have rebuilt an old computer that spent almost 2 years of canadian weather outside in the metal trash with open case. Optical and hdd did not worth it but i rebuilt the computer and gave it to someone.

 

[Trekkie4]

Mounted the FanMate fan controller into one of my retro builds (P4, 2.00) and working on a Core2 Duo system at the same time... I realize that Core2 is not "vintage" (or even old), but I thought I'd show it here nevertheless... This is my 2nd 8800 card, the other one (8800GT) is in my primary gaming system, paired up with Core2 Quad Q6600

That P4 is quiet as a whisper, especially after I've swapped the hard drive, the old one was loud enough to wake the dead! (Western Digital for Maxtor, both IDE) As always, I've paid special attention to cable management & moving the cables out of the way

 

[JunkBear]

I don't have pictures of system I've just rebuilt because it's so tight inside the cube case but here's the description:

Chenming cube: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811125484
PSU: Orion P485
Motherboard: Hewlett Packard 0968h from a HP Compaq dc7100
CPU: P4 651 3.4/800/2M
Memory: 4 gigs DDR400
ODD: Pioneer DVD-RW
HDD: Western Digital WDAAKS3200
GPU: ATI Radeon X1300 128MB-DDR 64bits PCI-E

Snappy for an older system on Windows 7 Home premium 64bits

Just a strange behavior...bios detect 4096megs of memory and in the System specs panel of Windows 7 it says 4gigs too but under "3.12gigs useable"

Any idea why?

 

[stinger608]

I don't have pictures of system I've just rebuilt because it's so tight inside the cube case but here's the description:

Chenming cube: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811125484
PSU: Orion P485
Motherboard: Hewlett Packard 0968h from a HP Compaq dc7100
CPU: P4 651 3.4/800/2M
Memory: 4 gigs DDR400
ODD: Pioneer DVD-RW
HDD: Western Digital WDAAKS3200
GPU: ATI Radeon X1300 128MB-DDR 64bits PCI-E

Snappy for an older system on Windows 7 Home premium 64bits

Just a strange behavior...bios detect 4096megs of memory and in the System specs panel of Windows 7 it says 4gigs too but under "3.12gigs useable"

Any idea why?

Might have something to do with delegating part of the memory to the onboard video. Even though you are using a different video card I think I recall something about that issue back in the day.

 

[JunkBear]

Might have something to do with delegating part of the memory to the onboard video. Even though you are using a different video card I think I recall something about that issue back in the day.

Delegating 976megs? That seems a lot.

Ok found the problem. It's the chipset limitation that was already a problem when people went from XP to Vista in 32 or 64 bits mode. So I should find a DDR-400 of 256megs and it could do the job replacing a 1gig stick.

BTW put your avatar left side of mine and that makes a kinda funny image.

 

[stinger608]

Delegating 976megs? That seems a lot.

Ok found the problem. It's the chipset limitation that was already a problem when people went from XP to Vista in 32 or 64 bits mode. So I should find a DDR-400 of 256megs and it could do the job replacing a 1gig stick.

BTW put your avatar left side of mine and that makes a kinda funny image.

Bhahahahaha, yea no kidding man.

 

[zsolt_93]

Maybe 32 bit Windows, that usually shows 3.2xgb for the ram when 4 are installed. And memory reservation for the gpu shouldnt happen on 64bit, on 32 bit the gpu memory is cached into the main system ram too. Even if you state 64 bit and the CPU supports it i am not so sure it really is.

 

[JunkBear]

Maybe 32 bit Windows, that usually shows 3.2xgb for the ram when 4 are installed. And memory reservation for the gpu shouldnt happen on 64bit, on 32 bit the gpu memory is cached into the main system ram too. Even if you state 64 bit and the CPU supports it i am not so sure it really is.

As i said earlier post its chipset limitations. Its written on HP website.

 

[TRWOV]

That's a limitation of the 865 chipset, even with 64bit CPUs the northbridge just has enough memory registries for the 32bit range. 64bit OSes where still ways off when 865 launched so it's easy to see why Intel implemented such limit to save die space. Even if you use a RAMdisk program that can use OS unregistered memory you can't access it. My rig with a Conroe865PE+QX6800 has the same issue.

