When I was about 9 my grandparents started my computer journey by purchasing me a Packard Bell executive multimedia. It was a desktop that laid flat with the monitor on top and the speakers attached to the monitor. It ran windows 95 and had a pentium 133 with 16MB ram and a whopping 1.19gb hard disk. But it got me a hobby and later a career so thanks to my grandparents for buying it for me!
I drooled throughout this video. This was my first computer as a child. I want to get a computer like this one to tear out the internals and keep it as a sleeper PC. The 955 has a similar case design as the 820, so either one I'd be happy with.
I had a packard bell 386 as our first family computer so I always had a soft spot for them. I was working at a computer store when I was 12/13 years old and I remember seeing one of these exact machines come through and even then I was nostalgic for it.
My 2nd computer was a K6-2 @ 500 mhz. I had a lot of problems till i found the issue: THE CPU COOLER. It was unable to keep a decent temperature and the computer would crash all the time. I did replace the cooler for a better one that only cost me 6 usa dlls and i never had an issue again. The original cooler looked a lot like the one you have there.
I remember when the cooler completely separated from my 500mhz celeron. it still ran like that, but BSoD's happened about every five minutes until i realized what was wrong
Man, I remember spending nights by installing windows after a new crash. That was unforgettable felling of fresh installed system. What a lovely time back than. Thank you mate for this video.
Man, this brings back memories. I bought a Packard Bell pc at Sears in the fall of 1999 for $700 that was running a Pentium II 400 Mhz cpu and had Windows 95 on it. I promptly upgraded to Win 98 SE and started exploring the web. This was my very first pc ( yes I was very late into the computer game) but I liked it and had fun with it. I remember the case was exactly like this one, exactly the same with the LED's and the two buttons. My next computer I built myself and bought all the components myself. Remember Pricewatch from back then? But the Packard Bell got my feet wet so there is a tiny bit of nostalgia. After that, I had to have complete control and I built all my pc's myself from then on.
@@Trev359 Crap or not, my first P Bell was a 386 and bought in 1992. It had a 16 MHz processor and 2 megabytes of RAM. A friend of mine was able to upgrade it to 8. I can't remember what the original hard drive size was, but for a 1.3 GB hard drive in 1994 that was added as a slave drive, the price was 149.00
They were very hit-and-miss. The motherboards were typically fine(ish), but the main problem was that they skimped on parts from the mid to late 90s - especially the PSU and HDD. God knows Maxtor was a shit brand, and they would barely last you past the warranty period. Also, some of their mid-90s boards would just NOT take a PCI graphics card, regardless of your BIOS settings. So you were sometimes just stuck with onboard graphics.
Same here, except I already had a lot of the parts. I just needed a monitor, sound card, RAM, a CD-ROM, some speakers, and now I have a wonderful Win98 machine! All thanks to LGR.
Nice! My first windows pc was a Packard Bell Legend Pentium 133 mhz that I got from Sears back in September of 96. Seeing this bring back many memories (some fond, some not so fond LOL).
Back in 2004/2005, I was in reception (UK equivalent of Kindergarten) and I remember they had a PC that was probably the same model as the one in this video in the classroom that we were sometimes allowed to play on. I've always had the memory of that Kiddonet main menu screen and that music being on that PC but I never knew the name of the software. It's such a faint memory now that I almost thought it was a dream until I saw this video. Thanks, LGR for taking me back!
I love Packard Bells, as you probably already know. And yes, this is from their era when they really started to slack off and become "generic", compared to the very cool and unique machines they made in the early-mid '90s. But nevertheless, I always enjoy seeing you take something normally unloved and show that it's actually not bad. Thanks for such a great video.
Yeah, I've owned a ton of mid '90s era Packard Bells over the years and they've very rarely given me any serious problems. They've usually been reliable and have always had good build quality. I had my childhood model Packard Bell fall off my desk and completely crush a power supply out of an old HP Pavilion. The power supply was obliterated into oblivion but the Packard Bell only received a nick in the plastic and still runs beautifully to this day.
My current main computer is Packard-Bell EasyNote laptop from 2013 and never had any problems. Originally it had Windows 8, updgraded it to 8.1 and finally to Windows 10. In 1998 I was still using Amiga at home and bought my first PC in 2001, that was HP Brio BA410 with Windows 98 Second Edition. I still have it, altough the monitor is not connected at the moment as my old computer desk started to fall apart :P
You must live in Europe. Acer doesnt sell the Packard Bell name in the US anymore. I seem to recall their reputation getting irreparably damaged after it was revealed they were selling refurbished hardware as new or something similar.
Awesome to see that chart, my first computer must have came out around the exact same time this one did. I had the Compaq Presario 5050 333MHz, 96MB RAM, 7GB HDD with 2MB ATi integrated graphics. I still remember my parents asking me “should we go on a cruise, or get a computer?” What an obvious question for a young nerdy kid! That computer and Need for Speed II SE made so many memories
haha, I mostly think it's nostalgia on my part, but I do specifically remember the power supply on my Packard Bell smoking and setting off the fire alarm in my room, which immediately caused my parents to interrogate me if I was smoking "the weed".
