OEM Computer Trash?? ... or Treasure!! 

No way!!! That's funny. I'll have to see if it does that, thanks!

If different models use the same motherboard, it might be easier to build one BIOS image with check for RAM and CPU configuration and change model string, than build different BIOS images for every model they had.

Agreed.

I agree... It's a pretty great system and all for $20!

Hahah yes!

Now this is the in depth explanation I needed, many thanks!!!

Agreed and thank you!!

Yes, that's happening more and more unfortunately. Probably because they would sell quicker than in a good will.

That's awesome, glad to have you along for the ride!!

Agreed, the Core2 seems to be quite the cpu all the way to running Windows 10 without an issue.

The Quads were excellent CPUs for their time and still run good to this day. They can play most games up to 2015 well enough. I have a Windows 7 system with a Q9650.

@nonstopmaximum2141 for sure! I have a q9650 with a 9800 gtx+ in it. Originally had it in my Dell xps 630i but realized Dell basterized their 650i sli mobo, and hardwired both slots to 8x pcie 1.1

@@OfficialiGamer I have mine in a Dell Optiplex 780 desktop that was thrown out on the curb. I upgraded the CPU from a E8400 Duo to the Quad and threw a GTX 750 Ti in it. It doesn't look very appealing but it makes a good budget gaming PC for older games.

@@nonstopmaximum2141 nice! I have a Red Dell XPS 630i that originally had a e8400 in it and upgraded it to the 9650. Unfortunately I realized that Dell had crippled the PCIe slot and hardwired it to PCIe 1.1 x8, so put it in a MSI G41 Mobo I had (630i now has matching black and Red MSI board with a 4790k in it I've owned since new)

Haha, Its fun to hear how much ME and Vista were 'not loved' and given the bad outlook due to many other factors than the OS itself being bad. IE: Marking, incorrect hardware, manufacturers not keeping drivers updated, end user methods of upgrading from one OS to another, etc. I personally never had an issue with ME or VISTA, now Windows 8 - that's a whole other discussion! LOL!

Ok, thanks for the clarity. I imagine the Live! had to do with a feature of the CPU?

@@TheRetroRecall It was part of a marketing initiative for Multimedia systems. Trying to appeal to Content creators like musicians. There was a software component too.

Ahhhhhhh ok thanks!

Awesome!

Nice!

They are going to be fun projects!

You're welcome!!

Welcome aboard, thanks for joining and I'm glad that you are enjoying! Agreed - always a new adventure learning something even after all of these years!

Thanks for subbing, it's great having you along! Agreed - it will be fun to explore them and restore them :)

Agreed. Pretty neat and it being a Core2 Duo helps!

100%. That's awesome. I usually keep my open for these cases for that exact reason.

Thank you and I'm glad that you are enjoying!!

Agreed and thank you, glad you enjoyed!!

Thank you!

Amazing, have fun and good luck!

They would have been cool especially if they are still working today!

It did, and with the Aero features it was very cool.

Thank you for all of this!!!

No problem at all! I would look at local Facebook groups and see if any of them offer retro enthusiast support! :)

@@TheRetroRecall I can do that but I'm not sure if there are any in S. A

Nforce HP machines, EPIC, yo only needed that GeForce GTX 8800 !! grreat machine !

Yes, the Caps of that era were definitely something that ruined so many of these systems.

I usually look at them and I do test to see if there is power. However for 20.00, the parts alone help the channel even if they don't work so I usually just take the risk. That said, the systems are becoming less available.

Exactly and you are welcome as always! Glad you enjoyed :)

And I thought 2GB started to be an insufficient amount of memory when websites began to bloat and add more interactive functions that made browsers to use more and more memory.

Yes, I find even on the new systems today that for example chrome just completely sucks ram!

Thank you for this info!! It's always great to hear insight like this and learn something from it.

That's amazing!!! Good luck with it!

I'll have to check that. Also, I should call that out in future videos. Thank you!

I added a fan haha! And thank you, I'm glad that you are enjoying :)

This is definitely a best practice - great work! Also, glad you enjoyed :)

Especially with the Core2 Duo or Quad CPU's! Modern day Linux should work just fine.

Thanks for the info! Much appreciated. I don't ever remember seeing one before so it was a neat find.

For sure, it's getting more rare to find. Also, keep your eyes open on online marketplaces - they are a good source!

