'90s Compaq Desktops! Teardown and Test
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- Опубликовано: 5 июл 2024
- If you'd like to support the channel and help me to produce more videos like this, you can find me on Patreon: / miketech
Thank you so much!
I had a suspicion these two Compaq desktops were diamonds in the rough. In this video, I decided to find out!
0:00 Intro
0:20 System 1 - Compaq DeskPro 2000
1:36 S1 Disassembly and inspection
6:25 S1 Refresh
8:17 S1 Drives
10:07 S1 Testing
20:56 S1 Floppy Drive Repair
22:30 S1 Clean-up and verdict
23:47 System 2 - Compaq Presario 2254
25:11 S2 Disassembly and Inspection
29:47 S2 Drives
31:45 S2 PSU and a few loose ends
33:19 S2 Testing
46:46 S2 Clean-up and verdict
48:03 Outro
seeing you nurse that floppy drive back to health just by being nice to it and feed it some grease, made my day somehow..
That was kinda satisfying, I totally agree =)
I love that between Wade of DankPods, Gravis of CRD, Adrian of his Digital Basement, and now Mike of MikeTech, the word "cromulent" is taking over the retro tech space on RUclips.
Funny story: I once inadvertently convinced a fledgling network engineer that ‘cromulent’ was an actual technical term through my casual use of it. “Let’s make sure the upstream switch is cromulent”. He had never seen the episode (and was born in the late 90’s).
I was a beta tester for AOL back in the day, and 4.0 introduced the ability to switch screen names without signing out amid the dial-up boom and busy signal malaise era. Beta testing was confidential, and we were given a list of talking points and excuses (which I can no longer remember) to tell friends and family who may have noticed that one of your screen names logged out and another logged in almost at the same time. 😂
I was one to when AOL came to Australia.
@@petertrevena804 That's roughly the same time (late 90's) that I was a tester too. Just out of curiosity, what was your screen name? I doubt there's any chance I'll recognize it but you never know! There's only one other person's screen name from the beta program that I still remember today, and of course can't remember anything else about them: "Besthope"
@@marcbermI cannot remember what it was.
@@petertrevena804 Ahh. Well I've been MarcBerm just about everywhere since the 90's so there's not a whole lot for me to remember. 😂
The systems you highlighted today take me back. I do miss all crunching sounds older systems make. It’s boring to press power and hear nothing.
It’s so refreshing watching you dive into older systems. Takes me back to your younger days when you took systems apart to explore them. I remember babysitting your game server in your teen years.
Watching you grow and develop your natural computer skills is the highlight of my life! This channel brings all my memories back. Can’t help having a puffed up chest! I’ll never miss a video.
I don't know if you meant it as a joke, but I laughed for a while when you said the drive cage with the easy access to the screw was top notch.
I couldn’t help myself 😛
@@miketech1024That joke killed me. 😛
Exactly as 0:44 looked like a golden PP.
Except I figure the notch wasn't for *our* benefit, but rather to make it easier for manufacturing.
And those riser cards can be trouble though. We had a prototype Compaq machine at Future Vision, and after our ham-fisted sales people brought it to a couple of shows/presentations, it was trashed. Managed to scavenge a couple generic parts, that was all.
So you've never tried to screw..and you just need THAT gap to do right?
I deployed thousands of these systems in the 90s when I worked in IT, they were solid PCs.
It's a good day when systems come with hard drives. I do enjoy those crunchy Seagate Medalists!
Functional, crunchy drives are always a treat. OS archaeology is my favorite!
@@miketech1024 And hard drives almost as big as a brick! Like a Quantum Big Foot. :)
Love when you come across these Compaq’s! I’ve replaced all the soldered CMOS batteries on mine too with those CR2032 holders and they all work fine. Such an awkward choice but I guess they never expected these PC’s to last as long as they have. It probably saved them 3 cents per build 😂
I found an old thread a while back and pinned this little "rule of thumb" to a note on the inside for identifying 72pin memory by appearance:
* Even count of chips on a side = non-parity / Odd count = parity
* If pins on the chips are in groups of 5, it's probably a 1 MB x 4bit chip. (8 chips = 4MB, 16 chips = 8MB)
* If pins on the chips are in groups of 6, it's probably a 4 MB x 4bit chip. (8 chips = 16MB, 16 chips = 32MB)
* The last number on each chip is usually the response time: (-7 = 70ns, -6 = 60ns, etc.)
