Using An Old Windows ME PC! Big Mistake?

hello guys and welcome today we're going to be taking a look at an old rusty computer this was being given away about six years ago and when I went to go pick it up the owners house smelled like foul cigarette smoke and sadly the computer did as well luckily after leaving it sitting around for a few years it doesn't smell like cigarette smoke anymore so let's power it up and see just what we can do with it as we press the power button the machine springs into life it appears as the machine has a 233 megahertz AMD k-6 processor the fans are also quite loud it seems to be booting into Windows ME otherwise known as millennium Edition this OS came out about a year before Windows XP that boot chime is rather unfamiliar to me as I don't believe I've ever actually owned a Windows ME computer before it also seems as if the previous owner was a fan of Shrek there's something we have in common detected a two optical drives floppy and one hard disk with the size of approximately three gigabytes we can confirm that this system is indeed detecting 128 megabytes of RAM which is plenty for this system the 233 megahertz processor on the other hand is below the recommended CPU speed of 300 megahertz for running Windows ME the 2d graphics card here is an s3 verge DX four megabyte card while it appears as a 3d accelerator card is also installed digging a little further reveals this machine is rocking a 3d effects voodoo 2 card more specifically an 8 megabyte variant a small pass-through vga cable is required to connect both cards I tried just using a standard length vga cable to bridge between them with less than ideal results to solve the problem I use two Apple DB 15 to VGA adapters which works surprisingly well another interesting fact is that the 8 megabyte Verdoux 2 card sells for well over $100 on ebay taking a look around the system there aren't all that many programs installed however there is space cadet pinball I used to spend hours as a kid playing this game now that we know that this system still works and has a decent 3d graphics accelerator let's install some fun old games and see just what this rusty old computer is capable of later in the video we will be taking this computer apart as well as cleaning it up but just in case it dies during surgery we're going to do most of the testing now since the USB ports don't seem to work and the CD drive is really the only way to get big files onto it I burned a few of my favorite games to a CD a lot of these games are abandoned where and can be found easily online I ended up deleting a lot of unnecessary files as there was only about one gigabyte of free drive space to work with first of all we're going to try hover a simple 3d game that was included on the windows 95 install disc the aim of the game is to find all of your opponent's flags before they find all of yours this unsurprisingly works great Age of Empires 2 is very playable at the resolution of 800 by 600 I'm aware that the 4 by 3 image is being stretched to fit the 16 by 9 display however I don't actually have a 4 by 3 vga LCD monitor in my possession at the moment [Music] next up we have Juke Nukem 3d and all of its 3d exhilarated glory the game also runs very fluidly thankfully this system is compatible with the sound and music the glide API is compatible with quake 2 it runs very well on this system even at 640 by 480 high settings the framerate is pretty smooth throughout Motocross Madness 2 with the settings on low is definitely playable and a whole lot of fun this is however pushing what this system is capable of [Music] another game that takes advantage of the 3d effects fudou - is Need for Speed se - [Music] [Music] this is very impressive graphically and the framerate is solid [Music] monster truck madness too has been a favorite of mine for many years this game also uses the Voodoo to 3d accelerator and at 640 by 480 normal image quality it is very playable last of all were trying out the most graphically demanding game of the life Tony Hawk's Pro Skater - sadly as much as I love the soundtrack to this game I don't want the video to be copyright claims so I turned it off running at 640 by 480 normal settings was a little bit choppy but for the most part responsive and fun to play now it's time to shut it down and begin the refurbishment I began by removing all of the PCI cards aside from minor pitting on the metal backplate the Voodoo to card is in pretty good condition it looks as if the s3 verge card can actually have more vram added I also made note of where all the connectors plug in on the logic board the massive IDE cables were next to come out several screws held the logic board in place with a bit of careful maneuvering I got it out it's not often you see a motherboard capable of using two different types of RAM also all of the capacitors look to be in good shape all if the drives are held in place with Phillips head screws the optical drive slid out through the front honestly I could probably just only put one of them back in but I don't have any spare five and a quarter inch drive covers the rusty power supply was held in place by four Phillips head screws I totally just put in a different one however I don't have any more power supplies with the physical power switch anymore to remove the power supply completely I had to remove the front plate of the PC now the power switch can be unscrewed I also removed the remaining parallel and comm ports that were attached to the case with the case stripped down completely I began with wiping it down using some eucalyptus oil with a damp cloth I went over all the tarnished areas some sticker residue on the casing was also removed years of gunk and debris had accumulated on this case and many of its components the