~*~*In desperate need of help. Please read*~*~

Im currently working on upgrading a friends computer. I had no idea what he had untill today. . . heh. Below is a description of his computer. I want to know if it is even possible or even worth updating this machine. In my opinion it would be better for him to build one from scratch. But please, if you know any options I can take. . . feel free to share your ideas.

Computer Type: IBM PS/1 Intel 486 SX
MotherBoard: Type A2 <------ this thing is weird kuz there are only 2 ram slots and they are set into the board diagonally.
Modem: Model SM-24HN/R1 <----- this thing is so old it has dip switches to set the com port.
SoundCard: SoundBlaster 16 PnP
CD: Creative Quad Speed CD-Rom drive
Drive: 3.5" & 5" Floppy Drive
Ram: 16 MB
HardDrive: 244MB

Be honest with me. . . . is it worth the time and money to "upgrade" this thing or is it impossible? I know I will need a new motherboard. . . and I doubt it will fit into the same case.
:::shrugs:::

No, nothing can be kept maybe except for the case. WASTE OF TIME. Get like a Lindows computer system for $299 at WalMart!

w00t. I actually just set one of those up running windows 98 a while back. Those things have really messed up cases. With as much as you are going to need to upgrade it, build a new one. If he doesn't want to spend that much money, have him get an emachines or something. Yeah, everyone says they suck because they are so cheep, but I have one set up as a linux server with an uptime of over 100 days now....

Rogue..you asked for honesty, here it is. That system would make a better boat anchor than computer.
In it's day it was fine, but you're better off having him build something. Check here, for a baebones system. I know the head tech personally and buy a lot of product through them so they can be trusted.

Good luck..

I have some IBM PS/1 & PS/2's I am getting rid of. I agree with law. Pick up a cheap Lindows system from WAL-Mart for $299 - $399 & Install Windows or Linux what ever your OS flavor is.

Hahahahahaha

Hey Rogue,

What does he want to do with it? Play Games, Programming, Web Surfing...?

I have an OLD 486 Laptop, that is similiar to the specs on your friends computer (small HD, 486, 16MB Ram). I use it to run a Borland Compiler, and for occasional web surfing. To be honest it doesn't do that bad! In any case, I wouldn't get rid of it! Use it as a C/C++ Learning computer (If you mess it up somehow, who cares, it was old!!)

If he wants to do anything other than those two things (Code or Websurf), he should invest in a new comp :)

-Simon Templer

www.walmart.com or www.499pc.com there are so many places you can pick up barebone systems for $199. Although 499 & walmart supply ram, hard drives etc.

He recently bought a new Gateway. . . . he just wanted to try & upgrade this one for his kids to use. I told him it was basically impossible to upgrade due to its age. Thanks to all that posted to this message so quickly. Thats what I love about this community. ;) Great people!

One idea is to use it for a gateway/router... Of course, its just an idea. :)

My suggestion? Keep it for a command-line only application, router/firewall/NAT, or a dedicated SETI@HOME box if you can, but in terms of upgrading without changing the motherboard I'm thinking it isn't worth it. Sure, you MIGHT be able to incrementally change the processor speed or ram, perhaps, but it wouldn't be worth it because it would still be quite obsolete.

It makes me think back to the day...

You can put together a high quality box nowadays for less than $700, actually. I'm currently looking at a list of dream parts, and here are some of the components from my spreadsheet and an estimated cost total:

1. AMD XP 1800 (1.8 ghz equiv, supposedly)
2. 512 MB of PC2700 memory (takes advantage of 333mhz board)
3. ASUS A7V333 (Onboard simple audio, firewire, USB 2.0, AGP Pro slot, 5 PCI, 3 ram slots)
4. Antec Performance Plus 1080 (black) Case (w/ 430w power supply, 1 firewire 2 usb ports on front panel. Removable intake filter. Drive door. Etc etc etc.)
5. EIDE 60 GB Hard drive
6. 1.44 Floppy
7. CD Burner/CD Reader (32x/12x/48x)

Estimated total cost without taking into account motherboard shipping and time of assembly...
$571.00 . As a sheer guess, actual costs may vary upwards to more like $600-$630.

Items missing from this list that you would probably want or changes to make:

The case is a bit overkill. You can find much cheaper beige boxes.
You'll need a monitor, Keyboard, Mouse.
CPU cooling device

/me has one p/s1 i am selling also, has the manuals and all, lol
But www.newegg.com i have found elimiates www.pricewatch.com cuz there prices are so dam good.

Buy a new or use computer that is more up to date. I just took 1 of them a part like 4 days ago and the only thing that was even good to me was the power box. Funny thing is that I had 4 slots. Humm. Most of the 486"s or what they send you free when you take a on line course. You might want to look at the pown shop as I just got a HP Parilion XG814, Cleeron 766 mhz cpu, 20 gb hdd, with 64 mb ram, 48x Cd rom 56k pci modim, 2 speakers,keyboard, mouse, windows ME, 17" color monitor. For only $375.00 had to buy more ram and the floppy was broke but works real well. Look at a few pown shops but make sure you can test it before you buy it.


Zuriel

I dont know if this makes any difference. . . but every component had stickers on it that said Assembled in Canada. Maybe thats why it only had 2 slots for ram. ;)

Wow, reading that post took me back in time! You're better off A: using it as a BBIAgent router (all you need is a floppy drive, no hard drive for storage!) or B: building a new one. That one's not worth pulling out the parts to even give to a school.

You could always sell it to NASA. hehehe They are looking for that old stuff all the time. Good luck.

Quote:

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Originally posted here by KorpDeath
You could always sell it to NASA. hehehe They are looking for that old stuff all the time. Good luck.

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Hey! Good idea, don't they use 486's on the shuttle? :D

As someone once said, I think it was from Orson Scott Card's "Earth": "You know when they sent the shuttles into space? They had five computers on them, but nowadays your wristwatch could play cheat at poker with them and then convince them to vote republican."

(or something to that effect. I'll look it up later... gosh, it's been years since I read that book.)

What's with all these people and Walmart/LindowsOS machines? Haven't we already had that discussion *way too many times*?!?!

Back to the question, though. I personally wouldn't even try to upgrade it. The case you have won't even support new motherboards (since they require ATX cases), so you're better off just scratching it or using it for other purposes. I have two 486s which I still use, one with Windows NT 3.5 and another with Windows for Workgroups 3.11. They have fairly good specs, considering... (32 MB EDO-RAM, dual 500 MB hard drives, etc.) but they work great, as someone else metioned, for older applications. They both have Word 6.0 on them so I can at least do some text processing, if I need to, but they're both stocked with various older compilers (Borland C++ 4.5, Turbo C++, Turbo Pascal, Win-Prolog) so I can easily create quick DOS based programs if I ever need to (which, surprisingly I actually end up doing quite a bit, especially for testing purposes, etc.) So, that's my opinion... buy a new one (or build one from scratch) and use the other one for playing around. You could even run some versions of Linux on it...

AJ

its not even worth it to update that pc whatsoever.

illv//