Vintage E-Waste Haul - The Battle of the OEM's!!

Just when you think the Dell's were winning the Battle, we have the OEM's showing up in our latest Vintage E-Waste Haul! In this video we will explore three more vintage systems saved from that evil scrap pile and see if we can get them to post! We have an Acer Multimedia, HP Pavilion and another trusty Dell system (which maybe should have stayed in the scrap bin?? :) Let's go!
#nostalgia #retropc #ewaste #vintage #retropc #dell #acer #hp #pavilion #dimension

[@CecilTheDarkKnight234]

Holy crap more OEMs saved from the e-waste pile. At this rate you'll be able host one hell of quake III lan party.

[@TheRetroRecall]

Hahahahah hosting my own VCF Canadian edition!

[@Ptero4]

He does know the e-waste staff on a first name basis.

[@TheRetroRecall]

Lol

[@raevod6361]

Can't tell you how much i enjoy these videos! Keep up the good work!

[@TheRetroRecall]

Love this comment, thank you and glad to have you aboard!

[@carloisdoingstupidtechstuff]

@@TheRetroRecall 27:42 the CPU is the power supply, then the power supply has 2.4 GHz 🤣🤣🤣

[@TheRetroRecall]

Lmao!!! Ok ok, that's a powerful power supply!!

[@Mange070]

That HP-system could be a pretty ok "oldschool" gaming-system with a dedicated videocard. And since it has 4 memory slots for up to 8gb ddr2,,,,,there are some more options for x64-operating-systems too.

[@TheRetroRecall]

Good call out. Many options are on the table on how to restore these.

[@Matt08719801]

i personally have had good results with acer products , also they tend to have less propietary cases that can be reused with off the shelf components , ive also bought some used acer motherboards like 1155 , 1156 socket and they work with nonprietary power supplies and setups

[@TheRetroRecall]

Great to know! Don't get me wrong, I owned Aopen boards and other components that were amazing. I just found the pre built systems were a bit low end.. But there were some that were geared for better performance. I love to hear they had some extra compatibility.

[@BRBTechTalk]

The only reason I did not like Acer as they were bare bones systems with the cheapest possible parts. Working on a brand new Acer was like working on a 5 year old Dell. Crack the case open and it was using SiS chipset on a FoxCon board Acer was bottom of the barrel hardware. I just moved and I had 15 desktop PC's I had to ditch a few and I ended up taking my Acer to the e-waste centre. I wish I had kept it to make a video of it now. 😞

[@TheRetroRecall]

Yeah, that was a common occurrence! Video?? Do you have a channel?

[@BRBTechTalk]

@@TheRetroRecall I have 2 channels, I have just started/re-branded my personal channel to @brbTechTalk, I have a few old videos there and a brand new one, I also have @brbadventurer that spun off of my main channel. I am going to focus on retro PC's through the winter as adventure in the winter in Canada is brutal. I have one video up on retro PC's but I have a couple more in the works that I am editing. I have quite a few old desktop PC's and laptops to feature.

[@TheRetroRecall]

Love this. I will definitely be subbing!

[@Evilbunk15]

I love these pickup PCs videos. I have collected for years just randomly with barely any real knowledge on what I was grabbing. Definitely helps as a 97 kid to understand more of what I had growing up and all of the computers I have inherited :D

[@TheRetroRecall]

Haha I'm happy you are enjoying and that someone else is inspired by my bad habits lol.

[@BaumInventions]

28:39 the card looks exactly like my Nightingale Pro 6. Its a pretty common and super cheap design based on the CMI8738 (8768) chip.

[@TheRetroRecall]

Thanks!!

[@laurencejohnson4106]

Another good haul!👍👍

[@TheRetroRecall]

Thanks!

[@BRBTechTalk]

5:42 I am perplexed at the bundle of USB cables going to the card reader/USB ports on the top of the case.

[@TheRetroRecall]

Haha I was too!!! Kinda threw me off.

