I feel like I'm part of the cool kids club here 😎 I have weird feelings when I see VAIO desktops. A friend of mine who passed away had one, and they make me think of him.
It makes me grin every time you put thermal paste on -- you cut it RIGHT before the TH-cam trolls could have anything to argue about LOL -- Love it! I loved the Viao line (both laptops and desktops) and always wanted one.. I wasn't able to afford one either -- but I wanted one so bad.. Loved the whole look, the colors and (of course) it was Sony, so I knew they were well built.
The D: drive looks like part of the stuff from American Airlines Timetable program. A319, A320, B737300, etc are Airbus & Boing. The web documents likely contain fleet information on those planes.
Now THAT'S interesting! Don't know why that didn't catch my eye, was moving too fast I guess. Aviation is one of my most-loved subjects so I'll have to go back and take a look!
@@miketech1024 I fly airplanes as a hobby when I'm not building server systems. Hence why I picked that up quickly. Let me know if that ends up being the case with those files. Keep up the great work!
I wanted a Vaio so bad as a kid. My brother in law had a gorgeous desktop back in 99 that I was so jealous of. It was the first computer I had seen that wasn't a basic beige or grey color, and it was sleek looking. It was a PCV-70. Blew my mind at the time as a 15 year old.
The Image Transfer thing was the software that came with the Sony Mavica digital cameras. It would detect when a memory stick was inserted and automatically copy images off onto a location on the hard drive.
So happy to see some Vaio desktops! As a funny story: In 2003, I had ordered a cheap, used desktop from an online store (I think Eggheads or something) and what I received was a Vaio desktop with Media Center, TV card, amazing video card etc. I was blown away.
NMB was/is a well known keyboard maker and fan maker. They made the NMB Space Invaders switches. They are cool looking if you look them up and you'll know right away why they called them Space Invaders.
I use needle nose pliers for really stuck 4-pin molex power connectors. Grab either side and gently wiggle it out. I still have a standard Pioneer DVR104 from back in the day, the springy faceplate was standard.
I always learn something unexpected when I watch your videos. Today it was the proc directory and | more command. Rewound and followed along on my Pi-hole. Thanks.
When I was a kid. The family computer in the living room was a sony vaio. I think it had a Celeron at 800mhz. I upgraded the GPU I believe to a pny nvidia mx 400. It was my first PC gaming experience. Haven't looked back since. I want to get a vaio for nostalgia.
Fun fact, look for a setting in the BIOS called "Logo Motion" it gives the Vaio a cool boot chime and animation on boot...all vaios up until the late vista era had it
Non- standard motherboards and power supplies caused so many of these to be tossed. I tried to service one back in 2007 for a defective motherboard or power supply. Neither could be replaced.
I had a Pentium III Vaio of this vintage when I was in college. If it makes you feel any better, those tabs on the top panel were probably broken decades ago - I know mine did.
My family had a PCV-RX551 Vaio with that case style when I was a small child… I now have a PCV-RX550 that’s basically identical, and basically the awkward middle child between the early Pentium III, Athlon K7, and Socket 423 PCV-RX Vaios (up to RX400 series) and the later DDR Pentium 4 and Athlon XP PCV-RX Vaios (RX600 through RX800 series), as the P4-based RX500 series were early Socket 478 systems that used PC-133 SDRAM on the original i845 chipset… and most of them came with an Nvidia TNT64 for the GPU. Both my (sadly now nonexistent) childhood original and current Vaios were upgraded from their original 1.5GHz Willamette P4, 256MB RAM, and 60GB hard drives to a 2.6GHz Northwood P4 (400MHz FSB), 512MB RAM, 250GB hard drive, and ATI Radeon 9600 Pro GPU. Objectively speaking, the earliest Socket 478 systems using PC-133 SDRAM are some of the slowest Pentium 4 systems out there - but I like these Vaios and they remind me of a bygone era. And as for the second board having no blown caps… I cannot say that was the case for my current PCV-RX550 (uses the Asus P4B-LX motherboard), as that had at least eight blown caps - all of which I replaced as my first motherboard recapping project. You just got lucky with your two Vaios not having any blown caps, either that or I got unlucky.
