P2 400 MHz, Dell Optiplex - question(s)

[Big Mac]

Re: OK, this is kind of silly - P1 question

All right you guys, I'm the guy who posted about a P1 w/ 16 MBs
memory, asking if I could network it & will it be able to get on the
Internet & appreciate some speed. (for my 81 year old dad who will
not accept a new computer).

& thanks again for your responses to that thread. What happened is
that I decided, because I'd have to probably get some RAM & a network
card for it, & then it was only like a 60 MHz machine so I wasn't sure
if it would be good enough, I went & bought a used P2 400 MHz 64 MBs
RAM (Dell Optiplex) from a guy who buys used stuff in bulk. So I paid
$50 for it. If I tell my father I paid $20 for it. he'll accept it.

So, the guy showed it to me on DSL. It is plenty fast enough. The
drawback (small one) is that it has Win 98 on it, which is fine (Dad
has Win 95), but I don't have the original Disk for the Dell I just
bought. It was a networked office machine. The Ethernet (??) network
slot is factory (it's not taking up a slot, at least I don't see it).
So the machine was hooked up to a network that way. When I boot the
computer, it asks me for a password to get on the now non-existing
network. I just press enter & it tells me bla bla bla won't be able
to access bla - ok, fine. I'm at the desktop. Everything works.
Now, the guy, all he did was put in another Ethernet card so I could
network the computer & use it on the Internet. So it all seems to
work fine. But I am stuck with a 2nd network card & a computer that
thinks it is still on an office network.

I just wanted to know a few things though - I don't have the original
install CD like I said - The HD is only 3.2 gigs. There are some
office files on it, Microsoft stuff, that take up one gig. Of course
for my dad the empty 2 gigs will be fine for what he has. But - is
there any way to remove this stuff - when I try to add/remove
(remove), it wants the original CD.

And, I have to ask this also - If I lose the HD will I lose the
availability of the CD ROM & whatever else, because it's Dell
proprietary stuff? Is there any way for me to come up with an
original CD for this computer? Or do I only need to find the drivers
for it? Or is the CD & other stuff, the HD, plug & play?

I really can't complain - a great computer for the Internet for $50.
We'll use it the way it is if I can't do anything about it.

Thanks,
Big Mac

 

[Chris Stolworthy]

Re: OK, this is kind of silly - P1 question

All right you guys, I'm the guy who posted about a P1 w/ 16 MBs
memory, asking if I could network it & will it be able to get on the
Internet & appreciate some speed. (for my 81 year old dad who will
not accept a new computer).

& thanks again for your responses to that thread. What happened is
that I decided, because I'd have to probably get some RAM & a network
card for it, & then it was only like a 60 MHz machine so I wasn't sure
if it would be good enough, I went & bought a used P2 400 MHz 64 MBs
RAM (Dell Optiplex) from a guy who buys used stuff in bulk. So I paid
$50 for it. If I tell my father I paid $20 for it. he'll accept it.

So, the guy showed it to me on DSL. It is plenty fast enough. The
drawback (small one) is that it has Win 98 on it, which is fine (Dad
has Win 95), but I don't have the original Disk for the Dell I just
bought. It was a networked office machine. The Ethernet (??) network
slot is factory (it's not taking up a slot, at least I don't see it).
So the machine was hooked up to a network that way. When I boot the
computer, it asks me for a password to get on the now non-existing
network. I just press enter & it tells me bla bla bla won't be able
to access bla - ok, fine. I'm at the desktop. Everything works.
Now, the guy, all he did was put in another Ethernet card so I could
network the computer & use it on the Internet. So it all seems to
work fine. But I am stuck with a 2nd network card & a computer that
thinks it is still on an office network.

I just wanted to know a few things though - I don't have the original
install CD like I said - The HD is only 3.2 gigs. There are some
office files on it, Microsoft stuff, that take up one gig. Of course
for my dad the empty 2 gigs will be fine for what he has. But - is
there any way to remove this stuff - when I try to add/remove
(remove), it wants the original CD.

And, I have to ask this also - If I lose the HD will I lose the
availability of the CD ROM & whatever else, because it's Dell
proprietary stuff? Is there any way for me to come up with an
original CD for this computer? Or do I only need to find the drivers
for it? Or is the CD & other stuff, the HD, plug & play?

