A blast from the past - bragging on my sweet rig!

Hi all,

In another thread, I made a post commenting on my ancient alienware desktop - so I went home and dug up the specs. My goal here is twofold - to express my amazement that I'm still actually using this as my primary desktop after all this time, and to try and determine if I am indeed the owner of the oldest still functional (as primary) computer in the world...

(I know it's a desktop system, but I thought it spoke well of Alienware as a company, and wanted to share it with you...)

Here are the specs - eat your heart out! (well, ok, you might have in 2002...)

Invoice date: August 15, 2002

Original specs:

Area 51 desktop, full tower Dragon case (space black)
Intel Pentium 4 2.53 MHz (533 FSB)
256 M RDRam (PC1066)
Western Digital 120GB HDD
NVidia GeForce4 TI 4600 (128MB)
Samsung 16x DVD player
Soundblaster Audigy XGamer 5.1
Intel pro/100 desktop adapter
1.44 M floppy drive ( )
Plextor Plexwriter 40/12/40 CDR-W
340 W power supply


Pretty sweet, huh? That and a 22" monitor (CRT, of course, none of that maby-pamby flat screen stuff then!) made for a wonderful gaming experience.

The thing I find fascinating is that it's only had two upgrades - the RAM has gone to 1G (4x256 chips, I seem to remember they did make a 512M so in theory I could cram 2G in there, but it's the OLD school ram, with the built-in heatsink, and I doubt I'd find any today even if I wanted to!) and I've replaced the graphics card with a GeForce 6600 256M card.

Other than that, really, it's still a decent computer. Still games OK (yeah, the older games - it's almost 7 years old, what do ya want! ). It does occasionally have heat issues (I have the case pulled off as I type this, and my 9" fan blows directly in there to help) and it's got some moments where it's a little finicky, but generally still a capable machine. I really haven't had any trouble with it.

Ever.

No replaced parts, no send-in-for-warranty, nothing.

So, what's the verdict? Anyone else still have old rigs up and running?

Anyone thinking abut alienware - sure, this was 7 years ago, and doesn't mean today's systems will meet this yardstick, but it's also nice to know one did, isn't it?

(Oh, and for you benchmark guys - the alienware benchmark on this thing, on gaming, was running Quake III at a blazing 256.7 FPS. I wasn't a quake guy back then, so I can't verify, but that's what my benchmark page says from the original info.)

EDIT: This was, of course, sent from the computer in question...

 

Uhh yep I'm supporting people who work in laboratory environments and have computers running MS-DOS on i286 processors to drive specialized devices. I think they have you beat seeing as those computers are almost as old as I am (20 years).
Also the memory that system uses is called RD, or Rambus. 4x512MB of RD1066 will run you at like 300-400 bucks

 

It is faster than my desktop (6 years old and still kicking)

HP
2.53GHz P4
GeForce 4200 128
120GB HD
512mb ram


But a few months ago we put in a 7600GS (or GT?), 2 500GB HDs (much faster), 1GB Ram (from 512), and a new PSU.


And it plays COD4

 

Ah, that sounds like it might not be worth upgrading then...

And, yeah, I know there will be work systems waaaay older - but I'm betting not too many gaming setups (though I realize you couldn't really call this a gaming setup, compared to what we're used to dealing with. Still, it runs Civ IV: Beyond the Sword and WoW, and that's about all I'm currently playing...)

It's my primary gaming system until my M17 arrives, and then I'm afraid it'll go back to standby status....

 

Both of those are faster then my desktop at work...

2.4ghz p4 (800mhz bus)
1024mb of PC133 ram. 2x256 1x512
60gig pata HD
Geforce4 440mx
14" CRT monitor.

Overclocked it to 2.63ghz, won't go any higher with the old ram.


Mine isn't an alienware though.

 

Its okay

I still have my shagging AMD Sempron 3000+ @ ~1.8 gigz
512 mb ram
80 gig HDD

And... Drum Roll Please...

ATI AIW Radeon 7500 w/64mb video memory!

