Am I.... DELL-irious for saving these PCs from E-Waste?

[@WalterKnox]

The Dimension 4700 is a bit of an OEM sleeper for it's time. Most of that case style Dimension are lower end socket 478 machines running slower Pentium 4s or Celerons. They normally run DDR1 and have 2 RAM slots, and most of them have either AGP slots, or no graphics card expansion at all. They are very solid machines, but not the fastest. The 4700 on the other hand uses a socket 775 P4, has 4 RAM slots DDR2, SATA, and has a PCIe slot. I currently have one with a 3.8 GHz HT P4, 4gb RAM, a 500gb SATA HDD, and a Geforce 560ti. Quite powerful for what it is; I mainly use it for playing music off of KZbin, and it doesn't struggle at all playing 720p KZbin in full screen. The only downfall is that it won't allow for a dual core CPU like a Pentium D, but that is probably for the best with the cooling setup on these machines, it is already a room heater enough. Overall, that style Dimension system are my favorite consumer grade desktops from my favorite era of computing, but out of all of them, the 4700 is the best.

[@TheRetroRecall]

I love this breakdown, thanks for sharing!

[@ypoora1]

What about the 8400?? It has the same DDR2 and PCI-e based platform but on a beefier motherboard and with more room to expand.

[@WalterKnox]

@@ypoora1 Yeah, those are great machines as well definitely higher end. In the larger "clamshell" style case though. I was referring to this case design specifically, these smaller metal cased Dimensions like this are my favorite style machines, I personally find the larger "clamshell" machines to be ugly and rather goofy looking. Plus, the smaller chassis ones like the 4700 were the ones that I always saw and got back when they were everywhere. If I were looking for a good XP machine and purely looking for the best Dimension I could find with a P4, I would probably go for something like an 8400 though.

[@reidster87]

The Tualatin Celeron 1300 in the first system is actually a pretty respectable CPU. They have the same 256KB L2 cache as the (non-S) Tualatin Pentium IIIs, so the only drawback over the PIII is 100 vs 133MHz FSB. Some of them can actually run stable on motherboards that can manually set 133MHz FSB. I ran one of these 1300s at 1729MHz for quite some time and it was handily faster than the Socket 423 Willamette Pentium 4s, and bested the Socket 478 Northwood Pentium 4 1.8GHz in many instances. The wisdom back in the day was that the Tualatin Celeron 1100 was the best candidate for overclocking on a 133MHz bus - a lot of them could run at 1463MHz. The 1200, 1300, and 1400 typically had progressively less headroom. Even at stock speeds, they were decent performers. I upgraded a few Coppermine Socket 370 systems with the 1300 and 1400 Celerons using interposer adapters and it was a big step up, even from Coppermine PIIIs.

[@TheRetroRecall]

This is a great perspective, thank you! I was always a fan of the Celeron series as they were budget friendly and depending on the model - you could OC them giving them performance to match some of their counterparts. Finding them in systems today, well it's just fun haha.

[@Derpingtonshere]

The reason Dell was so prominent for this era is because they were cheap, decent, and fuss free. Dell back in those days were very very solid computers for the price compared to other manufactures. Yes you could go and get better but the price per what you were getting was unmatched by any competitors. HP was very close in this but they were more for business class or schools. For daily use, Dells were the go to.

[@TheRetroRecall]

I seem to recall this as well as they were everywhere. I do know they were reliable.

[@vivienm7]

This is exactly right. Dells weren’t junk with lousy soldered-on components, lousy bundled monitors, etc like what you could find at Future Shop or the like. And at the same time, Dell was a major brand with a major marketing presence, an excellent warranty (three years was standard in the late 1990s), so it was a lot easier to convince parents to give them $2000-$4000 sight unseen compared to Joe Blow’s clone shop where you could literally see some dude assembling the previous client’s computer. Also, in the US, Micron and Gateway were two very strong competitors, at least in the consumer sphere, with similar products built similarly around OEM Intel boards. While I believe both would ship systems to Canada, they did not have a presence here - CAD pricing, advertisements in newspapers, a local bilingual call center, etc. Dell did.

[@TheRetroRecall]

This is perfectly summed up. I do know a few who are against Dell for their practices as everything you had mentioned above ended up closing down their shop as they couldn't compete. The nature of the business I suppose. Can't fault them for that.

[@vivienm7]

@@TheRetroRecall the clone shops were super sketchy in the mid 90s. In Ottawa, there was a free magazine called monitor that was filled with clone shop ads. I remember going with a friend who was buying a hard drive from a place that had a serious ad in monitor and the ‘shop’ turned out to be some dude’s apartment overflowing with computer parts. I think business boomed enough he eventually got a real shop… and then went out of business later in the 90s like most of those guys.

[@TheRetroRecall]

Yes I do recall similar shops popping up here in Atlantic Canada. I would walk into this hunting shop who had custom built PC's and components for sale. As you know they were all weeded out over time. I'm not entirely sure if that was a bad thing haha.

[@Theutmostgeek]

Always interesting to see the different models that dell produced at this time and its always nice to see a video of yours on these computers!

[@TheRetroRecall]

I appreciate that!!! Thank you!!! It's always a good time :)

[@hugosimoes5119]

Another nice video. 13:45 Windows XP Professional - that means it has a RTM version or the SP1 installed, because SP2 removed the Home Edition/Profession from boot splash and the animation thingy turned to be blue.

[@TheRetroRecall]

Interesting, I didn't know that, however I did notice the Professional on the splash screen. I never thought about the whys of it though. Thanks again.

[@PlayStefan_misc]

I know the two Optiplex designs very well because my company also used those, too. Thank you for this journey back in time.

[@TheRetroRecall]

No problem, glad you enjoyed!

[@CecilTheDarkKnight234]

Dude you're getting a dell, you're getting a dell, everyone is getting a dell!! Anyways great work as always and keep up the good work, I loving seeing the old dells since that's the brand my family has used for years. Oh yea As for restore disc I may have them for two the ones shown into days video. I always kept them in my personal stash incase I would run across said models again. The model on the left and the model on the right was one my parents owned and one I used to own.

[@TheRetroRecall]

Hahaha so many Dell's! That would be awesome if you imaged them and uploaded them to archive.org!

[@BRBTechTalk]

1:57 I worked in different IT departments over the years. One of my jobs was ordering PCs and laptops for our company. I worked at the head office of a chain of 90 retail stores. Dell had/has amazing customer support. I had a dedicated rep (Debbie) I could call if I was having issues with a computer. Over all the machines were great but the CD ROM drives on the small form factor machines would fail often. One call, no waiting on hold, no telling 5 different people the same scenario, I talked to one person and in a day or two the part was on my desk. I could also have machines custom made if I needed a one off. The Advertising department needed more powerful machines than did the store managers. When I started with the company there were a mishmash of all kind of PCs mostly stuff from Best Buy, once I had been there for over a year I all the old failing machines switched to Dell. 7:02 For a long time Dell was using re-branded ASUS boards but then the budget machines were using FoxCon components.

