I just got mehself a prezzie :)

I've just been down the to tip to get rid of some rubbish, and found a pc !! well, there were loads down there, but this one was screaming * take me, take me*, so, i, er, took it :smile:

You're not ment to take them, otherwise, I would of taken the whole f**king lot... anyway,the pc I got has a psu, and an old motherboard.

To find a harddrive is going to be hard, they're still pretty expensive.

The cpu - says its a socket 7, does anyone know what a socket 7 is ? Ive had a look on google, and its pulled up some results that suggest its k-6, or 500 mhz... Its going to be a pain trying to find one of those..

Its got tons of isa sockets, it could be kinda fun to fill them up - does anyone know anywhere on the net where I could find some stuff to fit in there ?

The mouse, keyboard - none. It looks like this thing predates the war, and doesnt actualy have any ps/2 sockets. Its got a odd looking dv socket where the ps/2 sockets should be - ( what could it be ? ).

oh and its got a parelell port, and two serial ports, ill have to find a serial mouse from somewhere.

If its a 500 mhz, its becoming my mp3 box :smile: linux, naturally.

There's so much Britanese in that, I can barely make out what you're saying.

/ me amends.

I sit here, happily typing away at a 500MHz pentium 3. This machine has a ps/2 port, so the one you found, if its the same speed, should have them I'd have thought. In addition, I know someone with a machine way slower than this one which also has a ps/2 port. Keep searching!

xconspirisist said:
The mouse, keyboard - none. It looks like this thing predates the war, and doesnt actualy have any ps/2 sockets. Its got a odd looking dv socket where the ps/2 sockets should be - ( what could it be ? ).

If you haven't found a PS/2 port then it's probably using the old AT style plugs for mouse and keyboard (at least, I think they're called ATX... maybe DIN...) Convertors are available but you might wanna find out exactly what speed you can put in this before you spend any money on it. My friend gave me an AMD-K6 200mhz computer a few years ago that used one of the old-style keyboards. That's about the fastest computer I've seen using those type - the slowest is a 386 25mhz (or less!).

Also since you said this thing was full of ISA slots, you might just have a pre-Pentium machine on your hands. I'm guessing 386 or 486, which while fun to mess around with probably won't do too much MP3 work for you.

i have 2 500 mo'boards just sitting here amongst all my other parts and pieces.....and i dont know where to start to use them....mix and match....SAY!...a calico pc....w00t!

i like it!!!!

Doc Brass... :dodgy:

AT keyboard, mouse will be serial. If it is in fact socket 7, then it will take any P1, early cyrix, or k6-2 processor. Good luck finding any SIMMs for the memory if it doesn't have any already. As for 486/386... my 486 doesn't fit in socket7 so that sounds unlikely to me. If you could get a cyrix 166 or a pentium 150, it would play mp3s just fine, but you would have to put windows 98 on it, any newer OS would be too slow (unless you want to try some old linux distro). ISA cards, you can definately get ISA sound and network cards (network would only be 10 megabit), and I don't remember seeing an ISA video card but they must exist. I'm sure ebay will have all this kind of stuff going for not very much if you are serious about building this into an mp3 player.

Socket 7 goes right up to K6-2

Also, the keyboard and mouse are probably old serial/AT ones... which I imagine you won't have seen before. Schools usually have them knocking around from when they got their first PC's, or really old office machines.

Scary jeff, gwil, thanks for the help :smile:

I've got a mate who has 3 processers, a 350, 400 and a 600, so ill be play them. I had a look on google, just after I posted, the k6-2 seems to be the fastest for the socket 7. Ive been able to track down a mouse, and better, a keyboard :smile: . I doubt windows 98 would work so great ( although I have windows 2000 on a 266 :biggrin: ). ill be slapping on core linux most proberbly, maybe even bbc.

I've got a REALLY cool, looking 56k externel modem lying around, which im desperate to get working, on something. Could I set up a vpn or something for telnet access maybe ?

Thanks for the help guys. later.

Oh, id like to find the specs of the motherboard, too. I cant see it written anywhere on the board...

It has a chip with a massive gold heatsink on it, on that is says ' xt pro 2 ', I think it may be the bois, but I really dont know. Can anyone help on this too ? Cheers all.

Is the BIOS chip usually cooled? You should take some pictures of this thing.

