Author Topic: Hmm I need help (Read 9942 times)

Oprime · « **on:** February 22, 2004, 05:23:33 PM »

I'm totally confused on what's the problem with this computer. I'm gonna sell it to make some money to remake my windows box with a Dragon case

(I love those things). Here's what I got so far to explain my little problem:

It's a Dell <--- worst computers on the face of the Earth
It is an old dell :S Dell Optiplex 5xxx specs
The expansion cards I put in it don't work. They are seen in win98, but when I try to use them they don't do anything. They're detected by windows, I installed their drivers, one is a modem so I went to modem thingy in the contral panel to find that the computer can't "communicate". The other card I put in there is a USB card, but when I try to connect the mouse to it the laser doesn't turn on. I already tried the slot dance and it didn't work. There is a reward to those who can help me fix it. The reward is 100 points

P.S. Just for the heck of it how much do you all think I can sell this thing for?

plymoth45 · « **Reply #1 on:** February 22, 2004, 07:20:22 PM »

hmm, i will have to show this topic to the comp wiz at my school, he might have an answer to help ye.

Coconut Monkey · « **Reply #2 on:** March 05, 2004, 03:16:29 AM »

Oh sweet jeebus, it's a Pentium 1! Somebody put the old bugger out of its misery.

Ahh, but seriously.....

Ok, so, do the modem and USB card show up as working properly under device manager? When you installed the USB mouse, did you also install drivers for it? Windows 98 does not come with USB mouse drivers by default. Does all hardware work fine in another PC?

Sorry for raising an old topic........

plymoth45 · « **Reply #3 on:** March 05, 2004, 08:49:29 AM »

so, i was and am working with a Pentium-S, only 166mhz!

AI_v3.2 · « **Reply #4 on:** March 05, 2004, 09:34:52 AM »

:heh: look at it this way it can be worse for example i have an packard bell axcell 459cd with 22 mgs of ram and a whopping 75 mhz cpu and it still runs fine :heh:
but i am getting a new one soon but for now thats what i am playing outpost and outpost 2 on

ZeusBD · « **Reply #5 on:** March 05, 2004, 10:24:28 AM »

Even for OP2 that's a slow system. That would give you a disadvantage. I used to play on a 100 MHZ computer and then went to a 1.1 GHZ, no comparison. The processor speed can hurt you while your playing if it can't keep up with what's going on. I would recommend that first, you go slap yourself for having such a system, then go get one with at least a 1 GHZ for a couple hundred bucks.

BlackBox · « **Reply #6 on:** March 05, 2004, 11:19:37 AM »

Anyway, staying on topic,

Prime check your ports. Remember that the modem uses a COM port, and if the ports are disabled or aren't functioning the modem won't work either.

(Had to do this on my Dell Dimension XPS D333, printer wouldn't work thru the LPT port, Device Manager said The firmware is not allocated for this device in the LPT1 props, so I went into the system setup program and turning off "Plug and Play OS" fixed it)

Oprime · « **Reply #7 on:** March 05, 2004, 01:31:02 PM »

Thanks for that Hacker

It was just com 1. As soon as I disabled it the card started to work. I don't know what happend to the other card, but what do you expect from a.....DELL (thumbsdown) . The USB card started to work after the modem prob was fixed. I disconnected the power suppy and found no problem with it so I reconnected it. After which every thing worked fine odd :huh:

(thumbsup) PM me when you want the points Hacker

it2000us · « **Reply #8 on:** March 05, 2004, 02:48:50 PM »

God damn, what am i hearing? where did u ppl get these coumputers? Or are we still in the stone age?

Kiith Somtaaw · « **Reply #9 on:** March 05, 2004, 05:27:01 PM »

Man you all have really bad machines, no offence though.

Why don't you all just upgrade them?

plymoth45 · « **Reply #10 on:** March 05, 2004, 06:26:31 PM »

don't start with taht, my computer is an Athlon AMD 1500+ with 256Mbs of RAM, a DVD player, a 16x CD burner, and a 20Gb Harddrive which i need a new hard drive.

