Recreating my First PC - Compaq Presario 4834 

Correction - the original 16mb stick of RAM was in fact SDRAM, not EDO as I said in the video, no idea where I got the idea that it was EDO from!

Building your childhood computer is nice enough, but having the entire disk image from your old hard drive makes this a literal time machine. That's incredibly fortunate! It would be amazing to have the same experience you're getting to have here! Congrats on that rare opportunity!

Those power supplies are completely proprietary. I remember when I was doing PC repair back in the day and we had to replace those from time to time, but the only place you'd get them was from Compaq and they were not cheap IIRC. So find a second one that works and keep it as a spare. Nice build, and that's a pretty decent machine for the time.

It's wonderful that you managed to find the vast majority of the parts after so many years! So much fun looking back over the weird and wonderful files and things you made on computers back as as kid. I managed to keep my first PC, still have it lying around, only got a Voodoo 1, K6 and 48MB RAM though. You were owning it for a bedroom PC back then, haha!

I totally get nostalgia-based rose-colored glasses for first PCs. I just finished getting all the parts I need to piece together a Tandy 3100 Model 10, not my first PC, but the first one I bought with my own hard-earned cash. I doubt many people would share my enthusiasm or see anything special in this machine, but it's still special to me. But this Compaq, man... that case, man. I don't see the appeal! :)

I thoroughly enjoyed this. Man I wished I hadn't traded my old hard drives away or lost all my data at one point in my life. My first machine was a Pentium 90 DEC. Thanks for sharing your trip down memory lane.

This really brings back some memories. I built my first computer in that era when I was leaving home for university. I thought the Pentium II slot CPU was the coolest thing. I also remember being very excited to have to install an Ethernet card in my computer since my university had just wired up the dormitories with wired high speed internet the summer before I went. I've always brought some components from that first computer into any new computers I've built over the years until the very last one I built a few years ago. There wasn't anything left that I could still plug into the newest system. Great video.

While the ISA slot was fairly outdated by that point, it was still the best slot for internal dial up modems. ISA modems where hardware based modems and didn't require the heavy system resource load, especially the cpu that WinModems (or SoftModems) did. The overwhelming majority of PCI slot internal modems where Win Modems that could really bog down older systems like that while in use, plus they only worked with Windows. People in the know back then used ISA internal modems or external ones because of the performance hit of Win/Soft modems. The only real advantage to the PCI Win/Soft modem was lower cost due to fewer chips on the board and Plug and Play installation. But if you valued performance you went ISA or external.

Love those kind of videos, i remember those grey compaq's as yesterday. Very cool that you really looked out all that years to find one. I never had one but i saw them throwed away a lot in the early 2000 because the computers improved very fast in the late 90's.

You're lucky to have such a "recent" first PC. To rebuild mine, I would have to start my collection of vacuum tubes now, and I'm not sure if my home circuit breakers can handle the load after it's built.

man, i love these videos! they're almost a little bit like LGR but they're way more thorough and there's less of an emphasis on performance. keep it up, man!

A slotted CPU isn't somthing i've really seen before, so I figured you were holding a novelty sized prop of one until you explained it :D Great vid!

I tried to re-buy my "First' 286 computer, as well, or at least a similar model, when I saw it on eBay. Especially since it had a VGA card (which would be snazzy for a 286). Turned out it was some sort of industrial Pentium upgrade board designed for the old Baby AT form factor with a full-sized keyboard connector and everything. From what I could find it goes for at least 4 times what I paid for the system itself so I couldn't be too upset about it.

Encarta! Zip drives! I forgot these things even existed! This is so cool!

I thought it was awesome you used to design OS UIs. I did the same thing, only mostly on a TI 89 calculator. I borrowed one from school and the very next day my math teacher came by to see what I was doing with it and I already had a clone of the Windows UI programmed into it. He was dumbfounded. I'm glad you were able to piece together your first computer. Mine was custom built and the parts are even rarer than this, so I don't think I'll ever get to relive that.