Not only a non-smoker's computer in terms of clean, but how little dust in there was kind of impressive. Was expecting some monster dust-bunny given its age.
I worked at OfficeMax in the 90s, in the computer department. We all finished Myst on this machine, during work hours of course. Also, POD and NFS was my go to game to play while I was taking to customers on the phone, since the phone cord could reach the display PB we had it loaded on.
what you experienced with Bloatware was exactly why 99% of VISTA owners overwrote the machine with xp. hp was bundling games that acted very much like malware
I've been a fan for a while. Imagine my surprise when I saw this. I'm literally working on the same build right now. I already bought everything before I saw this video then this popped up in my recommended videos. I'm building this for my 90s room. Oh the nostalgia. Plus to play just a couple win 98 games.
I had a very similar version of this computer as my first. It had a Pentium 2 slot cpu and 64 megs of ram. It was a used computer and even had sim city 2000, sim tower, sim copter, streets of sim city, and stratosphere installed among other things. 18 years ago, It also was missing the floppy eject button. To this day I remember the graphics card was an SIS 6236. Not sure if it came with that from the factory. It brings back memories seeing the case again in your video after a very long time. My uncle used that old PC to teach me the foundation of what I know about computers today.
A trick I used to use to separate CPUs stuck hard to heat sinks is to heat up some water and put the heat sink side down in the water. This softened the compound enough that you can almost always twist the CPU off without putting stress on the CPU's heat spreader.
That's easy. Just add a bunch of case fans with bearings that have gone bad. I have one right here that I'll donate. Sounds like a helicopter trying to take off inside your computer.
I've been watching these videos all day. I've almost been convinced to find a computer from this era to mess with for the nostalgia😂 I'm 37 so grew up with this stuff. Doesn't seem that long ago but seeing how old it looks makes it look like it was forever ago.
As much as the design of a computer like this looks to be terribly cheap, trust me, I work at a retailer that sells modern PCs, they still make them as terrible as this one. If anything, this is more expandable than some of those cheaper ones nowadays.
I don't know what kept me from suscribing for so long!! This channel is beyond awesome!! I've been watching videos all day and it's already becoming one of my favorites!
Thank you so much for that little tip with the CMOS jumper on the board, Clint. It came in surprise handy when I bought a Pentium 4 IBM Thinkcentre PC workstation a while back. XP Pro service pack two, 500 Mb of RAM. Everything was locked down with a password. I remembered the jumper and cleared the password protection. Got me a practically new workstation PC for about a tenner.
I had one of these!!! The best thing about windows 98 is the two music videos that came on one of the companion discs; Edie brickel and the new bohemians “good times, bad times” and weezer “buddy holly”....
Memories. I had one, but a little bit older, which was my second computer. My PB had the all new Windows 95 version. My first computer ran Windows 3x and DOS 6.2, which was a great way to learn computers simply because everything you did (mostly) you had to do from a command prompt.
Remember these in the day 800-1000$ computers that really couldn't do a whole alot Its funny that now with the same $$$ you can get a computer that can game and what not.
Consider that $1000 in 1998 is equivalent to about $1800 in 2019 and you realize what an investment it was to buy even a mid-range machine. Everyone was buying them, then trying to figure out what to use them for as the net was still in it's infancy.
This was my first PC, and at the final stage of it's life it was also missing the eject floppy button. Had this machine with the M5SIB motherboard and a very slow Cyrix MII-300. I swapped it for AMD K6 and overclocked to 400 MHz, adding 2 Voodoo cards on the way. People nowadays often don't believe me when I tell them you could fit 3 different brands of CPU on this board.
Sold so many of them in my shop in these days...how proud customers were to own such a wonderful machine! Mostly it was the family computer, when we kept them in the living room for everyone to enjoy! Loved those days... the beginning of the internet, and the general acceptance of the pc. Oh, the stories I could tell... Loved the video, makes me cry from nostalgia! Thank you, LGR!!!!!!
I used to have a old used Packard-Bell CRT monitor back in 2010 that nearly caught on fire while on standby. I said nearly because it started randomly spiting out some black smoke. I immediately unplugged it and threw it in the trash.
Had the same happen with my crt tv i use for retro consoles. Smelt a slight burning smell, looked through the vents in the back and this part was glowing red hot...threw it out the next day
My dad bought a gateway monitor at Goodwill for 5 dollars back in 1999 and it worked perfectly until he went in the basement in the morning to go on the computer and when he walked into the room. He saw that the monitor had fried because it wouldn’t turn on and when he saw the top of the monitor he noticed that it was burnt black. The top was also melted. Luckily it did not burn the house down.
For some reason, I really want a hug from LGR. It's not like this video even made me decide that. I just thought about it, and now I really want one. I bet he smells like wood grain vinyl...
I remember the K6-2 was the first cpu I water cooled. Overclocked a 450 to something like 533? pooled the ram of both my system and a friends for 512 mb. Then played with a means of running windows and Duke Nukem on a ram drive ( quite a trick ) Wow was that speed in those days! This was well before liquid cooling was as easy as grabbing a part off the net/shelf. I had to make this thing. Old heatsink, and a pink translucent cover of a mini drill bit case plus some shoe glue (silicone that got hard) Then an aftermarket windshield wiper pump and radiator sitting outside in -20f temps. Ahh the memories..
