Resurrecting a very old desktop PC

Forums › Desktop computing › Resurrecting a very old desktop PC

DarthKermit

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#279965 19-Nov-2020 10:37

I have a positively ancient desktop PC that was built in 2003. It hasn't worked for a long time. I'd like to get it going again as it has some files and old programs I'd like to use again.

I opened it up and found the graphics card (it's an AGP card) has a few blown capacitors on it. I managed to find a replacement card from a dealer in second hand computer parts. It still won't go and the monitor says no video signal.

So all you computer nerds out there, what are the recommended steps I should follow to attempt to get this old beast working again?

Thanks. 😃

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#2606792 19-Nov-2020 10:43

What board?

Dynamic

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#2606794 19-Nov-2020 10:45

We have a USB-IDE adapter if you want to use that to retrieve the files.

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K8Toledo

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#2606800 19-Nov-2020 10:55

Did you also check the motherboard for blown caps?

wellygary

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#2606802 19-Nov-2020 10:56

Pull out the Video card, and see if it will run without it... The motherboard may have built-in basic video capability

K8Toledo

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#2606807 19-Nov-2020 11:00

wellygary:

Pull out the Video card, and see if it will run without it... The motherboard may have built-in basic video capability

Bound to have onboard VGA if it's 2003 vintage...

Batman

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#2606814 19-Nov-2020 11:10

are you going to run windows 98 on it?

Scott3

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#2606822 19-Nov-2020 11:26

It's 17 years old. I would pull the drive out, get a cheap hard drive enclosure, and use that to recover the files you need.

Unless you have massive nostalgia for the rig, or the software on it is something highly propitiatory that can't be moved to a new rig it will be more effort than it is worth to bring it back to life. I have heard of computers attached to industrial machines like CNC mills where keeping an ancient PC alive is the most viable option.

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wellygary

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#2606824 19-Nov-2020 11:34

Scott3:

It's 17 years old. I would pull the drive out, get a cheap hard drive enclosure, and use that to recover the files you need.

Unless you have massive nostalgia for the rig, or the software on it is something highly propitiatory that can't be moved to a new rig it will be more effort than it is worth to bring it back to life. I have heard of computers attached to industrial machines like CNC mills where keeping an ancient PC alive is the most viable option.

There will be plenty of ancient PC's tied on to laboratory equipment passing on and printing out testing data day in day out....

Some in the UK made the headlines a few months back when they started undercounting COVID numbers because cases were falling off the end of the spreadsheets (XLS) that only had 65K rows (16 bit) - I'm guessing the reason they had not upgraded to use xlsx was the vintage of the machines (pre 07)

concordnz

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#2606856 19-Nov-2020 12:02

Probably got dust/corrosion in the GPU slot. (which is why it's not detecting gfx card)
Could also be leaked/dry capacitors on motherboard (dead motherboard)
Memory slices will also likely develop problems after being run again after a few months.
& CPU thermal paste likely dry & need replacing, - unless you want to burn out the CPU & kill it (those old ones didn't have the internal thermal throttling like the current ones do.

Its not as easy as you think 'to get it running again' often times.

My recommendation would be to - copy the HDD & put it into a VM image. - even with the virtualisation layer - it is likely to run faster/better than that old hardware. And it is more likely to 'just work' like you want it too.

You don't talk about serial devices or software 'dongles' so shouldn't have any legacy interface problems.

bfginger

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#2606886 19-Nov-2020 13:15

2003 isn't ancient. You can still get by on hardware a few years newer than that.

Did you replace it with the exact same video card model? Maybe it has failed capacitors too?

Is there a beep from the PC speaker after you turn the computer on?

Apsattv

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#2607198 19-Nov-2020 19:21

Did you replace the motherboard battery?

K8Toledo

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#2607234 19-Nov-2020 21:17

Scott3:

It's 17 years old. I would pull the drive out, get a cheap hard drive enclosure, and use that to recover the files you need.

Unless you have massive nostalgia for the rig, or the software on it is something highly propitiatory that can't be moved to a new rig it will be more effort than it is worth to bring it back to life. I have heard of computers attached to industrial machines like CNC mills where keeping an ancient PC alive is the most viable option.

Not unless you consider Windows XP/Windows 7 propriety. I first played BF1942 on an nForce2 ABIT AN7, released in 2004. nForce3 & nForce4 also support Windows 7.

Drivers can be found here.