[@TheRetroRecall]

Yes I had the same experience that you have had. I always had good experience with their teams from purchasing to warranty work. Even today our organization orders quite a bit from Dell. Also, I knew about the Foxcon boards but not Asus - neat!

[@DunkSouth]

How interesting! When I was in high school vocational training (c. early 2010s) we used Dell Dimensions from ~ 2002 as our lab PCs. The RDRAM modules in those things ran smoking hot, and they're also how learned to start a PC with my tongue. :-)

[@TheRetroRecall]

Haha with your tongue??

[@ANN1H1LATE89]

I love these old Dell's. I hope you get 1000 more of them to tinker with, upgrade and refurb. Great vid!

[@TheRetroRecall]

Haha thank you!!! Not everyone shares your enthusiasm, however I never had an issue with them :)

[@vivienm7]

One observation - I am very surprised that the first system didn’t have the proprietary Dell power supply pinout. Either Dell had just abandoned it, or they used standard PSUs in the lowest end machines. But I am shocked this works with a standard ATX power supply.

[@TheRetroRecall]

Agreed, I was equally as surprised, but it was a nice surprise!

[@testingchannel5440]

Not all the Dell Desktops use proprietary PSUs. I think they don't design all their motherboards. Perhaps the OEM ones use regular PSUs and in-house ones use proprietary?

[@ClassicBMWFanInQuebec]

It's interesting how the side panel is curved at the front. Usually to save on cost a manufacturer will make the bezel stop at a straight angle where it meets the panel, so square panels from other systems can be re-used. But this is a whole custom job, pretty nice.

[@TheRetroRecall]

Yes - I've only seen a couple of systems that have the curved panels. This is my first Dell like that.

[@simonlathwell]

I have multiple Dell's in my collection of old systems, and have sadly had to scrap a few due to them being beyond repair so just kept the working parts like CPU, RAM, optical and hard drives, and all working cards like graphics cards. I currently have a XPS 420 which has a cool little small screen on the case, Vostro 200, OptiPlex 780 SFF, and my nearly now retro Dell PowerEdge SC1430 Server that originally had Windows Server 2003 R2 that's now running Ubuntu Server, and I have the original disks for Windows Server 2003 and the Dell server resource disk. Dells are built like tanks, but I never liked the CPU cooling setup they used with no fan on the actual heatsink, so all of mine have an extra fan on the heatsink to keep it cool mounted on either on the side or top space dependant. As always another great video, keep up the good work.

[@TheRetroRecall]

Thank you!! And wow - you definitely have quite the collection. You're right, well built systems but not so great cooling designs. Which I find ironic considering just how well built they were.

[@spywarefinder]

Oh how I loved the Dell Optiplex GX270! We used these at my high school in the UK, every time you’d press the power button, the plastic would crack and pop! I managed to obtain one myself, but learnt that the cooling profile was a disaster and the capacitor plague was present for that type of computer. But… you have to love the way Dell made their early computers, they were so beautiful!

[@TheRetroRecall]

I agree! I was fortunate to avoid the plague years as I did a lot of custom building and swapped hardware out quite a bit. However doing this sort of stuff now I get to see it all of the time. Well - I guess I get to practice my soldering skills lol

[@spywarefinder]

@@TheRetroRecall :D

[@georgemaragos2378]

Hi Nice Video I did have (until 2022 ) Dell 2400 tower, it was a great XT machine, i did install original XP, then SP1, SP2 ( 3 if it existed ) and it bogged down with each upgrade. More ram fixed it most time with every Service Pack, i think it ended up with 3g or 4g ram It had 2 good features 1. i installed dos 6.22 on primary partition 2 x 2g partitions, then installed XP and it nicely set itself up on a new partition and with the dual boot dos menu on startup - select dos or xp on a 10 second count down timer 2. CPU speed or option had compatible or classic,this turned of the cache and was great for older dos 386/486 games Eventually i installed one of those CF cards with the slot in the back of the case and ran 2 different operating systems Dos & Win98 Dos & Windows XP It then became my goto adaptable machine as i could use legacy ports and dos and floppy , or semi modern XP and usb ports - i think i purchased a USB2 NEC card for faster USB2 speeds The good part is the XP worked fine with my existing win8 to win 10 machines and i could save files on the XP partition or dos partition it also had a NE2000 compatible 10/100 card so it talked to the older dos machines fine - laplink and network card is perfect for old dos

[@TheRetroRecall]

Nice, thanks for sharing this! I love hearing how these systems fit into people's setups and how they had them configured. XP was a nice OS that was quite compatible for years after.

[@Rod_Knee]

Quantum Fireball - that takes me back. The first HDD I ever purchased was a 3.2GB Quantum Fireball.

[@TheRetroRecall]

Nice!! My first drives were a Maxtor 850MB (yes.. MB) and the second was a Fujitsu 2.1gb. I hear a lot of bad things about quantum drives, however I have quite a few in my stash, and they just work still haha :)

[@PiercedJedi]

I like the Dimension 2200 style better than the other two, also really like all your MOTU figures in the background, my wife's cousin got me the original series on DVD box set a few months ago :)

[@TheRetroRecall]

Hahaha there are sooo many more you can't see lol. Yes - I like the look of that 2200!

[@WalterKnox]

It is also worth noting that the Dimension 4700 you have there has the smaller copper heatsink. The systems which were originally configured with P4s faster than (either) 3.2 or 3.4 GHz had a different CPU cooler which was taller and had heat pipes in it. I have 2 4700s, and I can say for certain that if you are installing a faster Pentium 4 in the system like a 3.4 GHz or faster Hyper Threading, you really want to have the larger heatsink as the fans will run quite loudly if you use the smaller cooler. Luckily one of mine has the the larger original cooler, so I have no issue cooling my 3.8 P4. It seems quite hard to find the larger coolers for these, I believe it is a very similar cooler to what some of the OptiPlexes from the same time period used, but it isn't an exact fit as I have tried using one and it wouldn't work.

[@TheRetroRecall]

This is really great info, thank you! Imnnot sure but I've been pretty lucky at finding these coolers on amazon.

[@BasedBoomer1337]

The first Dell 2200 (though mine was a 2100 with the same case design) was my first PC ever and I used it until end of 08. Even played a lot of WoW on it at sub 20fps.

