Thinking From the Box

This $5 PC Is a Keeper

Jeff Garrison - 2002.03.04

I recently acquired several interesting PCs in a buy-it-all-and-haul-it-off bargain.

Two of them were giant towers containing spots for two fans and eight different slots for peripherals. They both had 1.2 GB hard drives and 120 MHz 486 chips on boards having two IDE connectors, one floppy connector, and a SCSI pin-set. Different, but certainly not quick.

The surprisingly fine discoveries came from the two machines I completely ignored at first.

Two Hewlett Packard Vectras, running Evergreen OverDrive processors at 100 MHz - one of which I put a 1 GB hard drive into (they came with no drives), the other took a forlorn but workable 430 MB Maxtor. They both have extra fans pointed over the processor for cooling. The original 486SX/33 is still surface-mounted inboard.

Machine one would give me only 256 colors; number two gets 16-bit True Color.

I placed a 33.6 modem into the first and went online to play. Shockingly, it has fairly impressive performance for a 1996 model desktop. (I gauge the speed by absolutely, unabashedly subjective, personal measures.)

The test, for me, is the speed at which the eBay start page forms on the screen.

I could go on. I use a freeware utility called Wubench to bench the relative speed as compared to 386, 486SX and 486DX machines. This HP Vectra, the 48625 NI, scored off the page with an overall finish some four times higher measuring DOS access, Windows usability, graphics, memory access (at small, medium and large file transfers), and hard disk access.

This machine is a delight. It surfs pretty well. I call it quick. It's quicker than any other 486DX I've fooled with. It's actually a capable machine that'll do most all modern day tasks. Wilder still, considering it's price tag was a paltry $5 without hard drive (with 12 MB of RAM, which I "upped" to 40 MB, two 16's and an 8, as it has only three 72 pin RAM slots).

I upgraded to Win95 from the 3.1 that lived on it while it sat in that giant server box described above.

I'm impressed with the machines - their startup BIOS display flexibility and current-day usefulness. Proof that some of these older "boxes" can provide remarkable performance. Even more remarkable considering the low-end price.

Join us on Facebook, follow us on Twitter, or read Low End Mac's RSS news feed

Recent Low End PC Articles

Swapless: Disabling Virtual Memory in Ubuntu, 2012.05.14. A slow hard drive slows virtual memory, and virtual memory can reduce the life of flash memory, so you may want to turn it off.
ThinkPad X41 Revived, 2012.05.09. The ThinkPad X41 converts from a laptop to a tablet. More memory and Compact Flash gave this one a new lease on life.
Pixels and Points, Screens and Paper, 2003.02.26. What you see on the screen corresponds to what you get on the printed page. A brief history of points, pixels, and the changing face of computer displays.
Value and Cost: With a PC, You Get What You Pay For, 2003.02.26. With the right choices, your PC can be easy to upgrade and avoid becoming a doorstop.
Networking 101, 2003.02.10. Networking is something everyone with two or more computers should know about.
More in the Low End PC index.

About Low End PC Support Usage Privacy Contact

Entire Low End PC (LEPC) website copyright ©2001-2012 by Cobweb Publishing, Inc., unless otherwise noted. All rights reserved. Advice presented in good faith, but what works for one may not work for all. Please report errors to .
LINKS: We allow and encourage links to any public page as long as the linked page does not appear within a frame that prevents bookmarking it.
Email may be published at our discretion; email addresses will not be published without permission, and we will encrypt them in hopes of avoiding spammers. If you prefer your message not be published, mark it "not for publication." Letters may be edited for length, context, and to match house style.
PRIVACY: We don't collect personal information unless you explicitly provide it. For more details, see our Terms of Use.
Low End PC is an independent publication and has not been authorized, sponsored, or otherwise approved by Microsoft, Dell, Lenovo, or any other software or hardware company. Company and product names may be trademarks or registered trademarks and are hereby acknowledged.

Custom Search

Follow Low End PC on Twitter
Join Low End PC on Facebook

Low End Mac Reader Specials

Don't install Parallels to play poker online! Macpokeronline.com will show you how to download and play Poker on a Mac natively on your Mac in just minutes.

Favorite Sites

MacWindows
Deal Brothers
DealMac

Affiliates

Amazon.com
The iTunes Store
PC Connection Express
Parallels Desktop for Mac
eBay