Test and try: What's inside this dusty old PC?

On today's video we have an old mini tower PC. What's inside? Does it work? Let's find out together!

-- Video Links

Adrian's Digital Basement Merch store:

Support the channel on Patreon:

Adrian's Digital Basement (Main Channel)

-- Tools

Deoxit D5:

O-Ring Pick Set: (I use these to lift chips off boards)

Elenco Electronics LP-560 Logic Probe:

Hakko FR301 Desoldering Iron:

Rigol DS1054Z Four Channel Oscilloscope:

Head Worn Magnifying Goggles / Dual Lens Flip-In Head Magnifier:

TL866II Plus Chip Tester and EPROM programmer: (The MiniPro)

TS100 Soldering Iron:

EEVBlog 121GW Multimeter:

DSLogic Basic Logic Analyzer:

Magnetic Screw Holder:

Universal ZIP sockets: (clones, used on my ZIF-64 test machine)

RetroTink 2X Upconverter: (to hook up something like a C64 to HDMI)

Plato (Clone) Side Cutters: (order five)

Heat Sinks:

Little squeezy bottles: (available elsewhere too)

--- Links

My GitHub repository:

Commodore Computer Club / Vancouver, WA – Portland, OR – PDX Commodore Users Group

--- Instructional videos

My video on damage-free chip removal:

--- Music

Intro music and other tracks by:
Nathan Divino
@itsnathandivino

[necro_ware]

As an ISA sound card collector I can confirm, that this is a very good sound card. It has original integrated Yamaha OPL3 FM and proper SB Pro 2.0 support. This card is also not too noisy and super easy to configure. A great choice if you want to build an uncomplicated but highly compatible retro PC.

UPD: Windows Sound System works fine in DOS as well. You don't need to run Windows for that.

[AceStrife]

Videos like this are always so cozy to watch. No pressure to complete a task, no brain melting troubleshooting.. just sitting down with dinner, a cup of tea and exploring a piece of more recent history.

[ghstzch]

I know you aren't fond of these mid to late 90's PCs but I always love when you do a video on them.

[Zarcondeegrissom]

3:46 that white-ish plastic in front of the expansion slots is something I miss in newer computers. That was to keep long cards from sagging, something that modern graphics cards have major issues with, lol.

[GrizzLeeAdams]

An important thing about the cdrom driver instance names (and other dos device names): they will conflict with any files you try to access by the same name. One of the publicly available boot floppies set the cdrom device name to "banana" and it would cause file read errors while installing versions of windows that came with the animated mouse cursor "banana.ani". Typically MSCD001 was used, as it was unlikely to conflict with files you might have on your PC.

[atcurtis]

Those Pioneer CDROM drives were excellent.

[schonja]

My first PC (486 SX 33 MHz) had exactly the same case. Like it a lot!

[heatherbrown]

Best part of that modem is the transformer. You can do a little work with 2 of those transformers and make a ground loop isolator to solve issues such as the aux jack in a vehicle getting alternator whine. You would build a cable using 2 of those transformers and plugging in your device to that cable and then to the car would remove the whine. =)

[MattRiding]

If you hold down the reset switch while the computer is running, you can change the numbers displayed on the panel LED digit readout. I had one of those cases back in 1996 😊

[acidhelm]

I built a Celeron PC with that type of case back in the day. I remember very vividly the sound at 3:10 when you took the cover off.

[charlesdorval]

Oh! The first computer I used had this exact case!

Okay wow, ours was a 386DX-40, it feels so strange seeing PCI slots! 233 feels so weird on that display lol

Funny Fact, in 6th grade we visited the local university radio station (Bishops'), there was one of these cases, running w/e, with the front panel power button missing, and a post it note saying "Do not insert finger or other appendages in this hole"

[Manhattanman]

I've found so many of these vintage machines in the trash. Love working on this ancient stuff, when we first experienced the web. Thanks for this vid!

[Taisen_Des]

Several decades ago, some of my PC wholesale suppliers usually served me computers without thermal paste and with paper stickers on the CPU (11:24) ... I had to check all the processors that passed through my hands one by one.
Ironically, the supplier himself warned in the small print that 'the absence of thermal paste would invalidate the warranty', ... but they themselves were the first to forget it! 🤦🤦‍♀

[jorgelotr]

25:12 I would say it's a different (unmarked) revision. I would search for the same part number, but attaching "rev.2", "rev.3" and so on at the end. From my experience, the BIOS tend to be compatible between different revisions of the same board.
29:46 I believe it's the camera software chocking on the pattern of the ribbon cables rather than a bitrate issue.

[LabCat]

I remember building a Pentium-era NLX machine for a teacher at the high school I was volunteering at back in the '90s. I got distracted and plugged the AT-style power supply backwards onto the motherboard.

When I hit the power button, I heard a *VOOM* sound and all of the capacitors on the motherboard went "VOLTA!" and let out their factory installed magic smoke. Then there was fire. Then the fire alarm went off. Then the school had to be evacuated.

I decided that I liked ATX power supplies a lot better after that.

[IcySon]

That sound card also goes by another name, the Yamaha Audician 32 Plus and it's very good. The MIDI MPU401 also doesn't have any hanging note bugs on this card. In Windows you can also use the cards MIDI XG mode for a different instrumentation. Phil has a good review video about this card!

[Thales_WH]

2:38 PS/2 ports were also seen on newer 486 PCI boards. Sometimes in the form of a header, other times it was noticeable on the board that a classic DIN5 connector or PS/2 had been installed in the same place. I also saw a variant where the DIN5 connector on the keyboard was fitted, but next to it there was an empty, unfitted place for the PS/2 mouse connector. Some cases even had a preparation for this and right next to the connector on the keyboard there was a small, break-out plate just for this. In several cases, I used this preparation, soldered the connector and broke away the case plate. It is possible that I have a piece like this somewhere in my archive.
4:19 boards in AT format with an AGP slot were commonly sold. For Soctet7/Slot1/Socket370 platforms. Examples Gigabyte 5AA/Pine TL-SI21/Tomato ZX98-CU etc.

[MeneGR]

I loved those slot loading Pioneer drives, I had 2 DVD-ROM drives over the years.. I also loved the mini tower cases, so much better than today!

[Radek__]

0:42 beautiful. My first PC in 1993 (386dx 40MHz 4mb ram) had almost the same look.

[pjcnet]

I worked in computer support in the days when PCs like this were new, I remember upgrading a load of office PCs that were running short of disk space from 85MB or 120MB drives to huge 500MB drives (now MiB), they had more room than they knew what to do with, now less than a 1TB SSD is considered small and many have much more, it's incredible how far we've come.