[@maxtornogood]

Look forward to you getting around to doing some cleanup & repair / recapping of these systems! 😉

[@TheRetroRecall]

Definitely on the agenda! I have a few systems to recap now, just waiting on parts :). Stay tuned!

[@pierreinthavong181]

Awesome pc collection!👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻😄

[@TheRetroRecall]

Thanks!

[@rmcdudmk212]

Everytime i see machines like these im reminded that OEM cable manafement is the best cable management. (Sarcasm) 😂

[@TheRetroRecall]

Ahahhaha well arguably it's better than some of mine lol!! (hangs head in shame)

[@captainwasel8377]

I love and appreciate your work, I try to do the same thing myself so we both understand very well the joy of restoring computers :P Keep up the great work.

[@TheRetroRecall]

Thank you so much!!!

[@jacoxnet2]

Many digital video cameras of that era had firewire ports for downloading footage, so that may be why these "multimedia" PCs all had firewire ports. Most Macs of that era had firewire ports, too.

[@TheRetroRecall]

Ah, now that makes sense. Thank you!

[@2xtreem4u]

Mac users had firewire external hard disks

[@TheRetroRecall]

Oh Mac....

[@lukedavis436]

yes.......these are the guuud things i enjoy these

[@TheRetroRecall]

Awesome!!!

[@ZetaRidge7]

I used to have an Acer Aspire M1201 desktop PC (which came with the keyboard and mouse) my mom bought for me from Craigslist back in 2008 for 100 Canadian Dollars. At the time it was a decent computer during my junior high school years before replacing it with a budget gaming PC I personally bulit in 2015. :)

[@TheRetroRecall]

100 dollars, not bad! They were exciting times... Do you remember your gaming build config?

[@ZetaRidge7]

​@@TheRetroRecallI remember having a Celeron G1840, Asus H81M-E motherboard, 4 GB of system RAM, a used AMD Radeon HD 7770, 1TB Western Digital Caviar Blue Hard Drive, Windows 8.1, Antec VP450 power supply, and a OEM case I found trashpicked (and cleaned up the dust afterwards) to use for the build. For roughly 400 dollars in total at the time, it was a simple yet effective replacement for my dying Craigslist PC. Plus it was on a socket platform that was upgradable meaning performance improves upon upgrading the CPU. I currently have, since mid 2021, an i7 4770, 16GB RAM, 1tb SSD (with an extra 128gb ssd for backup), AMD Radeon RX 480 4GB, Windows 10 LTSC, Seasonic 520w II PSU, and a rosewill case (to replace the oem case since the card was too big).

[@SGTMacBC]

I bought a case of NOS, Lightscribe DVD burners off ebay for about $60. I couldn't give them away. I ended up putting them into HP OEM computers that I sold as an added bonus. Acers have always seemed to have funky, different computer cases. I have a later i5 3rd gen with dual slim DVD burners in a full mini-tower that I use to keep all my music files.

[@TheRetroRecall]

Nice. Have an extra one? Hahal

[@stevencamp6824]

Lol the beard thing was me

[@TheRetroRecall]

Hahaha yes!!! See, you have become a legacy lol

[@matthewday7565]

The middle one had me confused, and then realized, it's a flipped / inverted with the board IO shield down on the "wrong" side

[@TheRetroRecall]

Haha as was I! It actually opened on the opposite side like a BTX case as well. Confused me for sure.

[@robertchamberlin2362]

Thats right on that C Mos battery I had bought an I mac on Offerups that would just beep and do nothing when you hit the power button all it was, was the Cmos battery changed it out and got the apple bong and booted right up. By the way love your channel!!!

[@TheRetroRecall]

It's crazy to think that's all it can be.. And that some people toss the computers into the trash because 'they don't work' anymore!. Very happy that you are enjoying :)

[@DGTelevsionNetwork]

Those HP machines make absolute beasts for HTPC use, especially the pavilion slimline cases, some actually have IRDA 8 pin cable for direct coms to a tv tuner with a tv remote. Even the one you showed, you max out the ram and fill up those drive bays with blu ray players, maybe an HDMI capable graphics card and you're set. Slap an install of Libreelec linux on there and bob's your friggin uncle!

