Your Worst Computer

By roadgeek9
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Grand Master

TruckWEB

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Posted

Those are not "worst" computer.... All those spec had their time in the sun when they where all fresh and new. By today standard a PII/PIII and even some P4 would be very obsolete (same for AMD CPU and all GPU of the era).

I never had any worst computer in the way that for their time, they all did what they where build for. Never tried to install WinXP on a PII.... Never tried to run Vista on a PIII.... Would be stupid IMO.

By "worst computer" I would say I had a Compaq PC (Athlon64 3200+) that was allot of problem. Badly built, drivers problem, bad support.... That's what I call "worst".

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patconn87

Posted
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The worst computer that's still in service in my house is actually one of my servers:

Dell Dimension XPS D333

Pentium II 333MHz (Deschutes core)

224MB PC100 RAM

40GB Western Digital + 80GB Maxtor + 8GB IBM/Hitachi hard drives (128GB total space)

8MB ATI Rage Pro graphics

Sound Blaster 16 PCI sound card

Dual 3Com 10/100 NICs

52x32x52 CD-RW drive

Windows 2000 Advanced Server

(in case you couldn't tell, I've modded it a bit...)

The worst (lowest spec'd) one I've ever had:

"Leading Edge" laptop PC:

80386SX 16MHz

640KB of RAM

20MB Hard drive

Floppy Drive

Monochrome display

No sound card

DOS 5.0 (eventually upgraded to 6.22)

The worst machine I've ever had:

Dell Latitude XP 4100C notebook

80486DX4 100MHz

16MB RAM

1.3GB Hard Drive

1MB Western Digital Graphics card

Floppy Drive (no optical drive)

10base-T NIC (on docking station)

Color display

Built-in trackball mouse

No sound card

This machine was terrible because I got it with Windows 98SE on it, and it was always freezing, BSODing and everything of the sort. It was also as slow as molasses in winter, but once I reloaded it with Windows 95 it was better, but then the problems continued, only they were hardware problems this time around. Not buying another Dell laptop anytime soon... I've known too many people that have had problems with them, not to mention proprietary everything (or approximately thereof)...

Sorry about the long post...

Grand Master

Mindovermaster Global Moderator

Posted
  • Global Moderator
Posted
"Leading Edge" laptop PC:

80386SX 16MHz

640KB of RAM

20MB Hard drive

Floppy Drive

Monochrome display

No sound card

DOS 5.0 (eventually upgraded to 6.22)

wow, that is old... My friend had a big bulky "laptop" that had 2 external 5.25 drives, and took 6 discs to fully boot it up to Windows 3.1

Grand Master

neoadorable

Posted
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you make the late 90's seem so long ago...to me they seem like yesterday.

FredEX, interesting story there, HP are pretty sad when it comes to quality control and after sales support.

and glad someone around here still has a working Atari ST...those 16 bits were built to last, for sure.

Grand Master

TruckWEB

Posted
Posted
and glad someone around here still has a working Atari ST...those 16 bits were built to last, for sure.

I don't have it anymore, but I'll never call my Atari 520 ST my worst computer. At the time, I was the only one with colors and sound in my games. I remember playing Sierra Space Quest 3, in the introduction, when Roger wakes up in the shuttle and he say "Where Am I?", wow, digital sound coming out of my Atari!! Everybody else was playing in full CGA 4 colors/beeper or cutting edge guys had EGA/AdLib on their PC...

I remember using PC-Ditto that turned my ST into a very slow IBM-XT, or using GFA-Basic, Deluxe Paint in full colors.... Wow, good times....

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wellofsouls

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I still have a IBM PC-XT 8088 with two 5 1/4" floppy drives and no HDD, and the thing is actually still working while my old Pentium 133 and Pentium 500 boxes have already died. It's just kinda hard to find working 5 1/4" floppy disks now, the only ones still working are a two disk set of Turbo C, so I can still do programming on it! :laugh:

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Kronir

Posted
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Well, there's a Gateway Pentium II (can't remember how fast...er, slow it is) with 196 MBs (or so) RAM and a 8 GB hard drive sitting in the corner (running Windows XP, no less!). It isn't mine, mind you, but it does occupy the same breathing space as the Stormrider (*my* custom-built rig I put together last December after my old laptop died)...kinda sad. :( Then again, that old Gateway kinda reminds me of a slightly slower version of my first computer: a Dell Pentium II 400 MHz (I don't remember how much RAM it had). I played a *lot* of games online (like Rainbow Six/Rogue Spear and AvP) on that thing, with an equally crappy 28k dial-up connection. Ahhhh, memories. But that old Dell was put out to pasture a couple of years ago (my folks were using it after I got my laptop back in 2001). Actually, that laptop is the crappiest computer I personally own (a Pentium 3 Mobile 850MHz (I think) with 512 MBs of RAM and a 32MB GeForce2 Go video card), but I sure got my money's worth out of it! It lasted for nearly 6 years until the AC cable died on it a little more than a year ago (the laptop itself worked fine, except the batteries had long since bit the dust; it would only run on AC power...). One of these days, I'll have to get it a new cable...it would be nice to have it for trips again... :)