[@TheRetroRecall]

Nice!!! Oh WOW - the good ol days lol

[@dustycircuit8758]

I had a IBM netvista PC once that had like 10 bad capacitors on the motherboard that looked just like the ones in the Dell optiplex gx270 under the cpu fan and I was shocked to find that because the computer worked just fine despite that. I know now that computers don't "need" them to function, but they there to clean up the power going to the cpu. But I was just learning about how computers work back then and I was shocked that the computer could still turn on and work like that :P

[@TheRetroRecall]

Haha yes, although they may not need them, it's a good idea to have them. Not to mention the cap juice that is damaging the board isn't good haha

[@dustycircuit8758]

@@TheRetroRecall yeah I was lucky the PC still even worked haha :P

[@TheRetroRecall]

Yes 100%

[@eveypea]

If you enter the service tag into your local Dell website, it will often tell you the basics of the system from a product support point of view. It will usually have the configuration of the machine as it left the factory. I often use this feature of Dell's website to see how old a machine is when checking out second hand sales

[@TheRetroRecall]

For sure. I think the service tag was missing from. The system as the MB was replaced and required that part to be reentered by the tech.

[@jjohnson71958]

love the side panel dell pc cases

[@TheRetroRecall]

For sure! They are also built so well.

[@jjohnson71958]

@@TheRetroRecall same with my hp pavilion p6 2220

[@jdebultra]

The X300 is a decent entry level card. Based off the Rage 9 architecture. I think Dell optimized the drivers. Not really a gamer but more of a nice desktop graphics adapter. Sips power.

[@TheRetroRecall]

Yeah makes sense for this type of system.

[@inversion66]

I had a Dell GX270 as my computer sometime around 2010. It was a refurb that came from XSCargo for 100 bucks. I'm not sure how long I had it, but bad capacitors killed it in August of 2012.

[@TheRetroRecall]

Yeah, it's unfortunate as the bad caps ended the life of a lot of these systems.

[@wettuga2762]

I have several HP D530 SFF which are very similar to your 2nd Dell, they also have a row of plagued capacitors right next to the CPU. Since there's a page detailing how to repair the most common problems with the board and power supply of this specific model, I intent to replace the caps, since these little machines are very useful for retro gaming and to fit inside arcade machines 🙂

[@WalterKnox]

Just a bit of input, me and my friend have a business where we buy surplus machines and sell parts from them, so I work on hundreds of machines on a weekly basis, Before we did the parts we used to refurbish older machines to sell (still do occasionally.) Back in 2014 when XP was loosing support, we were purging a bunch of older XP machines, and D530s were one of the more common ones we used to deal with. We scrapped over 100 of those machines (I feel bad about it, but running a business you can't save everything.) I did take a stack of 10 of them which were in the best shape home for my personal collection. Every single one of the hundreds of those machines I have messed with had all of the capacitors around the CPU bloated and leaking, and many other ones around the board as well. We never replaced them or messed with them, we just offered a very good warranty on the machines we sold, so if something happened, we would replace it. They never came back or had any issues from them though. I still have 2 of those machines which I got in 2014 which have been in daily use (one runs 24/7) since then, and they are just as stable as could be and never have shown any signs of failure or any symptoms of anything being wrong. I am not saying to not replace the capacitors, but what I will say is that on a machine that old, I generally don't find it worth it to replace what isn't broken, especially if it requires disassembling the whole thing and soldering on it. If it is working, I leave it until it isn't anymore, and I have quite a few machines which currently have bad caps on the board and have done so for years, but are still perfectly reliable. It isn't like you can't just replace them if they do eventually cause an issue. Bad caps in a power supply is another story, but that doesn't seem to affect those particular machines, just some hot snot which can become conductive and cause an arc-flash.

[@TheRetroRecall]

For sure that is the same plan here - I think most retro systems deserve a restoration and can certainly get new life in some form.

[@wettuga2762]

@@WalterKnox I have 8 of those, only 3 are in working order: one is also running 24/7 at work 😉 and another thinks it's an arcade machine 🕹 All other 5 have bad PSUs with 2 also having bad boards. If I get at least 3 more in working state I'll just keep a few extra parts and toss the rest away. Not that I actually need them, it's just for the pleasure of knowing I was able o repair something I shouldn't be able too 😄

[@WalterKnox]

@@wettuga2762 That is crazy, you must be very unlucky then or something, I have literally worked on hundreds of those, and I could count on one hand the number of dead ones that we got. The ones that didn't work all were due to bad power supplies, never had a dead board.

[@wettuga2762]

@@WalterKnox They came from a paint factory/store, so the boards might be full of dirt. After I get a few in working order, I might try washing the failing boards to see if it solves anything. It's a hobby, so it's always getting pushed to the end of the priority list.

[@mattelder1971]

I've seen that first case design in both black and white. I think they were one of the first designs where they changed over from white/beige to black in the early 2000s.

[@TheRetroRecall]

Neat! I'm finding out a lot of info on that system through the comments.

[@Peter_The_Happy_Diver]

i still have the middle one, it makes a decent retro gaming pc

[@TheRetroRecall]

Yes a few others have said that as well. I also like the desktop/slim(Er) form factor

[@BenjaminFederico1]

You should do a full restoration video on that Dimension 4700, as I think that was the computer that started my interest in computers nowadays. my parents bought one straight from Dell before I was born and used it even when I was young. there is a photo on my parent's refrigerator of me inside the computer desk while my parents were trying to do stuff. they later bought locking doors for the computer cabinet. when I was younger, the computer eventually stopped turning on completely (I wonder if it was a capacitor plague victim), so my dad and I brought it into the basement, and we disassembled it by hand. I'm pretty sure that is what started my interest in computers. after that my parents have been buying HP All in Ones running Windows 7, then one running Windows 10, and now an HP Desktop running Windows 11. also, with that Windows 7 All in One, I think I was the reason my parents had to keep buying new computers, I would download free Minecraft Mod Installers that said they would do the work of extracting the files and installing the mod software. those I later learned had Malware. then I installed a Windows 10 transformation pack to make it look like Windows 10, because I had seen KZbin videos on Windows 10, and installed a transformation pack to make it look like Windows 10. My parents had to use System Restore to change it back. The Final straw with Windows 7 was we got a virus and when we went to Norton Antivirus's Website to try and remove the virus we got redirected to a fake Norton Website. We then switched antiviruses to Kaspersky, and now back to Norton since the US Government banned Kaspersky. We now have an HP Desktop running Windows 11. I also remember those Dell OptiPlex BTX machines like you showed a while back from when I was in elementary school, those also ran Windows 7, and I go to a private school now, but from what I heard the school district now has Windows 10 Dell Laptops for the Teachers and Chromebooks for Students.

[@TheRetroRecall]

Thanks for this, I love when viewers share their memories - it also brings me down memory lane! I'll add the restoration to the list :)

[@BenjaminFederico1]

@@TheRetroRecall thank you.

[@MIJ-Tech]

That Dell Optiplex GX 270 is very similar to, if not the same model of system used by the Subway restaurants I worked at between 2005-2008. I remember installing half-height graphics cards in a few of those. If I'm not mistaken, that Celeron in the first system has a P3-based Tualatin core, among the more interesting Socket 370 CPUs, IMO. I enjoyed being able to upgrade early P3 systems with similar processors, usually with socket or "slocket" adapters.