I remember people posting their homemade water cooled creations on the original 3DMark forums, circa 2000-2001. Some of them were terrifying by today's standards.
Thanks for those mentions on safety tips such as power supplies catching on fire. I kept 3 old computers from the late 90s and have plans to restore them.
Hi LGR, great video, my first computer was a Packard Bell E 153, it came 16M of ram a cd drive and 150 MHz processor, matter of fact I still have this machine in storage, it ran Windows 95... WOW how times have changed.... thank you for posting this, brings back a lot of good as well as not so good memories of using this computer.
My grandma used to have this same computer in her office back in like 2003 and I very vividly remember coloring in that tiger at the beach every day when I'd go over to visit. Great times... thanks for the nostalgia bomb
the flickering in some platformer games like commander keen goodbye galaxy is usually on ATI brand cards, it works fine on nVidia cards like a Riva TNT or a Geforce2 MX and works good with S3 cards like the S3 Trio
Lazy Game Reviews as a former S3 ViRGE and Savage4 owner, I'm not used to seeing "upgrade to an S3". They're all words (except S3, I guess), but they don't fit together, like "potato orangutan"
Our first family PC was a Packard Bell with Windows 95 and was bundled with loads of CDs, including games, an encyclopaedia and interior design and garden design software. Loved it.
I used to have a Packard Bell PC. My first PC. I was a little kiddo who knew nothing of computers and was just delighted to have one, marvelling at my no-internet, crappy Windows 98 installation with pre-installed games like Age of Empires, Re-Volt etc. I had a HUMONGOUS 1 GB hard drive. Crazy to think I'm now running an RTX 2070 & i7-8700.
I really like computer restoration because it saves computers from going to landfills, which causes pollution and waste of working computers. Keep on salvaging as many computers as you can.
These sorts of videos normally bore me but I love to watch you do them. I don't know what it is but I just love your style. So much enthusiasm and they are relaxing and informative but still fun!
I was installing high speed internet around this time. The hardest part of the job was figuring out how the plethora of cases came apart. Oh and i was in the Mac Clone Days too.. Thanks for the memories this brings back the days where my work actually required a screw driver
Being a millennial at only 13 years old that computer actually means a lot to me since my grandmother had that exact model and after she stooped using it and just let it sit I used it and created fake web sites,Type stories and sometimes make comics all with word and it was just the most awesome thing I have ever used. P.S even though it ran windows 98 it felt faster than my Windows 10 PC.
This was my first pc, but it had a celeron 333. Watching this brings back good and bad memories. We bought this thanks to my mum, it was her first job and man she really treated us. Up until this point we'd never had fast food let alone a pc. We had an atari 2600 and a handed down amiga 500+. She was in hospital when I picked this up, when we ordered it she was totally fine. But within a long wk/end her depression came back and it was really stressful, she'd really harmed herself. The pc was a demo model, very good price but it had 1/2 the stated ram. It took 18/24 months to get this rectified. As I was in my teens dealing with this was new and I didn't have the push an adult does. Anyway it had 32 mb (advertised as 64) which gained a 64 mb stick and we got around £140 back when pc world finally admitted fault. The monitor was amazing, it had side _ear_ speakers and a great screen, very low dot pitch 0.27 a very sharp image especially when you consider the price. The ram upgrade really made the system faster, upon boot and settling was so, similar to a fresh os install. I used it until 2003/4 running many emus and d/l'ing so many mp3's via napster and limewire.
@@MrDonteatyourself thanks bro, since that time she's been far more _stable_ sadly I don't think she'll ever be happy. You ever had to deal with mental health issues?
Ahhh this was my first computer! And years later, it was the first one I ever took apart. My father wanted me to smash the virus-laden hard-drive with a hammer (along with 4-5 other dead ones - we had terrible computers). Now I wish I could have kept it for tinkering, but I didn't know then that I'd even be interested. My favorite memory? When they came to install our cable internet, the technician took one look at our computer and said, "Packard Bell? They haven't made these in ten years!"
Me too, I had a 486-25 that was too slow to run even doom well, I remember going to somebody's house with a 66mhz and being blown away by how it handled doom.
I absolutely love the old school 80's / 90's computers, and especially love it when someone brings an old one back to life. Windows 3.1 for me was a turning point hit. The whole feeling and advertising of "state of the art" computer technology was awesome. Now days, a computer is nothing more than a hidden quiet little box in the corner of a room that does nothing but provide the expected programs like a mobile phone with no user initiation, just pure automatic provisions requiring no experience. No drives, no noise, no discs, no lights, just a quiet little box there out of necessity rather than being part of the whole user experience and they're often hidden out of sight as if they're a nuisance or something. How computing has changed.
I had a Packard Bell Legend back in the day, no idea the model but it was a Pentium and had the fancy grey trim around the bottom. Surprisingly never had issues with it. We gave it to a family member when we upgraded and it was still working great.
6:52 "It doesn't blow up" is certainly a plus point in the specs for a PSU.
Yeah. The thing that was in there before was a literal bomb.
