Old compaq machines

  • Thread starter Thread starter Julian Hales
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Julian Hales

Hello

Picked up a pile of late 90's Pro workstations, big buggers they are too.

Googling from tests at the time against other brands but these miles ahead ,
but only ones without AGP.

Anyway some have 256 and some down to 64mb, 2x4 banks, under lids shows
installation in pairs only, some say EDO, i know about simm n dimms, these
look 100% like simms. Edo = Enhanced?

I want to take one to half a meg, would normal 168's work?

Nice machines, 2 cpu's, fast wide scsi and mix of gfx cards too.

Gonna keep a couple of use for Linux, i 'may' use one for xp pro if i can
get some 600mhz proc that its seems is the max under one lid it says.

Gonna give away a couple to kids as learning machines for 5-8 year olds when
i can find some downloadable free software. chips cary from 266-333 but i
have a couple of 450's lying around.
 
Picked up a pile of late 90's Pro workstations, big buggers they are too.
Anyway some have 256 and some down to 64mb, 2x4 banks, under lids shows
installation in pairs only, some say EDO, i know about simm n dimms, these
look 100% like simms. Edo = Enhanced?
Click to expand...

Extended Data Output, and either 72pin or 168pin SIMMs.. (not the same as
168 pin SDRAM)

You will need to install them in matched pairs to work... finding 72pin RAM
should be easy enough.. not sure about 168pin..

If you could give us a model number or something, someone might be able to
give specifics about maximum ram, etc.


Regards,
Chris
 
Skeleton Man said:
Extended Data Output, and either 72pin or 168pin SIMMs.. (not the same as
168 pin SDRAM)
Click to expand...

thanks, i thought they were dimms, i must have missed 168 simms at the time

You will need to install them in matched pairs to work..
Click to expand...

yes under the cover it stated that which i knew about simms

.. finding 72pin RAM
should be easy enough.. not sure about 168pin..
Click to expand...

Got a couple of machines to strip bare.

max of 8 chips, one machine had 6, with 256, so i took out a pair of 128mb
from a diff identical machine and it seemed max was 128mb chips, so i popped
in to make 8 to give 512 but on boot up i got error conficts about memory so
i ran a full memory test which took a hour and it gave a fault on slot 7
chip, which was origonally in, so i think i pushed it too far although 512
was supposed to be the max, replaced it with a same 32mb for the one with
the fault and all was well.

If you could give us a model number or something, someone might be able to
give specifics about maximum ram, etc.
Click to expand...

pro workstation 5100's

google sort of helped and all drivers at HP, but one machine says no ide
controller when SE is installed, was ok as i installed from cd but even in
dos the error comes back. Seems someone else has this problem acc to google
but no solution given. The other 2 i have tried are ok.

I got one up and running fine, pain to set up the network card, anyway i
wanted to remove it and start a fresh driver for the nic(OB) so did that,
but on bootup it hangs as i had isntalled a firewall and the error states no
nic and i get vxd errors so doing a fresh SE install.

Some have various Matrox pci gfx cards, some GLoria things which are new to
me, not sure which are best for linux although the Matrox are 8mb. Going
dual 450 proc for that

Found some kiddie edu games so a couple are being given away for that

thanks
 
Julian Hales said:
pro workstation 5100's
Click to expand...

<snip>

What you are going to most likely do is look for the softpaqs that update
all the BIOS and stuff for those machines. This has fixed all the old
compaqs that come my way. Got my kids a Free Compaq that way, now that have
a PII-350 128MB Geforce2 400MX 8GB HDD and 15in Dell Trinitron Monitor. That
and stirpping the machine right down and cleaning everything. Try using a
penicl eraser to clean the edge connectors on the RAM and any other edge
connector, taking care to brush away all the little bits of eraser that is
left on the edge connectors. Put it all back together carefully making sure
everything is secured in place, and then apply all the relevent softpaqs.
restart and install the O/S and they should be running quite well.
 
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