Ace Mc Crank, Rebel Assault II, true, the CD-ROM install. I'm still able to run on 14th gen RTX 4080 now, just did the Snow speeder mission, AT-AT, the robe ! It needs the CD-Rom on ATA, and it runs fine as it is as in 1995 !
AWW HECK YES! PIZZA BOX PACKARD BELLS! System 2 - Sticky dust like that could have been someone smoking in proximity to it. How little there is would make me think it wasn't the owner, and it was only subjected to it a few times. I've also seen Packard Bell optical drives do exactly what you described... we called them "possessed". System 3 - The reason for the label over the PCI slot is because of that break out board. It would conflict with any card in the slot. Actually, the label was Packard Bell being a little forward thinking and masking the slot off so that end users were less likely to throw a fit because they couldn't fit a card there.
Looks like Mike turned into the retro computer King Pin. Your videos are so easy to watch. When I first found your channel I binged watched everything in a couple days. Great content!
I miss this design! My dad had the Platinum I with Windows 95 and a 1.2 GB hard drive. I miss it because his modem would connect at 28k with Prodigy Internet. It would dial through the computer speakers on the monitor because the sound card and the modem were on the same card. Watching this video makes me want to find another one of these machines. I remember going to Cartoon Network and watching videos because the computer had the full 1 MB of video memory.
Knights and Merchants was really fun. It has a complex economy where you had to manage aspects like blacksmiths and bakers and ensure that you have your supply and demand balanced
The Platinum 2240 is my Workhorse for Low Level formatting and Formatting of Drives , I got into Packard Bells via Billy Core in the mid 2000's and Now have about 16 Machines , Extra OEM Cards and Operating Systems and even a Nice MS Bob environment that I Like . These Computers become easy to Maintain after getting a Lot of Original Systems . These are Now becoming Highly Valued in the Vintage Computer Collectors Circles in the United States Midwest Markets . Just Love collecting These , Liked and Shared , Thank You :) QC
My brother has special needs and I had to set him up a whole Windows 3.1 in Dosbox with just Living Books on it, because he wanted to play them. This middle PC bringing back some memories.
This was the first computer that I played Descent and connected to the internet with. I used to love how it would dial through the speakers when connecting.
I remember selling that Currys in the UK when I was a 'Saturday Lad' helping out the sales staff! Those PCs were the first ones I saw with the new USB connection that had just started to come out! USB ports started appearing before USB products arrived on the shelf as if it was the other way around there would be USB scanners/printers etc. with no ports to connect to on computers.
I remember Elf Bowling! My first PC was a Packard Bell purchased from Best Buy in 1993. I upgraded a few years later to a model very similar (if not the very model) to the desktop in the video. Bought at, of all places, Montgomery Ward. Everyplace sold PCs in the 90s…
Congrats'....Still fine with my own FIRST self build from Sep '97. But only a K6 200MHz. 3.2GB Quantum Fireball and 32MB EDO RAM(Was BLOODY $£€ around then = 32MB)
50:25 The Cyrix Instead motto was a thing, actually! Do an image search and you will find badges with it, and a boxed CPU upgrade for 386 systems that has it printed on the package.
Newer versions Windows 9x will display that too in the system properties. AMD was "AuthenticAMD" and Intel was "GenuineIntel". Older Windows versions will just think it's a 486
I've never actually touched a Packard Bell system! I remember Kid Pix Studios on our primary school computers & I do recall playing that Elf Bowling game many years back! The PSU's work decent but all the CD drives needed some love! I always like when you directly check the deadness of the CR2032s.
"Just me and my mom" unlocked a core memory. We had the CD-ROM of "Just Grandma and Me" on my primary school's 386 in the library select kids got to play on (though I remember some serious Lord of the Flies dynamics for some reason). I remember it being a caddy drive because one of the teachers removed the CD from the caddy and shoved it into the drive. Got to see the inside of a computer for the first time. I would've been 6 I think, 1993.
The Multimedia Desktop seems to be overclocked somehow. I saw a Pentium 100 built in, and it posts with 120Mhz. Also on the Heatsink there is written 120Mhz.... decent 20% OC from factory? hehehe. Anyways, nice video again! Cheers!
The DB15 port for Ethernet will require an AUI transceiver. It's a bit awkward to have a little box hanging off the back but you can usually get them with a few different media options like twisted pair, coax or even fibre.
Omg I remember these systems. I used to play elf bowl among other Christmas games at the time. There was a Santa Sleigh puzzle game I played too. I remember seeing a lot of Packard Bell systems in the community center on 8th and Snyder. So nice to see the older systems brings back many memories of the time. Your videos of vintage systems bring back so many memories of the time. I remember working on a Packard Bell system when I worked with an Autistic child who would only learn letters and numbers if I connected then with red cars. I can’t for the life of me remember how I found that program but the teacher was happy I did. Thank you for the weekly trip down memory lane. Also I enjoy watching you tear into all the vintage systems every week. Thank you! I love this channel!!