47:45 Coincidentally, my childhood PC (itself a custom built PC) also had a HP printer, but it was a much older model that interfaced with the parallel port, I think it was a Deskjet -475C- 540, but I can't remember, then my dad later bought a "BAFO" conversion cable to convert from the Centronics port directly to USB, for use with my sister's NEC Versa E400 that she would have later bought some time in 2002. Also, I won't be surprised if your printer was what I searched earlier for and found to be a Deskjet 3645, which is what I believe my sister bought to bring into the college dorm room with her same NEC laptop, while we had a big Lexmark thing at home at around the same time, that I don't feel like trying to find the model number of. 50:51 I'm very sure those icons, and the "tada!" shutdown sound, were a result of upgrading from Windows 95. 53:35 As far as I know, the themes included with Windows 98 were actually a carry-over from Windows 95 Plus, hence why the themes didn't include title bar gradients, and didn't skin the Documents icon.

Nice vid and tutorial. Now a video showing about upgrading as much as possible that pc with newer hardware. Don't forget to install chipset drivers, i didnt pay attention if it is intel or sis or via. Don't forget to enable DMA for HDD and cd burner. 40 wire flat cables will do fine, they will cope with ultra dma 2. ultra dma 4/5/6 came after and needs 80 wire flat cable.

I do enjoy watching these kind of videos, my first computer was an Apple IIGS, I got it as a Christmas gift in 1987....(it was for the whole family, but I really wanted it)

Oh my! I am listening to you and that is exactly how I was attached to my computer and most probable got me into IT world too. I wanted to revive my Compaq Presario 5443 too. I have all the parts, monitor and speakers and mouse included, except the keyboard but I got the same, except EU layout. The HDD is dead, seems like the whole machine suffered from water. I tried to do an image out of it and unfortunately, I could not. However, I have a NTI Backup! image but seems like the CDs are so old that may be damaged. :/ Also, I cannot install that image in another machine, it just does not work. I recovered the computer this January 2022, after ~ 15 years.

I just had to watch this video as soon as I saw the thumbnail. I had a Presario 4824 back in the day, with the 233MHz P2. My machine came with the Rage 3D chip and a couple of games designed to show it off: an "ATI Enhanced" Formula 1 racing game and Cyber Troopers Virtual On. In 2002, I upgraded the memory to 128MB and installed WinXP, which ran poorly on that machine. That's what finally prompted me to make the absolutely massive jump to an Athlon XP 2200+ with a mind boggling 512MB of RAM. I don't have the Athlon XP anymore, but still have the Compaq stuffed away in a closet. It was slow and overpriced, but I loved it!

I noticed “101 CD” in the start menu. I believe that came with a book called 101 things to do with your computer. I have strong memories playing this on my Dad’s Advent Windows XP laptop when I was younger. Thanks for this

And "Oh hot damn"! You have the SAME LCD I have lol! That is priceless! I use it as my tech monitor since it has built in speakers but my right speaker is fuzzy and dying. Linux loves this LCD for some reason where as alot of my newer monitors are not detected right.

8:30 I had the Voodoo 3 2000... I loved that card so much. Going from software rendering to 3dfx was like night and day. My friends were all envious of my computer at the time.

Yeah, my 2012 HP/Compaq workstation has idential screws. They are easy if you do have a torx driver on hand definitely

I had a Compaq Presarion 4840. Great computer for the time. Loved the start up cd that came with it. John Delancy from Star Trek introduced it in his inimitable style.

Snap with the circuit board theme on W98! Brings back many memories - mine was a Packard Bell at the same time!