Terrorists win
@@CoasterMan13Official "Not made to last" by Packard Bell 😅
When I was about 9 my grandparents started my computer journey by purchasing me a Packard Bell executive multimedia. It was a desktop that laid flat with the monitor on top and the speakers attached to the monitor. It ran windows 95 and had a pentium 133 with 16MB ram and a whopping 1.19gb hard disk. But it got me a hobby and later a career so thanks to my grandparents for buying it for me!
I just bought one with 200mhz, 128mb of ram, and a massive 2gb hard drive. It’s currently running windows 98 SE.
i agree, RAM brings back some Memory....
DDR...Rambus..EDO Ram..
Wow...I just...wow. *groans approvingly *
I aDDRee
Eyy
Nailed it.
"This is a delightful piece of crap" - yeah, that's how my mom presents me to people.
Dude.... I need friends like you in my life
@@dionysisnanos6528 awww... You comment made me all warm inside. That or the gin... Either way, thanks.
@@dionysisnanos6528 yeah, that presentation could sell me in on anyone.
I'd gladly let you borrow my yugioh cards, piece of crap.
Relatable
I think
yes. just y e s.
I remember upgrading my Compaq Presario from 16 to 32 MB of ram. That was a great day.
We went from 8MB to 72MB. And Windows 3.1 to Windows 98. It was glorious!
I could watch this man dissect a pizza
Cringecop Lets hope he is not a nut in real life.
Wth
Go to LGR Foods
Dr. Richard Head LGR foods is a thing, hasn’t covered pizza yet thouh
You can watch him buy one, if that works for you.
Your passion for old time hardware is contagious.
*LGR: so here's this thing, it sucks, let's do it!*
I love you my dude
Building mundane hardware back to it's original suckitude!
Capture! Chuckles! It's just... Oh yes!
I drooled throughout this video. This was my first computer as a child. I want to get a computer like this one to tear out the internals and keep it as a sleeper PC. The 955 has a similar case design as the 820, so either one I'd be happy with.
I had a packard bell 386 as our first family computer so I always had a soft spot for them. I was working at a computer store when I was 12/13 years old and I remember seeing one of these exact machines come through and even then I was nostalgic for it.
It's a good day when any 90s PC gets restored, yes even this Packard Bell.
Rounak Dutta I agree.
ya, it is. is that a bad thing, bud?
Even a Packard Hell deserves some TLC
To bad windows 8 has now had the same fate as 98 and Vista to Windows 7, 8.1 and 10
Rounak Dutta I agree
My 2nd computer was a K6-2 @ 500 mhz. I had a lot of problems till i found the issue: THE CPU COOLER. It was unable to keep a decent temperature and the computer would crash all the time. I did replace the cooler for a better one that only cost me 6 usa dlls and i never had an issue again. The original cooler looked a lot like the one you have there.
i suggest to use a extra cpu fan, and a fan for the HDD
It might be because it's black anodized aluminium. The anodized coating reduces how it can transfer heat if it's on the CPU-side of it.
I had a K6-2 500, too. Fast machine for the price.
I remember when the cooler completely separated from my 500mhz celeron. it still ran like that, but BSoD's happened about every five minutes until i realized what was wrong
i have a 500mhz k6-2 @522mhz with the same heatsink lgr has and i cant hit 45*C under load.
You have the patience of a saint, very relaxing to watch.
Love your videos dude.
sorry, it's annoying. but can someone tell me if this message can be viewed? i think i have some sort of technical issue.
Thank you for your answer. :)
strange... I have a feeling only you could see what I've written on TH-cam in a long time.
Raquel 1:27 hehe bet the computer is really enjoying that
Man, I remember spending nights by installing windows after a new crash. That was unforgettable felling of fresh installed system. What a lovely time back than. Thank you mate for this video.
Man, this brings back memories. I bought a Packard Bell pc at Sears in the fall of 1999 for $700 that was running a Pentium II 400 Mhz cpu and had Windows 95 on it. I promptly upgraded to Win 98 SE and started exploring the web. This was my very first pc ( yes I was very late into the computer game) but I liked it and had fun with it. I remember the case was exactly like this one, exactly the same with the LED's and the two buttons. My next computer I built myself and bought all the components myself. Remember Pricewatch from back then? But the Packard Bell got my feet wet so there is a tiny bit of nostalgia. After that, I had to have complete control and I built all my pc's myself from then on.
Man, I hated Packard Bell back in the day, but now, I have a newfound sense of respect for their perfectly adequate systems. Thanks, LGR!
@@Broyale26: What the fuck do you mean by that, man?
Packard Bell PCs were crap.
@@Trev359 Crap or not, my first P Bell was a 386 and bought in 1992. It had a 16 MHz processor and 2 megabytes of RAM. A friend of mine was able to upgrade it to 8. I can't remember what the original hard drive size was, but for a 1.3 GB hard drive in 1994 that was added as a slave drive, the price was 149.00
They were very hit-and-miss. The motherboards were typically fine(ish), but the main problem was that they skimped on parts from the mid to late 90s - especially the PSU and HDD. God knows Maxtor was a shit brand, and they would barely last you past the warranty period. Also, some of their mid-90s boards would just NOT take a PCI graphics card, regardless of your BIOS settings. So you were sometimes just stuck with onboard graphics.