Had a VAIO back in the very early 2000s. It had RDRAM just like this one. When you wiped off the heatsink on System #1, I could still see the imprint left by the P4 heatsink etching. LOL! Those Willamette P4s were hilariously bad.
Sony makes TVs, cameras and other AV equipment and very well known for quality to this day. They are also known for their entertainment divisions such as music and TV shows/movies .
Awesome content man. Well paced, covering all the interesting stuff and the dry humour is too good. There's still quite a few Vaio laptops kicking around here in New Zealand on local auction sites but Vaio desktops are as rare as hens nuts. It's a shame Sony has moved away from that segment as they made some good gear. These cases are pretty stylish and would make awesome sleepers, if only you could track down an elusive bottom door. 😁
The Willamette pentium 4's always reminded me of the Northwood Core Pentium 4's slapped onto an interposer. You can perfectly fit a Northwood Pentium 4 right on top of that heatspreader on the Willamette. Also NMB Technologies Corporation is a MinebeaMitsumi Group company makes mostly computer components fans,power supplies etc. as well as industrial electronics.
The cpu fan is meant to be facing the psu to get rid out of the heat, as its intake its the holes on the dvd bay, mine works this way, flip it to the right way
Another Friday with another great MikeTech video! No Friday is complete without one! I remember Vaio systems. Knew a few teachers who had them at home. I can’t believe the dust storm the first system was. There was more dust than the desert in that system. I always have to wonder why people don’t wipe their systems before getting rid of it. It’s a dangerous for people to do.
On all my rebuilds, I always set the Primary IDE to the CD/DVD Drives and the secondary IDE port for the hard drives... keeping everything in order....
That first pentium 4 looks so bizarre like they soldered a regular P4 onto a PCB with pins… Maybe it was a normal thing they did at that time but idk it looks weird to me. Didn’t think the front of that second system would clean so easily and so well, it looked really nice afterwards!
Used to buy pcs at thrift stores refurbed and sold(mostly donated back LOL). Had a few Vaios,the look was great and if the parts fit would also make a great 'sleeper pc'. Was not into that in the day but might be interesting now. It's always a treat to see one of your videos and once again see if the 'sacrificial hard drives' would keep clickety clacking to live another day.
Three-quarters of an hour of enjoyment. Thanks -- you're one of the very best. I wonder if you'd consider using a mask when cleaning out a system as dusty as the first one? There's bound to be substances in that contamination that are not good to inhale.
oh hey i have the keyboard for one of these, it was a 1800 layout rubber dome keyboard but it still felt really nice compared to other dome boards, love to see funky keyboard layouts
Vaio will hold a special place in my heart as the most bougie systems ever created besides Apple. Their laptops and all-in-ones were so pretty and they all suck now adays because all their drivers are gone so better hope you also got the recovery disk or they were graciously uploaded to a driver repository! Great video!
I had one of these in the XP era, it came with a Sony branded keyboard in the same style and a mouse. After I resold it I really missed the keyboard it was the perfect fit to my fingers. Never got one later that I liked that much. The hardware was fine, although I do not remember any particulars of it.
Good to see matx-systems from these years with dedicated agp-slot on the motherboard. Many others just had very "questionable" ( some times it was just terrible bad ) on board graphics and pci-slots.
Makes me wonder if they just removed the door on both systems. They did tend to be a pain in the butt when using the front USB ports. Sony were pricey back in the day. The PC counterpart of Apple. Great to see you back in action.
He is gay as well, he has the rainbow flag on his apple watch. Next time he does a close up in his video have a look. Also, I am a huge nerd, I have 20 computers in my house from apple g4s, to dual Xeons from back in the day. However, he out nerds me, he can change capacitors on motherboards. I would throw it in the trash. @@Cyba_IT
Yeah Asus is the one behind Sony's motherboards and video cards. Kind of unique because all Sony boards are green instead of the traditional Asus yellow pcb that could be found in HPs and other OEMs. Asus was used by Sony,Gigabyte by IBM,Asus and MSI by HP,ECS and Intel for Acer,Intel by eMachines. Some of them could use other manufacturers but the ones i mentioned were the most used by them at the time
The Pentium and Pentium II era Sony's used Intel motherboards. They were good quality and when I worked at a computer store in the service department I used to recommend the Vaios because they used Intel boards. I figured, if the company that invented the CPU also made the board for it, it's certainly going to work well together.