Wow... I *still* have my Compaq 4814, the exact same machine you used for your retro-build. Purchased in 1997(?) I used the hell out of the thing. Maxed out the memory, eventually installed Win 98 and an Ethernet card. Obviously it reached a point where it couldn't keep up; became virtually useless. It's been in storage for roughly 18 years, but I'm confident it would still boot up. Watching your video makes me want to have a go at it. I even have the red "restore" disc. It had a functional answering machine system + fax. It came loaded with (AOL of course) and a trippy pre-VR social environment "The Palace"(?) that *attempted to allow users to interact with each other in virtual, online realms, via personal, 3-D avatars. The unique hardware feature I *loved* about that machine was the RCA jacks that allowed me to connect my old VHS video camera straight in and capture video clips and still-frames. The built in Zip-Disc drive was pretty cool to at the time. (Was the only drive that broke/failed). Thanks for the fun, inspiring video!

This makes me want to rebuild my Pentium 100 MHz PC. I will need a second AT case though, since the one the Pentium used to be in now houses a Pentium III 866. But it'll be a fun project. :)

i had a similar model compaq at one time for a short time back in my early tinkering days around 2005ish, but it didnt have the A/V inputs. I loved the inside my computer theme.and i still have the wallpaper in my wallpaper slideshow on my current pc

That's a pretty good design in terms of ease of access to the expansion slots despite being proprietary.

Too bad that my old hard drive got corrupted long ago. Nice to see that you were able to recreate piece of your history!

my first PC was also a compaq presario but mine was a Presario SR2020NX i think, it had some sort of AMD athlon. We still have the PC and it still gets used with windows XP

1:03:11 - Oh gods, the nostalgia, I remember buying loads of cheap PC games back in the day with that weird "Sold Out" branding, that seemed more interested in telling you about the publisher than the actual product.

never seen a PCI riser like that.. such a strange internal setup. Ohhhh the 90's

Cameron - that sticker on the CD-RW looks familiar - from Silicon Group in Dalry, Edinburgh by any chance? I think the Compaq motherboard is in the LPX format, as it retains the AT style connectors and features a riser. The later PII/PIII boards were NLX.

any plans for upgrades? larger and faster hard drive, or two, more ram, more cards (SCSI and USB?) etc?

Those mp3s bring back a lot of memories.

oh my i had 2 x Voodoo 3 - 8MB last year on PCI - the ones I had .. had fans and were longer and had pass though connectors i had a box full of all sorts of graphics cards they were in there

Is there no power button on this model? It looked it it magically came on after you put in the floppy.

Thank you for your effort here.

Looks like its got the same chassis as a Compaq Presario 4712. I modded my parents one 4 years ago and still use it (Just upgraded internals in december). Had to do a lot of chopping and drilling to get things to work. It'll pop up on google images when you type compaq presario 4712.

23:23 -- I love the little helicopter on the motherboard just above the S3 chip

This is great! I should do this with my IBM Aptiva E240. I still have the original mainboard and case.

This was a really good video, congrats, i loved it. To my favourite videos.

Zip drives are mode 0 drives. You won't be able to use 52x speeds with one in line with the CDRW since the IDE bus runs at the lowest speed of all devices on the cable.

I still have my second PC, a Compaq 466 Deskpro. It has a 486DX2 processor running at 82mhz, 72mb RAM, 4mb video card, Ethernet card (currently connected to my local network), and a phone modern. I upgraded from Win 3.1 to Win 95b in '97. On New Year's Eve '99/2000, my daughter and I stayed up to see if the computer would crash at Midnight. Except for a few programs reporting really old dates, it ran fine. In '02, I upgraded the OS to Win98se. That's the OS it still uses now. Being on my intranet, it has access to my media, and works great as a movie machine, which are viewed on a 15 inch LCD monitor. When visitors realize that the movie is being played smoothly on a 24 year old computer, almost all of them say "That can't be right". They obviously forget what the computers were able to do in the mid' 90s. It's also good for my old DOS games. My first computer was a Tandy 4k Color Computer in the early '80s, and that thing was little more than a novelty. I'm actually glad that it's gone. It was a time consuming hell to use.