[@TheRetroRecall]

Hahah you said this with so much enthusiasm that I absolutely have to try this now lol. Seriously... Going to look into that!

[@gentuxable]

Oh yeah I remember in our IT department "Acer buyer" was one of the insults we given to some people how thought they knew everything better and make our life harder. But I knew nobody who had experience having bought consumer-level Acer tech. Maybe some Extensa or TravelMate but all those really bad Aspire stuff was bought by people who didn't know anything about computers and take one from an electronics department in a household store, usually buying their first and last Acer.

[@TheRetroRecall]

I mean they weren't terrible... Just not as great as other OEM's.

[@gentuxable]

@@TheRetroRecall OK maybe not terrible and it's a regional thing maybe but I felt Acer at the time had the worst price to performance ratio compared to other OEMs and their restore procedures were convoluted.

[@TheRetroRecall]

That I can agree with :)

[@larryladeroute971]

I have picked up a bunch of similar systems. I enjoyed tinkering with them and learning to troubleshoot them. Yet when I decided I wanted a dedicated PC from a certain year or era none of them cut it. The PSU's were proprietary or insufficient wattage. Not enough expansion slots (no SLI or Crossfire). Yet they can have a use for gaming if you install games years.older than the machine. Put XP on a Vista era machine and you can have decent results.

[@TheRetroRecall]

Thanks for this!!

[@BRBTechTalk]

27:04 Wow lucky, those are most often missing. I have spares in my lab but no Dell cases ATM.

[@TheRetroRecall]

Yeah I thought the same thing. Will be good for my spinning rust drives lol.

[@BRBTechTalk]

@@TheRetroRecall Spinning rust in a RAID array is a good thing. I am using 4 WD 4TB Yellow drives for 8TB of storage. RAID 10 is the way to go if you can find a case that will support 5 drives, many modern Z series motherboards support 6 SATA drives.

[@RandomYouTuber52602]

the 2nd pc is similar to a desktop i own, although that is a model a6650f. i repaired it after it sat outside for like over a year. the processor, disc drive, cmos battery, and other parts still worked. it works fine now.

[@TheRetroRecall]

That's awesome, glad you were able to save a piece of tech. I'm surprised it all worked for you worked for you - truly shows these systems can take a little bit of abuse haha.

[@Richoneification]

Like these videos, gives me ideashow to best take care of my Dell.......

[@TheRetroRecall]

Haha! Stay tuned for tomorrow's release!

[@PlanetLinuxChannel]

I just ran into a slightly newer variant of that HP with a Core 2 Quad Q6600, 3 GB of RAM, a defective Gefore 8600 GT and an old ~350 GB HDD. Swapped out the defective video card for a 2 GB RX 550 (hardly era-accurate, but I got it on the cheap and it ensures there’s no graphics bottleneck), replaced the memory with 8 GB of slightly faster (800 MHz), and installed windows to a cheap SATA SSD. Honestly it runs amazingly for basic day-to-day tasks even on Windows 10 or modern Linux. CPU-intensive workloads definitely bring it to its knees (the motherboard doesn’t let me overclock the poor Q6600 or even put in a newer CPU) but it’s an incredibly usable machine!

[@TheRetroRecall]

It's crazy to see older systems running just fine with slight upgrades and a flavour of Linux. The thing is, with all of these ewaste systems, I'm destined to restore them haha. Hoping Linux can help with that part. I'm sure your channel will also assist!

[@PlanetLinuxChannel]

It’s such a great feeling to save old technology and keep it out of the landfill. There are quite a few lightweight Linux systems (or distributions) that run pretty well on older hardware. If it’s 64-bit, there are tons of current options including Zorin OS Lite Edition, Linux Lite, Lubuntu and Linux Mint XFCE or MATE editions. If you want 32-bit (or want some other 64-bit options that also have a 32-bit version available) then there’s MX Linux, Peppermint OS and Q4OS. I’ve covered some of these in the past, but really should do a roundup of the best choice(s) for different ages of older hardware.