Agreed! Updated drivers, decent hardware and smooth sailing :)

Agreed. So many of these systems were tossed into the landfill. The first system will be fun to restore!

you didnt even need anything that special to use it - my computer at work was just fine as a low rent, web dev machine, and it was not old, but it wasnt cutting edge and it ran Vista perfectly.

If intel, the Core2 Duo or Quad with an SSD and at least 4gb of memory, it will run windows 10. Not sure if the AMD version will do that.

My experience with AMDs of the past were that they were always underpowered and cheaper then their intel counterparts. I also remember years ago on the older CPUs that AMD ran hotter. That said, we all know what happened with the P4s :)

I think it is odd for sure - to the point that I truly think it was replaced VS an HP PSU. Either way, we will be swapping it out :)

I think I have one in storage!

Compaq (now HP lol) made 1/3-height drives that fit into those bays. Mostly floppy and zip drives, but I think I saw a tape drive or two in years past.

Hahahaha yes!!!

Direct airflow, outside of the case!

Good to know, I will see what happens when I start to change the hardware config of the Acer systems.

Ok so it is for the coincell, neat! I'm glad you are enjoying :)

Hey Anthony! Love when people share these perspectives, thank you!

I agree!! Hello from Canada!

Ahhhh good point! I never thought of that!

Thank you for the added information, and yes - so true... Personally that first Acer is the one I will be restoring first - so much potential.

Thanks, I appreciate the info!

Agreed!

Awesome! Thanks for this info. It must be proprietary to this computer.

Thank you!

Keep an eye out, you never know what may pop up online!

@@TheRetroRecall Thanks for replying to me, I did find a machine similar to the first Acer in this video but it was in Germany and they wanted almost $440 + shipping and not to mention import fees and duties to add to that not happening for me. But i did find a bunch of other XP and Vista era Acer and HP desktops from $50 - 200 but no other ones like the first Acer. I would to find one just like the first one in this video and it would be a bonus to have the original install of Vista and HDD to go with it. if you didn't want to keep it i would love to buy the first one from you although it would depend on price but it looks like you'll be keeping it so no worries.

Yeah, unfortunately I'll be keeping all of these systems for the time being as they are an asset of TheRetroRecall.

Thanks so much for this comment, much appreciated! Some great insight and happy to hear that you are enjoying. Hopefully you can get to that bad cap and replace it before it causes issues.

I really appreciate this added info especially around the ram sockets!! I was thinking that. I'm just wondering if the spots for the caps are there. I'd have to look though to see if the traces are there already - maybe this board was used for other upgraded acers.

@@TheRetroRecall I guess it would make an interesting project video to see if it works. A lot of years ago i saw a video of someone soldering an AGP slot to one of those Dell Dimension boards that had the artifacts in place but no slot and the port itself was still unusable beacuse the bios was programmed to know there is no slot to begin with. Still i think this is the first video i got to see one of those Foxconn Acer boards still work. Usually the chipset would die because it would heat up to around 60C by itself and it was also poorly placed right near the CPU which also gave it some extra heat until it would eventually die so i assume this computer was not used much. Also about that HP power supply with no SATA connectors - HP used that same powersupply since Pentium 4 era up all the way till 3rd gen Intel processors in those Pavilions and they would just use Molex to SATA adapters for the hard drive and optical drives if they needed to. Whoever took the hard drive out probably took the adapter too

I have a few systems like that that have an AGP spot, however no interface. Those do require additional caps, chips etc. I am going to see if I can do the ram upgrade as a project after I tone out the traces. If everything is connected, Im going to assume it will work. Someonenalsonnotes the BIOS had the other 2 slots listed as empty - so there is hope!

That's awesome!!! I am looking forward to restoring these older systems :)

The problem was that the right hardware costed quite the bucks and it was sudden, not gradual

@@tezcanaslan2877 I know, Vista was a steep learning curve for MS and OEMs. This is why MS now has the testing phase of their OSes that OEM and end users can participate in now. It prevents the fiasco that was Vista. I just hope MS sticks to their initial plan to prevent Windows 12 from booting on system with less than the recommended memory. I am tired of OEMs selling hardware that is way below MS recommendations. I still dont kjnow why OEMs sell hardware with mechanical HDD in them.

I agree. That was definitely my experience.

I think it was a shock to the market when it came out and wouldn't run as expected due to the amount of requirements. This forced the hardware upgrades to run it properly or people simply when back to Windows XP.

