Dell Dimension 1100? ...or is it? The Ultimate Sleeper System

[Topcat]

Re: Dell Dimension 1100? ...or is it? The Ultimate Sleeper System

But Compaq and HP are the same thing

It's prior to their merger....so it still counts.

[momaka]

Re: Dell Dimension 1100? ...or is it? The Ultimate Sleeper System

But but Compaq and HP are the same thing

You should do an eMachines case, if you have one. The silver ones from the XP/P4/AXP era are really well built. I bet no one would suspect an eMachines will ever have such hardware inside. Just don't be re-using them Bestec ATX-250-12E power supply, haha. (Though the everell 5VSB fix works pretty well on them.)

[Topcat]

Re: Dell Dimension 1100? ...or is it? The Ultimate Sleeper System

Yea, another one....the board was a SM tree freebie..... I picked up 2x 3GHz 1333FSB CPU's for 22 shipped. The big fat solid copper heatsinks were leftover from some old socket 604 system (sinks are the same for lga771)....I actually have 4 of them, I have 2 remaining now. I had 8gb ECC RAM in the bin...but I'll grab more....its cheap, and the board supports 48gb. I did find a case that this will fit.... Goin for the trifecta!! One Dell, one Compaq, and one soon to be HP case....

[ratdude747]

Re: Dell Dimension 1100? ...or is it? The Ultimate Sleeper System

Another one?!
Nice!

With that GTX480, it should even still be able to handle modern games too - at least Fortnite for sure (well, that's not really modern now anymore, or so the "cool" kids say these days.) But Apex Legends will probably run OK too.

Mine runs pretty much all the modern stuff... but it has a GTX970 thrown in:

https://www.badcaps.net/forum/showthread.php?t=69058

Solid platform for sleepers, that's for sure.

[momaka]

Re: Dell Dimension 1100? ...or is it? The Ultimate Sleeper System

My ohh my...............

Another one?!
Nice!

With that GTX480, it should even still be able to handle modern games too - at least Fortnite for sure (well, that's not really modern now anymore, or so the "cool" kids say these days.) But Apex Legends will probably run OK too.

[Dan81]

Re: Dell Dimension 1100? ...or is it? The Ultimate Sleeper System

Reminds me of 2 PCs I just revamped.

First one was a Davio "Gamer" - yeah right.

Original specs were a Sempron 2000+ Skt462 with a noname 400W PSU and a 80GB drive running XP, all in a pretty nice Delux MG760 case which imitates a BMW M3.

The new specs are a recapped 500W FSP Bluestorm II, a Core 2 Quad Q9400 (wanted to go for a X5450 but haven't found any), a Gigabyte EP45T-DS3R and 8GB of DDR3 RAM, as well as a 1TB drive and a GTX750Ti.

The second one was some noname Athlon XP 2500+ machine that was halfway gutted. When I bought it, the only things left were the case (made by JNC) , the mobo (ASRock K7S41GX) and that's pretty much all. Not to mention the rooftop on this one was pretty bent. I had a few pieces left from two other cases I trashed, which fortunately used the same kind of metal frame.

Now it sports a recapped Raidmax RX-500XT (made by Pangu Power, and it's pretty decent), a ASUS P5QD Turbo, an plexiglass sidepanel (factory made by JNC, which is something), about 320GB of storage, 4GB of DDR2, a MSI DVD-RW and a Gainward GT630.


The former one with the BMW case is now my main machine (I've put the i3 3220 combo for a sleeper IBM machine until I can get a beefy SFX PSU - it has a 155W PSU as we speak) running Windows 10 Enterprise LTSC (v1809), and the former runs Windows 8.1.

I can post up some pics if you want.

[Topcat]

Re: Dell Dimension 1100? ...or is it? The Ultimate Sleeper System

My ohh my...............

[Topcat]

Re: Dell Dimension 1100? ...or is it? The Ultimate Sleeper System

The only external hint that things may not be as they appear to be...

[momaka]

Re: Dell Dimension 1100? ...or is it? The Ultimate Sleeper System

^ Nice deal on that case. Seriously, $20 for a case like that is an absolute steel. (lame pun, I know... but fitting ).

[ratdude747]

Re: Dell Dimension 1100? ...or is it? The Ultimate Sleeper System

I think I found the case SM intended for these things:

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Generic-mic...torefresh=true

And as I typed this I won the best offer on it. Now I have a project all right...

[momaka]

Re: Dell Dimension 1100? ...or is it? The Ultimate Sleeper System

Man, that looks hella-neat!

And the whole system cooling looks like it will all work together very well, with the CPU fans drawing air through the bottom half of the case, and the GPU + PSU from the top half. I bet it runs cool!
... well, maybe save for that FX4800 perhaps.

But seriously, top-notch system!

Some day when I'm dead and gone, this bizarre computer collection will be worth millions!

Yeah, at least to those of us who know what a real computer should be built like / have inside. I don't know if any kids from the newer generations will understand this, though. I tried showing my neighbor's kids how to build a desktop PC with some parts I had on hand (a low-power AM2 AMD quad core and not-that-old of a Gigabyte motherboard in a somewhat modern Dell XPS Studio case). They thought the computer would be super-slow because it looked big (they called the computer box "the CPU", lol). I'm not sure if my teaching session changed their perspective, either, even though that PC is likely a lot more powerful than either of their 1-3 year old laptops... when it comes to games, of course. But I digress.