[@Kundalini12]

I like the way the second optical drive in the Dell was upside down, someone didn’t know what they were doing. I think those two spare drive rails in the Dell were for the optical drive, they look too big for a HDD.

[@TheRetroRecall]

Good to know and yes, I had no idea it was hiding in there and they are two dvd Rom drives. It would be good to get a different more flexible type of optical drive in this system when restored.

[@DaarkCloud]

I love drives that can also label discs so every time I see one I get excited. I am a huge light scribe fan, so I've been trying to find a good drive that's not in a laptop. The laptop ones are so slow

[@TheRetroRecall]

I don't have too much experience with lightscribe - I'd like to explore it more for some fun. Back then all types of techs were popping up that didn't last today :)

[@DaarkCloud]

@@TheRetroRecall There's something about lightscribe that fascinates me. I've been able to get pretty results with it. There's someone on the web that made modern software for it as well.

[@TheRetroRecall]

I'm definitely going to check it out! Thank you!

[@DaarkCloud]

@@TheRetroRecall Of course! If you find any good drives out in the wild it would be cool to see you test them out 😁

[@georgez8859]

I have a Dell 4400 in my Collection. thay are a solid machine except fot that case design. Very Similar . I am not a fan of the Clamshell cases. glad dell left them in the dust. Happy Cleaning . Thanks for the Video

[@TheRetroRecall]

No problem!!! Except I am not looking forward to this one lol.

[@2xtreem4u]

@@TheRetroRecall soapy water and a sponge

[@danielporeba3481]

Good video, good job mate. Back in 2007 I've purchased very similar acer system to what you're having. Although it had Athlon 64 x2 3800+, 2 gigs of ddr3 memory and something like 320gb hdd. I bought it from Currys/PC World in the UK and I remember it was a sale and I paid around £300 for it, which was a bargain. Then I've removed original psu, put in Kingwin 600w one and bought radeon 1950XT with 256 mb vram. It was working fine, but pc gaming back then wasn't as as good as nowadays. And on top of it, radeon drivers were... less than stellar to put it mildly... Crysis ran with 60 fps, but on medium settings. Increasing it to high caused 20 - 25 drop frames, and I was not happy about that.. NFS Undercover also could run at 60fps with settings reduced to medium. Rough times which hopefully won't occur anymore, but looking at Immortals at Aveum running on UE5, I'm not too sure..

[@TheRetroRecall]

Nice, it still sounds like it was a capable machine. Thanks for watching and supporting the channel!

[@danielporeba3481]

@@TheRetroRecall Great for getting back, you do what you say which is not common in this day and age, sub granted and possible patronite support in the foreseeable future, as you do know what you're saying and I clearly state that this is the channel worth supporting! Yeah it was a capable machine back in the days, despite gaming as all the dx9, dx9b and so on were the massive pain in the ar*e. And we're talking about x1950xt, top tier and not a low end x1300 with no disrespect to the owners of a latter.. Cutting long story short, it basically put me off pc gaming. I did have x360 and ps3 back then and left alone pc gaming. Nowadays I have an asus laptop with rtx 3060 and it works like a charm. Of course you need to adjust your expectations accordingly, but in 1080p I didn't have any problems running new games with usually high settings. As for the video, could you make these systems run Crysis, the original one please? It will give them a good stretch and we'll see how they'll cope. Thanks, looking fwd to next video and all the best. Greetings from the UK.

[@TheRetroRecall]

I learned a long time ago - do what you say as your resume is your word :). All the way from the UK.. Hello from Canada! I was much like you and tended to lean towards console gaming VS computer gaming. I will definitely look into testing Crysis out on that machine. I am working on different projects but will see what I can do to fit that in. I may just include it in a future video that involves a decent video card :) again, thanks for your kind words!