Every time I see videos like this, I get an itch to buy and work on a computer I don't need.
you could always sell the computer for profit after you're done playing with it.
You tube inspired me to buy an Atari ST to work on. Had it 8 months. Haven't worked on it. Consider this a warning...
Same here, except I already had a lot of the parts. I just needed a monitor, sound card, RAM, a CD-ROM, some speakers, and now I have a wonderful Win98 machine! All thanks to LGR.
Exatctly
Nice! My first windows pc was a Packard Bell Legend Pentium 133 mhz that I got from Sears back in September of 96. Seeing this bring back many memories (some fond, some not so fond LOL).
Back in 2004/2005, I was in reception (UK equivalent of Kindergarten) and I remember they had a PC that was probably the same model as the one in this video in the classroom that we were sometimes allowed to play on. I've always had the memory of that Kiddonet main menu screen and that music being on that PC but I never knew the name of the software. It's such a faint memory now that I almost thought it was a dream until I saw this video. Thanks, LGR for taking me back!
“word 97 clipart .. ooooh””. love this guy.
I love how the AMD logo looked so "gamer-y" even back then
GLeeM oof
Kiddonet was too much for Nvidia
they allways were like targeting for game performance with theyr GPU's
You know it's not an official LGR restored computer until it has the Commander Keen and Duke3d test stamp of approval. :)
I love Packard Bells, as you probably already know. And yes, this is from their era when they really started to slack off and become "generic", compared to the very cool and unique machines they made in the early-mid '90s. But nevertheless, I always enjoy seeing you take something normally unloved and show that it's actually not bad. Thanks for such a great video.
Glad you enjoyed, man!
Yeah, I've owned a ton of mid '90s era Packard Bells over the years and they've very rarely given me any serious problems. They've usually been reliable and have always had good build quality. I had my childhood model Packard Bell fall off my desk and completely crush a power supply out of an old HP Pavilion. The power supply was obliterated into oblivion but the Packard Bell only received a nick in the plastic and still runs beautifully to this day.
My current main computer is Packard-Bell EasyNote laptop from 2013 and never had any problems. Originally it had Windows 8, updgraded it to 8.1 and finally to Windows 10.
In 1998 I was still using Amiga at home and bought my first PC in 2001, that was HP Brio BA410 with Windows 98 Second Edition. I still have it, altough the monitor is not connected at the moment as my old computer desk started to fall apart :P
You must live in Europe. Acer doesnt sell the Packard Bell name in the US anymore. I seem to recall their reputation getting irreparably damaged after it was revealed they were selling refurbished hardware as new or something similar.
I do indeed live in Europe, Finland. Seems that Packard Bell has disappeared by now here too.
Awesome to see that chart, my first computer must have came out around the exact same time this one did. I had the Compaq Presario 5050 333MHz, 96MB RAM, 7GB HDD with 2MB ATi integrated graphics. I still remember my parents asking me “should we go on a cruise, or get a computer?” What an obvious question for a young nerdy kid! That computer and Need for Speed II SE made so many memories
Still have the original big box that NFS II SE came in😁
Having a rough day and LGR never fails to brighten my mood. Theres something incredibly satisfying about old *wares
Had the gen before this. I preferred my Gateway 2000. Great vid!
Thanks! And yeah I’d still pick most any Gateway 2000 over this, for most purposes.
haha, I mostly think it's nostalgia on my part, but I do specifically remember the power supply on my Packard Bell smoking and setting off the fire alarm in my room, which immediately caused my parents to interrogate me if I was smoking "the weed".
seeing C-Milk comment on an LGR video made my day.
@@laowhy86 t h e w e e d
China
Hard to believe this machine is now 20 years old... What has my life become?
Not only a non-smoker's computer in terms of clean, but how little dust in there was kind of impressive. Was expecting some monster dust-bunny given its age.
12:39 - That cat sitting on the chair is the first picture I remember printing out.
I worked at OfficeMax in the 90s, in the computer department. We all finished Myst on this machine, during work hours of course. Also, POD and NFS was my go to game to play while I was taking to customers on the phone, since the phone cord could reach the display PB we had it loaded on.
I had a Packard Bell in the 90's. I'm still taking meds. :)
My sympathies.
what you experienced with Bloatware was exactly why 99% of VISTA owners overwrote the machine with xp. hp was bundling games that acted very much like malware
acheleg s
One of a number of reasons Vista came out disastrously.
Me too! I mean...Windows ME!
The internet grew up watching LGR. They still do.
Hey that's a mod of a Packard Bell slogan cool!
Grew up watching him? More like lived through such tech heh.
I've been a fan for a while. Imagine my surprise when I saw this. I'm literally working on the same build right now. I already bought everything before I saw this video then this popped up in my recommended videos.
I'm building this for my 90s room. Oh the nostalgia. Plus to play just a couple win 98 games.
I had a very similar version of this computer as my first. It had a Pentium 2 slot cpu and 64 megs of ram. It was a used computer and even had sim city 2000, sim tower, sim copter, streets of sim city, and stratosphere installed among other things. 18 years ago, It also was missing the floppy eject button. To this day I remember the graphics card was an SIS 6236. Not sure if it came with that from the factory. It brings back memories seeing the case again in your video after a very long time. My uncle used that old PC to teach me the foundation of what I know about computers today.