EDO vs. FPM is anyone's guess.
That is some solid-gold info. Thanks!!
I was given an old Compaq presario that's been sitting in a barn somewhere for 20 years by a friend. The battery had 3.1 Volts and the PC started right up which I found surprising considering the case was already rusting and having lots of cobwebs inside. So I can definitely see your Battery also having a full charge after 19 years of not being started
they dont make them like they used to. otherwise they'd be out of business.
I had that exact Compaq Deskpro chassis model. I think it was a little layer, though. It had USB built in! Whooooo. Probably a Pentium II. ❤ It was our first modern computer. We actually had a 486 Deskpro in the basement before that, but it wasn't up to much at the time, haha. Good to see it!
I'd love that Presario, it hasn't even yellowed
Would you look at that, both system had a hard drive, and they both worked?! What a treat! That second machine really looks almost brand new, it's really nice.
"You can't keep a 90s Compaq down"
Never a more true word said!
I absolutely loved this era of Compaq. In my collection I had the Deskpro 2000 5166 (Intel i430HX, Pentium 166, 128Mb, 4.3Gb HDD, Cirrus 5436 with 2Mb upgrade) and Deskpro 2000 5166X (AMD 640, upgraded to Pentium 233MMX, 128Mb, 40Gb HDD, Cirrus 5446 2Mb) Of note was the i430HX chipset, most manufacturers went for the cheaper i430FX/i430VX or SiS nonsense back then! I de-installed an office full of Deskpro 2000 which had been upgraded to 128Mb RAM (Win NT 4.0 machines) - I rescued a Compaq Business Audio ISA card from one of them to go with my Compaq slot-load CD-ROM drive.......
Watching these videos is such a nostalgia bomb. I feel sad that the only computer noises children today know are cooling fans.
Oh man, the sounds of disk drives operating is the biggest nostalgia trigger for me. Still just as strong even after having gone through all of these systems!
Mike, you're low key reigniting my x86 retro pc nostalgia. Great video, keep it up! 😘
That hard drive on the first system was so delightfully crunchy! I loved listening to it whilst you explored!
It’s funny to me that you’re in allergy season, meanwhile here it’s snowing and there are blizzard warnings in basically every direction around me.
Btw you won me over with your humor and excellent retro content, so I became a Patreon supporter last night. You’re only the 2nd content creator I’ve supported on Patreon.
Florida is a world of its own lol. Thank you so much for your support!! ❤️
The Creative Modem Blaster 14.4 was the first internal modem I ever owned, and it was fast as lightning to me, someone who only had used a 2400baud modem before. I thought I was a king with that thing. It did faxing, it did all the BBS calling I wanted and Procomm Plus made it sing. The Modem Blaster 14.4 ended up being second only to a USR Courier in terms of bang for the buck. Still own the software demo disk that came with the 14.4. That was my first taste of Doom and Descent. Good memories. Creative Labs did some neat non-audio stuff in those days.
That second unit brings back memories~ My grandmother bought a Presario desktop at a thirft store in the early 2000s. Had a 200MHz AMD K6 in it, with the exact same size, drive layout and overall shape as the one I remember. I also distinctly remember that fan duct on the PSU, which served double duty as the CPU fan. What makes this machine different is that it came with built-in speakers, one of which was a subwoofer with a resonance chamber. Looks like it uses the same chassis, as I can see the stamped blanks where the speakers would have mounted.
