Compaq Prolinea 575 Explored!!
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- Опубликовано: 10 окт 2023
- We have another amazing retro system on the bench - The Compaq Prolinea 575 Desktop PC from ~1995! In this video we will go over this beautiful system, see what components come with it and what expansion possibilities there are! We will even boot up the system and see if it posts and brings up an OS. Come watch and let me know what you think we should do with this amazing system in a future video!!
#compaq #prolinea575 #nostalgia #retropc #vintage #ewaste #intel #windows95 #pcrepair #retro #windows
As someone who haunted thrift stores in my younger days,I had and saw so many Compaq of that type. A bit of nostalgia.Around the early 2000s,they were like sand on the beach.
Agreed! I wish I had gotten a few back in the day - brings back a lot of memories.
My first pc was a Compaq Presario, tower model. 8 MB memory, that i upgraded to 16 MB! 640 MB disk, later upgraded with a 1,3 GB disk to make space for my mp3 collection downloaded on a 28.8 modem. What a time!
Hahah what a time indeed - as I have said before it was the wild west of computing! 1.3 Gb - you will never fill that much space!!
Woah, two Compaq videos in one day?! First the Nostalgia Mall posted a video on a Compaq Prolinea all-in-one and now this! As a Compaq fan, my day is officially made!😁👌
Awesome!!!!! Compaq is in the air :)
I happened to notice this as well, I'll have to check that out later!
Oh my god, this is the exact computer that appears in my memory. I used to sit on my grandma's knees and watch her browse the stock market on the Telnet when I was four years old. I think it was around 2001. It came with ETen Chinese System card when it was sold in Taiwan to type and display Chinese characters under DOS. Sadly my mom threw it away because it was broken and never been able to turn on again. You truly made my day man, thank you so much.
Love hearing these memories and you are welcome!
The workhorse darling of the 1990's! I had one of these on my desk back in the day.
Awesome!!!
I've always had a soft spot for mid-90's hardware & the spinning rust from those days, nice vid!
Thanks! Spinning rust will always be my preference unless I am not able to for a really big reason haha! Those clicks are amazing!! :)
My very first computer was the 575e. It was barely used when I got in 2003. I still have it to this day.
That's awesome!! Hopefully you still use it :)
@@TheRetroRecall it comes out every April and upload the results to RUclips.
Haha awesome.
I've never seen a Prolinea machine in person but lot of Deskpros, think they were pretty similar machines inside. My school used to have Compaq Deskpros way back in the day, they were solid machines, I even got one of them to tinker with when it broke down and got replaced with new one. All it needed was a new hard drive :) Too bad I got rid of it years ago :(
Oh no, it would have been great if you still had it for sure!!
@@TheRetroRecall Totally! Atleast I have 2 retro Thinkpads, T42 running Windows XP and 310E running Windows 98 with 4GB CF memory card as it's hard drive. :) Both for older software and games, that 310E also has a very compatible Yamaha sound card in it! :)
i live in Ne Ohio, outside of Cleveland. i worked at a place called XS Electronics, We used to buy those systems from large companies upgrading to newer computers. We Had a shitload of those model compaqs and we used to put ALS 100 sound cards in them. Same with the connexant modem. it was either that one or a lucent v.90 modem.. that was back in 1999-2003. good times. thanks for the video! it was a great memory to remember.
Thanks for sharing this and you are welcome!!
I remember a while back (at least a decade ago) when I was first starting to get into computers and electronics, as well as appliances; there was a youtube called aussie50 who did all sorts of neat stuff. I remember one of the first videos I saw from him was a Compaq Deskpro 590 which used this same case style. It was beat up, bent and mangled from being tipped out of a bin with a bunch of scrap, but the system still ran. I have wanted a system like that one ever since. Sadly, a couple of years ago Aussie50 ended his own life.
Oh no that's not cool at all :(. RIP Aussie50.
that is an absolute beauty of retro tech and i'm glad to see it restored/up and running again.