[@TheRetroRecall]

Ah such great memories. Yes I belive you are right on the Celeron. I did a POS video from Subway a few videos back - it was a neat system!

[@chrisrudi7162]

I think the first one is a late Socket 370 machine and an intermediate product between the classic beige Dell cases and/or an early version of the then emerging black-gray cases with Netburst technology like the other two systems have.

[@TheRetroRecall]

I think it's a pretty cool design. That and the fact it just took an ATX PSU was perfect. Almost expected a proprietary PSU.

[@BsktImp]

Picked up a Dell Optiplex 790 DT Desktop form factor a couple of years ago. Coin cell had died, tried to get it out (even checked instructions and a video first) but still ended up shearing the fitting off the motherboard! Arghh! PC still works though have to reset time every boot up lol. Too lazy to ger another E93839 KA0121 motherboard and my soldering sucks. Have stuck a ASUS GeForce GT 1030 card in works a treat for that retro experience.

[@TheRetroRecall]

Nice system outside of the coin cell of course. I have faith in your soldering! Watch a few videos and get an old board or pcb to practice on. Before you know it, you'll have that coincell holder replaced and the system 100% again!

[@Ferg13]

Wow. 4-5 beat up rusty old capacitors still work. Amazing. That’s pretty cool. Definitely replace those when you have free time. Just amazing tue 2nd pc runs.

[@TheRetroRecall]

Yeah I was equally as shocked that it worked at all. I decided to risk turning it on for the adventure lol.

[@Ferg13]

@@TheRetroRecall can’t do anymore damage to it lol. That was shocking. Those Dell’s seem to last a life time.

[@Thessalonian]

I have some Dell in my collection and even for there ages i stil like them...Dell and HP are my favorites PC

[@TheRetroRecall]

I love both Dell and HP however only from certain eras... I was picky. IBM on the other hand haha!

[@AmazedStoner]

I remember two of these towers very well from 2003. I knew that small form factor would have bad caps. Combination of when it was built and the additional heat of a pentium 4 in a tiny space with even less cooling than the larger systems being sold at the time. Fun fact all the machines in 2003 being sold by dell had codenames from the matrix back then.

[@TheRetroRecall]

I did not know that!

[@iSamYTBackup]

capacitor plague is usually in the time frame of 1999-2007

[@TheRetroRecall]

Such a long time and wide range of systems.

[@SinaFarhat]

Nice! The one with dd2 and a 2.8ghz p4 makes me think that its a higher en model. Wow, those capacitors look bad!

[@TheRetroRecall]

Yes 2.8g P4 was no slouch, especially with 4 dimm slots and pcie? Definitely opens the doors for some tweaking. Yes - terrible caps lol

[@Mirra2003-f9s]

A few monthe ago somebody brought one of those old Dimensions for repair. He said his computer must be virused because it was slow and couldn't use the internet anymore. Computer was actually fine,but it was just too old to do that stuff anymore :) Also that 1.3 ghz Celeron is very nice,i used one and it's very snappy. I think 1.4 was the best one you could have for that socket so you just happened to find the second best socket 370 Celeron

[@TheRetroRecall]

Haha fun story! Yes others have been mentioning that about this cpu. Happy to have it working and it will be fun to restore these systems.

[@PiercedJedi]

second comment at end :) I never "owned" one of these systems but worked on them at the jobs I held around that time (2000's) good stuff there

[@TheRetroRecall]

Awesome, you probably have lots of stories to tell lol.

[@PiercedJedi]

@@TheRetroRecall I do have some stories....

[@TheRetroRecall]

Ohhh I'd love to hear them sometime!

[@SlabBulkhead]

A P4 Dimension was my first PC back in 2001. It came with Windows ME and a note that they'd ship me an XP upgrade disc when it came out. The poor thing crashed on shutdown almost every time until I got XP on it. My university had the small form factor dells in most of the labs and we also had them in the help desk where I worked. Not particularly fond of either model from my experiences working on them but they're both iconic.

[@TheRetroRecall]

For sure. I think the rush of Windows ME and the marketing around that (and Vista after) really caused dismay for people against OEM's. I personally never had issues but many had. You are right, they were definitely iconic.

[@johnmay4803]

i do love dells. ive got a workstation and a 3010 and a dell XPS

[@TheRetroRecall]

Nice!!!

[@n3tw0rk_n3k0]

I'm a Dell Fanboy myself! I have an XPS 420, OptiPlex 9020, Precision 7530, Latitude 5424 Rugged, Precision M4800, Latitude 5490 (currently broken), OptiPlex 9010, and OptiPlex 790 oh! and an Alienware 15 R1 as well

[@TheRetroRecall]

Nice systems!!!

[@tarajoe07]

If you are, I am too. Did a recap in my slim one. I have I think three others.

[@TheRetroRecall]

I'm totally going to recap it. I love a challenge!

[@davinp]

2 Dimeson's and 1 Optiplex. I've never seen a 2200. I had a 4600 similar to that 4700. These case are heavy since they were well built

[@TheRetroRecall]

100%. They can definitely take a beating. I'm like you, I never saw a 2200 either.

[@gentuxable]

Maybe that second system might have some hidden secrets, like emptying new CR2032 in minutes instead of years or shortening the lifespan of the CPU by not taking electric spikes away. Bad caps usually will not break the system down completely but cause crashes and weird errors and the leaking liquid from the capacitors could corrode other important elements.

[@TheRetroRecall]

For sure. I plan a good overhaul on this one. I like a challenge :)

[@gentuxable]

@@TheRetroRecall I'd love to watch it! :) looking forward.

[@TheRetroRecall]

100% number 2 will be recapped and number 3 will be restored.

[@dennisp.2147]

Those GX270's (and 240's) were dire for the capacitor plague. Dell shipped hundreds of replacement boards to the company I worked for, which promptly failed again a few months later. They were really good machines when they ran. But we ended up getting rid of most of them. Hundreds of machines stacked on pallets in 2007-8. Pity the Dimension 2200 doesn't have an AGP slot. Since it supports a 1.3ghz Celeron, it likely also supports Tualatin P3 which would make it a decently fast little Windows 98 machine. Service tag not being set on the GX270 is likely because it's a replacement board and the tech doing the job didn't bother. The power supply in teh Dimension 4700 appears to be an aftermarket unit. the Radeon X300 is not a great card. But it has native Windows 98 drivers. The Dimension 4700 should also have Windows 98 drivers available as well

[@TheRetroRecall]

Appreciate all of this great info!!! A lot of key points and is helpful, thank you!

[@thekornreeper]

So classic 🎉

[@TheRetroRecall]

Agreed! And they were everywhere lol

[@vivienm7]

The Dimension 2200 is a black version of the L series. Low end junk with i810 graphics and no AGP. Was replaced with the 2400/3000 style case that was everywhere.

[@TheRetroRecall]

Ok, I had no idea. Again, didn't see much of these at all. I was disappointed that I didn't see an AGP slot though.