I was checking my subscriptions every day for a new Mike Tech video! Finally, my prayers were answered ;)
In this age of computers I sure do love SSDs and NVMEs, but man do I love those crunchy HDDs
Compaq part numbers: six digits-three digits 123456-123. Usually the last three digits were 001. The hard drive has three part numbers in that format, as does the floppy and power supply and probably others I didn't catch. Thanks for the memories. I used to work on these. I loved how they had extra screws in the cases.
The Deskpro is a Deskpro 2000. It was my first PC at work when I started in 1997. It came with a 166 MHz, 200 MHz or 233 MHz CPU. With or without MMX. We used them with the 3Com 905 a/b/c PCI network card with a bootrom to be able to boot the machines from the network. The hard disks were all disconnected in the PC of our 500+ PCs network.
Was here before the 1k and 10k subs, looking forward to 100k this year, you so damn much deserve ❤
It's Mardi Gras here in Australia, so happy Mardi Gras Mike 🏳️🌈💛
That Deskpro was my first computer ever. My brother and I went to one of those massive Computer Expo shows at the DC Armory back in like 1999 and I got that Deskpro w/ 120Mhz Pentium. I think I walked out of there with that system and 32MB of RAM for like $60. My brother did LAN gaming with this and our main family computer, and even setup a proxy redirect so we could both web browse off the same dial-up connection! Man good memories - sadly those machines were lost in a family fire. Thanks for sharing Mike!
Lol, when he said This one’s gonna require some prying and I heard “crying”. 😂
Imagine having tomorrow off so you're watching the latest MikeTech video at almost 2:30am? Couldn't be me. 😎
I sold the Presario when I worked for Radio Shack. If I remember correctly, it had a special keyboard with soft power on it.
System 1's hard drive sounds lovely, could totally make an ASMR video out of that.
47:35, wowzers!
both of these machines cleaned up most excellent!
bravo Mike Tech!
i enjoy your content so much that i get worried when you don't post every week :)
Thanks! It has been quite the exercise in time-management for sure.
Funny, with that rounded floppy drive button, if one was missing that or needed a replacement for authenticity, 3d printing is an amazing tool today. I have made ALL KINDS of things I would have never been able to find at any reasonable price. Yeah.. 3d printers are so amazing and they've come SO far in the recent past. :)
edit: ha, you got there at 30:43 .. sorry I doubted you, I posted this comment the first time you commented on the roundish button on the first computer you were working on. You've earned a subscription here. I promise to do my best to watch at least 2 videos at a time when I'm here, I know YT likes that, and you messing with the computers of my younger years (born in 78 got my first PC in 87) so.. yeah this is a lifelong passion of mine. I remember these compaq computers, I had a 386 version at one time I'm pretty sure (all of my friends gave me their old computers because I was that kid in school, one of 5 of us were hardcore into computers back in the late 80s early 90s. The good days for home computers in my opinion, it was a great time to grow up!!)
Moto Racer, one of my favourite games back in the day. Temped to try it in a emulator now, must be over 20 years i last played it.
Oh man this brings back some memories, I had that 1st Compaq system, it was my second PC with Pentium 133.
I have the same Compaq Deskpro with a "Pentium with MMX inside" sticker on front, upgraded to a Pentium 233MMX 😁, and a voodoo2 3d gfx card! At least it got a small speed boost from 200 to 233mhz, and the ability to play 3d games
I see Mike's wearing his I'm-A-Dom-Top-Red shirt today!
Great video as always 💕
I need a Mike like him in my life, I swear.
Just a heads up, you forgot to blur the AIM screen names. I don't know that it matters much since AIM no longer exists but I get the impression you take data privacy very seriously so I figured I'd let you know.
Thanks for looking out! I decided to leave those un-blurred since they’re ambiguous enough and kinda funny. The AOL screen names had actual legal names, so they were a definite blur.
also in aol you blur screen names in the login dialogue, but one is visible on the title bar of favourites (this was missed (?) once before too)
These old Compaq Deskpros...they're pretty much bulletproof. I have two working Deskpro EN SFF Slot1 rigs in my posession, one w/ a PIII 500 CPU and the other one has a PII 300Mhz. Otherwise, both look identical from the outside.