[@2xtreem4u]

Bet that the Acer Aspire is better than my free Acer Aspire XC100 :)

[@TheRetroRecall]

Yeah, that XC100 looks like a pretty low spec'd machine.

[@2xtreem4u]

@@TheRetroRecall It's slow but had some fun with it and installed windows 11

[@JamesPotts]

I think this was the era when Acer showed they could actually make decent hardware, as opposed to bargain basement stuff.

[@TheRetroRecall]

Definitely very possible! I just remember it's reputation, however this syetm has some potential.

[@JamesPotts]

@@TheRetroRecall of course, this was also the era when a bunch of companies couldn't decide between quality and garbage, and bounced back and forth to oblivion. So who knows what direction Acer was headed that day.,..

[@TheRetroRecall]

Well, at least they are still going today!

[@gttarus1]

Most likely that dirty Dell was used in a shop or factory floor and had no maintenance until it got retired.

[@TheRetroRecall]

Something like that for sure. It was soooo gross lol. I mean I've had some dirty systems.. But this one stank as well.

[@BRBTechTalk]

24:54 Sometimes they should just be left in the trash. It kind of reminds me of a hoarder house, so disgusting but you still want to see inside.

[@TheRetroRecall]

Lmao, so true!! Dell El Stinko is the new nickname for this system.. Lol. At least that's what I call it in the outro :)

[@BRBTechTalk]

@@TheRetroRecall Let me guess, it stunk like cigarette smoke? I was expecting the internals to be way dirtier, are you sure you did not blast some air in the guts before recording?

[@TheRetroRecall]

Hahah no, maybe the camera isn't picking it up, but it was pretty dirty. It almost smells like cat urine to be honest.

[@BRBTechTalk]

@@TheRetroRecall Ewww, 🤮 I had my own business where I fixed computers from the 80's to the early 2000's I am 62 semi retired. I love retro machines but I hate Windows.

[@milak111234]

For sure all three pc need bios update to avoid problems!!All systems have big potential for upgrades ,for sure they can become very powerfull!!

[@TheRetroRecall]

Great suggestion!

[@craigmurray4746]

Firewire is an oddity in the PC space. Used for DV and MiniDV video cameras mostly, though some film scanners like Nikon CoolScan used them as well. Still, it was much more popular on the Mac side, often used for external hard drives due to it performing more consistently than USB2 based drives. Never stood a chance against USB in the end though.

[@TheRetroRecall]

That's probably why I have a huge gap in my memory over them. I mean I know what the connection was, but that was it. It's seems USB took me from day one. :)

[@406Steven]

I still have my Dimension 4550 from back in the day, it's a nostalgia rush every time I fire it up. Mine came with that same video card but I threw mine out years ago, still has a GeForce FX 5600 Ultra in it though.

[@TheRetroRecall]

Nice! I wonder how good the video card that came with it is. I'd like to keep using it if possible when it's restored.

[@406Steven]

@@TheRetroRecall It's pretty weak, unfortunately, fine for games up through 2000 or 2001. As I recall it would only run GTA 3 at 800x600 resolution and Unreal Tournament 2004 really tortured it. I think it struggled with even MechWarrior 4. When I first got it I played mostly Combat Flight Simulator 2, Test Drive 6, Unreal Tournament (the original) and it did great but tech moved so fast back then it got obsoleted very fast. I was happy to see this on your channel, I was watching another video where you had other similar vintage Dells and was hoping to see you get a 4550 and what you'd do with it.

[@TheRetroRecall]

Well I promise I will restore this in a video! :). Just have to figure out a video card for it. May use your recommendation.

[@406Steven]

@@TheRetroRecall Awesome, I look forward to it! Something period-correct but with better performance would be ATI Radeon 9500 Pro, some people would get the 9700 non Pro and flash it to silly performance, or a 9800 Pro. Nvidia cards back in that era were fairly weak, it may be fun to pick up an ATI card for it as those were hot back then.

