£10 Windows XP PC from a house clearance, repair and upgrade.

Beankp60

Beankp60

Beankp60

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15 Dec 2018
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After my Pentium 166mmx build/rebuild i was keen to build another old pc. I was looking through Facebook Marketplace and i noticed someone selling a computer desk locally with an old pc tower sat on it. She was also selling loads of other items so i though i would message her and ask if she would sell it. She said she would and it would be £10.
I had no idea what spec or anything it was but my mum lived near her and picked it up for me.

Screenshot 2025-12-05 165351 - Copy by Bean Beano, on Flickr

On arrival i opened it up to find this.

20251205_135000 by Bean Beano, on Flickr

All air vents or anywhere dust could gather it was caked in it and the case was pretty grubby and i thought it had spots of rust on it (but it was just dirt).

20251205_140949 by Bean Beano, on Flickr

Unfortunetly it didnt have any decent cards in it like a sound blaster or a graphics card, but it was worth a shot for £10.

20251205_134925 by Bean Beano, on Flickr

I thought i would power it up and see what it did. It would post but the CMOS settings were lost, i thought the battery must be flat so i reset the bios setting.

20251205_135342 - Copy by Bean Beano, on Flickr

So its a Celeron 2.66ghz CPU and an odd amount of ram.

The XP loading screen apeared but then it would just power down every time and not get past it. I then started cleaning the pc and noticed the state of some capacitors on the motherboard around the CPU.

Burst
20251205_141005 - Copy by Bean Beano, on Flickr

Burst and buldging.

20251205_140927 by Bean Beano, on Flickr

It looked like there were only 2 values of caps in the area 3300uf 6.3v and 1500uf 16v. I thought it was worth a shot to try and replace them and see if it fixed the booting issues, so i ordered them from RS. The damaged ones took a little removing i guess the board was soaking up a lot of the heat from my soldering iron. I have never replaced components on a motherboard this recent before but i got it done after a good clean up with IPA and fibre glass pen in the affected areas.

20251209_202749 by Bean Beano, on Flickr

Some had really failed and others were bulging ready to go.

Some of the new ones fitted and after everything had a good clean.

20251209_202832 by Bean Beano, on Flickr

After reassembling the PC it would now boot and ran scan disk, then i was greeted with the desktop and a wall paper of someones Bentley.

IMG-20251209-WA0006 by Bean Beano, on Flickr

The PC seems to have been used very little, hardly anything on the hard drive, just pictures of old cars, car insurance details, digital camera and printer and scanner software.

After this i decided to install an old Creative XFI Fatal1ty sound card i have had spare for a good few years. After installing the drivers that worked great.
I then started looking for upgrades, i found some new old stock 2x1gb ddr400 ram on Ebay to max the board out.

20251213_102903 by Bean Beano, on Flickr

I also spotted a very nice Mitsubishi Diamond plus 220 CRT monitor on a gaming group. It was a good couple of hours away from me but it turned out someone the guy worked with only lived a few miles down the road from me so he managed to get it delivered to my door for me the next day!
20251210_062229 by Bean Beano, on Flickr

It is boxed with manuals and packaging ect. It is huge, it only just went through my front door.

I hooked it up to this machine and transfered over some 1600x1200 images from my main pc just to see what they looked like.

20251212_143705 by Bean Beano, on Flickr

20251212_143716 by Bean Beano, on Flickr

20251212_143726 by Bean Beano, on Flickr

The images look much better than in these pics i am really impressed with it. Also the menu on this montior allows you to tweak every adjustment which is impressive. I didnt adjust much i just got the image centered and resized slightly. The max resolution the screen goes to is 1920x1440 @75hz. I dont remember CRT monitors looking this good when i used to use them but i guess i could never afford a high end one like this back then.

Heres one showing the new ram installed 2x1GB DDR400

20251213_103432 by Bean Beano, on Flickr

I have also got a Graphics card coming in the post for it which is a ATI Radeon HD4670 1024MB AGP. I had been looking and posting on groups but it seemed hard to find a good spec AGP card for sensible money. Im also looking for a Socket 478 Pentium 4 cpu for it 3GHz + if anyone has one spare.