I "played" WoW in 2004 on one of these babies before I ended up building my first PC (mine is the PCV-RX550 model). Still have it, along with the original desktop speakers and keyboard! It's all stock, with the exception of the dial-up modem being swapped out for a NIC (though I probably have the modem somewhere). It doesn't surprise me that the port covers are missing from these, as it falls off of mine a lot too.
As always wonderful awesome video. Man I always have soft spot for Vaio because my very first Laptop I ever bought was a Sony Vaio and it was a beast back in 2005 costing 2400 bucks but well it was a Gaming laptop. But yeah my favorite brands for desktop and laptop is Fujitsu and Vaio.
I'm pretty sure both of these towers had the blueish accents, the first one seems quite yellowed. When you have the sides off you can see the blue still ;) It's amazing how well-made Sony stuff was! All my Sony drives work like new and so does my Mavica, while all of my Samsung floppy drives are various degrees of dead.
9:45 Yea, that's socket 423. Williamette P4s were actually slower in many tasks vs later Pentium IIIs. They thought they could scale the arch past 10 GHz.
those memory cards were an sony only thing. i got a few of them lying around from my old phones. thats a pro duo card. was also used in a few cameras but also in the PsP. phones used m2 cards(nothing to do with nowdays m.2 ssds) but you got an adaptor that made the m2 into a pro duo that would then go into that card reader
Always thought the Socket 423 P4 systems were pretty cool due to their oddity, back in the day they weren't the best performers, often being slower than a P3 or an Athlon but the weirdness factor makes then pretty cool to me. I have a similar age Dell Dimension 8100 system with the slowest P4 Intel made, the 1.3 GHz Socket 423 Willamette with RDRAM and the Intel i850 chipset, think I have 768MB in there last I checked. It also shipped with Windows ME, though mine's running Windows 2000 as I felt it was a better fit. I also have a 1.4 GHz P3 Tualatin system which handily beats the 1.3 GHz Willamette P4 lol, even if I had a faster one around 1.8-2.0 GHz or so the P3 would probably still be faster. Socket 423 launched with the original P4 in November 2000, and from my research Socket 478 launched around September 2001 or so, so it would be very uncommon for a Socket 423 system to ship with Windows XP, though I'm sure they did exist as supplies of 423 systems were probably in stock until the end of 2001. My Dell tower was manufactured in July 2001 judging by the date stamp on the case. From what I heard Socket 423 was ditched due to power constraints with Intel trying to get the clock speeds past 2 GHz. Even so it wouldn't have been until Northwood launched that the P4s started to become competent performers, though only for a couple of years until the dreaded Prescott P4s launched and sealed the P4's fate as a lemon.
My brother was serving in the Navy back in the early 2000s. He bought one of these VAIOS from a later WinXP era with newer hardware, but it still had RDRAM. That was my first encounter with it - the stuff was mega expensive (more than triple the price of SDRAM as I recall), and impossible to source locally. I think we hit every electronics store in Jacksonville, FL trying to hunt that stuff down before giving up and ordering online once I got back home to my computer. It's crazy to think how much time we wasted on something my cell phone could solve today. Thanks for the trip down memory lane Mike.
I have a PIII VAIO with the same case. The bottom flap is present but the floppy cover is missing. My biggest problem is that the side panel (and apparently also the top panel) is held on with plastic tabs. Once those break the cover flops open.
I used to work at Circuit City back in the early 2000s and I'd dread having to sell these VAIO units because I just knew the customer would be back in a few days needing help with some bizarre SONY software.