Its a really awesome machine - needs some more TLC but we will get there.
The Prolinea 575 was my 2nd computer after my IBM PS2 486dx. I ended up adding a lot of RAM and 2 more hard drives. At least one being a SCSI. It was a beast. I could listen to mp3s or listen to Pantera's website player while in chat rooms on AOL. After that I briefly had the Deskpro with 133mhz and upgraded it to 233. After that I got a Compaq Workstation with dual P2. The dual P2 even gave my P4 a run for the money in multitasking. I kinda wish I kept my old systems but I would not have any room.
I love hearing these memories, thanks for sharing!! I love the look of these machines and seeing them reminds me of when I was young walking into my Dad's government office. Great times! At this time I think I had my 486DX4100 machine and shortly after upgraded to a Pentium 200mmx system. Back then it was much more exciting seeing just how much performance you could squeeze out of these systems! :)
Very nice video as pleased!👍🏻👍🏻😁
Thank you as always!
Nice. I think Uxwbill did quite an in depth view of his same model. Remember seein it years ago.
Always thought Compaq had the tidiest beige line of computers back in the day despite not bein much into OEM systems. Always admired wee things they did.
I Remeber seeing a lot of these in gov offices... May have been the desk pro line but looked similar.
@@TheRetroRecall Yes, I think a lot of official agencies, local authorities & banks & that sort of thing used Compaq's. We certainly had alot 9f em in school and one year a local town nearby got a load of free Comoaq's as an incentive or something from the council to get local folk into computers who maybe couldn't afford em.
I want to find these so bad! my HS had these for a few years, if you ever decide to seel it let me know!
Went to a small private school and all through HS I was our IT Guy's right hand man, and worked on these so much.
They really are a nice machine and it looks sooo cool!!!
Beautiful machine. I love the clean install of Win 95 as well as the overall appearance. I would of course suggest doubling the RAM, video card upgrade would help for sure... I think the sound card might be okay as it is. Your work is awesome... I know whatever choices you make, will be for the best. Great job and I am looking forward to seeing what you do with this beauty next! 👍👍👍
Thanks for the recommendations and your support!!! Stay tuned, more coming!
I believe that the name of the machine is pronounced with four syllables - pro lynn e ah. At least that is the way that I always heard it back in the day from the Compaq techs.
Thanks for the correction!
You can double click the first element "Computer" in device manager and it shows a list by IRQ and DMA so you can quickly find devices using the same.
Thanks!
When i get notifications for new videos for here im like yesss
That's great!! Thanks for watching and for your support!
I never knew this line of computers even existed from them. I think they look great!
They really are amazing machines!
I got a 5120 myself a couple years ago (same PC except processor speed) and like how tall it is for a desktop form factor. I got into the double digits running Geekbench on it, which in and of itself was a challenge on a socket 7 machine. Only took 2.5 hours!
Awesome and yes you are right, having that extra height and optional expansions is nice.
Nice video. Steven have a Prolinea to. Greetings from Steven from the Netherlands
Thank you and hello Steven!
I started my computer hobby about exactly 20 years ago, as these older systems weren't a thing of my childhood, that's why they are so damn interesting now. Now let's grab a cup of coffee and check this :)
Awesome!!! There will be a part 2 of this series!!
That is one hell of a chunky fellow
It is, and quite heavy!!
That compaq got the same exact model of cirrus logic gpu that the Linux built-in hypervisor emulates for isa-based legacy VM's.
Nice!! I also like that it does have pci expansion slots so thats always a nice to have :)
I think this is absolutely fantastic. My thoughts are, add more RAM and see how Win98 SE does!
Oh Windows 98 on a p75?? Hmmm now that would be interesting...
@@TheRetroRecall It'll work, but Windows 95 is the era-appropriate choice. The first Pentiums (60/66MHz) were still shipping with Windows 3.1x, and when Windows 98 debuted, we were well into the Pentium II.