Man you’re lucky, ive been hunting for one of those packard bell towers for some time now, i grew up with one and have been searching recently for one to restore
Those Packard Bell towers are the more normal ones. They also made some that didn't have the mainboard flat in the bottom. It was on the side like a normal tower, but they used a short bus riser with the expansion slots facing the bottom of the case so the cards plugged in upside down. There are reasons they got called "Packaged Hell" or "Puckered Smell". I was amazed at how they could be so low cost with all the custom engineered, proprietary parts.
That Desktop you have there reminds me of my old PB Desktop Except mine was only a 4x CD Rom and came by detault with a Pentium 75 and Win 3.11 But in the end we upgraded it to a P100 and upgraded to 24MB Ram. I miss her, My second ever desktop computer I had after a Tandy 1000SX
I had a Cyrix MII - similar if not the same model as that last computer - in one of my builds. Speedsys did the exact same thing to me when I tried to run it on that machine. Worked fine with everything else I did with it though! I swapped in a K6-2 and tried speed-sys with that and it worked fine. Weird...
The second computer I ever had was a Packard Bell tower like these. I actually still have it sitting in my garage now! I kept hoping a copy of Packard Bell Navigator would show up on one of these machines; it was one of the worst ideas, but I loved it as a kid.
42:56 - I'd recommend CRC Lectra Clean. It cuts through petrified thermal paste like a hot knife through butter. It even removes that horrible pink/yellow stuff that they used on Athlon/Durons in the early 2000s. Just be ABSOLUTELY SURE to keep it away from any case plastics or LCD monitors. It will instantly etch those and permanently discolor them. It's fine for the plastic parts on motherboards though.
We had one of those 2240's. Was the floor model at a retail chain, so we got it nearly half off msrp. Was surprised to see USB also, as many of the other models did not have any USB at all.
Man...I remember these. They were so cursed. I could swear there was one they built out of SPITE, not computer parts. Cyrix CPU, S3 on-board video, reveal audio-modem card...it's like they chose the worst possible parts they could.
I was given my in-laws' old PB desktop when they got divorced 15+ years ago. It was a 100MHz Pentium but I maxed out the system RAM, VRAM, and swapped in a 200 MHz Pentium Overdrive, back when such things were still readily available on eBay. It was my Linux-based home lab/NAS back before they were buzzwords. It's stored out in the garage now, but it should still run with just a hard drive and a new CMOS battery.
Wow, not just one but *THREE* Packard Bell computers that still work! That's like finding a Jaguar that doesn't leak oil. At a multimedia software company I worked at, when we got our first Beta copy of MSWindows 95, we installed it on our PB. That machine never worked right ever again, even after doing a reload of the OS from the factory restore CD (yes, manufacturers used to provide you with actual reinstall media).
Those tall towers were the case we had for our computer in the 90s. I've still been on the lookout for one, but only half-heartedly because they are so goofy haha.
I have never had a lite-on cd drive break on me, and i still have some direct drive DVD/rw as spares. I'm not suprised that last drive worked perfectly except for the belt.
Hey, I remember Elf Bowling! We had fun with that one twentysomething years ago. Found out later it was an early spyware trojan. My first computer was a Packard-Bell, a 486 SX-25. Yep, 25 whopping megahertz and no math co-processor. 🙂
So in my experience, that "skuzz" that was on the motherboard could most likely be basic cleaning spray that got sucked into the system while it was on. I cant tell you how many times I would see janitors back in the day just spray desks and the computers with aerosol solvent cleaner.
The first Wintel machine we had was a Packard Bell running at 75mhz... which was then overclocked to 100mhz, upgraded the Video RAM, swapped the soundcard/modem combo card for an SB16, and a USRobotics mode. The modem/soundcard was terrible in DOS... could never get both working. I eventually upgraded it enough to build my first custom PC, and never got a pre-built until that was the only way to get a 3080!
WoW :D we had the same Seagate Medalist and a 120MHz P1 in our first family PC. btw awesome recording of the HDD sound :) [straight out of my childhood]
Your taking me back man. I had a Packard hell, running win 3.11 waiting for the amazing win 95 release. I think i was 14 and it was 1994. My dad then got me a sears display unit. A packard hell with a 266mhz cpu, and an internal 2400 baud dialup modem. Within a year i had an external 14,400 dialup modem. The world was full of BBS (bulletin boards) i could dial into and download games/apps / pics that a teenage boy really wanted. It used to take 6-8 minutes to see 1 picture. Want a song? Let it run for a good hour to download that 1 track. Movie CLIPs took overnight. There were dozens of internet providers offering free service. Aol was giving away free hours and with an addon app aohell i could take over aol chat rooms, reset accounts for free hours and more Thay first 50mhz computer started my love of computers and programing Thanks for the great videos
Speaking of unlocking new tricks, I had good results reviving cd belts with a dab of "belt conditioner". It is a pretty cheap automotive product that seems to revive the belt's traction prowess. Keep on the great work!
I had a PackardBell 486DX2-66, and there was nothing it couldn't do. It's weird to see computers from that era not able to run anything because I swore it was basically SkyNet during it's time.