[@choro76]

I love Dells. I recently bought a couple of them: An Optiplex 755 and a 780 for $26USD.

[@TheRetroRecall]

Thats awesome!! I love when people find these in the wild and save them. Especially if you get a good deal on it.

[@faqihudinn]

Great Video as always

[@TheRetroRecall]

Thank you!!

[@CantankerousDave]

I just saw a Dell Poweredge T170 dual Xeon server today for $30 at a local store.

[@TheRetroRecall]

Nice!! I really haven't spent a lot of time on the server side of the Dell line.

[@nep-nep6575]

That first one with a Celeron is actually quite decent (aside from the lack of AGP), the Tualerons are very competent for the time. Aside from the FSB, they should about match the performance of a Coppermine PIII.

[@TheRetroRecall]

Agreed! I shake my head at times when these boards don't have that AGP. It seems so simple!

[@cageliner]

I like Dell computers. I had a 2004 Inspiron 600M laptop until I bought a 2015 New XPS 13, that I still use. I have a 2012 Optiplex mid tower with a Core i5 3rd Gen that I bought used at Canada Computers some years ago. It had a 2TB drive and Windows 8.1 when I bought it. It has an SSD and runs Windows 11 now. I even have a 2013 Dell Venue 8 Pro tablet with a cracked screen running Win 10. Touch no longer works but USB via an OTG dongle makes it sort of usable. I recycled all my old computers and parts 10-12 years ago because they took up too much closet space. I had bits and pieces of a 386, a dual Pentium Pro, and some AT boards and a power supply. I wish I had some now so I could run Win 3.1 haha I only have old OSes now and computers built 2012 and later. Windows XP Professional x64 runs fine on a Lenovo Core i5 3rd Gen with 24GB RAM and an SSD, once you find all the XP 64 bit drivers.

[@TheRetroRecall]

Thanks for sharing. It is pretty cool how many more years you can squeeze out of this hardware for sure.

[@HannoImmelman]

I had an dell optiplex just like the 2nd one. Was an pentium 3. Played a lot of AOE on it but unfortunately a few years ago it exploded itself when I played quake 3 on it. Surprisingly it wasn't the capacitors it was the powersupply.

[@TheRetroRecall]

Oh wow. Yeah I'm guessing some of these PSUs probably also had some of the bad caps of the time. That and if they are caked with dirt.. That's a whole other issue :)

[@Alex-sz8ku]

I have a thing for Dells from this era. But man, those older Optiplex GX270 and GX280 SFF and USFF were so bad for capacitors. They had horrible airflow especially if you were running a Presscott Pentium 4. The high school I went to had one computer lab left with a bunch of the USFF GX280s and even just logging into windows the fans would ramp up to almost full speed.... thermal paste probably would've helped that but you could still feel the heat coming from these things and as soon as you flipped the top open the fan would spin down to a normal speed. That computer lab got so hot when you had everyone using a computer that we always had to have the outside door open. In my collection I have a Dimension 4700c which uses a lot of things from the GX280 USFF models and it's the same story.... it's free of dust and has good thermal paste but the fan screams when you do anything load intensive on it. It's running it's original Pentium 4 540 3.2GHz. I always enjoy your content, especially Dell stuff!

[@TheRetroRecall]

I really appreciate you sharing this. I love hearing people experiences with this tech and what they had. Also, I very much appreciate the compliment, I'm happy you are enjoying!!!!

[@DarKnightKilla13]

Those Radeon X300s aren't bad, but they were the bottom of the barrel chipsets. It was the X300, X700, X800, and X850s series of cards, I personally had (and still have) a great X700 card. Beyond my 2600XT I think it might've been the last AGP card I owned.

[@TheRetroRecall]

Great info, much appreciated. It's certainly a better option than having an integrated graphics only solution.

[@DarKnightKilla13]

@@TheRetroRecall I might've totally missed it if you said, but any idea how much memory is on that card? I'm assuming 32-64 MB's. Apologies ahead of time if you mentioned it.

[@TheRetroRecall]

@DarKnightKilla13 128mb I belive someone said.

[@DarKnightKilla13]

@@TheRetroRecall Holy shmoly, 128? Ctazy if so!

[@TheRetroRecall]

Yeah I need to find out. I mean being a pcie card, it is feasible. Will be fun to restore this one.

[@ABRetroCollections]

Seeing you asked about the Radeon X300, those are just rebranded Radeon 9600SE's.

[@TheRetroRecall]

Ahhh.. perfect, thank you!

[@iiisaac1312]

Jim's Junk did a video on the slim P4 dell looking at the airflow. Apparently they cook themselves by recycling the exhaust air since the ONLY vents air can get into the case is on the back. This caused caps to fail early as they got too hot, and it cooked hard drives. Also the CPU fan is controlled by it's own thermometer instead of the CPU's own internal thermometer. This means if the heat sink got clogged with dust, air won't be able to blow over the thermometer so it won't see the hot air, and as a result, it would spin slower. Truly a failure of design only a landfill is worthy to behold.

[@TheRetroRecall]

Thanks for this detail, i will definitely have to check out that video! I can see these flaws for sure... Starting with he terrible caps.

[@carabara3947]

Yeah Man Bought A Lenovo 230s Sold As Not Working For Long Dried Up Thermal Grease Sorted With Win 8.1 2GB Ram 250HDD Still Managed Some Updates Main Bad Boy Is The Geekom A7 AMD Ryzen7 7840/Radeon 780m Graphics 3.8ghz 32 GB Ram Win 11 Pro And Its The Size Of A Packet Of Cheese Slices lol But Enjoying These Videos As A Old Covid Hobby Thanks For Your Efforts👌

[@TheRetroRecall]

Haha no problem!!! Glad you are enjoying. Nice build by the way!

[@ondrejbursa9969]

The Opriplex 270 has speciál place in my heart. It was the first PC i tinkered with, got it from school, it lied in my basement for cca 6years because it wasnt working. I finally replaced the capacitors in 2020, but the PSU was bad, So I tried another one. It ran well, then I turned it off and was never able to start IT again sadly

[@TheRetroRecall]

Well I'm glad I brought back some memories for you! It's a shame you can't get it going... Hopefully you can get that PSU up and running again

[@_Jadewolf_]

Great video, thanks a lot! I really enjoy your style! 😊 A question coming from my own experience and love for restoring old HP, Dell and Fujitsu computers (on a much smaller scale, and a bit newer), I know they tend to accumulate in the apartment... 😅 What happens to the computers when you have repaired them? I would not connect them to the internet with Win XP running these days, and my oldest single thread Pentium 4 2.66GHz build isn't running too well even with Puppy Linux...so are you donating? Selling to retro gamers? Or building a cache of computers in the north wing? 😉🙃 And are you planning on branching out from Dells, or to maybe sth slightly newer? Have a great day and thanks again! 😊

[@TheRetroRecall]

No, thank you for watching! I couldn't do it without your support. As for the systems, I'm currently hoarding them haha. I'm fortunate to have a storage area where I can store them without getting into too much trouble at home. It depends on the unit, however some may be featured in future videos. As for what happens with them afterwards - I haven't decided yet :). Oh, and I have quite a few systems that aren't Dell's - check out my other videos :)

[@blaster-vv8so]

I found and old x 300 graphics card and through research found it to be about a 9600 pro ish card but have not tested it. I would be curious to see it tested in games of that era

[@TheRetroRecall]

Yes, I think I will test it during the restoration of these systems.