Also have you thought about trying to install Windows XP on that hardware? I know you wanted to restore it to how you had it when you were around 11, but I'm just curious to know if a P2/266 MHz with 64 MB RAM can run Windows XP or higher.

Great video, as always! I'm doing very similar project myself (also rebuilding computer from my youth, Celeron 366 machine in a rare generic case), and I'm currently looking for the internal IDE ZIP drive, exactly like the one you have. Are you willing to sell it?

How old are you? I bought a P2 300 in 1998 but I’m 52.

Awesome video! If you can get the analog capture device there working please do update us. Try capturing some old console footage (NES/SNES/PS1 etc.). I really wanna get an old Apple PowerMac 8000 (namely a PowerMac 8500 or higher) series machine that had the analog video in and out capture card in it, since it was a "pro" machine for its time. Thanks for sharing!

i had one of these and loved the multimedia buttons on top

Good times. At around 7m50s I think you mention you have something setup to watch for the graphics card, what tool was that? At first I thought it was something special, rewind I heard eBay, rewind a second time and I'm not sure..

Those old Compaq's were full of character.

Philscomputerlab :D Nice video brings me memories of my first computer that had windows 95 then windows 98 SE. It was a Mitac machine. Musicmatch Jukebox lol

Wow, brings back some memories! What's the power draw like?

Hey I have a spare 4824 with a good door and shields IDK if youd like it, I have a 4770, 2 4824s (your models physical twin) 4880, 4850, 4660 and 4508. I have the smoked shielding

Trip down memory lane! Did you find your old pr0n stash??

where you get Windows 98 boot disk? please give me a link to download

WinZip.. you monster!

Very interesting video! I had a Compaq Deskpro Pentium III

Although it wasn't my first PC, the first machine that I actually built for myself had a Quantum Bigfoot in it - 1.2Gb I think it was. Along with a Pentium 120 overclocked to 133Mhz. I ran NT 4.0 Workstation on it which had a lot of the same desktopy things on it as Windows 98 so quite a nostaglic video for me! I'm sure I remember having that audio software on a machine at some point, but don't think it was Compaq branded. I see it was in a folder called Voyetra or something like that - that name seems to ring a bell so wonder if I had it on a PC from another OEM. Ah those were the days, installing crap from ISP discs on the front of computer magazines :) But AOL??

Great video and great choice of screwdriver! Wera

there were black versions of those compaq computers like the Presario 4840 and Presario 4860

Yup had one also. That damn mpeg 2 card was built in and I got mine working . the chip mfg was cirrus logic vmc 22 win xp drivers. Classic hardware decoder chip

Uuuhg. What monster designed those USB ports to accept connections rotated 180 degrees from each other? It isn't hard enough to get it right the first time? Did they really have to make it even harder?!

What if I told you, its much easier to work on these kind of machines if you hang the front over the edge of the desk, or put a phone book under the case? ;) (My friend used to have a Compaq with a similar shape, and when I worked on it for him it was much easier to do it that way)

Congratulations from another Scottish Compaq user

I am trying to find this tower now. I had one when I was a kid and it was thrown out years ago

had a what I believe was a 4716 or /64 as young. Presarios were cool back then lol. Oh. And first ;)

I'm ecstatic to find that I was not the only one who made an OS in PowerPoint.

The expandability of that board is really bad, but then it was a mid 90s prebuilt which was the style at the time, Oh right Riser board. Also I am sure the PCI voodoo only maxed out at 2000 and 3000 was AGP only but could be wrong. The RAM is indeed SD and not EDO.