@@TheRetroRecall Yup. I remember my brother and boss was basically the only two that I knew that was running Vista....and moaning...lol. I skipped Vista. I do own a copy of it though, just never used it.

Some pretty neat systems!

Nice!! Good luck with the project!

Yeah makes sense. It needs more though... More power!!! Haha.

Haha!!! Get them!! :)

Thank you!

Haha, retro is very subjective, however I am not sure if I said they were? Just calling out these older systems asking if they are Trask or not. Keep looking on online marketplaces as well.

Yes, unfortunately due to the discontinued support from Microsoft. Legacy update would likely have everything you need for the latest updates available.

Windows 10 will work if it has 4 GB memory and at least a 128 GB hard drive. Plop in an SSD if smaller hard disk.

I have an old laptop with windows 7 and use comodo antivirus free

Thanks! I have been told that it may require additional components around the slots for them to function. The BIOS already shows the 2 banks there just not populated. My assumption as is yours is that it will work if populated.

Agreed!

Thanks for the added insight, Much appreciated. I knew it wasn't going to be an easy task, but something to hone my skills a bit I think.

@@TheRetroRecall You/re going to need hot air and a LOT of skill. It's going to be especially difficult to do the slots, because they have sooo many pins, and you can't melt the plastic. Personally, I suck eggs when it comes to solder work, but if I were going to do this, I'd get special equipment -- specifically, I'd get one of those tiny 8w USB irons and a power bank to drive it because they aren't isolated... no, not the T100 or clones, the really cheap ones that have the little ball bearing you have to keep your finger on to keep it working. Since the element proper in those isn't going to be exactly particular, I'd probably just rip out the internals entirely and wire up a simple switch and LED with a pair of alligator clip leads, and run it off a 6v lantern battery. The barely-there thermal mass would help a LOT with the sockets. No two ways about it, the chip resistors and chip caps are going to be fiddly, but if you can get a set of bent-tip reverse tweezers -- you squeeze em to _open_ em -- that might help. Look at beading supply places, my mother was into that until the arthritis in her hands got too bad for it, and she gave me her toolset. One of those tweezers was in there. Someone with better skills than I have, however, would fare better with wick and what they seem to call a "hot air pencil" -- one of those temperature-controlled stations with the thing that looks a bit like a cross between a much-too-big soldering iron and a squirt gun ;3 mine's literally the cheapest one from Amazon, a "Sunsour" brand I got for $30, but it works fine and has never shot the cat. Just keep in mind with those, the temperature readout lies, and it takes longer than it claims to get to temp. For sure I'd not use lead-free solder, either. It's likely lead-free on the board, but leaded solder actually, you know, melts and sticks to things (other than the iron and itself, anyhow) which is an experience I can't say I've had with lead-free. Over very long periods of time the mixture will cause failure due to heat-cycling, as a mechanical issue -- it forms a "eutectic" solder alloy, as they call it, which is a fancy way of saying that it gets kind of ceramic-like, and over time thermal expansion and contraction will make it crack like a dish you dropped on the kitchen floor. (If you remember the nVIDIA 88xx series GPUs, and in particular the HP dv9000 laptops that had them, eutectic solder was the issue that caused that whole debacle.) That said, issues like that will take multiple _years_ to surface, at best, and I don't think that's something to be concerned about at that point, as old as these machines are already. One thing's for sure -- if you DO decide to take it on -- I want to see that in a video!

That's a great call out. I'll have to look at it again and see if there is any reference to the Nvidia graphic on the components.

Nice!! I love hearing when people save this old tech!

Nice build!

I agree - ish. Generally the issue was with the hardware support of the system and drivers. Not all upgrades allowed that transition of drivers where a clean install was fresh without any conflicts. The other challenge is that the 'ready for vista' stickers were slapped on every machine and a lot of people's systems were not able to run the features due to the resource requirements. All marketing at the time gave the OS a bad rap from the get go.

All of them can run Windows 10, I run it on 4450e 3GB DDR2 600mhz and 9200M (motherboard graphics)

Nice!

Time will tell :)

Nice! Good luck on the build, I love when people share these experiences - so thank you!

Thanks for sharing this. I find with anything Lenovo - it will immediately go to the save pile.