[@Redmage913]

With these old Dells, it’s always the question of capacitors. Combination of nonexistent airflow for some clamshells and the capacitor plague of the mid-2000s… I worked a repair shop that would buy machines. First step? Capacitor check, even before powering it on. Also subbed as a literal bug check. Bugs or busted caps, no-buy.

[@TheRetroRecall]

Yeah so true. So many systems I've come accross suffer from the same unfortunate fate.

[@megan_alnico]

The beige version of that first case was very common in the p3 days. I've never seen it in black before.

[@TheRetroRecall]

Neat! Yeah, this is my first time seeing one.

[@megan_alnico]

@@TheRetroRecall yeah used one as my media PC around 2003ish... It worked... Ok for composite out video.

[@TheRetroRecall]

Neat. I never had a media pc - although I really wanted one haha. I always built custom PC's and at best got a tuner card to connect to the cable signal. It was always fun watching tv on a 2x2 inch screen and choppy lol.

[@0MeALot0]

The videocard is a radeon x300se 128mb. It is crippled by a 64 bit memory bus so its more just like a video adapter.

[@TheRetroRecall]

Ahhhh ok makes sense. So another card would definitely be a better option!

[@Ferg13]

Great video. What are the chances the 3 were “Point of sale” possibly from the same place? Great stuff buddy :)

[@TheRetroRecall]

Thanks and I think it is a pretty good chance in retrospect!

[@AlexM-uh7sq]

Dude you’re gettin’ a Dell.

[@TheRetroRecall]

Hahah so many Dell's lol

[@stevencamp6824]

I have one like the small one but mine is beige, it is an L667R upgraded to an 866 p3

[@TheRetroRecall]

Nice!!

[@turbinegraphics16]

I found a gx270 years ago, its a nice win 98 dos machine if you upgrade the gpu. My capacitors are dodgy but I can still play games for a couple of hours fine.

[@TheRetroRecall]

For sure... Get those caps replaced haha!

[@liliwinnt6]

i love the optiplex in the middle of those three for full tower, i prefer dimension 8400

[@TheRetroRecall]

They were fun to see working again, I agree that 8400 was a nice surprise.

[@liliwinnt6]

and it would be more of a surprise if you find RDRAM pentium 4 system inside an 8200 lol

[@TheRetroRecall]

Haha well I have found some RDRAM in some of these Dell P4 systems. I can't remember exactly what ones but I definitely showcased them in some videos.

[@liliwinnt6]

that's good

[@TheRetroRecall]

It was cool to see for sure. I never had a lot of experience with RDRAM but I heard it was expensive and hard to work with.

[@Matt08719801]

i had a x300 le come with a used e510 pentium D dell system , needless to say its a display adapter unless you plan to not play anything past 2002-2003 , with that pentium 4 something like a hd 4670 would be a descent upgrade for that system

[@TheRetroRecall]

Thanks and appreciate it!

[@chrisschanneloftechnology4743]

Please restore them all

[@TheRetroRecall]

That's what I will probably do, I'm a sucker for these computers haha

[@dawn1berlitz]

those slimline dells from the xp era are known for blown caps

[@TheRetroRecall]

I think a lot of these systems from that era are like that lol.

[@GamerisawesomeYTonPSN]

We even got the dell dimension the iconic one

[@TheRetroRecall]

A nice mix om the bench this time!

[@definitelycasualpcs8789]

oh nice! I have a lot of ....is fond the word?...eh memories of that style. our school had them everywhere early 00s. I found a couple models of the bigger chassis style that i need to....well not restore but clean up and refresh.

[@TheRetroRecall]

They are built quite well and we're literally everywhere lol.

[@definitelycasualpcs8789]

@@TheRetroRecall right? And had a lot of hardware options too

[@TheRetroRecall]

Absolutely including the ability to customize what you want or order a prebuilt based on what they felt was standard in the market at the time. It was a lot of fun back then!

[@definitelycasualpcs8789]

@@TheRetroRecall right?? I have a...8400? 8700? That has i think the near fastest p4 and agp ...ready for gaming lol

[@TheRetroRecall]

Niceeeee.

[@maxtornogood]

The 1st PoS system had an POS power supply! Like that 2nd system it probably had CRAPacitors, early 2000's systems had a rep for that! Watched another clip of another early 2000's system with bulging caps yesterday, it booted but was unstable to say the least!

[@TheRetroRecall]

Yes it was pretty common during this time period and I've come to expect it. Ah well, a fun project to restore!

[@maxtornogood]

@@TheRetroRecall Would be neat to see you do another recapping video, it's been a little while! 😉

[@TheRetroRecall]

I think system #2 DEFINITELY qualifies 😂

[@maxtornogood]

@@TheRetroRecall Oh yes!! Those caps were just gross, hopefully they haven't damaged the board!

[@TheRetroRecall]

For sure. I hope not. I'm good at those repairs though, so we will get this all fixed up!

[@peteregan9750]

there where so many sold to bussiness that they turn up at auction in the pallet load of them

[@TheRetroRecall]

It really is something how many I see out there and how many are online. Obviously due to as you said, so many sold to businesses, schools, govts etc!

[@Ferg13]

“Dude… you’re getting a Dell” Just started watching this one. The 3rd one looks like my Dell I have that’s a pain in the butt lol. Will see if it’s exactly like mine. :)

[@TheRetroRecall]

Haha enjoy!!

[@Ferg13]

@@TheRetroRecall I do every time I watch yer videos :)

[@TheRetroRecall]

Thank you, I'm glad!

[@Ferg13]

@@TheRetroRecall Yvw sir :). Nope. The 3rd one is way newer than my 2400 😂. I already know the 2400 will be my biggest nemesis lol. Same case tho. Like you said “ol faithful” lol

[@j.lietka9406]

Might you have a Dell MT 7010 case + front bezel? Just the case!

[@TheRetroRecall]

Oh I'm sure I do in my stash of Dell's. I may be doing a video on that system in the future.

[@j.lietka9406]

@@TheRetroRecall ok thank you

[@stevencamp6824]

P4 and bad caps go hand in hand

[@TheRetroRecall]

100%

[@zeddik99]

The blank Service Tag on system 2 means the board was likely replaced via RMA. There's a step to enter the Service Tag when you install the new board, but most never do it.

[@TheRetroRecall]

Thank you, this is helpful!

