Can someone give this computer a tuneup?

[YeOldeStonecat]

Gateway 2000
Anyone recognize the Intel logo? The old blue with white background...means classic socket Pentium P54 or earlier. Pre MMX days when the logo changed.
This happens to be a Pentium 66. 8 whole megs of RAM. I remember I used to overclock lots of those to 100MHz...woohoo! (multiplier jumpers back then).

Yeah...past week I've picked up over 50 computers for two clients for sanitation and trips to the metal recycle place...and this was one old rig that was in the basement. Hah! Reminds be of the days back when I was the tech guy for a point of sale software company called Seaport Software....I used to install their software and setup the networks on lots of rigs like this..back when Gateway was quite popular. And Packard Bell.

 

[seedubya]

These were among some of the first machines I worked on for money. Gateway had a plant in Dublin for the EU market and so their machines were mega popular here. They were actually pretty good machines back then.

 

[YeOldeStonecat]

They were actually pretty good machines back then.

Yup..they were.
Micron was another big brand back then. Seemed to see lots of Gateway, Micron (related to Crucial), and Package Bell.

 

[seedubya]

Never saw the Micron desktop stuff here but I did see some NT4 and W2K SBS machines. PB were the pits, always.

 

[Moltuae]

This happens to be a Pentium 66. 8 whole megs of RAM

I can remember when that seemed a lot.

I can also remember looking in awe at the specs of machines like that, the earlier 486s and even, to some extent, the 386s. I can remember thinking how sophisticated things were becoming, especially with all the new plug and play stuff, making building PCs seem so simple and far removed from the jumper-fiddling 'plug and pray' builds of yesteryear.

 

[altrenda]

That's the classic" Since you fixed my machine so well,I've got a computer in the closet I would like you to take a look at. I paid a lot of money for it and I would like my kid to use for homework and to play games." machine.

 

[Moltuae]

That's the classic" Since you fixed my machine so well,I've got a computer in the closet I would like you to take a look at. I paid a lot of money for it and I would like my kid to use for homework and to play games." machine.

OR ... "since you've fixed my machine, let me repay you by giving you some old useless piece of junk. If you can fix it, you can have it ... for free!"

 

[YeOldeStonecat]

That's the classic" Since you fixed my machine so well,I've got a computer in the closet I would like you to take a look at. I paid a lot of money for it and I would like my kid to use for homework and to play games." machine.

LMAO!

 

[NYJimbo]

I miss the old machines with the "TURBO" light on them.

 

[AndyM]

If I remember correctly, weren't the CPU's embedded on the motherboard in those machines?

My first 'PC' (IBM clone) was a Gateway P5-60

I upped the RAM to 16MB! Got it when I was on a visit to the States. Went into a local PC reseller, and said 'How much for 16 4MB sticks? I think I was quoted something like $1200 at the time, which was a bargain. He gave me a nice discount too, and was very happy with the sale.

Andy

 

[nlinecomputers]

Geez. Now I feel really old.

 

[gadgetfixup]

I just threw away 4 trays of those large CPUs. Someone told me they have gold in them but after seeing all the work to extract it, I wasn't interested. 3 trays of Cyrix MII CPUs as well. That was the days when we had 3 serious players in the CPU market.

 

[citizensmith]

I had a Escom 486dx2/66 . Cost around £1200. Had a 5 1/4" bigfoot drive that took so long to spin up had to turn on memory checking to delay boot up. Did a DIY £124 memory upgrade. Bought 72 pin not 30
I'm quite a bit better with compooters now ;:

 

[HCHTech]

Had one just like that! As I recall, it was $1,800 in nineteen eighty-something dollars. I remember those cow-boxes they shipped in, too. It ran DOS really well - Windows not so much.

 

[YeOldeStonecat]

H. I remember those cow-boxes they shipped in, too. .

LOL..yup..the big "moo-moo" boxes.

 

[cypress]

Wow. You are right Gateway was big back then! I remember having my dad pay $2,400 for a business tower. 256mb Rambus RAM. 80gb HD and Windows NT. I ended up taking it and upgrading it to XP years later. I actually still have it till this day stored away.

 

[Markverhyden]

The first Wintel box I bought was a Compaq Prolinea 4/66 (the picture is a 33). Bought it at Computer City if I remember correctly. It was also the first box I loaded Linux on. Back in the day of floppy sets, A, N, etc. Took me a month to get X working with the S3 chipset.

 

[red12049]

My "antique computer museum"... in the front of my store. The Gateway is a P60 (first Pentium). All of them run.

Rick

 

[FremontPC]

Ha! Dual 5.25's! You could tell if the system was going to boot or not by the rhythm of the drive. Naw, that one doesn't sound good....