I still have my 1996 Sony Vaio PCV-70 with the 15" Trinitron monitor, mouse and keyboard. 128MB of 72-pin SIMMS (came with 32MB), 166MHz Socket-7 Pentium. I believe it was the first Vaio model released. I think it was about $2500 + another $400 or so for the CRT monitor. Mine has the 16-bit ISA slot. That's where the 14.4 modem went. It hasn't been powered up in probably 20 years.
I was still a PC tech back when the first P4 came out, I was so excited until I finally got to use one. It wasn't until the Northwood p4 that I started to love the p4 then intel ruined it with the Prescott. I'm recreating my favorite computer I ever owned, a 3.06 Northwood p4. It was the first hyperthreaded cpu.
The problem is that the Sony Vaios often came with accessories that are now pretty rare or difficult to find. (Including accessory cards and special drivers). Good luck trying to get a complete system if the listing doesn't feature the matching accessories. You're probably missing half the experience without the proprietary accessories or drivers/software.
Oh Sierra Card Studio /Event planner are totally legit! My name's in the credits for Card Studio 3. I think 2004 is Card Studio 4 tho, this was part of Sierra Home before everything got rolled into Sierra Online.
I never owned one of these either since this would have been during the time that I was just getting started with my career and couldn’t afford a multi thousand dollar PC. That said, I did always like the unique blurple color they used.
![Lost Futures: Sony's Streaming... Camcorder Laptop?? [Vaio PCG-GT1]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/zB-BRBmv34k/mqdefault.jpg)
"We've got a pully thing." Between you and LGR, I'm still learning the technical terms
next i expect a MikeTechBirds with a bird cam featuring a Robin with baby birds and occasional deer!
@@aminorityofonetaking a
💩
@@aminorityofone he looks like a wrestling coach. I doubt he's into those sweet little birds 😄
I feel like I'm part of the cool kids club here 😎
I have weird feelings when I see VAIO desktops. A friend of mine who passed away had one, and they make me think of him.
It makes me grin every time you put thermal paste on -- you cut it RIGHT before the TH-cam trolls could have anything to argue about LOL -- Love it!
I loved the Viao line (both laptops and desktops) and always wanted one.. I wasn't able to afford one either -- but I wanted one so bad.. Loved the whole look, the colors and (of course) it was Sony, so I knew they were well built.
The D: drive looks like part of the stuff from American Airlines Timetable program. A319, A320, B737300, etc are Airbus & Boing. The web documents likely contain fleet information on those planes.
Now THAT'S interesting! Don't know why that didn't catch my eye, was moving too fast I guess. Aviation is one of my most-loved subjects so I'll have to go back and take a look!
@@miketech1024 I fly airplanes as a hobby when I'm not building server systems. Hence why I picked that up quickly. Let me know if that ends up being the case with those files. Keep up the great work!
@@miketech1024 Let us know what you find.
I am wachting youre channel for about a year now. I enjoy every video! Thanks for making them❤
Your videos fill that void that Druaga1 has left behind just fine, the many weeds are missing though...
My headcanon is that Michael MJD is Druaga1.
man i can still hear him "hey smokers, druaga1 here" 😥
i'm just appreciating that a basically quarter century old machine is still working.
I have half century machines that work. Higher quality hardware back then.
Why wouldn't it? It's been restored by The Greatest Retro Tech Enthusiast That's Ever Lived
@@nyccollinEnshittification is a thing
@@theNikNikovsky describe it then?
@@nyccollinif you meant my mistake of would and wouldn't it's fixed
I wanted a Vaio so bad as a kid. My brother in law had a gorgeous desktop back in 99 that I was so jealous of. It was the first computer I had seen that wasn't a basic beige or grey color, and it was sleek looking. It was a PCV-70. Blew my mind at the time as a 15 year old.
The Image Transfer thing was the software that came with the Sony Mavica digital cameras. It would detect when a memory stick was inserted and automatically copy images off onto a location on the hard drive.
So happy to see some Vaio desktops! As a funny story: In 2003, I had ordered a cheap, used desktop from an online store (I think Eggheads or something) and what I received was a Vaio desktop with Media Center, TV card, amazing video card etc. I was blown away.