I've owned the Pentium III version for close to 15 years at this point and it has endured a lot during this time.
The only part I've ever had to replace on mine was the power supply and even that was due to me using a worn Molex, which meant that a slight movement of the computer or the optical drive could've resulted in the wire coming loose and making a contact w/ the metal housing, thus resulting in a short circuit. I've had that occur several times and likely that killed the power supply eventually.
I had to use a standard DVD-writer because I didn't have (and still don't) the original slimline CD-ROM unit and the proprietary ribbon cable it uses. That cable is nearly impossible to come by on its own these days. The Molex extender was needed so I could use the drive outside the case.
Man, I hear yon the allergies. Mine are just awful this year, and the weather here is just all over the place. 80F one day and then the next it was 27F. Here's hoping that your allergies get better quickly.
Nice Compaq systems. I love to see how you did care about then. Great job you did. Greetings from Steven from the Netherlands
On that first system, I may have missed it if you said it (my bad if so), what was the graphics chip? I wonder how well some games perform on both systems. Definitely impressed with the cleanup on that second system. I have many Compaqs (esp those colored faceplate Presario ones) that have always stood the test of time and still run perfectly to this day. My fave was my first big-time gaming PC, a Compaq Presario 5423US. Great vid as always, looking forward to more soon!
35:34 remember when we had "No" buttons instead of "Maybe Later" ?
god damn this video is just what I needed
40:45 I love that My Computer icon
Love the system sounds and theme going on there and the drive clacking away. Memories!
Awesome video!!
Thank you for the video!
Another excellent video, sir Mike
always entertaining thank you!
Subscribed. Very cool stuff Mike, man this brings back memories.
Wonderful Machines 👍👍
Good and crunchy - just the way i like it! - Love it! :)
...and Mike turn up with a video to make my day !! Nice one 🤗
....you just HAD to make the Nanya joke didn't you Mike? saw that coming a mile away.. which made it all the more awesome!
Love your vids! 😊
23:30 beautiful refurb job Mike Tech!
Our first family pc was a compaq 4000 series presario tower:
Pentium mmx 200mhz,
32megs ram
8gig quantum Bigfoot hdd
33.6k pci hardware modem
Added a voodoo2 to it. It was great.
The registration and your video on load up was done by John De Lance
“Q” from Star Trek.
Yay! More Miketech! 👍🏻 Look forward to these. 🤞🏻 You get off Oncall soon 😉
Omg hey welcome back to the land of the living lol also love the new video 😊
I used to use the Compaq deskpro at work in the late 90s and early 00s. Mine did not have a sound card or CD-ROM.
Always happy to see one of your videos in my feed after discovering you just a few weeks ago and binge-watching your entire channel. Top notch, thank you, and I eagerly look forward to the next one!
"Top Notch". I saw what you did there. Made me giggle a bit. Thanks for another fantastic video!
Looking better than ever! Will watch the video shortly.
Missed you!
That winamp version brings back memories...
I love this channel =)
Fun fact on system 2 - on certain models you could play CD audio through the drive's audio jack while the computer was "asleep". This one doesn't have the requisite play button though.
The speed is conveniently written on the chips themselves. -80 at the end means 80ns. 🙂
Capacity is usually more cryptic.
Dzięki za ciekawy filmik , pozdrawiam z Polski 🤝👍 . Thanks for the interesting video, greetings from Poland .
The Compaq Presario 22-- that I had back in the day came with MotoRacer. It's a fun little racing game and it's great to test your 3d accelerators with. What's interesting is I have a 2240 now and a 2256 which is such a strange machine because the 2256 comes with an AMD K6-300. I wish my machine was in better condition than it is.
I had a deskpro 2000. Ahh memories 💕 😁
Nanya love you channel and stuff you do. I like technology too. I’ve got a Pentium one and one MMX.