Agreed.
Another very cool Win95 machine, I like it. I would keep it as-is to keep it as original as possible. 32 megs is plenty for Win95, unless you want to do a lot of retro gaming with it
Thanks!!! What about the sound and video?
@@TheRetroRecall I would leave it all original, but that's just me
Thank you!
These were very common in the UK, usually in the single 5.25" height however. The Prolinea I would say was the more basic version of the Deskpro, I think the main difference was the lack of a built-in network card. I think the video cards and L2 cache may have been lower end than the Deskpro versions. I had a Prolinea 466 as my office PC in 1998, my Dad had a 575 and I think my Mother had a 5120 at their offices! Its an LPX motherboard. The usual hard disk was a Seagate around 540Mb so they tended to be pretty slow. The soundcards back then were the Compaq Business or Premier Audio cards.
Thanks for this info, I love to hear what people had back in the day and how they were used. I think with a couple of minor upgrades this system will be perfect for some dos gaming!
In my knick in the woods of BC, I didn't catch a lot of Compaq machines. Plenty of AST's and whiteboxes though.
Nice!! Well that makes you and I both. I was only lucky that a US reseller was able to help out :)
If you ever find anything let me know!!
For sure! Your in California? That's so cool!
Good to know! I did a video on a 486 I believe a while back (in my younger years lol - seems so long ago) I think I need to dig that project back out and continue the repairs!
ah, the good old days of IRQ conflicts!
This was kind of the peak era of PCs because from there on things would get more homegenous in PC land - becoming a scramble toward faster perf stats.
The Cambrian Explosion was coming to its close
Haha... Ah so true. Miss these days.
Ya, back when allocating irq was just another step, like manually inputting all your storage parameters so the bios would recognize your hard drives.
100%
Like!
Thanks!!
Be cool if you could get the soundboard for that bottom slot and a compact branded tnt2
I think I have the TNT2 branded Compaq card, but definitely not the sound card. Might be great to utilize that port and free up the rest.
try installing alternative operating systems, maybe even some early linux distros!
I usually stick to what came with the system, but happy to try others. Especially for the ones that have the restoration partitions.
i used to have one of these
I love them! Built really well and look great.
First family pc we had was a Compaq Deskpro 5133 133mhz 32mb, 2.3gb hd Ess Audiodrive 1868 It did come with a 40x replacement cd-rom sounded like jet engine., generic mouse keyboard, speakers & mic. The bundle did come with an IBM G50 monitor in 1999. Unfortunately It came with Windows 95
What is wrong with Windows 95?? :). Not a bad system all things considered at the time!
The usb support was lacking.I had to put in an add in usb card & upgrade to Win98 then just to use a modern printer at the time.@@TheRetroRecall
This thing looks identical to my Compaq DeskPro 5133 with the only exception is that my 5133 has a Pentium MMX 200 that is running at the boards max speed of 166. The cmos battery on the 5133 seems to be rechargeable because it still works just fine, even if it sits unplugged for a year.
Awesome and yes, with the external battery header I'm thinking this is rechargeable. I do plan on desoldering it and using the external header so I can use a 3v cr2032.
@@TheRetroRecallOne other thing, the bios setup/diagnostics is a partition on the hard drive. I wiped my hard drive and lost the bios setup completely, so taking an image of the drive is definitely a good idea. I couldn't find a good download for the installer to re-make the bios partition, but the last time I looked was a few years ago.
I’m not sure about the Deskpro of that era, but the CMOS battery (internal or external) on the Pentium era Prolinea was not rechargeable. They did use some good internal CMOs batteries.
@@TheRetroRecalluse a 4.5V battery for the external unit. A holder with 3xAAA batteries will do nicely.
Thank you!!
Matrox Mystique with vram expansion :)
Ohhh I know that card... Now to find one.
You can't have mine 😎
Hahahahah!