[@TheRetroRecall]

Perfect. I think I have one of those in the stash!!

[@adampavelec857]

Have you ever looked into the Dell PowerEdge SC400 shenanigans of the past?

[@TheRetroRecall]

Just recently. There is a place I get some of these E-waste systems and they asked if I ever wanted some of the PowerEdge stuff. I have been toying with the idea of showcasing servers in the tower format and this could be one of them. I am probably going to stay away from the rack mount 1, 2 or 3U servers as they are way to bulk. I will keep an eye out.. Who knows.. There may be a server video special!

[@stevencamp6824]

Nice acer..i never got into firewire either

[@TheRetroRecall]

Thanks and yes, for whatever reason I literally have no memories of it. I must have just used USB :)

[@stevencamp6824]

The gatway astro all in one was like that would not post with a dead cmos battery

[@TheRetroRecall]

Ah. Funny how something so simple could render a system unable to work. I wonder how many systems were tossed because of that.

[@1993MAZDAMIATA]

320 gig hdd on the acer. My buddy got a cheap "gaming laptop" and it only has 256 haha. Only one game at a time lol.

[@TheRetroRecall]

Lol! What will we do to ever fill that space!! 😂

[@nushnume]

I wouldn't be surprised if the Acer was stripped for parts and thrown away after it didn't boot anymore because of the battery. I also had a few HP and Dell computers that got revived after a cmos change. Manufacturers should make these boards to at least warn you about the battery before it fails instead of just playing dead

[@TheRetroRecall]

I 100% agree with you. I was shocked myself that a simple battery would cause the entire system to no longer function.

[@nushnume]

@@TheRetroRecall On newer dells that have core i series they actually did thought about this issue. They will light up diagnosic lights 1 2 3 if the battery is dead but the other manufacturers still don't care

[@TheRetroRecall]

Yes I remember that from some of the other Dell's I've worked on. I think it's cool if the end user knew what it was for of course.

[@radiosnmore]

i had that hoof on the far left .....beefcake pc

[@TheRetroRecall]

Haha... 'hoof' :)

[@jerfle7787]

If memory serves me AMD Live! had more to do with the chip set. Usually a Nvidia 6150 IGP built on board. More multimedia capabilities.

[@TheRetroRecall]

Thanks!!

[@jonsmith5087]

was that a socket 939 4400+ CPU in the acer?

[@TheRetroRecall]

Socket AM2. Athlon 64 x2

[@georgeprice4212]

Quick question: is it normal for the HP Envy Series- the PC version, not the laptop version - tests to say that the hard drive has passed all tests but still be unrecognizable? The same tests also say one of the USB ports is bad, just not which one is bad.

[@TheRetroRecall]

It's odd that it is unrecognizable, yet the HP Toolset locates it to scan it. When you say recognizable... do you mean when you attempt to install an O/S on the drive? Do you see it in the system BIOS?

[@georgeprice4212]

@@TheRetroRecall no. When I go to boot normally, it throws the boot drive error. And, when I last turned the computer on - two nights ago - the HDD didn’t even try to start up. There’s already Windows 10 on there, upgraded from 8, by the previous owner, my ex….who just has to have all the current stuff when released. And as far as the BIOS, it was there before. I should check it just to be sure.

[@outtheredude]

Turn of the Millennium: Mac users: Uses Firewire. PC Users: Has Firewire. Firewire is also a cool music video by Cosmic Gate. ;-)

[@TheRetroRecall]

Haha I love this overview.

[@mechanicbot2834]

Where do you get these e-waste computers and parts from?

[@TheRetroRecall]

Hi there, thrift stores, recycling centers, side of the road, yard sales, online market places, connections who order computer lots etc.

[@mechanicbot2834]

Thanks!

[@radiosnmore]

thay cow on the roght was the definotive mega hoof back in the day. that was the sh .....flight sim and limewire yeeee. and AVS in winamp.

[@TheRetroRecall]

Haha yes!!!! I remember all of that all too well lol. Those days were fun.