It has a chip with a massive gold heatsink on it, on that is says ' xt pro 2 ', I think it may be the bois

I doubt it, only the CPU on older Socket 7 boards usually had a large heatsink, could also be the graphics chip if its an integrated board.

The more common bios's are Award and AMI, bios chip size is about 4x1 cm. or 2x2 cm. square format.

AFAIK the K6-2 @ 500mhz was the fastest AMD CPU available for the Socket 7/321 pin. Win95/98/ME will work fine with it (even down to 400 mhz) as long as you've got 128mb ram minimum. XP and a lot of the current apps are a no-go - too much bloat.

You really need to find out what the motherboard is as i'm guessing that the hardware will be configured via jumpers ? The motherboard identifier may be on the flip side and could be something obscure like GA-XXX, AB-XXX etc.

ttfn

i repair old PC's and donate them to poorer people than i.. if anyone has any pc parts they will throw my way, holler at me and i will gladly send the postage due to get them here.. (given you live within the lower 48)

i built a k62 550 and a p1 200 this year and made 2 kids very happy..

send me a PM if you are embarresed..

actually, im building one as well, gonna give it to my older sister for xmas.... :smile:

////toodles off singing "carol of the bells"....my favorite...

Doc Brass... :dodgy:

i'd be happy to send you one of the 500's i have tho Orph....would be a pleasure :biggrin:

Dr Brasso said:
actually, im building one as well, gonna give it to my older sister for xmas.... :smile:

////toodles off singing "carol of the bells"....my favorite...

Doc Brass... :dodgy:

i'd be happy to send you one of the 500's i have tho Orph....would be a pleasure :biggrin:

holler at me and lemme know the shipping, maybe i could have it together by x-mas too :smile:

1701 Dan ave. Jonesboro Ar. 72401

....so it shall be... :wink:

Doc B.... :dodgy:

merry thanksgiving, and happy holidays gents (and gollum) :smile:

lol. The mother board ident im getting done by www.motherboard.org :smile: which owns. so, any ideas on what can be done with a 56k modem, seriously ? It has two rj45, ( phone cable ) ports on the back, can I use it as a hub for a dcc ?

Dr Brasso said:
....so it shall be... :wink:

Doc B.... :dodgy:

merry thanksgiving, and happy holidays gents (and gollum) :smile:

little known trivia..

when sending boxes thru the mail, ask the postmaster about the cd discounts.. it seems that sending CD's thru the mail is much cheaper than normal stuff... tell them the box has CD's in it.. :biggrin:

It has two rj45, ( phone cable ) ports on the back

RJ45's go on Cat5 cable which is for networks RJ10's are for phone cables.

So do you know if there is anything you can so with it ? - the 56k ?

Well, you can connect to the internet at - you guessed it - 56k! :smile:

Win95/98/ME will work fine with it (even down to 400 mhz) as long as you've got 128mb ram minimum

Err, windows 95 runs on a P120 with 32 megs of ram. And I don't mean it ran after 10 hours thinking about it, a P120 would come with windows 95.

the 2 sockets on the back of it will be a line and out so u can have the phone line running into the modem and then to something else phone, fax etc...

without reading all the tangents this thread has covered, allow me to swing it back on topic..

whenever i find, or am given a new PC to fix, the first thing i do is search out all the pieces on the net using google... each piece has a buttload of numbers on it, but one is relevant to the piece as far as identification is concerned..

use this number to get drivers and jumper settings..

some parts are so obsolete, that it is near impossible to get anything useful.. especially older hard drives.. the jumpers were not as straight forward as now.. most are not even marked correctly for n00b use :sad:

anyways, you can begin your search by putting all the numbers in the search window of google.. keep doing motherboard numbers till you get a link saying "motherboard" then look it over for useful into..

hope this helps.

Dr Brasso said:
merry thanksgiving, and happy holidays gents (and gollum) :smile:

What am I supposed to be, then?

Gollum said:

Dr Brasso said:
merry thanksgiving, and happy holidays gents (and gollum) :smile:

What am I supposed to be, then?

considering the mess you made of his daughters virtues, and your title as god of boulders, i am thinkin you are a breed apart :dodgy:

[color=lightblue]Oi, I didn't do it, she was like that when I received her![/color]

Gollum said:
[color=lightblue]Oi, I didn't do it, she was like that when I received her![/color]

/me remembers vividly the comments about pringles containers..

YEAH RIGHT! :wink:

Shush!

desperately tries to keep Orph quiet