Plays Starcraft at max settings!

 

Post pics please !!!!

 

Nothing beats my first laptop. Had Toshiba 3100e with black/orange screen and it weighted around 15kg. And it had one game, Street Rod II. No idea of the specs, I was so young when I had it, so I wasn't even interested.

Oh memories...

 

Check this out. My first desktop.
Duron at 800 mgh
64 mb ram (now 512)
20 gb hhd (now 80gb)
IGP
My mum is still using it!

 

If I look hard I bet my old Olivetti 8086 with 640K of ram, 5 MB MFM hard drive and orange monitor still runs. Used to play dig dug on it for ages

 

How about my IBM Model 40 I got in 1989. Still works except for the floppy drive.
Specs: 8086 CPU@8 MHz, 640K RAM, 10MB HDD, monochrome CRT display.

I have to admit I use my Sager np9262 a lot more than my IBM these days.

PS: The IBM came with Windows 1.0 OS which I eventually removed becuase it
took up too much hard drive space and ran too slow.

 

Windows 1 was so full of bloat I downgraded to MS-DOS. My benchmarks went way up.
/XP vs Vista joke.

 

my oldest machine is a 2 or so year old dell xps desktop. Both my other machines are laptops and are a 1 year old or less.

 

lucky you

 

Oldest Running laptop I have now is Pro Star 9794 With Intel P4 3.4 Extream edition Gallatin core. Between Northwood and Prescott. 2gb of ram and ATI grapics card. Dual 80gb hard disks. It runs warm but I still use it. Five years old.

Acer core duo 1.66ghz 1gb of ram. 3 years old.

Last desktop was a Amd 3000+ 250gb hard drives. 6 Years old

Oldest computers I use was a Comador 64 and 128 and a 286 Long ago

 

Wow, you have pretty nice old comps.

 

Alright, I've got a Compaq Armada laptop still in service.
500Mhz P3, 128MB SD RAM, 6GB HDD, Dual PCMCIA NICs.
It's a my router.

 

I have a 13 year old "Compaq Presario 1920" 13.3" Laptop with removable dvd rom, 6gb hard drive, 64mb ram, Pentium 2 Proc @ 300mhz and 2.5mb dedicated video and a floppy drive of course. Cost me $3000 and used to be my Starcraft machine back in the day Oh did I mention that it still runs great!!!

 

i got windows 95 running on a big tower pentium 133mhz i think 32mb ram with a 2.4 gb bigfoot drive a 3dvoodo card a bit slow but it stil runs my old dos and windows 95 games like a charm

 

Actually, in a way I'm jealous - I have some great old DOS games I can't seem to get to run right on DOSbox, so a setup like that would be nice...

 

You could probably install dos on it's own partition and use grub or somesuch as a boot loader to switch between the two.

 

lol.
My prescott does too, makes a nice hand warmer



I started the whole computer using thing with my mom's Apple II that she manually half hack-upgraded to a II+, then further hacked into an almost IIe. Some IIe games wanted a larger processor, but most of 'em worked.
Personally i had a couple TRS80's, i still have two or three of 'em somewhere.
Then in 95 or 94 we got a compaq desktop with a 486 of some flavor, and spent the extra few hundred on 16mb of ram over the base 8.
Started a business building them in late 95 or early 96, finally quit in 99 as i realized that i hated doing it, explaining to someone that windows 95/98/98SE crashes randomly was no fun, especially when i was in a sense telling them that even though they paid $1500-2500 for their computer it still randomly eats it.

 

EPIC fail M$

 

7 years old and still going strong. Congratulations! Oh, and you can make fun of LCD's but remember that CRT's consume more power! Cheers

Duane

 

2714mhz on that p4 now, gave it another tweak

 

hehe yeah, those suckers have been clocked at over 8GHZ

 

Yurp

Though that's the 631 prescots rather then the northwood i have, but still.

That 2.7oc toasted one of the two 133 sticks of ram, so much for that.

 

ohhh that sucks



maybe time for a upgrade soon