[@zeddik99]

@@TheRetroRecall I replaced tons of boards in these systems back in that era due to the bad caps, but the replacement boards also had the same bad caps... so it was a band-aid at best

[@TheRetroRecall]

Yeah, it is so unfortunate. I mean what to save pennies?

[@matthewday7565]

Tualatin S370 Celeron, seems in this case the only difference is the 100MHz FSB vs the 133MHz of the Pentium 3 (some models have 512k cache) Northwood S478 Prescott P4 HT

[@TheRetroRecall]

So swapping it out with a P3 1g should be possible... Assuming the board supports it of course.

[@mikefuston4494]

something to play arounf with not bad price

[@TheRetroRecall]

Absolutely. I normally like them being donated, but I took a chance.

[@carabara3947]

Oops Started Bleeping Five Bleeps After Research Means Bios Battery Changed Out Sweet As

[@TheRetroRecall]

It turned out to be the ram - needed some good ol' contact cleaner!

[@TheDman216]

they are great windows xp boxes

[@TheRetroRecall]

100%! Major retro vibes!

[@davinp]

The company should have wiped the hard drive before disposing of the PCs

[@TheRetroRecall]

It happens more than you think

[@mattelder1971]

I used to work for a thrift store processing computer donations. Almost NO ONE bothers to wipe hard drives before donating them. You'd be shocked and amazed by the things I've found on some of them. I always wiped them and did a reinstall of the OS before selling them.

[@marksmith9566]

PCI video card with 1 or 2 GB memory would be a good add to the dimension. Will MB support a Pentium 3?

[@TheRetroRecall]

I am thinking it will based on the fact it is a 1.3ghz Celeron already.

[@khx73]

Any chance you're on the east coast? I've got a stack of stuff headed to e-waste that still works.. I'd gladly hand it over to you

[@TheRetroRecall]

I am! Send a note to [e-mail] and we can chat there.

[@Gaspode-uj8jt]

Dude! You got THREE Dells! None of these systems have very much airflow, typical for Dells. Since system three is using the PCI video card, shouldn't you changed the amount of video memory for the integrated video controller (at 36:04) from 8M to 1M? Its not surprising but kind of disappointing that the personal/proprietary info was not wiped from the systems before they were sent to E waste. Great content. Have you looked into a PassMark Inline PSU Tester? They are very expensive ~$620 but provide much more comprehensive tests. I don't know if it is overkill for your use case. Looking forward to your next episode.

[@TheRetroRecall]

Thanks, I'm glad you enjoyed! Yes, so many Dell's haha! I believe the third system had that dedicated graphics card and the integrated port was blocked off? It was also set to auto detect. I mean I could triple check by using. GPU x benchmarking tool to see how much memory is showing. I think that PSU tester would be overkill for me at this stage, but I'll keep that in mind for sure, thanks for the recommendation!

[@Mini-z1994]

Fairly reliable, but some of these pentium 4 machines only having pci for expansion slots killed them off quickly for any gaming past like f.e.a.r & half-life 2

[@TheRetroRecall]

For sure. They would mostly be fixed on a limited gaming era (if that was the goal). Fortunately the second and third systems have expansion options.

[@Mini-z1994]

@@TheRetroRecall Yeah saw that in the video, my aunt & cousin got unlucky buying one of these with only pci slots that was the same case as the third pc in the video. Could do a soundcard & gpu upgrade on yours though. Something like a nvidia 6200 agp or ati 9550 for a low budget option & maybe upgrade ram between 1 - 2 gb would have made the pc last a bit longer. Their pc had a bit newer socket 775 pentium 4 that for some reason still only had DDR support on the motherboard. So the system was locked down in terms of support & upgrades, my cousin got another pc like 2 months later as she bought it used in like 2009. Pc lasted with some minor fixing cleaning out dust, swapping out a dead ramstick & new thermalpaste until 2017 After i tossed in some ram we had laying around into it to kind of max it out too the best of my abilities & 0 budget. Though as a point of sale system for my aunts business it did ok (Dog grooming & some training stuff for some closer friends & customers mainly.) Otherwise was a noisy & slow Spotify machine with 3 gb ram & Pentium 4 HT 660 as the final upgrade like 2011 on the integrated intel graphics in windows 7. Implored her to get a newer pc with at least 8 gb ram & SSD when it got back to me again in 2016 & she scrapped it in 2017 & just used her laptop instead.

[@ominence9761]

Dell dude, how did you miss to check/show the display adapter driver in the device manager for the one system that had a discreet graphics card! Kudos to the commentor who hopefully identified it correctly. Graphics is the epitome of us viewers for consumer grade computing like this.

[@TheRetroRecall]

I had to go back and look because I could have sworn I included that! Somehow I cut it out of the final edit, my bad. It showed as a Radeon x300 series card in the original footage. Another viewer stated its an x300se 128mb card and is pretty low end.

[@ominence9761]

@@TheRetroRecall It seemed very unlike you. Glad you feel the same way and do love your videos:)

[@TheRetroRecall]

Big time. I was shocked as I knew the card in the system and I knew I had talked about haha! Ah well, at least we know what it is now! Go team lol

[@ominence9761]

@@TheRetroRecall I think the thumbnail DELL-iriously got to you, haha.

[@TheRetroRecall]

😂😂😂 Help!

[@hugosimoes5119]

Just an idea: why not a tour inside of a E-waste facility so we can see what they do to the old hardware.

[@TheRetroRecall]

I would think that these facilities have been covered on KZbin already, however I do know our local one wouldn't allow that due to privacy concerns. As for what they do with them, I'm pretty sure they are stripped down and sorted into metal, plastics etc for recycling.

[@justsumguy2u]

Wow, you got lucky this time; 3 out of 3 with hard drives! It blows my mind that the second system worked with all of those dead capacitors. And the first system just screams business computer; 1.3 ghz Celeron and a paltry 128 mb of RAM lol I'd probably get rid of the second one---it needs recapped, and it's just not that exciting

[@TheRetroRecall]

Haha I agree - I expected some smoke. That said, I love a good challenge!

[@dingus2519]

Yay! Dell blobs! I love the gx small form factors, but every single one I have bought have already blown EVERY single capacitor, always 😂

[@TheRetroRecall]

😂😂 Make sure you take a look at this one in the video. I'm sure you won't be surprised lol

[@dingus2519]

@@TheRetroRecalljust got there 😂, it’s either that or the power supplies, you are definitely lucky it actually posted!

[@dingus2519]

I also just noticed its still running the original dell partition! Definitely lucky with this one, until it goes bang 😅, over here in the uk, most of these blobby dell things were gone and dead before the 2010s even hit 🤣

[@TheRetroRecall]

Haha took a risk for sure, but that's part of the excitement lol

[@TheRetroRecall]

Hahah yes! I have some friends over there who have said that.