If you must upgrade the video, that would be my vote. Either that or one of the earlier PCI Creative 3D Blasters that used the Banshee or Permedia chipset. :-) Early bespoke 3D is kind of fun. Mostly useless, save for the pack-in games it would've shipped with, but fun nonetheless.
My Pentium-era computer from back in the late 90s was a Cyrix 6x86 with the Mystique. Loved the card, hated the computer (cheap motherboard that could not handle the current draw of the Cyrix chip), so I recently re-built that computer to experience the fiasco again. (But hopefully, this time, with the lower-power version of the chip, and maybe a better voltage regulator. I don't need it to be THAT accurate. I can do without the regular hard crashes.)
I'd argue that the onboard video is perfect for what it is. This machine is perfect for high end DOS games. I'd wouldn't even put a 3dfx card in it, BUT if you wanted to just keep it to original Voodoo. Just my humble opinion.
This is exactly the feedback I'm looking for! Maybe I should do a poll?? :) Thanks for this and for watching!
Keep in mind not everyone agrees with me. But, I'm of the belief that even the earliest 3d Accelerators are wasted on anything older then a Pentium 2. @@TheRetroRecall
I would agree wholeheartedly. The onboard video is perfectly fine here. P75 / Win95 is for late DOS-era gaming, and early (often pre-DirectX) gaming. You don't need much. A Voodoo would augment nicely, but isn't exactly critical.
Kinda new to the channel. Do you have a Pentium II or III? If so, there's not much need to push this one to do 3D gaming. Let it be what it is.
The generic OEM sound card is ... fine. I would probably look at a Sound Blaster 32 / AWE32, though. They can be had for not too much money, and it's just a perfect fit for this era. Excellent DOS compatibility, but perfect for Windows 95. Later Windows had soft-synths (for whatever still used MIDI by that time), but 95 relied on hardware synthesis, and software of the time made use of it, so a wavetable card shines.
Can you try to find a "Seanix" computer? They were in schools throughout the 90s and 2000s. They were a Canadian-based computer OEM, which made whitebox systems for schools and government.
I never heard of them.. I will take a look!
@@TheRetroRecall Apparently they were a Vancouver-based computer OEM. Depending on which side of Canada you are on, you may not see any.
Eastern Canada here.. But I have some good supporters of the channel. Who knows what we will find.
I had 2 of those... still have a spare motherboard in my parts bin but the case is long gone.
Spare MB?? Was it for this exact model?
@@TheRetroRecall yep, just checked the box and yes its for the prolinea 575.
Ok, that's interesting. Is it NOS?
@@TheRetroRecall no, it was taken from a old machine :) i had 2 of them but one had some typical brittle plastic and i removed the board to keep as spare parts for my main prolinea, that was stolen later, but this motherboard is still there, and the power supply is there too.
Very interesting :)
575 - 5 = Pentium 75 = 75 MHz very easy 😂 Nice Video. Unfortunately I don't have a Compaq like that, but I do have a Siemens Nixdorf PCD-5H with 75 MHz Pentium and 96 MB RAM as well as a Voodoo card... It even has USB 2.0 and a SATA card 😁
Haha yes, 575 gives it away lol. Ohhh nice system including that Voodoo card!!!! I assume you added the USB and sata cards lol.
@@TheRetroRecallThis is an all-in-one card to save PCI slots. SATA IDE USB in one. But only works with Windows 98 SE. With 95 and USB that's a thing. The only disadvantage is that the drives connected there only work under Windows. It is not suitable as a DOS platform because there is no boot ROM.
Oh awesome, thanks for the clarity - makes perfect sense now!
If the modem is plug and play, it may have lost configuration and gone to IRQ 4, it may even be trying to be COM 1 as well
Smart. I'll remove it and test as part of part 2 of the video series! Thank you!