[@radiosnmore]

@@TheRetroRecall and then u fould power strip and changed the gpu clock....then looked deep in the case at the mobo for the ICS PLL. clockset.exe. in windows !!!!!!!! while its running. sleed fan would do this if u were lucky also

[@radiosnmore]

@@TheRetroRecall i miss my 1 ghz duron. on a purple ! K7S5A. board. i think ECS made it

[@wrlrdqueek]

Is Vista already considered vintage? I was on the public Beta for that one.

[@TheRetroRecall]

Haha! I think Windows 7 is now knocking on that door too lol.

[@2xtreem4u]

nvidia geforce4 mx 420 is ok and supports 1920x1080

[@TheRetroRecall]

Great to know, thanks!!

[@TheDuumiMuumi]

If you ever plan to do something with that HP desktop, REPLACE that PSU! Some of those Bestec branded PSU:s were notorious for faulty 5 volt standby circuitry, when it fails, it sends WAY more voltage to that line, killing the motherboard and for some cases periphreals too. Oh man I loved(not) the capacitor plague era❤

[@TheRetroRecall]

Thanks for this recommendation! The caps were bad enough, but didn't think about the PSU. I'll have to see if I can use a generic or if is a proprietary one.

[@TheDuumiMuumi]

@@TheRetroRecall It should be standard ATX power supply as far as I know. Been playing a lot with these older HP machines back in the day and all of them had regular ATX power supplies :) Just recap the board, add known-good PSU, SSD, and some more RAM and you've got yourselves a decent internet browsing machine! :)

[@TheRetroRecall]

Love it. Stay tuned!

[@gentuxable]

The first PC I ever built with new parts was an Asus A8N-SLI Deluxe from 2005, I had to sell it because I needed cash and it worked but it turns out it came right in the capacitor plague era and maybe it was pure luck that I got the cash out of it before some blew up and destroyed traces.

[@stevencamp6824]

Wish i was more confident with replacing capacitors have a board that needs 12 caps replaced

[@TheRetroRecall]

Take an old dead board and practice :). One that it doesn't matter how it turns out. Even use the old caps on it and take them out / put them back.

[@dave4shmups]

That’s amazing that the Dell fired up without any troubleshooting! Did you ever use Windows Vista? I never have.

[@TheRetroRecall]

I have!! It was short lived lol.

[@dave4shmups]

What did you think of it?

[@TheRetroRecall]

I didn't love it... But it did set the stage for Windows 7 :)

[@dave4shmups]

@@TheRetroRecall Yeah, I don’t think most people did. Windows 7 was beautiful!

[@TheRetroRecall]

100%!!

[@ZoruaZorroark]

i see so many dell oem computers at my thrift store

[@TheRetroRecall]

Save them all!!!

[@Nitrogen64YT]

AMD live stickers are just a marketing scheme just like the Intel Centrino and ViiV.

[@TheRetroRecall]

Thanks. There has to be some differences in the architecture.. Enough to warrant some of the branding.

[@TheRetroRecall]

Amazing how they could actually be able to do that, without any differences in the chip.

[@stevef6392]

So that last machine is more of a _Smell_ Dimension 4550, eh? I believe AMD Live was AMD's answer to Intel's Viiv media center "optimized" platform branding.

[@TheRetroRecall]

Lmao!!!! And thanks for the info on the live! designation.

[@nahventure3873]

you say they're saved from e-waste, but are they really? what are you doing with them? genuinely curious. I used to buy and sell used PCs but now a days, I can't do anything with a pentium 4, the best task I can think for one is maybe a small webserver but even then once we consider power/heat output, it's best I stay on pretty much anything else. Not hating but curious haha

[@TheRetroRecall]

Yes they literally are saved from the scrap pile. Fortunately I have a few connections that gather 'lots' of systems that these pop up into that they are going to send to ewaste. That and some others are literally on the side of the road or at the recyclers. For me it's not about putting them in a full working state of today's standards.. It's the mystery of seeing what condition they are in and the challenge of restoring them. Once done, they make great retro machines of the era and eventually I will pass them along. It's all about the fun and content for everyone to enjoy.