[@TheMagicofZelda]

Yeah Dell was everywhere in the 2000s. Dell went through a lawsuit due to using defective capacitors in the 2000s, especially the GX270. My XPS 410 did have a few defective capacitors on the motherboard but thankfully Dell replaced it under warranty. Be cautious with the Quantum hard drive in your Dimension 2200. Quantum HDD were very unreliable as most PCs with a dead HDD I worked on had either Quantum or Maxtor. I had to replace a defective Quantum HDD in my Macintosh Performa 6400 which was otherwise a great computer.

[@TheRetroRecall]

Thanks for the heads up on the HDD! As for the caps - I have many Dell's from this era and they are definitely in need of recapping. Just shows it doesn't pay to cheap out by a few pennies!

[@TheMagicofZelda]

@@TheRetroRecall No problem. I agree although other PC manufactures also used bad caps so I'll give Dell some slack.

[@TheRetroRecall]

Yes true. I've definitely found them in IBM and HP desktops.

[@TheMagicofZelda]

@@TheRetroRecall Various motherboard manufactures also had bad caps. I had an MSI, Intel and Gigabyte boards that had bad caps.

[@TheRetroRecall]

I think I have seen that... Especially on the MSI.

[@ytguy2010]

2nd Dell: The blank service tag 99% of the time means the motherboard has been replaced. 3rd Dell: The power supply has been replaced.

[@TheRetroRecall]

Interesting if true regarding the service tag - wouldn't they have put a new service tag or recode it when replaced? I say that as I have a Precision that had a board replaced the the service tag was present after the work. Maybe they forgot in this case?

[@ytguy2010]

@@TheRetroRecall I think you need a special program to write the service tag. So if the motherboard was replaced by a normal person (not a Dell technician) then he won't have that program.

[@TheRetroRecall]

Ah makes sense!

[@MotownBatman]

I had the 2200 Tower on the Left back in 2k5ish. Mine was White. I had it Maxed-Out with a P3 1Ghz & 512 Meg Ram with I believe an AGP 64Meg Whatever Generic GeForce card CompUSA was Selling at the Time. It was s Sonic Fast Win2k Pro SP4 Small DVD / OG Xbox Station, I could Rip and burn on my DL drive like a Pro; I Figured out the Hard was Burning OG Xbox Backups at 16x is not wise... after doing a Stack lol

[@TheRetroRecall]

Haha I imagine not! Nice - I've never seen this style before to be honest. It was neat to see, it's not a bad looking design.

[@johnathanjamesjohnsonjr7408]

...i think they look cool.

[@TheRetroRecall]

Yeah, I mean at the time they felt pretty generic but now they are retro fun!

[@grahamstuart3207]

I would just let them go....DELL!!!

[@TheRetroRecall]

Dell's need love too! 😂

[@grahamstuart3207]

Guess I'm a little hard on the old Dell. Maybe the newer one's are better. Knew people in the past with so many troubles.

[@TheRetroRecall]

Yeah the capacitor plague didn't help them at all.

[@GGigabiteM]

That era of dell was most definitely not built very well. They lost over a billion with a B dollars in lawsuits over selling computers with faulty capacitors, knew about it and shipped them anyway. I was super busy in 2007-2008 replacing thousands of motherboards in GX/SX270 and GX/SX280 machines because of said problem. Dell screwed over millions of customers because the class action lawsuits only covered a few models out of dozens or hundreds that they sold. If you had a GX/SX2x0 machine, you were *probably* covered, but people with Dimensions, Inspirons, etc. were left up a creek. But even if you were part of said class that got a replacement motherboard, it only covered the motherboard. It didn't cover the power supply or the monitor, which had the same terrible capacitors that failed in the same manner. Dell computers and monitors from the 1999-2010ish timeframe were all affected with capacitor plague, the 2000-2005 time frame being the worst. I've recapped hundreds of Dell motherboards, power supplies and monitors over the decades. But! It gets worse. The Dimension 2200 is a hot box that has no ventilation. Sure it has an exhaust fan, but it has quite literally no intake. The hard drive is pressed right up against the front grille and blocks 99% of the airflow. The GX270 is even worse, it basically has no intake AT ALL. The only way for air to get inside the case is from the rear, which is also the exhaust. The CPU basically regurgitates its own hot exhaust, and so does the power supply. With higher power Pentium 4s, the motherboards and power supplies can get so hot that they kill themselves. I've seen those power supplies get so hot that they've melted or caught on fire and burned. There is no fix for this on the GX270, other than to use the lowest wattage (and lowest performance) Pentium 4 you can find. The SX280 at least was LGA775 and you could use the special D0 core steppings of the Cedar Mill Pentium 4. Their sSpecs start with SL9K if you want to find them easily. The Dimension 4700 is the least problematic of the bunch, but it is still a hot box because it has no intake.

[@TheRetroRecall]

Thanks for the history. I'll clarify as I have done throughout the comments as well as in my video when referencing the bad caps - they were physically built well compared to the cheap aluminum cases we get today. Outside of caps, I found the hardware worked quite well, although their cooking left a lot to be desired.

[@andynicolaieanghel8933]

I've always had dell .. Me commenting from my Dell optiplex computer

[@TheRetroRecall]

😂😂 Perfect.

[@MindCaged]

Out of curiosity, I wonder: 1. Where does one go to find "e-waste" computers, like what would I google for? Also how much if anything did computers this old cost for reference? I saw a Win XP desktop(Didn't get the specs) at a thrift store for $60, but that seemed a bit high to me, not sure if I know the market rate. 2. What do these youtubers do with these rather ancient by modern standards systems after they fix em up and get them running? They're rather under-powered even if you installed linux on them. I suspect they'd struggle with youtube playback unless those video cards have onboard decoding and even for that you'd probably need a browser extension to force an older codec like h264ify. I've tried getting other low-end systems running before and even a dual-core 2.4 GHz turbo cpu with onboard decoding did lag a little when seeking or toggling fullscreen, also on loading images when browsing.

[@TheRetroRecall]

Great questions. It really depends on your area. Some recyclers may pass them along to you, others may not. I'm fortunate to have good sources that support the channel. I also find these in thrift stores as you mentioned however 60 is a bit steep. I'm not sure if there is a one price fits all so it's hard for me to answer that for you. It comes down to what the system is, what's in it for hardware and what you are willing to pay. As for what we do after with these? Again, hard for me to speak for other KZbinrs but I will say for now I'm keeping all of this equipment to save them, restore them and store them for now. They may be featured in future videos in different ways so that others can continue to enjoy the nostalgic memories they bring to them. Who knows what the future will bring. As far as usefulness, I don't think it's a question of what they can do in today's computer world - I think it's about using the real hardware for retro gaming and other applications VS using an emulator.

[@mattelder1971]

Yeah, let me guess, the thrift store was Goodwill? They always seem to greatly over value computers. I used to work for a different thrift store processing the donated computers and something like that would be $10 or so, maybe less depending on the specs. A 5 year old laptop might go for $60, but most older stuff would be far cheaper unless it was something particularly collectible or rare.