I remember having one of these Compaq computers back in 2000 but I had a Pentium 3 and it had 98 I could only fit one game on it and a handful of songs I use to play age of empires 2 so much but I finally took the computer apart salvaged the drive and stuck it in a slightly new PC that had windows xp put on it and went from there until that system died I didn't own another computer until 2010 when I was given a new laptop after high school after about 2 years I bought a desktop PC when windows 7 was still the rage and you could still get vista at the store. The PC I bought off the shelf I had replaced the Athlon 2 with an Athlon x4 and 8gigs of Ram with a msi 750ti graphics card. That poor PC case had to be modified just to fit the GPU and was open air for about 3 year before I built a brand new system on a FX 8350. Sold my 8350 system a year later and now I'm on Ryzen after having a first gen i7 CPU for a awhile overclocked to game paired up with at the time 4gig version rx480 which I still have and have running along side my rx580.

Most likely the reason it was installing drivers is due to the fact their were several different Intel chipsets available for the Pentium 2 processor and you ended up with a slightly different one. 98 seems to have handled it pretty gracefully. :)

love the dvd ide optical drive

the multimedia software would be awesome to have on a old win98 pc or VM

should have installed an ssd just to see if it made any difference

Thats crazy that you were able to keep the hard drive around for so long. but ugh.... only filling 1 RAM slot doesnt cut it even for nostalgia

howcome a board from 1997 has a agp slot? dont think that existed allready.

4:39 Oh, it's the original drive? Hopefully it still has all your data on it. 5:10 Theoretically, by then, your parents would've still had all the original Compaq software discs, so I predict the original factory software would still be present on the drive. 5:14 YES! 5:20 Had you considered creating a Clonezilla image of the drive? 5:47 YES!!! You did! 9:29 I'd like to imagine the original Compaq CRT for that system bundle would have been one of those ones with the speakers mounted to the sides like ears. 15:38 You actually managed to switch the PSU to 220 V despite the smaller than normal hole?!? Also, I'm sure you set that fan to its highest speed, and hopefully, you kept that original front cover. 46:01 So that explains why it didn't have a Compaq branded Windows startup splash screen! 47:24 "MUTE OFF 🔊"

Ur voice is calming :) thanks for no backround music

Is there a duct assembly that connects the fan to the CPU module this will have to be obtained or 3D printed otherwise the CPU module will over heat, an ATI AIO RADEON Wonder card would have been better and you could also watch TV on your computer, lose the dial up not needed now and replace it with a Network card, That machine is like the DELL DIMENSION 3000.

How come they don't have cartridge-based CPU's anymore?

Pentium 3 600mhz with Windows SE; would be cool with Voodoo 2-5. Not sure about Voodoo 6 though.

I have an immaculate keyboard exactly like that if you're interested. No sun staining at all.

I would personally fit a cpu fan to the cpu heatsink. It will get very toasty otherwise.

But can it run minesweeper though?

Very interesting video, it's a pity I could only understand half of it. For non native English speakers like me, it would be easier if you spoke a little bit more slowly and trying to vocalize a bit more. Anyway, great video.

I can never get those audio video ports to work ether

What folder are the KaZaA and LimeWire clients in?? #memories

You should have blasted it with compressed air to clean out the PSU and the case, it still has the vintage dust inside! Try installing windows Vista :)

"Hold a chicken in the air / stick a deck chair up your nose..."

Good fun - now put Little Big Adventure 2 on the machine. It's a fun game. Maybe you've tried it before.

39:42 i have the same exact fan right now on my pc as exhaust and it is actually a good fan lol

Very good pc from the 90s, only the os is not orginal because windows 98 not exists jet in 1997.

That looks like standard AT with a softpower added on to me.

I would like to do this with the Micron computer My parents had around Y2K

Sure that looks like an old Silicon Group part sticker on your CD Burner.

Who remembers trying to download huge games with get right....twin DUN dual Hayes modems at 56k. With ecc off.. PPP multi link sequential prodigy dialer....at night I had very good speeds. 2 fat ass hayys boxes on top of m PC....full length

Wanted to see that xx powerpoint...looks like something naughty.

omg that music playlist XD