OMG MIKE!!! That Compaq Deskpro 2000 is exactly what I had for my first PC back in 95-96... I've been looking for one for ages as the one I had was given away to my uncle way back in the day.. Oh man, you're lucky in my opinion.. That was my favourite PC ever, probably because it was my first 😋 Gotta continue to look for these, I really still want one. Even though I've only seen the two first minutes, I know this video is going to be awesome, just like all your other videos! ❤
Wow.. the S1 floppy got extremely quiet with that final grease. Awesome!
That "Fatal Exception 06 0028:00000017" blue screen seems to be anti virus related, either with McAfee or Norton trying to run via Autoexec.bat..
OOOOOOOOOOH I had a compaq Presario all in one a long time ago, a family friend gave it to me, a 486. Had the 100mhz overdrive CPU in, and maxxed out system ram on the board. VERY nice machine.
Commenting is such fun
I’m actually surprised the Desk Pro didn’t have an Ethernet card instead of the modem. Those models were in nearly every school by the mid to late 90s.
Wohoo! Compaq! I have a Deskpro 6000 "swoosh" machine. The original drives were slot load, and had a high rate of failure.
Also, the built-in Compaq NetFlex network cards on these are TERRIBLE. Super slow.
compaq logo is power button on those old cases
I feel ya on the allergies, I used to have them only in the spring but then I started driving a truck all over the country and pretty much have them year round now.
I remember back in the day them presarios were all a huge pain to open, I hated working on them with all the bloatware all of them that came in were a nightmare. I did manage to upsell quite a bit of RAM though.
Make sure you recycle that sliver of aluminum. 😂
Very nice resaturations, today I picked up an "Ipaq*" from Compaq, cute🎉
growing up we had one of those 22XX line of Compaq. I do remember having to reach around back to turn it off all the time. I remember the dial up modem fried and the sound card did too.
I had the vertical tower version of the Deskpro. In around 2001 the power supply quit and I had to order a replacement from Compaq because a standard power supply wouldn't fit and wouldn't power the mother board.
7:46 I love seeing these screw ups too. My back off my time at university has been spent designing PCBs. I've been reading up on the history of PCB manufacturing and it's really fascinating.
those are some compact Compaq's
I see what you did there
Not heard that winamp jingle before, I have only heard the "Winamp.. It really whips the llamas a$$" jingle before 😂
i love the compaq deskpro 2000. i have the p2 one
glad to see you. i've been dealing with computer issues my self... my Ryzen 5 5600X doesn't work brand new..
It was dead on arrival? That’s interesting.
@@miketech1024 near as I can tell yep popped it into my board proper bios everything ready for it and my debug lights just give me cpu fault
The legend says that Mike has about 1 000 000 hours of free AOL internet in his stash 😂
Oh wow. Compaq Service Connection was one of those tools that were used by tech support when Compaq customers called in.
I think that software came after Compaq Carbon Copy (when a tech would actually dial into your computer to upload patches and fixes via modem). Carbon Copy was a novel idea. I don't know how successful this was. Abit ahead of its time nonetheless.
You look great in red 💌
I taught keyboarding and MS Office on Compaq Deskpro P133/166 machines back in 2001-2003 with Windows 98 connected to NT 4 DC. Good times.
I assume the discoloration on those pins is some sort of heat wear, willing to bet it's specifically pins that connect to the power section
love the compaq set-up utility/bios! surely it can't be running that from the hard disk?
I think it must have loaded from the hard drive. The drive was being accessed while it was loading. There’s also a message about needing the ‘Compaq Utilities’ boot disk if you’re running UNIX.
As soon as I seen the CD-Rom Drive at: 0:50 I suspected it was manufactured by Teac which is confirmed when you jump to: 9:43, The BIOS in that Deskpro at: 11:16 is similar to my Armada 7400, I’ve actually got an image of the Software somewhere in case I ever need them in the future! 🙂🇬🇧
Ready for some Diablo...
Good morning from Canada. Is it possible for you to do a strictly slot one video.?
My first really gaming pc had a slot 1 750. I really miss that machine.
Keep up the awesome videos.
Despite your allergies and so on you're as punny as ever! Cheers
The 2254 had an on/off button on the keyboard I believe.