plastic cover over the front display had started to come off using a dab of superglue I got it back on I actually just noticed how warped the RAM DIMMs are in fact I'm pretty sure only one of the sticks is actually making contact properly removing all three sticks reveals a total of 512 megabytes of 133 megahertz SDRAM the CPU heatsink can now be removed revealing the sock at 7 a.m. DK 6 - processor the hard disk only needed a light wipe down with some methylated spirits we can see that this is a cool old-school Seagate st 33 232 a 3.2 gigabyte hard disk the back of the drive also looks pretty need the floppy drive has a manufacture date of the 6th of July 1995 over time this computer was clearly upgraded with more modern hardware the most obvious changes the fact someone drilled out space for a ps/2 connector on the new logic board I do believe this cd-rom drive here is the original one as it dates back to 1995 the power supply is rated at 200 watts and from what I can tell manufactured in April of 1998 according to the markings on the top inside we can see that this is quite a cheap looking power supply caution must definitely be taken when handling the internals as the amperage is stored in the capacitors can be lethal the next morning I took the case outside and sanded back the rust using a silver paint marker I covered any problem areas with most of the rear casing sanded back I cleaned off the surface then applied a few coats of silver spray pain I did actually forget to remove one sticker and ended up just painting over it I blew out the loose dust from within the power supply all of the components were held in place by small Phillips head screws parts of the PCB had broken away at the mounting screws I gave the exhaust fan a much-needed dusting after sanding back the rusted exhaust fan I painted over the rust several times with a paint pen the paint should act as a barrier stopping the rust from oxidizing further spraying from different angles I was able to get an even coat applied I did contemplate trying to bleach the yellowed plastic however after cleaning it it wasn't all that yellow I did however scrub the surface with 6% hydrogen peroxide to removed any grub eNOS left on the front panel using a brush I did clean up the heatsink using some superglue I attached the broken pieces of the power supplies PCB with great care not to electrocute myself i reassemble dit there we have it the final result not too shabby if I do say so myself with the logic board dusted off I began refitting the CPU I chose to just use the thermal pad that was already installed on the heatsink here's where we ran into our first major hurdle the RAM would absolutely not fit back into their slots since the RAM dims were already warped I thought I'll try straightening them out by clamping down the ends and applying some superglue using heat to make the glue dry faster the RAM dims were now definitely less bent but I really struggled to get any sticks to sit in properly eventually I got one of the six to mostly fit in while definitely not ideal I used rubber bands to hold the clips in place thankfully that one stick did appear to actually make contact the tower could now be put back together I paid close attention to make sure I put everything back in the correct order the logic board slotted back into place nicely I also ended up spray-painting a few of the back plates for some of the PCI cards as well I chose to keep the graphics cards as original as possible as modifying them with luckily decrease their value just to test I plugged the system in to see if it would still turn on with great excitement I was pleased to see that it's still powered up now the rest of the drives could be installed I actually thought I'd try my own recipe for bleaching plastic with the top CD drive I was quite surprised and it worked very effectively sadly the drive trade cover flipped upside down as the container sat out in the Sun and I wasn't able to get it looking as white the amount of cloud cover also didn't help overall that drive definitely looks somewhat better but honestly the computer really isn't that yellowed and it doesn't bother me so does the system still work thankfully yes although it is still only showing up with 128 megabytes of RAM even though we put in a single 256 megabytes piece of RAM I really do have a soft spot for mid to late 90s desktop computers there are just so many fun games and things you can do on them the difference is truly night and day I tried my best at cable management however there really isn't a whole lot you can do also with the logic board in this system the turbo button has no functionality but it does look cool it really puts a smile on my face when I bring new life into old dilapidated systems with all the work done I should be able to enjoy using this system for many years to come thank you very much for watching this video definitely took a lot of time to make and if you've enjoyed feel free to leave a like and if you want to see more subscribing is definitely appreciated thank you very much I'll see you in the next video [Music] you

Channel: Psivewri

Views: 638,479

Keywords: psivewri, 4k, windows, ME, millennium, edition, old, computer, PC, 90s, retro, restoration, DOS, nostalgia, AMD, K6, 233MHz, 3DFX, voodoo 2, II, 8MB, S3, virge, gaming, test, DX, microsoft, paint, 3d, accelerator, 1990's, 1997, 1995, 2000, space, cadet, pinball, need, for, speed, NFS, SE, glide, AOE, age, of, empires, floppy, disk, duke, nukem, 3D, vintage, desktop, tower, pentium, motocross, madness, monster, truck, tony, hawk, pro, skater, cleaning, rebuild, austin, evans, is, cool, IDE, cables, SD-RAM, rust, removal, turbo, button, upgrade, review

Id: i8Y6Dmw16ng

Length: 13min 49sec (829 seconds)

Published: Fri Sep 20 2019