Kept another one alive - PII 400Mhz system

[ThePCGuy]

Well a customer of mine recently told me they had a couple of older computers sitting in the corner to dispose of. Neither of them were working they said, but who am I to turn down free computers. Well I brought them home and started sorting them out. Both are Pentium II based machines w/ 400Mhz cpus. I started tearing them apart to be parted out and used for spares/sold and found that one had a very new looking Antec True Power 350W PS, score. I put one machine back together and it fired up without issue. I cleaned it up and donated that one (threw in a monitor) to a family in the area that was looking to get a basic computer. Well the other system had a similar setup, however the motherboard was an older revision that had different branded capacitors on it, many of which were bulging. Well lately I've been de-soldering all capacitors on components that I am going to trash. It worked out for this system as I was able to replace the 13 capacitors (1000uF 6.3V) that were bad with the caps that I had salvaged from other items. The system is up and running with a new install of Windows 98 SE. As soon as I find an old powersupply (don't want to use one of my good ones) I'll put it in and donate that one too.

I hate throwing things away :).

Take care, stay warm.
- Jim

[SeasonalEclipse]

Always a good thing to do.

[Just Some Dude]

Awesome man great job.

It's nice to hear of people helping those in need.

Now go have a beer on me :beer:

[ThePCGuy]

Update: I found a powersupply. I had almost forgotten that I had an old powersupply in the rear of my Isuzu Trooper. I hadn't gotten a chance to test it out, so I brought it in and it powered right up. All voltages are in spec. The machine is now complete (just need to blow it out as there is alot of dust from the place I got the machine from). Now to find someone in the area who needs it. Here are a few pictures of the machine and the antec powersupply.

http://thepcguy.myvnc.com/jim/pentium II

The picture of the inside of the case is how I received the machine, pretty dirty, eh?

- Jim

[SeasonalEclipse]

Iv seen far worse.. Like.. horror stories of dust bunnies..

[freakdiablo]

Iv seen far worse.. Like.. horror stories of dust bunnies..
Ive seen FAR worse. can you say...Antfarm? Good job.

[ThePCGuy]

Yeah, there have been worse that I've seen (mouse skeletons), but this is pretty disgusting too. It's hard to see, but the outside had a nice film of filth on it.

- Jim

[splat]

i was thinking that yellow discoloration was sun induced, but now that you mentined the "film" I bet it's cigarette induced. My grandmother used to smoke like a freakin chimney, and everything in her apt that was plastic had a nasty layer of gunk all over it, i'm guessing from whatever sediment was in the cigarette smoke.

btw, my parents still have my old p2 400mhz running, and their old p3 500mhz...both old dell systems. the p2 400mhz has some odd thing where it hangs for what seems like a minute in the bios, but it continues to boot up every time.

[ThePCGuy]

Yes, smoking and uv light will discolor plastics. Well at least the older type. Most of the newer off-white plastics they are using seem to be resistant. We see it alot in copiers that we work on. Older analog (and some original digital machines) will have a very distinct discoloration.

- Jim

[ThePCGuy]

Good news. I found that a friend of mine is helping to provide gifts for christmas to a family in the area. I'm going to donate the computer to them. Woohoo.

- Jim

[Super Nade]

Jim, could you post a few pictures? :)

Always nice to see a recap. I hope you recapped the entire board as probably, the board is filled with bad caps.

[ThePCGuy]

Hello Nade, unfortunately I just got rid of the machine today and didn't snap any after pictures. On this board there were only certain areas of the board with bad capacitors. The incoming power area was completely recapped along with the memory bank area capacitors. I replaced all similar capacitors that showed issue. It's very possible that the other capacitors will fail in a few years, but that is all I could do as I literally had 13 available capacitors and really didn't want to put any money into the machine. I did run multiple 24 hour burn-in tests on the system and memory and it ran without issue. I'll make sure to get some more closeups of the future boards that I work on for you though.

Take care,
- Jim