That's most likely what happened. Or, the original owner disabled the onboard serial port and ran the modem as COM1. I know there's no need for a modem these days, but -several- most of my builds have them anyway. It just didn't feel complete without the ability to dial-up to BBSes, CompuServ, and The Internet. ;-)
I make it a habit to use COM1 for the onboard serial port, disable COM2 (if the system has two serial ports -- for systems with ISA I/O cards that have 1x serial and 1x parallel on the card, I leave out the bracket with the other serial and game ports), then set the modem as COM2. That way, I always know what's what.
I had one of those except it was a floppy drive model
Nice! I love the look of these machines.
I'd ditch the modem card, upgrade the sound card to a SB 16. For video: Matrox Millennium PCi or ARC 2000PV or Trio 64+. I guess it depends on what you want. The ARK would give you the best DOS compatibility and Matrox best Windows experience. I'd leave the rest as is. Nothing wrong with P75 and 32mb ram. Nice little system. Definitely replace the battery with a socketed coin.
Thanks!! I never thought about the Matrox card, that's a great option! For sound I was also thinking of using that proprietary slot for the compaq sound card, although I haven't researched the card in depth and it may be a waste haha.
@@TheRetroRecall I love your videos. Keep up the good work. You really need to test them power supplies before starting (maybe you do but don't show it). You're gonna kill something one day.
Haha thanks and you are right as I did fry something once. That said I do most of the initial testing using my tester or multimeter.. However that also doesn't always work either. Once time it tested completely fine and then poof. I was just lucky it didn't hurt anything.
PSUs are always a risk. Always. My SOP is to open the case up and inspect at the very least. 99% of the time, I go ahead with a full re-cap just for good measure. There have been a few times where it ended up being necessary and I didn't even know it, until I was removing old caps and smelling fish as they heated up. The one time I went ahead and ran an old PSU without recapping (it was a quality Delta PSU, NOS, never used...) the standby rail cap failed, and took out a KVM attached to the PS2 ports. I don't know how, but the motherboard seemed to survive. I measured the +5vSB rail at *15 VOLTS.*
With some of those PSUs, you can't easily replace them (non-standard form factors or plugs), or sometimes even test them outside the system, so I just refurb them and hope for the best. Most of the premium brands used reliable PSU OEMs, and they'll be totally fine. IBM's later PS/1 and "clone" computers were manufactured by the typical Asian OEMs, and some of those PSUs are ... not so great. I had to replace the DC-side rectifier diodes in one of them to get it working again.
That CD-ROM definitely did not ship with that computer. A Pentium 75 would have been retired when 32x CD-ROMs dropped. That system would have probably shipped with a 4x drive. Maybe 2x if it were an early or budget model and/or not geared toward multimedia at all, and possibly 6x if it came out later.
I stand corrected. I should have clarified and stated that it was OEM and came from a like machine - with the Compaq part info, etc. Thanks for the call out.
Where in Canada do you live? I dont want to know that i am competing with a pro when trying to get local deals.
Haha. Eastern Canada :)
@@TheRetroRecall OK, cool. Very central here, no worries for me. :)
Ok, put in a voodoo and an SB16, get rid of that modem, it is worthless anyway, install 64 MB ram, thats all.
LOVE this!! What games should we test with?
Hmmm, quake or/and quake2 of possible 😅
Perfect.
When did mini tower become the standard for computer cases? You can't really find these pizzabox style cases anymore
I think I came accross my first one a decade ago. These style case phased put quite quickly in favor of towers then they just got smaller again. I wish they would bring back these cases again - I think they are great :)
Towers were available way back in the 286 days. Partly inspired by how some people would take their IBM ATs and flip them on their side, next to the desk. Later, some desktop cases came with (or were available with) stands to facilitate this. That led to cases that were just built that way -- towers.
Desktops fell out of favor in the Pentium era. You could still get them, though it tended to be more targeted to business use, particularly with smaller form factor PCs. They got smaller and less upgradeable, and the tower became the "expandable" option.
They basically have replaced the "pizza box" with the "small form factor" models. Found in most business offices now.