Oprime · « **Reply #11 on:** March 05, 2004, 06:27:16 PM »

It's an old computer I got a looooong time ago. My main machine is my Dragon that I just finished making. I can look at its curves all day. I'm use it for my little linux projects and for class (I'm learning how to develop games). Also I'm gonna sell the old Dell to remake my Windows Box with a new processor and a Dragon case :heh:.

Kiith Somtaaw · « **Reply #12 on:** March 05, 2004, 07:22:42 PM »

If I mentioned what I have in my new computer,

Some people might say I’m bragging, so I’m not going to.

Unless someone asks of course.

PS. I have 4x as much RAM in this machine than Plymoth does in his,
and 4x as much RAM in my new machine than I have in this one.
you do the math,

AI_v3.2 · « **Reply #13 on:** March 06, 2004, 03:52:27 PM »

well i cant upgrade it cause i ant got the cash to do so plus packard bells are almost impossible to upgrade

alice · « **Reply #14 on:** March 08, 2004, 07:16:54 AM »

I really can't upgrade my computer now. I think it's at it's limit:

Pentium Pro 166MHz w/ 256k Cache, 132mb EDO RAM, 52x32x52x CD Burner, Quad USB Ports, nVidia GForce2 440 64MB DDR PCI, Creative Ensonic Sound Card, ISA Modem (Don't know the brand or anything. My girlfriends mom gave it to me before she died...), Netgear 100MBPs Ethernet adapter, 40x CD-ROM, Front-Panel Tempature Sensor with 6 fan control. 2 13 GB Hard Disks (Need to Upgrade these)

Only thing I could upgrade would be processor (200mhz), Ram(1GB), and hard disks. (200 GB each!

I wish...)

Coconut Monkey · « **Reply #15 on:** March 11, 2004, 08:47:58 AM »

Quote

Also I'm gonna sell the old Dell to remake my Windows Box with a new processor and a Dragon case :heh:.

Good luck getting a sizeable amount of money from it. PCs that old don't fetch much at all these days. Of course, you could always sucker in some ignorant fool, but then the moral dilemma comes into play. You're better off retiring it as a file server or dedicated firewall.

Oprime · « **Reply #16 on:** April 08, 2004, 09:00:15 PM »

What do mean "moral dilemma"? This old machine can't pull off crazy graphix, but it does match a 500Mhz celeron. All I really have to do is put a grand old ATI 9200SE with 128DDR PCI and it'll out match any school or company computer

. It would also be enouth for somebody that doesn't demand much power. For example Grandma's, Little kids, music downloading freaks, and people still stuck in the stone age. $100 with WinXP PRO (I got it legaly from my college for $10 I got a lot of copys

) and OfficeXP PRO (Gotta love it when your school gets a licease to sell microsoft stuff so cheap) is a really good deal for such an old machine. I don't know if I should add a 52x burner. There is a sale for a $39.99 burner with a $40 rebate at a near by store, hmm.

Coconut Monkey · « **Reply #17 on:** April 14, 2004, 12:30:52 PM »

Quote

What do mean "moral dilemma"? This old machine can't pull off crazy graphix, but it does match a 500Mhz celeron. All I really have to do is put a grand old ATI 9200SE with 128DDR PCI and it'll out match any school or company computer . It would also be enouth for somebody that doesn't demand much power. For example Grandma's, Little kids, music downloading freaks, and people still stuck in the stone age. $100 with WinXP PRO (I got it legaly from my college for $10 I got a lot of copys ) and OfficeXP PRO (Gotta love it when your school gets a licease to sell microsoft stuff so cheap) is a really good deal for such an old machine. I don't know if I should add a 52x burner. There is a sale for a $39.99 burner with a $40 rebate at a near by store, hmm.

A Pentium 1 "matches" a Celeron 500.................I don't quite see how it could possibly pull that off.

I'd be careful putting in a PCI 9200SE - from what I can see these cards require a version 2.2 PCI slot, whereas your old Dell only has version 2.0. You could potentially damage the card, and your system. Besides, it's way overpowered for a Pentium 1.

