I like that! The disc holder is a lovely touch. Should be a nice system once you're done with it.

Dell next to it is looking good too!

What an interesting little system you got there.

oeuvre wrote:

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First order of business was to update the BIOS to allow support for AMD Thunderbird processors

That BIOS updater's UI looks so unfitting for what the system is, it looks like something straight out of the Windows 3.x era (also, seeing the 80s Compaq logo made me chuckle). I guess Compaq is known for reusing old BIOS updaters on newer systems? 😳

oeuvre wrote:

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The front has a disc holder.

I wonder what the disc holder was even used for in the first place, I want to say it was used for storing the original OS restore discs but I don't really know for certain (any proof for this theory?).

I had one of those machines in high school and it came with the recovery cds in that front area. I miss that machine

Thank you! I was quite happy when I found out it has not yellowed at all except for the CD-ROM and drive blanks slightly. I was able to fix those thanks to 80F weather yesterday.

Does anyone by chance have a recovery CD and could make an ISO of it then upload to archive.org ? Thanks

a uwave without all the caps blown, now ive seen everything.

And now it's all upgraded!

Compaq Presario 5000 5WV232
AMD Thunderbird 1.1GHz (was originally a 700MHz Duron)
512MB RAM
64MB NVIDIA Quadro NVS200 AGP video card (replaced an 8MB NVIDIA TNT)
40GB 2.5" SATA hard drive + SATA to IDE adapter (got sick of dying IDE hard drives)
3.5" floppy drive
40X CD-ROM drive
Onboard sound
Turtle Beach Montego II Aureal AU8830 A3D PCI sound card
Intel PRO/100M PCI ethernet card
VIA USB 2.0 PCI card (ended up using it after all!)

side

other side

rear

guts

more guts

BIOS logo

BIOS info

Windows Me on one partition...

programs

AIDA32 specs

Windows 2000 on the other partition.

programs

SeaMonkey works

writing a letter

Also what's the best NVIDIA driver for 9x for this Quadro NVS200? I was using the 81.xx one and it sucked so I uninstalled it and used the Detonator 45.23 driver from vogons drivers. Runs much better.

I have a similar model, a 5WV254. It has a 700MHz Duron like yours did, came to me with 512MB RAM (upgraded), a dying 8MB Nvidia Vanta LT (which I replaced with an ATI Radeon 9200), and a 20GB Quantum hard drive which I replaced with an 80GB WD800JB. Unfortunately my Windows 98 SE installs seem to love bombing themselves, when I have a healthy drive according to CrystalDiskInfo. Should do more investigating before I think of the hard drive or motherboard being bad.

Can confirm that the restore dis is what came in the little disc holder. I have it for a similar model.

Can you upload the the OEMINFO.INI files for this? I will be doing a clean install and I have had a heck of a time finding someone who uploaded these for various manufacturers. I have a gateway solo 5300 I was looking to return to stock looks as well, even had a hard drive for sale on ebay with the original image on it, but someone bought it before me 🙁.

No longer have that machine sorry... but yeah the restore CD was stored in that disc holder.