Your channel is awesome 👌. Every time I watch, I just think back to my first ever PC. It was a dx2/66, 8 Meg of ram, 147meg hdd, scsi single speed cd rom and some kind of cirrus logic gpu. I used to play doom and mech warrior 2 a lot 😄😄. Came with Windows 3.1, but I killed it when I tried to put win 95 on it 😄
It has been a while since I had one of these! One of the first videos on my channel 11 years ago now was about a Legend 1540 Supreme, which had that same "motherboard at the bottom" case.
The date code for Packard Bell computers is in a very weird format: MMYDD. That's the 2-digit month, the last digit of the year, and the 2-digit day; it's the 5-digit number that comes after "Srv Cd." So your Platinum 2240 was built on January 2, 1997; your Multimedia C115A was built on January 8, 1997; and your Synera was built on... an unknown date, because it's missing the date code entirely (I'm pretty sure that particular Synera was a built-to-order/BTO machine).
HeadsetGuy 20084 mine says, 2000 models, Pentium 4 HT Love the Packhard Bell, very happy it's a great restored model now on Windows 10 Great Pentium machines, able to run 3 Slot GTX 1070 card !
Greetings from Scotland. Another brilliant video Mike! I absolutely love your content! Especially enjoyed the strip down and repair of the final machine with the Cyrix processor - I always find weird Packard Bell's like this intriguing! Looking at both the UKT Support page and The Retro Web, that final machine uses Packard Bell's PB810 motherboard which I believe was amongst their last LPX style boards - they were already using ATX boards (both socket 7 and Slot 1) in various other machines that used their newer 'Milano' type case by the time this machine would have launched (approx mid 98). I suspect that last machine was very much a "how can we make a cheap budget PC with items from our old part's bin" special. That motherboard can only support a 66MHz FSB with a multiplier of 3, therefore 200MHz max. That will be the reason for using the Cyrix MII-266 which of course only runs at 200MHz (but 'claims' the performance of a 266MHz) - basically a very cheap way to squeeze extra life out of an old Socket 7 board. As for the 'reserved' PCI expansion slot, I suspect the reason for that is because the motherboard has integrated sound, but has to use that break out unit for the audio ports i.e. you always need to ensure you leave a space on the back for that break out unit. There are a couple of these machines on ebay, and I've noticed that the audio port breakout unit was in the middle slot which would align with that reserved expansion slot. As for one of the USB ports being deliberately hidden, that it just plain weird!
Never had A Packard Bell. looks to be very well built. I`m told the were good as long as you didn`t try to change the original configuration . Thanks for the Video
Since the first two machines appear to have original HDs, you can try running Packard Bell System Credentials to pull the manufacture date and original system configuration. The data is actually stored on a secret part of the HD, so it should survive a reformat. The covered USB port maybe due to controller bugs. The PIIX3 south bridge used with the 430VX chipset had a few errata where the USB 1.0 controllers were either non functional or partially functional.
Agree Packard Bell PCs are surprisingly good quality. I have one that I bought dead on EBay. Seller thought it was toast. All it needed was a new CMOS battery and it fired into life!
In laptop service i saw that they using Turpentine for cleaning Thermalpaste form CPU. Im using it as well ever since and it works better then any thing else i tried so far.
Our first family PC looked exactly like your 2nd Multimedia system, but it was branded as an “Executive” that was more geared towards office use. My dad “acquired” it from work on the proviso that we weren’t allowed to game on it and only use it for study. Luckily the spec was so low that gaming wasn’t an option. We bought a later model tower in the late 90’s that I remember carrying back home on the bus and had to stop for breaks carrying it back. Those 90’s PC’s were so heavy and over engineered with unnecessary plastic trim and steel.
I did build a Pentium 75 system in 1995, needing 16 ddr ram, after that AMD was faster, never left the 775 socket till i7 now ! MACH 64 i kept too, That Pentium 75 was just to fancy to build et home, only games for 386, able to keep for ages.
Hi Mike. I enjoy your videos, and wait in anticipation for your next installment. Your knowledge is impressive. I to am a Linux, and AMD, fan. Thank you.
I think that stuff in the 2nd system was nicotine staining, seen that before, weird it's so isolated, normally if they've got that, the computers are yellowed inside and out. That SeaGate HDD is bringing back memories of playing Roller Coaster Tycoon 1 & 2 on a Packard Bell like this!
The cyrix CPU is reason for the fan on the VRM. If I remember correctly it was a factory installed fix. I had the displeasure of working on a number of the back in day. The cyrix PB soured me on both cyrix and PB.
Our first Windows computer at home was one of these Packard Bell towers. The hard drive eventually got a lot of bad sectors and plenty of Windows 95 crashes. The monitor eventually developed an unstable picture. I'm surprised he managed to fine two of them.
Those Pentium era Packard Bell machines seem to be better than the earlier 286/386 era ones. I think Bull Group owned them by then along with what was left of Heath/Zenith Data systems as well.
Packard Bell was our first computer! Ours had zip drive if I'm not misremembering. I remember it had some proprietary GUI "operating system" I think? It was rather clunky.