Best Retrotech channel ever! greetings from Brazil!
Greetings right back, thanks for watching!
A trick I used to use to separate CPUs stuck hard to heat sinks is to heat up some water and put the heat sink side down in the water. This softened the compound enough that you can almost always twist the CPU off without putting stress on the CPU's heat spreader.
Not bad what I do is run the pc for a bit. If that dont work then prime 95 for a bit lol
LGR! PLEASE make the NOISIEST computer possible! only a nostalgia freak like you can know how!
That's easy. Just add a bunch of case fans with bearings that have gone bad. I have one right here that I'll donate. Sounds like a helicopter trying to take off inside your computer.
It i can find my aunts old Dell . that will cover it lol.
SpearM75503 😂
and a old hard drive with a noisy motor like an old quantum fireball
The theres already a computer that deserves that title the apple g5
thank you for restoring this former IT guy's fond memories. Everything you did here was just pure joy.
I've been watching these videos all day. I've almost been convinced to find a computer from this era to mess with for the nostalgia😂 I'm 37 so grew up with this stuff. Doesn't seem that long ago but seeing how old it looks makes it look like it was forever ago.
As much as the design of a computer like this looks to be terribly cheap, trust me, I work at a retailer that sells modern PCs, they still make them as terrible as this one. If anything, this is more expandable than some of those cheaper ones nowadays.
Skalor Lune so true most of them are total CRAP!
I don't know what kept me from suscribing for so long!! This channel is beyond awesome!! I've been watching videos all day and it's already becoming one of my favorites!
Yep first thing with most old PCs. Ditch the PSU. Replace the Lithium battery.
Thank you so much for that little tip with the CMOS jumper on the board, Clint. It came in surprise handy when I bought a Pentium 4 IBM Thinkcentre PC workstation a while back. XP Pro service pack two, 500 Mb of RAM. Everything was locked down with a password. I remembered the jumper and cleared the password protection. Got me a practically new workstation PC for about a tenner.
Hard to believe dell wasn’t in the top 10 back then!
I absolutely cannot believe this was in the top 10 best selling computers in the 90s lmao... Thanks for this Clint 😎
In general I think PB's were pretty competitive with their prices, honestly I didn't know shit about computers back in the day, most didn't.
They sold, and weren't immediately terrible enough to create news and backlash, so they kept selling.
Oh yeah I remember the integrated video! That equaled duel monitors back in the day 😀👍 of course I mean in conjunction with my nifty video card
Maybe some rubber washers on the HDD will help any vibration noise from the metal on metal mounting.
There is something oddly satisfying about seeing an old PC like this restored and made happy again. Love your videos!
I had one of these!!! The best thing about windows 98 is the two music videos that came on one of the companion discs; Edie brickel and the new bohemians “good times, bad times” and weezer “buddy holly”....
WHY DO I FIND THIS SO ENTERTAINING?!?!
It's nerdnip for a specific kind of person.
I know right
Your not the only one.
Its just PC Porn
Farts farts farts farts farts. That's why.
Memories.
I had one, but a little bit older, which was my second computer. My PB had the all new Windows 95 version. My first computer ran Windows 3x and DOS 6.2, which was a great way to learn computers simply because everything you did (mostly) you had to do from a command prompt.
Remember these in the day 800-1000$ computers that really couldn't do a whole alot Its funny that now with the same $$$ you can get a computer that can game and what not.
Consider that $1000 in 1998 is equivalent to about $1800 in 2019 and you realize what an investment it was to buy even a mid-range machine. Everyone was buying them, then trying to figure out what to use them for as the net was still in it's infancy.
This was my first PC, and at the final stage of it's life it was also missing the eject floppy button. Had this machine with the M5SIB motherboard and a very slow Cyrix MII-300. I swapped it for AMD K6 and overclocked to 400 MHz, adding 2 Voodoo cards on the way. People nowadays often don't believe me when I tell them you could fit 3 different brands of CPU on this board.
Sold so many of them in my shop in these days...how proud customers were to own such a wonderful machine! Mostly it was the family computer, when we kept them in the living room for everyone to enjoy! Loved those days... the beginning of the internet, and the general acceptance of the pc. Oh, the stories I could tell... Loved the video, makes me cry from nostalgia! Thank you, LGR!!!!!!
I used to have a old used Packard-Bell CRT monitor back in 2010 that nearly caught on fire while on standby. I said nearly because it started randomly spiting out some black smoke. I immediately unplugged it and threw it in the trash.
Had the same happen with my crt tv i use for retro consoles. Smelt a slight burning smell, looked through the vents in the back and this part was glowing red hot...threw it out the next day
That's kind of funny, I also had a packard bell CRT start smoking on me as well back in 2006
My dad bought a gateway monitor at Goodwill for 5 dollars back in 1999 and it worked perfectly until he went in the basement in the morning to go on the computer and when he walked into the room. He saw that the monitor had fried because it wouldn’t turn on and when he saw the top of the monitor he noticed that it was burnt black. The top was also melted. Luckily it did not burn the house down.
omg its midnight here in Japan and you totally saved me from midnight boredom
Lol I literally see you everywhere I go. I've seen you comment on multiple para para videos.