Ive also replaced the CR2032 CMOS battery with a new Panasonic one.

So heres the spec so far
Unknown generic case
Gigabyte 8s661FXM-RZ motherboard
Celeron 2.66GHZ CPU with stock cooler.
2x 1GB Corsair DDR400 CL3 Ram.
DVD drive - not sure if this works, the tray seems a bit sticky.
Liteon CD rewriter.
Floppy drive
Creative XFI Fatal1ty sound card, i have the front panel for it but i havent fitted it yet.
Seagate Barracuda 80GB hard drive i think.
700w PSU which is much newer than the rest of the components. I think the capacitor issue maybe caused the PC to stop booting up for long so someone thought they would try and replace the PSU to hopefully fix the problem but never did. Also there was hardly any screws holding the motherboard in so maybe someone has looked it or or tested it in the past but never went any further with it.

The case came up a lot nicer i have scrubbed it inside and out. It is missing the flap which goes over the USB ports but maybe this could be 3d printed at some point in the future. Ive been enjoying fixing and getting these old PC's back up and running. Ive been looking though my boxes of old parts in the loft and i have got an Athlon 64 X2 6000+ CPU with big Zalman cooler in a Asus Crosshair motherboard and some Dominator Ram and an R9 270X OC GPU (i think it is) So i am also thinking about getting another old tower case and buiding that PC up as a later model XP machine maybe.

The plans for this PC though are to get a half decent AGP GPU and a P4 CPU in it, defrag the HDD then load it with some games and see how it gets on, i have thought about adding an SSD but this HDD seems good for now. I also need to change the AMD sticker on the front to a Pentium 4 one which i pick up a CPU for it.
 
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Emlyn_Dewar said:
Love this.
It's funny that so many of us want to get a CRT again. I always keep an eye on the used market here, but I just don't have the space for one in the house. The wife would definitely kill me if she came home to an old PC monitor. :D
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I have quite a few of them installed my loft. Ive got a B&O mx4000 tv with the motorised stand, a Sony Trinitron 21" tv, a commodore 1084s monitor modified for a scart connector, an old Japanese cctv black and white monitor i rescued but not sure it works and also a cub monitor which needs repair for a BBC micro 32k computer. So ive a few up there. Ive also got a few arcade machines which have their crt's also. So ive a few spread about.
 
Zefan said:
Very cool. The CRT is a thing of absolute beauty.
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It seems ive got lucky when I spotted it and i didn't realise how high end of a crt it actually is. Certainly a good find. I had been thinking about a crt monitor since I did the win98 pc rebuild recently. So i had been keeping an eye out for one locally.
 
Emlyn_Dewar said:
Love this.
It's funny that so many of us want to get a CRT again. I always keep an eye on the used market here, but I just don't have the space for one in the house. The wife would definitely kill me if she came home to an old PC monitor. :D
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Its better to ask forgiveness than permission ive found. Sometimes my misses has came home from work and after spotting what I've bought she has gone back out the house and jumped in her car. Im still not quite sure where she was going on those days
 
Ive just been having a good look and ive ordered this one sl6wk

Pretty sure its Northwood, socket 478, ht and 800 fsb.

I still haven't found an agp card though. My radeon 4670 came but its dead.
 
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Vinno said:
Came for the PC - stayed for the CRT. What a gorgeous beast.
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Its lovely isn't it. Im just desperate to get a decent agp graphics card to test it out properly. Im even thinking about building another pc as I have these parts ive already got from years ago.

Crosshair am2 mobo
Amd x2 6000+ with a zalmam cooler
Dominator ram ddr2
Xfi sound card
I think its a r9 270x gfx card pcie
I just need another case. Or do I take this socket 478 machine to bits and use this case I cant decide. I might have an old case ive left at my step dads from years ago in the loft so I might go round and check.
 
R4z0r said:
Great work with the PC, do you have any pics of it cleaned up?

Amazing find with the monitor, it’s gorgeous.

