Ok, pimps and pimpettes. As I promised I will be documenting the process of building my friends new computer from the hardware that you donated. My friend and his family, as well as myself can't thank you guys enough for helping them out. This means a great deal to us all.

Now, these are obviously just pics of the hardware layed out. I won't be able to get started on it until tomorow night as I was pressed for time tonight. Tomorow, more pics as surgurey gets under way.

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Good thing you posted, I was just wondering about this earlier this evening.
Can't wait to see what you do to it.

well, there's not going to be any modding added to it. it's basiclly just a serious upgrade from what they had, which you can see is an old intel 333. still using DIMs.

But, the biggest catch is I have to back everythin gup for them before i reformat and load up a current OS. they're still running win95, the FLOPPY version. I do have to give credit where credit is due though. it's been running the same win95 OS for 3 years without a severe crash or reformat, so it's held up quite well. even survived two transplants.

but given that my friends wife needs it the most and she's going to school to become an RN, they really need a stable machine. and the 3 kids who are all now in school and will be needing to use the computer more and more. going to try and load win2k pro on it so that i can set up profiles for the kids and profiles for the adults.

should be an interesting project.

damnit, stopped dead in my tracks. got home to night and layed everyhting out to start building and i've got no arctic silver for the heat sync.

DAMNIT!! i say

I had some AS5 smeared on the heatsink when I sent it bro. Anyway, glad to see the community coming together for a friend's friend in need.

false alarm, i found some heat sync paste. came with the bios fan replacement i had to buy for my last rig.

i am at a loss without the MB book, don't know where the jumpers go. but that's the great thing about the net, all the information needed is just a search and click away.

i won't be firing the rig up tonight but i am putting it all together. i'll post a pic once it's presentable

well, i've hit another obsticle. no handbook for the MB so i don't know where some of the jumpers go. i looked up the PDF on intels site but the jumper listings for the board differ from what's actually there.

hey GodFoot, if you can try to either scan in and email me all the jumper settings for the board or find a PDF that has the boards correct info PLEASE email it to me. i got all the maijor jumpers done such as power and LEDs, but i can't find the jumper fo the system speaker as well as a couple of loose unlabeled lines bundled with the power/reset/LED lines. there's a blue one and a black one but i'm not quite sure where on the jumpers they go.

i'll keep searching for better documentation for the board. in the mean time here some more pics of what i've gotten done thus far.

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I was starting to wonder about this also. Hope everything works out.

Houston we have a problem.

got the machine put together. bought a new hard drive because the ones they ave are too small to hold any kind of up to date OS.

problem being that the machine keeps locking up. locks up during memory count, in bios (when you can get there) and sometime it just freezes when you turn it on.

i know this much. it isn't the RAM, h/d, board or processor. onyl two things it can be.

Cmos battery and PSU.

tried another cmos battery i had laying around though it's pretty old and got the same results. going to run to the store and pray they have one of these batteries there. if not i'll get one tomorow.

if that doesn't work, guess its time to try a different PSU (which will have to be rigged from my system).

if anyone has suggestions i'm open

Did you try a diff memory slot ???

yup, been through the RAM front and back.

it allocates the RAM just fine, i think it's a power issue. i've seen this too many times when a PSU or a cmos battery goes dead, or both.

given the PSU came from DW i hardly think it's bad though it's possible. both of the cmos batteries i've used are well worn.

the board posts fine and recognizes when there's no RAM or drives connected.

Went to the store, and of course, no one has the battery i need in this BFE town so i'll have to wit till tomorow and get another battery and try again.

ok, replaced the CMOS battery tonight. it seemed to make a HUGE improvement, then it started locking up again.

so tomorow we test the PSU and see if that's the problem. if it's not the power supply, the only thing i can think of is either the MB is bad or the BIOS chip is fux0r3d.

i'm hoping that it turns out to be just a PSU problem. going to be a major setback if the MB is bad.

anyone got any suggestions?

if it is the mobo, give me an IM. I have a 1.4 ghz P4 with mobo and rambus memory... don't know how well it works but I know the ram is good and it boots.

well, tried a new PSU today, same results. still locks up randomly in bios or not. at this point i think the MB is hosed.
and in the process of testing the PSU, i've now screwed up my own system as it will not read my second HD which has ALL of my applications and back ups (for the cubicle) on it.

duplex, if you still have the board up for grabs let me know. i'll pay for overnight shipping. things are coming down to the wire and i've had to let my friends wife borrow my laptop until i get this system running.

I've been working on that board today, I'm not sure you want it. It's acting pretty damn flaky. I do have a 600mhz athlon, but there's no chance of me getting it until next week. I've gotta go back home from college to get it.

oh, and another great little mishap. not only has my system stopped seeing ym second drive, my floppy drive doesn't work now so i can't post my pumpkin pics for the contest.

shoot me, end it all now, take me out of my misery.

ok, does anyone have an Intel board that will hold a 850mhz processor and PC133 RAM that they can donate.

i'm willing to pay for overnight shipping costs as I have got to get this project finished, i've already screwed up my own machine in the process of getting the dontated machine to work.

so please, if anyone has a motherboard to donate let me know ASAP.

Holy CRAP that sucks...I tested that board for 2 days beofire I sent it!


Damn that sucks dude...unfortunately, I don't have any others here man I feel so bad...I've got the mobo book though

well hopefully someone will have one they can donate, and soon.

worse comes to worse i'll just have to break down and buy another board. can't imagine that they are too expensive for the hardware specs it's runnning. probably get a new board for about 60-70 bucks.

I double-checked my inventory, and I've got nothing else I can send...my apologies dude...

Can anyone else help out here?