Call me senpai i am a parapara guy, i collect and rip tapes/dvd’s and i’m going to Starfire Countdown. GOTTA MAKE MY PRESENCE KNOW
poobd 眠いですか?😴
RAM3N OV3RLORD 今午前6時、眠くなるw
Poo butt ass
I remember my cousin getting a new computer with MMX and Pod on it and that being cutting edge. I'm old.
Brings back memories of my first prebuilt computer buy. Mine was a Monorail brand with an AMD K6 II 300mhz.
I was born in 87, so watching a video like this definitely brings back memories!
For some reason, I really want a hug from LGR.
It's not like this video even made me decide that. I just thought about it, and now I really want one.
I bet he smells like wood grain vinyl...
ratchet256 In the LGBT community he's called bellboy.
I remember the K6-2 was the first cpu I water cooled. Overclocked a 450 to something like 533? pooled the ram of both my system and a friends for 512 mb. Then played with a means of running windows and Duke Nukem on a ram
drive ( quite a trick ) Wow was that speed in those days! This was well before liquid cooling was as easy as grabbing a part off the net/shelf. I had to make this thing. Old heatsink, and a pink translucent cover of a mini drill bit case plus some shoe glue (silicone that got hard) Then an aftermarket windshield wiper pump and radiator sitting outside in -20f temps. Ahh the memories..
I remember people posting their homemade water cooled creations on the original 3DMark forums, circa 2000-2001. Some of them were terrifying by today's standards.
I had a 350 overclocked to 400 with air cooling. I later went to a 500.
Awesome tech and software videos + soothing voice = the most relaxing videos ever :P
Wtf why do I find you everywhere
Jake1702 why does it matter?
Christopher Chancey why wouldn’t it matter?
Clint, you really inspire me to do this type of restoration work. If only I could afford more old computers to work on!
Thanks for those mentions on safety tips such as power supplies catching on fire. I kept 3 old computers from the late 90s and have plans to restore them.
thanks for the free product key
@@HappyBeezerStudios *Microsoft
@@Ocawesome101 or BAKA9-BAKA9-BAKA9-BAKA9-BAKA9
This case screams for a sleeper build
My first computer was a refurbished Packard Bell (Hell) 166 Mhz processor that I bought off of DAMARK with a cool 17-inch monitor! Good times! :-)
Packard *Hell* 😅😅😅
Hi LGR, great video, my first computer was a Packard Bell E 153, it came 16M of ram a cd drive and 150 MHz processor, matter of fact I still have this machine in storage, it ran Windows 95... WOW how times have changed.... thank you for posting this, brings back a lot of good as well as not so good memories of using this computer.
My grandma used to have this same computer in her office back in like 2003 and I very vividly remember coloring in that tiger at the beach every day when I'd go over to visit. Great times... thanks for the nostalgia bomb
That's weird. You have the same Windows 98 CD key as I do.
What's the problem? I mean it's a perfectly legit key... isn't..... it....? :
the flickering in some platformer games like commander keen goodbye galaxy is usually on ATI brand cards, it works fine on nVidia cards like a Riva TNT or a Geforce2 MX and works good with S3 cards like the S3 Trio
That has been my experience as well, and I plan to upgrade to an S3 card in the future!
Lazy Game Reviews as a former S3 ViRGE and Savage4 owner, I'm not used to seeing "upgrade to an S3". They're all words (except S3, I guess), but they don't fit together, like "potato orangutan"
Recognised the issue when I saw it, I had it on my ATI Rage Mobility as well.
Guys, check this made by an awesome Vogons member: gona.mactar.hu/DOS_TESTS/
I can't seem to find an AGP slot on the motherboard. Ouch, that'll limit options.
Put a Voodoo3 in that bad boy and then try some 3D games with it.
Or a TNT2, as they seem to be cheaper on Ebay if you need to buy either of them.
Just found my old GeForce 2 GTS in a cupboard. Going to put it in a Slot A 1000 Athlon board. Retro dream rig on the way !
Our first family PC was a Packard Bell with Windows 95 and was bundled with loads of CDs, including games, an encyclopaedia and interior design and garden design software. Loved it.
I used to have a Packard Bell PC. My first PC. I was a little kiddo who knew nothing of computers and was just delighted to have one, marvelling at my no-internet, crappy Windows 98 installation with pre-installed games like Age of Empires, Re-Volt etc. I had a HUMONGOUS 1 GB hard drive.
Crazy to think I'm now running an RTX 2070 & i7-8700.
I really like computer restoration because it saves computers from going to landfills, which causes pollution and waste of working computers. Keep on salvaging as many computers as you can.
Awww this was back in the day when computers were fun. Love your video. You have a new subscriber for sure,
11:28
I thought Clint was still talking for a second.
The fuck? This isn't a Game Grumps video.
You mean it wasn't?
I still use that packard bell desktop background to this day on all my computers. Reminds me of my 6 year old wonder for computers back in the day.
These sorts of videos normally bore me but I love to watch you do them. I don't know what it is but I just love your style. So much enthusiasm and they are relaxing and informative but still fun!