I'd be, too!
5:06 I find a pair of needle nose pliers (the angled tips are the best) works, with the jaws on either side of the drive Molex connector.
Looking handsome as always - almost as much as a Vaio ;)
YES, Friday AND Mike Tech AND Sony Vaio!
NMB was/is a well known keyboard maker and fan maker. They made the NMB Space Invaders switches. They are cool looking if you look them up and you'll know right away why they called them Space Invaders.
Yep
I use needle nose pliers for really stuck 4-pin molex power connectors. Grab either side and gently wiggle it out.
I still have a standard Pioneer DVR104 from back in the day, the springy faceplate was standard.
...Grab either side and gently wiggle it out....
That's what she said.
I'm so happy someone's finally showing a p4 system some love 😍 ❤
Rubicon caps are pretty good... also I'm so GLAD we are done with damned Molex connectors for the most part
The Rubicon was a big deal for Caesar as well. So clearly you don't want to crosse those caps, lest there be no turning back. : )
I always learn something unexpected when I watch your videos. Today it was the proc directory and | more command. Rewound and followed along on my Pi-hole. Thanks.
When I was a kid. The family computer in the living room was a sony vaio. I think it had a Celeron at 800mhz. I upgraded the GPU I believe to a pny nvidia mx 400. It was my first PC gaming experience. Haven't looked back since. I want to get a vaio for nostalgia.
I have a very similar Vaio from 2002, used to be owned by Sony UK & running XP pro, all working perfectly after 22 years use!
Heeeey! I finally found a serial for my Millenium copy!!
I have an old 99' VAIO system myself. I found 3:58 really funny because my system's power supply has this exact same issue.
Mike's back, yeah! The thumbnail is great btw :)
back in my aol days we was punting all the noobs with our laggerz n progz boiii
Fun fact, look for a setting in the BIOS called "Logo Motion" it gives the Vaio a cool boot chime and animation on boot...all vaios up until the late vista era had it
I remember seeing these in a Sony store in Japan right after they came out.
Non- standard motherboards and power supplies caused so many of these to be tossed. I tried to service one back in 2007 for a defective motherboard or power supply. Neither could be replaced.
I had a Pentium III Vaio of this vintage when I was in college. If it makes you feel any better, those tabs on the top panel were probably broken decades ago - I know mine did.
Sony built these systems really well. They weren't being cheap as other PC manufactures were doing
These were easily the highest-quality power supplies I've ever seen in a pre-built system.
My family had a PCV-RX551 Vaio with that case style when I was a small child… I now have a PCV-RX550 that’s basically identical, and basically the awkward middle child between the early Pentium III, Athlon K7, and Socket 423 PCV-RX Vaios (up to RX400 series) and the later DDR Pentium 4 and Athlon XP PCV-RX Vaios (RX600 through RX800 series), as the P4-based RX500 series were early Socket 478 systems that used PC-133 SDRAM on the original i845 chipset… and most of them came with an Nvidia TNT64 for the GPU. Both my (sadly now nonexistent) childhood original and current Vaios were upgraded from their original 1.5GHz Willamette P4, 256MB RAM, and 60GB hard drives to a 2.6GHz Northwood P4 (400MHz FSB), 512MB RAM, 250GB hard drive, and ATI Radeon 9600 Pro GPU. Objectively speaking, the earliest Socket 478 systems using PC-133 SDRAM are some of the slowest Pentium 4 systems out there - but I like these Vaios and they remind me of a bygone era.
And as for the second board having no blown caps… I cannot say that was the case for my current PCV-RX550 (uses the Asus P4B-LX motherboard), as that had at least eight blown caps - all of which I replaced as my first motherboard recapping project. You just got lucky with your two Vaios not having any blown caps, either that or I got unlucky.
Did anyone else laugh when he mentioned his "two hander"?
Thanks for showing these. Cool seeing the insides of these particular computer. Great vid!
Had a VAIO back in the very early 2000s. It had RDRAM just like this one.