@@TheRetroRecall Just beware of the motherboards themselves. BTX is ok, because most OEM desktops use them. But recently, Dell (you can tell by the smell it's a Dell from hell!) started making funky shaped motherboards that don't fit into anything but their stuff. But the CPU/RAM/Drives/cards are generally salvageable.

Thanks.

I agree, as I never had an issue.

So many options! Can you come to Canada and do a couple for me haha. Soo many projects, so little time :)

@@TheRetroRecall I'll be there in an hour, hour 15 if the BC border guards want to search me :D

Hahahah

Probably the reason why I tended to always go with intel CPUs

@@TheRetroRecall Yup they were quite better than AMD at the time. They were the first dualcore on the market but not that much faster than single core CPUs. Main difference is heat generation, some of these early dualcore CPUs were quite low TDP whise. my 4450e was used in a SSF build from Acer (Aspire x3200) These wer absolutely not gaming parts, just desktop parts However these CPUs can get upgraded to something like Phenom III ! The performances on the CPU would be moderately better. But without a good GPU on the side, and by a "good GPU" I would not recommand going any further than a GGDR5 GT card. You'll get decent performances out of these machines, for old gaming PCs. 😁 Maybe that would help

Love this added insight, much appreciated!!!

Haha. Indeed.

Thanks!! I think 16gb is the max on the first Acer system. Not sure of the rest.

The C2Q won’t run Win11 24H2 :(

Yeah that was a recent release that limited it.

@@TheRetroRecall Install Windows 10 IoT Enterprise LTSC 2021 and can be safe used normally until 2032 :D

Thank you!!!

True

Thabks for the info! What does the Live! mean?

The Athlon is it's own thing. It was the phenom x3 that was supposed to be a quad core with a bad core disabled.

To be honest I have never heard of this. I'll have to look into it - love learning new stuff, thanks!

Do you think / know if it would require any additional components (caps, traces) for it to work? I see the BIOS has the two additional slots present.

@@TheRetroRecall As long as the bios recognizes the missing ram slots, it will work without any mods.

Thanks!

Thank you, what are your thoughts on system 1?

Yeah that's always been my feeling of using these CPUs even back in the day. That's the reason I stuck with intel. Today a Core2 Duo can run Win10 without an issue.

It should work, the going to www.theoldnet.com which doesn't require anything fancy to load. It's possible the browsers are too old and need an upgrade to browse. That said, I tend to just connect it to a local network, as systems this old are sure to pick up something due to lack of security updates.

Good point. Thank you! Now, I wish whatever card they had in there was still there. :)

Nice!!!!

100% agree!

That's true. Hard to believe, it feels like everyone of these OS's were just released.

Thanks! Yeah, I have a similar perspective. It's just so hard to trash, or give up on working systems, especially if they have any potential.

Thanks for this, it is great info. From what I recall, I found AMD always playing catchup to intel. Maybe that's why I always stayed with intel.

@@TheRetroRecall it was the case for as long as most remember; that intel was ahead. the gamer's choice. amd was the "value choice" for over a decade after the core 2 and then core i series. it all feels very familiar to what's going on now with intel and it 13th/14th gen high power draw/high heat woes. it's giving presc(hot)t p4 era vibes all over again. will history repeat? will intel pull another q6600 out of their pocket? will ati (amd) pull another radeon 9700 pro? will the tables be turned? once more? again?

Get the popcorn ready, it's going to be interesting to see!

I completely agree and have run into that, especially with laptops. It's frustrating.

Its specific to Intel G43 chipset with the integrated graphic.

Thanks!

Yeah I wondered that to. I guess it ties to the graphics chipset on the MB.

@@xsc1000 so any brand board with a G43 chipset will have DVI passed through the PCI express slot? That's pretty handy and a more advanced version should be used today to add extra displays without adding a whole new GPU.. like a 4x HDMI or 4x display port piped though the PCI express slot and just have a basic breakout card like the DVI card.. it could be useful for people who are using iGPUs and need the extra screens..

@@michaellegg9381 Maybe BIOS support would be needed, I think it can be find in chipset documentation.

True - that is what I used as well. That and I always made sure I had the most updated drivers.

Ahhh ok makes sense and yes, the first system was pretty good. Also, the fact you can upgrade it - makes it even better.

Haha never apologize!! Thank you for sharing, it's always fun to see what else people have and are using!!! Good luck with everything!

@@TheRetroRecall thanks man. Gonna need all the luck lol.

Patience is always a good thing to apply to these older systems :)