Terms you don't hear today, "multimedia", also the "information superhighway" :)
Multimedia still lurks around here and there but Information Superhighway is deffinitly very dead XD
If you hear Multimedia these days it's probably in a corporate fashion.
LGR video are so soothing, its like ASMR for me LUL
Yes it is, isnt it? I watch lgr all the time because of this and its fantastic. Thought i was the only one doing it..
Me too
What's 'Ye lul"? ;) ...a euphemism?
Fuck you I hate that phrase... Although the videos are relaxing... I hate that god dam acronym.
His voice is so soothing, and yet manages to keep my interest. A voice of gold.
17:39
GOD that brings back memories. I used to play the Rise of Rome trial on my shitty Packard Bell constantly.
Man I love your attitude to machines, real clean, real caring, made me love my job as a developer once more, thank you.
I was installing high speed internet around this time. The hardest part of the job was figuring out how the plethora of cases came apart. Oh and i was in the Mac Clone Days too.. Thanks for the memories this brings back the days where my work actually required a screw driver
1998, when your computer came with friendly, reassuring stickers.
KayakTN I remember reading the ones on top of my old HP and being amazed at the mediocre specs
Memories, this is a premium cable channel
Being a millennial at only 13 years old that computer actually means a lot to me since my grandmother had that exact model and after she stooped using it and just let it sit I used it and created fake web sites,Type stories and sometimes make comics all with word and it was just the most awesome thing I have ever used. P.S even though it ran windows 98 it felt faster than my Windows 10 PC.
*Gen Z
This was my first pc, but it had a celeron 333. Watching this brings back good and bad memories. We bought this thanks to my mum, it was her first job and man she really treated us. Up until this point we'd never had fast food let alone a pc. We had an atari 2600 and a handed down amiga 500+.
She was in hospital when I picked this up, when we ordered it she was totally fine. But within a long wk/end her depression came back and it was really stressful, she'd really harmed herself.
The pc was a demo model, very good price but it had 1/2 the stated ram. It took 18/24 months to get this rectified. As I was in my teens dealing with this was new and I didn't have the push an adult does. Anyway it had 32 mb (advertised as 64) which gained a 64 mb stick and we got around £140 back when pc world finally admitted fault.
The monitor was amazing, it had side _ear_ speakers and a great screen, very low dot pitch 0.27 a very sharp image especially when you consider the price. The ram upgrade really made the system faster, upon boot and settling was so, similar to a fresh os install.
I used it until 2003/4 running many emus and d/l'ing so many mp3's via napster and limewire.
Gunzee i hope your mom got better
@@MrDonteatyourself thanks bro, since that time she's been far more _stable_ sadly I don't think she'll ever be happy. You ever had to deal with mental health issues?
@@Gunzee my whole life 🙂 mostly anxiety/add. My mom is the same. I hope your mom finds some measure of peace in life. 🙂
@@Gunzee does your mom do hard drugs?
Games and pc stuff in general in the late 90s was a magical thing. This video made me smile.
Ahhh this was my first computer! And years later, it was the first one I ever took apart. My father wanted me to smash the virus-laden hard-drive with a hammer (along with 4-5 other dead ones - we had terrible computers). Now I wish I could have kept it for tinkering, but I didn't know then that I'd even be interested.
My favorite memory? When they came to install our cable internet, the technician took one look at our computer and said, "Packard Bell? They haven't made these in ten years!"
LateroseMosswing did work with the internet cable that was .
"Push and hold for 4 seconds to turn off" - terrible advice!
Hard locked so often that they had to pretend it was part of the normal operation of the computer.
Oh man packard bell my first pc...good times.
Me too, I had a 486-25 that was too slow to run even doom well, I remember going to somebody's house with a 66mhz and being blown away by how it handled doom.
I absolutely love the old school 80's / 90's computers, and especially love it when someone brings an old one back to life.
Windows 3.1 for me was a turning point hit. The whole feeling and advertising of "state of the art" computer technology was awesome. Now days, a computer is nothing more than a hidden quiet little box in the corner of a room that does nothing but provide the expected programs like a mobile phone with no user initiation, just pure automatic provisions requiring no experience. No drives, no noise, no discs, no lights, just a quiet little box there out of necessity rather than being part of the whole user experience and they're often hidden out of sight as if they're a nuisance or something.
How computing has changed.
This was my first pc, exact model. It did everything I needed it for back in the day flawlessly
will it run Tetris
Yes. If you can find a PC copy.
Packard Bell...
Is that like a HP with a free Taco?
Mecrom I'm one of the forunate few that got this joke 😂
AncientTech yeah Hewlett Packard Taco Bell - I get it . I'm also reminded of Cluckin' Bell i GTA :D
Dude, this joke is so lame but I totally got it, I laughed anyways 😂
Are you planning on making a video on POD in the future, Clint? It looks like something I'd enjoy.
For sure. I ran the POD Phreak fansite for years, it's still up!
I had a Packard Bell Legend back in the day, no idea the model but it was a Pentium and had the fancy grey trim around the bottom. Surprisingly never had issues with it. We gave it to a family member when we upgraded and it was still working great.
This brought back so many memories this wad our first real new computer my dad bought from Sears.