 

[FireFox]

As I said in one of my posts, i wanted to upgrade the Hard Drive of my old DellOptiplex GX520 from 2005, the original Hard Drive is 40GB and I was looking for some 250GB/500GB for it, unfortunately I just found a 1TB but fortunately I just paid 30€ for it
I got it a minutes ago.

I know it's Overkill for an almost 10 years old Machine.

The only thing that irritates me is the fact that I can't add it a video card.

 

[FireFox]

The New Segeate 1TB

New Hard Drive installed

Vs

Now I am installing Windows 7 Professional

 

[stinger608]

Them small form factor Optiplex's tend to cause pretty extensive heat on the hard drives @Knoxx29 . Might want to keep an eye on the drive for awhile. Hopefully it doesn't over heat that drive.

 

[GreiverBlade]

The New Segeate 1TB

View attachment 61500

New Hard Drive installed
View attachment 61494

Vs
View attachment 61495 View attachment 61496 View attachment 61497 View attachment 61499

Now I am installing Windows 7 Professional

i had the same drive for my E8400 setup but in 120gb PATA133 but now i go 3x500gb Sata1/2 and i keep the 7200.7 for the nemesis

 

[FireFox]

Them small form factor Optiplex's tend to cause pretty extensive heat on the hard drives @Knoxx29 . Might want to keep an eye on the drive for awhile. Hopefully it doesn't over heat that drive.

Right now it's running at 30c

 

[FireFox]

Now going back to the graphic card,
as i know it's not possible to install one but on Internet i found people claiming that it's possible,

I found this here:

can i upgrade dell optiplex gx520 graphic card ?small factor

Yes, it's possible, but you can't upgrade to anything really good. There are three big problems. First of all, because of the small form factor design only low-profile cards can be used. This is true of all slim/small form factor computers, regardless of manufacturer. Second, that motherboard doesn't have a PCI-Express or AGP expansion slot for graphics cards, it only has an older PCI slot (which is very slow by comparison) Third, Dell's small form factor version of the Optiplex GX520 has a 220W power supply. So you need a low-profile PCI card that works on a 220W psu. These are the best cards which meet those criteria: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814161353 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814500228 Between them, the GeForce GT 520 is a better performer, while the Radeon HD 5450 has lower power consumption. Neither is a good gaming card, but they're over triple the speed of your computer's integrated graphics. In either case you'd probably just have to attach the low-profile bracket which comes with the card (these models are low-profile ready, which means they will fit either a regular or slimline computer depending upon which bracket you use). Performance: http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Zotac/GeForce_GT_520/9.html Unfortunately, small form factor computers have proprietary power supplies, they aren't standard ATX. So you can't replace them with a standard 400W ATX power supply, those won't fit into the small case. Dell's psu for this particular machine is even oddly shaped, making it harder to find a replacement. http://www.atxpowersupplies.com/220-Watt-Power-Supply-Dell-R8038.php Even if a higher wattage psu was available, it doesn't really matter because there aren't any better graphics cards available in the old PCI interface. So yes, you can upgrade. But not to a very high level.

 

[GreiverBlade]

Now going back to the graphic card,
as i know it's not possible to install one but on Internet i found people claiming that it's possible,

I found this here:

can i upgrade dell optiplex gx520 graphic card ?small factor

Yes, it's possible, but you can't upgrade to anything really good. There are three big problems. First of all, because of the small form factor design only low-profile cards can be used. This is true of all slim/small form factor computers, regardless of manufacturer. Second, that motherboard doesn't have a PCI-Express or AGP expansion slot for graphics cards, it only has an older PCI slot (which is very slow by comparison) Third, Dell's small form factor version of the Optiplex GX520 has a 220W power supply. So you need a low-profile PCI card that works on a 220W psu. These are the best cards which meet those criteria: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814161353 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814500228 Between them, the GeForce GT 520 is a better performer, while the Radeon HD 5450 has lower power consumption. Neither is a good gaming card, but they're over triple the speed of your computer's integrated graphics. In either case you'd probably just have to attach the low-profile bracket which comes with the card (these models are low-profile ready, which means they will fit either a regular or slimline computer depending upon which bracket you use). Performance: http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Zotac/GeForce_GT_520/9.html Unfortunately, small form factor computers have proprietary power supplies, they aren't standard ATX. So you can't replace them with a standard 400W ATX power supply, those won't fit into the small case. Dell's psu for this particular machine is even oddly shaped, making it harder to find a replacement. http://www.atxpowersupplies.com/220-Watt-Power-Supply-Dell-R8038.php Even if a higher wattage psu was available, it doesn't really matter because there aren't any better graphics cards available in the old PCI interface. So yes, you can upgrade. But not to a very high level.