That is a pretty good deal with the bundled software though, but no way in hell would I consider running Windows XP on such a slow system. For goodness sakes, give them a copy of Win98/95. :lol:

ZeusBD · « **Reply #18 on:** April 16, 2004, 12:59:11 PM »

I would go with Window's 98 SE if I were you. It is much better than 98 or 95.

BlackBox · « **Reply #19 on:** April 17, 2004, 10:16:36 AM »

You could probably run XP on it with no problems. The computer I'm using to get on this site right now is a 333mhz running XP Pro. It works fine.

However you may have to switch off the special GFX options (I did that to run a *little* faster) in the system control panel.

Oprime · « **Reply #20 on:** April 17, 2004, 11:32:20 AM »

My main windows box has a 750Mhz Via C3 which is just as fast as any celeron. The problom with Celeron's and Via's is that they have a weaker FPU and a lower transister count then a pentium. I ran tests and it showed that my little old Pentium has a stronger FPU then the via C3 and the Celeron. Pentiums are more for power users and Celeron class processors are for home and cheap job uses. Your right about the PCI 2.2 thing, but then how are some people running a Geforce 4 on their old machines *wink*. Intel made the celeron to be a cheaper processor then the Pentium classes that's why I'm saying it is more powerful. I'm not saying it's a billion times faster, but just a little bit faster. And when it comes to WINXP PRO it runs wonderfully even with LUNA. I had to disable some of the grafix setting still, but it runs perfect. Ohh yea 1 more thing, I put my burner in it and ran a simulation with nero and the most it can burn a cd at is 12x

.

Coconut Monkey · « **Reply #21 on:** April 17, 2004, 01:37:13 PM »

Quote

My main windows box has a 750Mhz Via C3 which is just as fast as any celeron. The problom with Celeron's and Via's is that they have a weaker FPU and a lower transister count then a pentium. I ran tests and it showed that my little old Pentium has a stronger FPU then the via C3 and the Celeron. Pentiums are more for power users and Celeron class processors are for home and cheap job uses. Your right about the PCI 2.2 thing, but then how are some people running a Geforce 4 on their old machines *wink*. Intel made the celeron to be a cheaper processor then the Pentium classes that's why I'm saying it is more powerful. I'm not saying it's a billion times faster, but just a little bit faster. And when it comes to WINXP PRO it runs wonderfully even with LUNA. I had to disable some of the grafix setting still, but it runs perfect. Ohh yea 1 more thing, I put my burner in it and ran a simulation with nero and the most it can burn a cd at is 12x .

The VIA C3 I can understand, but the Celeron? Just what "tests" are you running? The Celerons were (and still are) just crippled Pentiums, but back in the Pentium 2 days they still managed to perform almost as fast as a P2 for a much lower price. I'm sure some people will remember the Celeron 300A with much fondness.......they usually hit 450Mhz!

I still don't see how a Pentium 1 whateveryouhave would outperform a Celeron 500. Run some games, and it will become immediately clear which is the superior CPU. The benchmarks say it all. Trounced by a factor of over 2!

As for your burner, I'm not surprised. Looks like that old hard drive just can't keep up..........

BlackBox · « **Reply #22 on:** April 17, 2004, 02:05:37 PM »

Yeah, the celeron isn't really that bad, it's cheaper. I don't think it has a reduced instruction set, its just the architecture of the processor is a little cheaper than the Pentium class processors. (Architecture = how it's built, not system architecture like x86 or Sparc)

Oprime · « **Reply #23 on:** April 22, 2004, 07:20:47 PM »

*OutpostPrime has been burn't*
Actually, since I've been burn't I did some research on old processor's. Celeron's are actually Pentium 2's!!! The only difference between a Pentium 2 266 and a Celeron 300 is that it has a higher clock, has half the cache, and Dual mobo capabilitys has been disabled. The cache went from 256KB to 128KB. Just by lowering the processors cache made it MUCH, MUCH, MUCH!! Cheaper. But, then again it made the processor very slow compared to when it had 256KB cache.

Coconut Monkey · « **Reply #24 on:** April 23, 2004, 02:38:50 AM »

Well, you might also find that Celerons from that era could be used in a dual processor motherboard.......a certain Abit board was very popular for enabling this feature.

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Author Topic: Hmm I need help (Read 9942 times)