When you wiped off the heatsink on System #1, I could still see the imprint left by the P4 heatsink etching. LOL! Those Willamette P4s were hilariously bad.
Sony makes TVs, cameras and other AV equipment and very well known for quality to this day. They are also known for their entertainment divisions such as music and TV shows/movies .
Awesome vid Mike, as always! 😊
As usual, great video. That first VAIO much more interesting. It is both the first Pentium 4 and a unique board with Rambus. Greetings from Poland :)
Greetings from Canada. I would have wanted to see some of that Sonic Foundry software in action, like Sound Forge, for example.
12:50, I love that ROM tray. Nice : )
I picked one a Pentium III version of this from a recycling center in 2005. There was absolutely nothing wrong with it.
Awesome content man. Well paced, covering all the interesting stuff and the dry humour is too good. There's still quite a few Vaio laptops kicking around here in New Zealand on local auction sites but Vaio desktops are as rare as hens nuts. It's a shame Sony has moved away from that segment as they made some good gear. These cases are pretty stylish and would make awesome sleepers, if only you could track down an elusive bottom door. 😁
The Willamette pentium 4's always reminded me of the Northwood Core Pentium 4's slapped onto an interposer. You can perfectly fit a Northwood Pentium 4 right on top of that heatspreader on the Willamette. Also NMB Technologies Corporation is a MinebeaMitsumi Group company makes mostly computer components fans,power supplies etc. as well as industrial electronics.
The cpu fan is meant to be facing the psu to get rid out of the heat, as its intake its the holes on the dvd bay, mine works this way, flip it to the right way
Thanks for the flashbacks. This was my 1st computer. Too bad windows Me was so buggy that made it seem like it was having hardware problems.
Another Friday with another great MikeTech video! No Friday is complete without one!
I remember Vaio systems. Knew a few teachers who had them at home.
I can’t believe the dust storm the first system was. There was more dust than the desert in that system.
I always have to wonder why people don’t wipe their systems before getting rid of it. It’s a dangerous for people to do.
On all my rebuilds, I always set the Primary IDE to the CD/DVD Drives and the secondary IDE port for the hard drives... keeping everything in order....
That first pentium 4 looks so bizarre like they soldered a regular P4 onto a PCB with pins… Maybe it was a normal thing they did at that time but idk it looks weird to me. Didn’t think the front of that second system would clean so easily and so well, it looked really nice afterwards!
It was normal for Willamette P4. Socket 423 was weird...
Used to buy pcs at thrift stores refurbed and sold(mostly donated back LOL). Had a few Vaios,the look was great and if the parts fit would also make a great 'sleeper pc'. Was not into that in the day but might be interesting now. It's always a treat to see one of your videos and once again see if the 'sacrificial hard drives' would keep clickety clacking to live another day.
Commenting from my VAIO VGN-AR51M, still up and working strong, having upgraded it to Win11 and a double SSD Setup with 8gb of ram.
missed ya pal good 2 see you back
Such a pleasure to watch, love these kind of old tech vids, brings back memories.. keep em cumin mate :P
19:25 frutiger aero - man it's all the rage now. going to go watch the music video again for anatole muster's 'wonderful now'
Three-quarters of an hour of enjoyment. Thanks -- you're one of the very best. I wonder if you'd consider using a mask when cleaning out a system as dusty as the first one? There's bound to be substances in that contamination that are not good to inhale.
i subscribed your channel
I have never set hand nor tool on a RAMBUS computer. This is the first time I've ever SEEN it :)
oh hey i have the keyboard for one of these, it was a 1800 layout rubber dome keyboard but it still felt really nice compared to other dome boards, love to see funky keyboard layouts
My father-in-law got one of these. It cost him a fortune! We eventually inherited it and it was a good machine for its age. Wonder where it went...
Vaio will hold a special place in my heart as the most bougie systems ever created besides Apple. Their laptops and all-in-ones were so pretty and they all suck now adays because all their drivers are gone so better hope you also got the recovery disk or they were graciously uploaded to a driver repository! Great video!