[@nahventure3873]

thanks for taking the time to respond! so as I suspected they're not being put into "daily use" haha, got it. I saw you responded as I was watching the new video with the 4550 @@TheRetroRecall

[@UzumeCEDC]

I had the hp PC but when I upgraded my dad threw it out I was thinking to use it for Windows experiments

[@TheRetroRecall]

Sad day that would have been haha. I just wish I could find the original restoration cd's!

[@UzumeCEDC]

@@TheRetroRecall i meant I would use it for my Windows experiments if I still had it but you can do whatever you want

[@TheRetroRecall]

Haha I know. I just meant it was a sad day when your dad threw it out :)

[@UzumeCEDC]

@@TheRetroRecall yeah

[@BilisNegra]

... And ironically the ugly duckling gave the least trouble (actually none) to get it to boot, and also has no bulging capacitors despite being manufactured in the midst of the capacitor plague era! For that fact alone it deserves to be "degrimmed" and to get some love. The closest I own to these systems is a motherboard I salvaged from a PC on the side of the road with an Athlon 64 X2 4600+ and some RAM, and a Dell Optiplex GX 270 from the same era and design language as that Dimension, which I got for just 20 Euro complete with some old Dell monitor 6 years ago. I quite like this kind of videos BTW.

[@TheRetroRecall]

You are sooo right - it deserves a restoration... future video maybe?!?! ;) And awesome - glad you are enjoying!

[@danteblake9701]

Have you considered booting linux to test systems.

[@TheRetroRecall]

To be honest no, but I think there are live cd's if I'm not mistaken - I could definitely start doing that. Do you have a recommendation?

[@danteblake9701]

Knoppix, Puppy Linux & Debian Linux Mint & Peppermint are all good choices for older machines. Most of them can be run from a live cd or usb@@TheRetroRecall

[@TheRetroRecall]

You rock! I will check it out, thanks!

[@danteblake9701]

I keep extra working ram & hds from when I used to work on pcs. Most have bootable Windows & linux on them. Unfortunately 32 bit support has ended for most older processors that older systems use. Any processor pre SSE3 will not have full Program & software functionality. @@TheRetroRecall

[@jjohnson71958]

change the case for the dell dimension motherboard

[@TheRetroRecall]

You mean to a generic case?

[@jjohnson71958]

yes @@TheRetroRecall

[@TheRetroRecall]

That actually sounds like a good idea. I hate the Clamshell design.

[@EastAngliaUK]

lol stupid battery but cool it then powered on lol

[@TheRetroRecall]

So funny.. I mean I wasn't going to check it at that point and thought.. Heck why not. I wonder how many of these systems were thrown away because of that battery!

[@roberthayes6329]

You e-bay haul?

[@TheRetroRecall]

I have not, but it's an option.

[@dailysciencevideos7]

how do you get computers for free

[@TheRetroRecall]

Donations, big lots, borrowing etc.

[@mattparker9726]

WOW AUDIO SO LOUD!!!!!! (looks down at volume knob....feels foolish)

[@TheRetroRecall]

Haha, oops?

[@gentuxable]

6:05 maybe this CPU is unfriendly, nobody likes it, hence it has not a single fan!

[@TheRetroRecall]

It tested well, just need to put an actual fan on it and test out an OS.

[@n3tw0rk_n3k0]

I can't believe you have a channel making videos like this but don't have an extra drive or two lying around. Good content otherwise

[@TheRetroRecall]

I do!! I have way too many to count, however I will use those during the restoration videos :). What I will start doing is using a LiveCD to boot from to make sure all is well. Stay tuned!

[@n3tw0rk_n3k0]

@Karataus ah I see. It's my first video of yours so didn't know you restored them and such

[@TheRetroRecall]

Welcome to the channel! Hopefully you re subbed haha and enjoy the rest of the content :)