My Computers
The first Computer I owned was a 286 PackardBell, DOS 5.0, type in in code to get to the program. Then one day I went to buy some software and the salesman asked me if I had Windows. WINDOWS ? What is Windows ? This machine had the following : Dos 5.0 , an 8mhz processor, 40meg Harddrive, 2megs of Ram, NO CDROM, 31/2" A drive, 51/2 floppy drive. The latest and greatest for the time.
Cost$2,200.00
I had to buy a new Computer with Windows 3.1, so I could Install 3d Home Architect. Another PackardBell, only this one was a 486. This one had the following: Windows 3.1, 250 meg Harddrive, 4 megs of Ram, I installed 8megs, still NO CDROM, 3 1/2 A drive, 5 1/2 floppy drive, 2400K modem it took 15 minutes to open a page Online. It sure was great to work in Windows instead of DOS.
Cost $2,200.00
with upgrades $2,300.00
The next one I bought was another PackardBell, this is a used machine and had a 28.8 modem. I thought that would be fast ,but 2.5 kb is really slow. This one had the following: Windows 95, 1.2 gig Harddrive, CdROM (finally), 3 1/2 A drive, 32 megs of Ram, onboard sound and video, 166 mhz Intel processor, 680 Mother Board.
It now has: Windows 98, 64 megs of Ram, Bios update, 40x CdROM, 8.4 gig Western digital Harddrive, the 1.2 gig Harddrive slaved for storage, Voodoo 3000 PCI Graphics Accelerator Card, Sound Blaster 16 Sound Card, Zoom 56k modem, Netgear network Card and I Overclocked the processor to 200 mhz.Cost $400.00
With upgrades $882.00
Computer number 2 is a VBOX, it came with Windows 98, 32 megs of Ram, 8.4 gig Harddrive, 50x CDROM, 3 1/2 A Drive, AMD K-6 450 mhz processor, 56k onboard modem, Network Card- software driven, Onboard sound and Video.
Changes to the System are: Removed phone modem and network card ( only 2 PCI slots and one IDE ). Installed Linksys Network Card, disabled the Onboard Sound and Video and installed a Sound Blaster 16,Sound Card and a Voodoo 3000 PCI Card, graphics accelerator card, downloaded a Registry Crack to inable the Overclocking Tab and overclocked it from 143 mhz to 180 mhz. Flashed the Bios, installed 192 megs of Ram, 19" Monitor, Iomega Zip Drive and a TDK CD-RW. The Onboard stuff, can really be a pain to disable, it means changing jumpers on the Mother Board and changes in the Bios settings, this can be a real pain sometimes. If you bought a Value machine and want to upgrade it and your uncomfortable opening up the Box and messing around with System settings, have a Tech install it for you or someone familiar with the problems you may encounter. You can really mess up your Computer, if you move the wrong jumpers or mess up the Bios.Cost $ 425.00
with upgrades $1289.00
Computer number 3 is an HP - Hewlett Packard. Came with the following: Windows 98 SE, 160 megs of Ram, 50X CD Rom ,3 1/2 A drive, 8.4 gig Harddrive, 56K modem, Again Onboard Sound and Video. No Manual or Restore Disks , got a deal on it ( :
Changes made to it, Flashed the Bios, added a D-Link Network card, disabled the onboard video and installed a Voodoo 3000 PCI Card graphics accelorator card. Why the Voodoo 3000 Graphics Card ? these Computers do not have an AGP slot, the Voodoo 3000 Graphics Card is for a PCI slot, which all PCs have.cost $325.00
with upgrades $475.00
Notice how the price dropped, by buying cheap and then upgrade it. Make sure you know what you want to upgrade and then make sure you can do those upgrades to the Computer, before you buy it.
Next I bought a Linksys Hub and Networked the three.
Cost with cables $80.00
Of the three, the 450mhz Vboxl is the best gaming Machine, the HP 366 bench marks as the fastest Machine, it has a better Mother Board then the 450 vbox.There are untold other things I have done to them, just to keep them running and so on and on and on ( :
Now all I have of the above is the Packard Bell, it is set up for my 5 year old nephew for his games. The other three computers I striped all the parts out of them and built three new computers. New Cases with 300 watt power supplies, new Mother Boards, 800 Mhz Durond processors with fans, it was an easy and cheap conversion. Go to this page for some more info. Installation of new Mobo.
These are pictures of my computers and my wifes computer. My older 98 machine, one on the left, I put in a 1.1 Athlon cpu and a ATI 9200 SE graphics card, for better gaming. The computer on the right is my new Gaming Machine that I built, you can find out more about under the Computer Help Section/Build your own Computer.
This is my setup
This is my wifes setup.