[Topcat]

Re: Dell Dimension 1100? ...or is it? The Ultimate Sleeper System

Just a postscript to this thread with what became of the extra board.....

Celeron Compaq? Couldn't be....


Don't worry, it's not!






Now how cool was all that!! This case came from the house of heavy smokers....it was nasty & skuzzy, so it had to be hotwashed twice to get the sludge & stench off it. It also needed a moderate amount of modifying for fitment....but what the hell... Some day when I'm dead and gone, this bizarre computer collection will be worth millions!



I built this one with what I had on hand. Its a dual quad-core Xeon E5410 @ 2.33/1333 8gb RAM and a quadro FX4800 GPU.

[Snayperskaya]

Re: Dell Dimension 1100? ...or is it? The Ultimate Sleeper System

Cool! I didn't know there was microATX sized dual LGA771 boards. All the ones I've seen were EEB. Nice little system you got there.

[Topcat]

Re: Dell Dimension 1100? ...or is it? The Ultimate Sleeper System

I may have a few good unusual cases you might be interested in let me break them out from storage and let you know what I have.

Cool, let me know what you dig out....here's where the last one finally went:

https://www.badcaps.net/forum/showpo...94&postcount=1

[brethin]

Re: Dell Dimension 1100? ...or is it? The Ultimate Sleeper System

No worries on the RAM....but definitely keep your eyes peeled for cases....I'm always on the lookout for unusual or otherwise good usable cases, but another set of eyes never hurt either!

I may have a few good unusual cases you might be interested in let me break them out from storage and let you know what I have.

[ratdude747]

Re: Dell Dimension 1100? ...or is it? The Ultimate Sleeper System

IIRC the one in your picture uses a standard uATX case layout. Maybe the front panel is proprietary but the rest will fit without a doubt.

They made them in both uATX and full ATX.

[Topcat]

Re: Dell Dimension 1100? ...or is it? The Ultimate Sleeper System

If the loader in case is the one by Daz, I think that one requires a workstation os (Windows 7) hence why it wouldn't work.

The most recent one will work on S2K12, I've used it on a few systems with it. It just wouldn't activate this particular board for some unknown reason.

[Dan81]

Re: Dell Dimension 1100? ...or is it? The Ultimate Sleeper System

Got an old pre-2000 emachines case? As in the freebie with ad-filled internet ones? That would be one hell of sleeper... if you can make it fit.

Or one of the late 90's (windows ME era) compaq presario cases... I still have the CRT and Full-ATX tower (with oddball FIC S370 Coppermine board) of that style (maybe that's a project for me? I may even have the keyboard and speakers to it somewhere???), and from a quick look, the microATX ones are quite roomy (you'd have enough clearance in the bottom; I used to have a couple). Only kicker is that the USB header is an odd pinout (run it straight and you'll possibly fry an aftermarket board, don't ask me how I know that). See picture for what I mean. At least for me they were a unique (and cool) design; Kinda like the first generation iMacs and iBooks, only not made by apple.

IIRC the one in your picture uses a standard uATX case layout. Maybe the front panel is proprietary but the rest will fit without a doubt.

I'd actually wonder if someone ever crammed a LGA775 or a AM2/AM3 system in such a case.

Alrighty, this system is back in business...bad ram removed, and now a spare board. This post from it running Win7. I tried installing S2K12 R2, but the first time the trusty loader didn't activate an OS. 3 installs, never would activate. No clue why not. Ohh well. I have a few more changes in store for this system coming in the mail.

If the loader in case is the one by Daz, I think that one requires a workstation os (Windows 7) hence why it wouldn't work.

Speaking of which, I seriously laughed at a school where ALL machines with Windows 7 are activated using KMSpico. Srsly, is a Windows 7 license THAT expensive that all PCs had to be activated using KMSpico?

[Topcat]

Re: Dell Dimension 1100? ...or is it? The Ultimate Sleeper System

Hmmm... I'll have a look at what I have. Maybe I can find you something on that front to make up for the fake server RAM hype.

I'm almost done cleaning those scrap PCs I picked up in December. Most are mATX cases from HP and Dell OEMs, but more recent ones (nice memory card readers and lots of front USB ).

No worries on the RAM....but definitely keep your eyes peeled for cases....I'm always on the lookout for unusual or otherwise good usable cases, but another set of eyes never hurt either!

[momaka]

Re: Dell Dimension 1100? ...or is it? The Ultimate Sleeper System

Sorry for the fake hype TC! Turns out those 2 GB memory sticks are actually regular desktop affair, but just dodgy. When I tested them at the time, I couldn't get any to work on several of my motherboards, so I Googled their chips and that led to some Amazon store identifying them (incorrectly) as ECC/Reg. I assumed that info was correct until I tested another of those sticks in a Dell Dimension E520 last week, and the machine actually booted fine and showed me the memory wasn't ECC/REG. After numerous more attempts, I got the other sticks to work too on that PC.

So looks like I just have some dodgy DDR2 RAM on hand. .... or perhaps they just need 1.9V instead of 1.8??? Either way, I am surprised, as they are Nanya brand, and Nanya is a fairly big OEM (not as big as Hynix, Samsung, and Micron, but still up there).

I'll have anotehr one of these some day when I find another mATX case that can hold this weird mTAX board....

Hmmm... I'll have a look at what I have. Maybe I can find you something on that front to make up for the fake server RAM hype.

I'm almost done cleaning those scrap PCs I picked up in December. Most are mATX cases from HP and Dell OEMs, but more recent ones (nice memory card readers and lots of front USB ).