I really can't complain - a great computer for the Internet for $50.
We'll use it the way it is if I can't do anything about it.

Thanks,
Big Mac

You shouldn't lose the cd-rom, however before you do anything you want to
make sure you know what hardware you have in there. I.E sound card, video
card etc... in my personal experience it can be a B***h to find those
drivers. But why would you want to remove the hard drive anyway? If you
have a spare copy of Win98 lying around rather than remove the hard drive
just reformat it if you are looking to get a clean drive to start with. But
the majority *Should* be PnP just make sure to check drivers for sound,
video, and network. those are the most important.

 

[kony]

Re: OK, this is kind of silly - P1 question

All right you guys, I'm the guy who posted about a P1 w/ 16 MBs
memory, asking if I could network it & will it be able to get on the
Internet & appreciate some speed. (for my 81 year old dad who will
not accept a new computer).

& thanks again for your responses to that thread. What happened is
that I decided, because I'd have to probably get some RAM & a network
card for it, & then it was only like a 60 MHz machine so I wasn't sure
if it would be good enough, I went & bought a used P2 400 MHz 64 MBs
RAM (Dell Optiplex) from a guy who buys used stuff in bulk. So I paid
$50 for it. If I tell my father I paid $20 for it. he'll accept it.

So, the guy showed it to me on DSL. It is plenty fast enough. The
drawback (small one) is that it has Win 98 on it, which is fine (Dad
has Win 95), but I don't have the original Disk for the Dell I just
bought. It was a networked office machine. The Ethernet (??) network
slot is factory (it's not taking up a slot, at least I don't see it).
So the machine was hooked up to a network that way. When I boot the
computer, it asks me for a password to get on the now non-existing
network. I just press enter & it tells me bla bla bla won't be able
to access bla - ok, fine. I'm at the desktop. Everything works.
Now, the guy, all he did was put in another Ethernet card so I could
network the computer & use it on the Internet. So it all seems to
work fine. But I am stuck with a 2nd network card & a computer that
thinks it is still on an office network.

You can delete the network components in Control Panel/Network and then
set up the integrated adapter to suit your network. For "Primary Network
Logon", choose "windows logon", not "Client for...".

I just wanted to know a few things though - I don't have the original
install CD like I said - The HD is only 3.2 gigs. There are some
office files on it, Microsoft stuff, that take up one gig. Of course
for my dad the empty 2 gigs will be fine for what he has. But - is
there any way to remove this stuff - when I try to add/remove
(remove), it wants the original CD.

Uninstalling or modifying existing installation does require office cd or
the setup files from it. If worst comes to worst and you don't want to do
a clean install of OS, just delete the Office Folder. If you have
DriveImage or Ghost you might consider making a duplicate of the partition
prior to changing anything, _IF_ you decided to change things in the
current installation instead of a clean installation of Windows.

And, I have to ask this also - If I lose the HD will I lose the
availability of the CD ROM & whatever else, because it's Dell
proprietary stuff? Is there any way for me to come up with an
original CD for this computer? Or do I only need to find the drivers
for it? Or is the CD & other stuff, the HD, plug & play?

Lose the hard drive? If it were to fail, you'd just start from scratch as
with any other system... you'd need the OS installation files and drivers.
Dell didn't use proprietary CHIPSETS, those drivers are available on the
'net, not just from Dell. If the motherboard has an old enough (usually
Intel BX or 810) chipset, Win98 won't need a driver for that so the CDROM
would work, but video, modem, sound, etc, will need the drivers supplied
for those devices to function.

In other words, since you don't have the Dell CD, you can pretty much
ignore that it's a Dell and treat as a generic system, getting drivers
from chipset manufacturers or wherever, except that the OS files are only
on the HDD, why I mentioned backing them up especially when they're stored
on such an old HDD.

I really can't complain - a great computer for the Internet for $50.
We'll use it the way it is if I can't do anything about it.

It should be quite an upgrade for him, MUCH better for broadband even if
it isn't fast by modern standards.

 

[Big Mac]

Thanks a lot you guys. I appreciate the very useful information.

Big Mac