If I were you, I’d keep that PC hooked up to it and invest in a few upgrades like you mention. It will be great for some old school gaming.
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Thanks mate. I wil get some when ive fitted the XFI front panel. Yeah a few upgrades would be good. im just trying to find some for reasonable prices.
 
arknor said:
thats some high end pc I've got a pentium 3 600mhz bad boy with abit motherboard and a gf2mx, probably like 256mb or ram and a sony trinitron crt that pumps out like 100hz.
10gb hdd btw

no idea if its rusted though been sat in the garage for like 20-25years by now.

Might have some athlon cpu comp in there too not sure, probably around 1600mhz if so
Click to expand...

You should get it out and check it over. it sounds worth saving!
 
Cenedd said:
Out of interest, how much are decent CRT monitors going for? I'm just thinking I might have some in my mum's basement. Not sure what state they're in now but they were fairly high end at the time. They're mainly still there because they're large, heavy and difficult to get up a ladder and through a small hole (trapdoor)!
I'll check next time I'm down there and see if there's anything else interesting like AGP stuff - can't remember to be honest. I think there's a Shuttle.
Click to expand...

I paid £100 for this Mitsubishi. I see some CRT's up for daft money but i think its resellers trying to sell them on so not sure if the yactualyl get those prices or not. I think £100 was a good price though especialyl as it included the delivery and it came boxed with manuals ect.
Sounds like you should check out what you have stashed.
 
Well my P4 CPU came today which is a

INTEL SL6WK Pentium 4 CPU Socket 478 3GHz Processor​


20251220_114016 by Bean Beano, on Flickr

I removed the old Celeron CPU and installed the P4, applied the thermal paste. Refitted fan. Powered it up and it will only briefly powers on for about 1 or 2 seconds max. I removed all conenctors from the board, removed the sound card, tried clearing the CMOS even. Nothing makes any differrence. Ive asked the seller if they actually tested it as it appears to be dead. I refitted the Celeron and that still boots fine.

Its getting a bit fustrating after the GPU not working and now the CPU. Im starting to think i should just leave this board and go with the AMD 6000+ setup i have in the loft with PCI express. AGP graphics cards seem expensive compared to PCIEXP.

Unless anyone has any ideas? I have looked and there doesnt seem to be any jumpers i need to adjsut on this board.
This is a link to the Motherboard manual. link

:mad:
 
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Its not much of an update but i never had any luck with this setup. I couldnt get it to boot with the P4 CPU (there was one newer bios flash to try but i didnt give it a go). The HD4670 didnt seem to work. So gave up on it and just put it up in the loft until i fancy having another look at it some time.

Instead i decided to build up a system i ran for a lot of years which i knew were good quality parts.

AMD 6000+ X2 CPU
Arctic Alpine 64 plus CPU cooler which i think was from an A8 setup but it was a close fit i just had to bend the metal mounting clamp slightly to get it to fit. I have a nice big Zalman AM2 CPU cooler but the mounting clamp looked to have snapped at some point.
Asus ROG Crosshair AM2 motherboard
2 x 1 gig Corsair DDR2 Dominator ram
Creative fatal1ty XFI sound card with front panel.
A Lexar NQ100 2.5” SATA III (6Gb/s) 240GB SSD from amazon - £24
Fresh windows XP Pro 32bit install from usb drive
At first i fitted an old R9 270X OC graphics card which i used to get it up and running but then i ended up getting a Nvidia EVGA 980ti for £51 on ebay.
I got a black Samsung DVD writer for £7 on ebay so all the drive fronts were the same colour.

I just needed a case for it all. I went over to my step dads house and i had a feeling i might have some old PC stuff still left in the loft from years ago.
I came away with 2 old cases, one was my old case and the other case was a system i think my grandad built. They both had AMD motherboards but not much else in them. I managed to get one to boot briefly but the caps were bulging on it and one of the PSU's was dead. It was at this point i decided to just go with the AM2 system instead of all the fighing on with dead or dying parts.

The 2 cases, one was really dirty i think it must have been from when the roof was replaced a few years back.

I decided to go for the blue and silver case as it looked less faded even though the beige one was my old case back in the day. The faded one has gone back in my loft with all the other stuff, maybe for a future build if i find a need some another system

20251224_201413 by Bean Beano, on Flickr

My old R9 270X OC card, i had lent this to my brother years ago and he recently gave me it back. It still works great but then i ended up with the 980ti
20260108_170235 by Bean Beano, on Flickr

The drivers need some very basic mods to get it to run on XP you just add a few lines in one of the files. But as is often the case someone had already done this and i found the modified driver Here

And the card installed and lit up! i dont think ive actually had a card which lit up like this before.