Grand Master

neoadorable

Posted
Posted

hey truckweb you don't want me to bring my old Amiga into this discussion. that'll show these youngsters how "new" the 360 vs PS3 debate is. Amiga...one of the best pieces of human-made tech i ever used. i can't remember a single time that slab failed me.

Grand Master

CrashG

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hey truckweb you don't want me to bring my old Amiga into this discussion. that'll show these youngsters how "new" the 360 vs PS3 debate is. Amiga...one of the best pieces of human-made tech i ever used. i can't remember a single time that slab failed me.

I only just recently packed my A500 up and put it in storage. :laugh:

Grand Master

aussiefloyd_fan

Posted
Posted

GATEWAY mx6453 with 160GB hard drive ati radeon mobile 1150 ..200m chipset

2GB ram

160GB pata 4200 rpm hard drive

Broken hinges on both sides

its a pos really so is the customer support......

its 2 years old this december

edit: and the backlight is already acting up... its dimmer than usual at times

Grand Master

TruckWEB

Posted
Posted (edited)
hey truckweb you don't want me to bring my old Amiga into this discussion. that'll show these youngsters how "new" the 360 vs PS3 debate is. Amiga...one of the best pieces of human-made tech i ever used. i can't remember a single time that slab failed me.

Yeap, the Amiga was about the only competition to the Atari at the time. I know that Amiga had better colors/sound than the Atari, but of all the friends that I had (at the time), only 1 had a A500. Everybody else was using a PC, or Tandy 1000SX computers... Even had a friend with a Mac, with the tiny 9" B/W CRT.... What a joke, my Atari could run circle around it. I cannot remember but I think that Sierra did not deliver as many games for the Amiga than they did for the Atari.... King Quest, Space Quest, Police Quest, Larry, ..... Wow, nice games, they don't do it like that anymore.

I have Amiga Forever 2008 Premium Edition here, love to play with it. Fond memory. And I play with PacifiST, to remember my time with the Atari. Got tons of disk images....

It's a real shame that Commodore and Atari could not keep up ( and make many awful mess ). Eventually, I had to trade my Atari for a Tandy 1000TL, it had a 286/8Mhz, 768K of ram and could run DOS and had more software, more games. Games where using the Tandy GFX and sound at that time, giving me 16 colors, 3 beepers and a digital channel...

God I feel old....

Edited by TruckWEB
Grand Master

neoadorable

Posted
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crashgordon, that doesn't surprise me. you also probably had the West German-made A500, desiged to withstand legions of hardened Soviet armor and the occasional tactical nuke. The fact that most of the people on this forum never even heard of a West Germany should probably tell us something regarding lives and times...

truckweb, it is sad that both Commodore and Atari failed in the home computer market, but they were outmoded. There was no way to survive the PC onslaught. as for your friends not having Amigas, well can i say, glorious Quebec! j/k, both machines were actually not so popular in N America, they had many more of them in Europe.

Grand Master

pyehac

Posted
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I guess you can't call it my 'worst computer', but I got a used Dell Latitude c610 computer - and since it was my first laptop, I can't really complain. The screen hinge was loose (which I fixed), and the battery wasn't working, so it was a mobile desktop. Compared to my current laptop, that thing is old. Only problem now is the optical drive isn't working, but I'll see if I can borrow an optical drive from work to atleast reinstall Windows (or Linux)

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yeoo_andy_ni

Posted
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I had to set up a wired connection for it. Not a problem, but for some reason, I have to wait a few minutes after booting up for the internet to come through.

So I'm not the only one that has this problem - From pressing the power button to desktop (including login time) is about 2 mins. Add another 5 onto that waiting for the NIC to come to life and restore balance!

My worst computer is a P4 2.6GHz, 1GB RAM, 40GB hard drive & GF3 Ti200. It operates as my test server with 2008 installed as a DC and Exchange 2007 atm. Thinking of blowing it away and putting a Citrix solution on there.

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