bah nothing ... i used a HP DC7900 with a R7 240 (throw that GT520 option in the bin ... the R7 240LP is way better) check previously for benchmark and funny things about the 240+E8400 and also used it in a DC7800 with a C2D E6700 and both SFF had a 240w PSU and a 240's recommended is 400w .... pfah what a joke i even max clocked the card with that PSU...(i have a 5450 ... in the workstation, until i find some other cards , old quadro or 8800 Ultra/9800GT or whatever)

also http://www.techpowerup.com/forums/threads/tpus-nostalgic-hardware-club.108251/page-88#post-3105334



although the main problem would be the slots... all GX520 mobo i see have only PCI slots (where the HP 7900 has 2 X16 +1 X1 the 7800 1 X16+ 2 X1 and the old one i had in 775 P4 + 945 had 1 X16 )

indeed yours is like all the one i saw : it has the place for a X16 bit no physical slot.

 

[FireFox]

bah nothing ... i used a HP DC7900 with a R7 240 (throw that GT520 option in the bin ... the R7 240LP is way better) check previously for benchmark and funny things about the 240+E8400 and also used it in a DC7800 with a C2D E6700 and both SFF had a 240w PSU and a 240's recommended is 400w .... pfah what a joke i even max clocked the card with that PSU...(i have a 5450 ... in the workstation, until i find some other cards , old quadro or 8800 Ultra/9800GT or whatever)

also http://www.techpowerup.com/forums/threads/tpus-nostalgic-hardware-club.108251/page-88#post-3105334

View attachment 61511 View attachment 61512

Would that card fit in the Dell?

 

[GreiverBlade]

Would that card fit in the Dell?

none (aka who would use a PCI card ... i mean OK i have a FX5200 PCI but it's just a backup) just sell it cheap and get a DC7900... or a DC7800 DELL ... bah ... the old PIII tower Optiplex where good but once C2D and P4 hit the market DELL became what they are today... : meh...

this is the one you have

mobo: UG982 (seemingly 1x PCI +1x PCI X? )

and i saw one with a X16 nope ahah


but since EBAY... might be a seller who do not know what he's selling... indeed he doesn't know what he's selling ... it's a HP motherboard ... pfahahaha
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Genuine-Dell-Optiplex-GX520-Desktop-Motherboard-PJ479-/381091973622

 

[FireFox]

none (aka who would use a PCI card ... i mean OK i have a FX5200 PCI but it's just a backup) just sell it cheap and get a DC7900... or a DC7800 DELL ... bah ... the old PIII tower Optiplex where good but once C2D and P4 hit the market DELL became what they are today... : meh...

I found this one:

HIS ATI Radeon HD5450 Silence Grafikkarte (PCI-e, 1GB DDR3 Speicher, DVI, HDMI)

 

[GreiverBlade]

I found this one:

View attachment 61514

HIS ATI Radeon HD5450 Silence Grafikkarte (PCI-e, 1GB DDR3 Speicher, DVI, HDMI)

not working read my edit above : no PCI-e slot on your mobo

 

[FireFox]

And what is that Slot for?

 

[GreiverBlade]

And what is that Slot for?

View attachment 61517

dunno but 100% not a GPU... it does not even look like a PCI-X slot who are for some type of professional cards (like the one i have on my dual Opteron mobo )

these are PCI-X


and the type of cards meant for it
mostly raid card (SCSI SATA)

network card(include Fiber channel)

graphics card (GXT6000P from IBM for example )

and my prefered type .... Digidesign PROtools HD card


also updated shots for the E8400 build and also, what to do when you find a USB to SATA external HDD with a crushed enclosure (and HDD) well ... take out the interface card and hook it to a Velociraptor 10k RPM without the ICEPAK (i use the ICEPAK on my Fujitsu 500gb 2.5" 11mm 7.2K RPM HDD atm )


and 2 shot of the H60V2 well doesn't look too bad on that setup (still waiting for the 8800 vRAM heatsink ... grrrhhh damn slow chinese seller even slower than any other i worked with )

 

[FireFox]

Well Time to give up