20260108_171931 by Bean Beano, on Flickr

IMG_20260116_160047_DRO by Bean Beano, on Flickr

Theres still a few bits i want to do such as
Add another Sata DVD drive so i can do away with the IDE cable (i might buy a blu ray drive for my main pc and then swap out one of the drives from that system to this one)
I need a power splitter to give me another floppy drive power lead to power the XFI front panel.
Both the cases had no side panels on them, im hoping they are still in the loft somewhere.
Look into which browser is best incase i want to take it online at any point (caution will be applied here)
Maybe the odd case sticker.
Wire up the USB front panels as i think i have connected them up wrong.
Find the small heat pipe cooler which clips onto the motherboard, im sure i have it somewhere.
Tidy the wiring up a little.

Ive started loading it up with some of the games i found in my loft. Ive made a start but theres still plenty to go. It would be nice to get this system on a desk at some point, but for now its sat on the floor
 
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Vestas said:
Spot the smokers machine ;)

Used to love Trinitron monitors until I learned to spot the wires.
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No i don't smoke its just the old plastic doing it's thing. Yeah i think this one has the 2 feint lines i think they are for the apature grill. Not very noticeable though. Its a great monitor
 
Vestas said:
Trinitron monitors were the dogs ****** back then - especially for 17-19" monitors.

Once I spotted the wires I couldn't help seeing them after that :D
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Ive got a 21" Trinitron TV in the loft for my old consoles, also a B&O 21" mx4000, commodore 1084s, and a couple others boxed up. I quite like a crt
 
LewisRaz said:
Lovely build! You should take a look in the retro section in here where a few members have retro builds :)
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Thanks i will check it out. Ive been loading it with games. just trying to get return to castle wolfenstein to work but it crashes after opening video clip.
 
TrojanWhore said:
LMAO at 980ti with an Athlon X2 :D

3x VRAM/RAM ratio... does 32 bit Windows even see the full 6GB VRAM?! And how much utilisation are you able to get out of it (I assume the CPU is absolutely pegged at 100% the whole time)?
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I think it sees 4gb of the vram. I will double check. It seems to be running ok. Ive not got too much gameplay done just testing games as I install them. Ive just put return to Castle wolfenstein on at max settings same as everything else I've tried. The GOG releases seem to be working great. No messing about looking for fixes or extra patches.

Should I try crysis? Or anything else you think i should test?

Shadow warrior works too which I always had trouble with even on my win98 machine but Duke nukem would always run which I thought was strange. Both of these with the gog releases just work.
 
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TrojanWhore said:
Crysis should work well... and you'll actually be able to max it :P (I think the only video I saw of it maxed near time of launch was 3 or 4 GTX 280s in SLI)
I used to play it on a Conroe C2D (e6300?) and 8500GT with physics on ultra and everything else low/medium, so would assume it'll run well.

I assume someone has fixed it since, but I once tried to play Theme Park on a much newer PC... I can only assume it had no speed limit beyond the CPU performance, as soon as I started a game I got a 0.1s blink of the map before it went to the 'You lose' FMV :D

... I'll have a look through my spares box (by which I mean a decent chunk of my second bedroom!), I might have some old kit kicking around that would otherwise end up in landfill when I get around to it :P
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Im sure ive got Crysis on disc somewhere and Far cry too. When ive came to some of my games for some reason the discs have been missing. They must be somewhere in the loft. Sometimes its easier to just download them than ratch through all my boxes up there.
I can remember running Crysis back in the day but i cant remember what setup it was on. it might well have been this PC ive built back up but on an older graphics card setup.

I know some dos games can be like that running too fast, i think wing commander is another one. Im sure there are programs to slow things down for that issue. I have a Windows 98 pc running at 233mhz but i can change the motherboard jumpers to slow the CPU right down so it can cover a wide range of the earlier games.
Have a search though your spares it might tempt you to build an old system back up.
 
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