NMB aka Minebea made pretty nice PSU at the time, but more known for their industrial grade fans...
I had one of these in the XP era, it came with a Sony branded keyboard in the same style and a mouse. After I resold it I really missed the keyboard it was the perfect fit to my fingers. Never got one later that I liked that much. The hardware was fine, although I do not remember any particulars of it.
Good to see matx-systems from these years with dedicated agp-slot on the motherboard. Many others just had very "questionable" ( some times it was just terrible bad ) on board graphics and pci-slots.
Makes me wonder if they just removed the door on both systems. They did tend to be a pain in the butt when using the front USB ports. Sony were pricey back in the day. The PC counterpart of Apple. Great to see you back in action.
My sister had one of those back in the day. I remember it being obnoxiously expensive. I think she is still paying it off.
My guess on the black schmutz: Printer ink.
I would have guessed, the leavings from a laser toner cartridge.
Hey Mike, did you say "unobtainium" at one point. Whether you did or not, I like the word!
nice arms and chest not just computers you're working out. Ha Ha Ha
Hardware is the basis
Woah, looks like he has a big gay following! 😁
He is gay as well, he has the rainbow flag on his apple watch. Next time he does a close up in his video have a look. Also, I am a huge nerd, I have 20 computers in my house from apple g4s, to dual Xeons from back in the day. However, he out nerds me, he can change capacitors on motherboards. I would throw it in the trash. @@Cyba_IT
he is very handsome, and loves hardware too... i cant 🥴🥴
@@gabcedo he is very handsome yes but you are also very handsome too Gabriel. 😉
Yeah Asus is the one behind Sony's motherboards and video cards. Kind of unique because all Sony boards are green instead of the traditional Asus yellow pcb that could be found in HPs and other OEMs. Asus was used by Sony,Gigabyte by IBM,Asus and MSI by HP,ECS and Intel for Acer,Intel by eMachines. Some of them could use other manufacturers but the ones i mentioned were the most used by them at the time
The 'drive' LED blinks for the optical drives too, which don't have their own status light!
That Geforce2 card was a top notch card in those days.
The Pentium and Pentium II era Sony's used Intel motherboards. They were good quality and when I worked at a computer store in the service department I used to recommend the Vaios because they used Intel boards. I figured, if the company that invented the CPU also made the board for it, it's certainly going to work well together.
8:00 come back rambus! we need you!
But why??
Really like that design
love the sony vio pc design
I "played" WoW in 2004 on one of these babies before I ended up building my first PC (mine is the PCV-RX550 model). Still have it, along with the original desktop speakers and keyboard! It's all stock, with the exception of the dial-up modem being swapped out for a NIC (though I probably have the modem somewhere). It doesn't surprise me that the port covers are missing from these, as it falls off of mine a lot too.
As always wonderful awesome video. Man I always have soft spot for Vaio because my very first Laptop I ever bought was a Sony Vaio and it was a beast back in 2005 costing 2400 bucks but well it was a Gaming laptop.
But yeah my favorite brands for desktop and laptop is Fujitsu and Vaio.
I'm pretty sure both of these towers had the blueish accents, the first one seems quite yellowed. When you have the sides off you can see the blue still ;)
It's amazing how well-made Sony stuff was! All my Sony drives work like new and so does my Mavica, while all of my Samsung floppy drives are various degrees of dead.
9:45 Yea, that's socket 423. Williamette P4s were actually slower in many tasks vs later Pentium IIIs. They thought they could scale the arch past 10 GHz.
Sony Vaio laptops were sexy beasts, I always lusted after one in the early 2000’s but could never afford one. 😢
Didn't expect to learn about linux in a miketech episode, nice!
those memory cards were an sony only thing. i got a few of them lying around from my old phones. thats a pro duo card. was also used in a few cameras but also in the PsP. phones used m2 cards(nothing to do with nowdays m.2 ssds) but you got an adaptor that made the m2 into a pro duo that would then go into that card reader
Always thought the Socket 423 P4 systems were pretty cool due to their oddity, back in the day they weren't the best performers, often being slower than a P3 or an Athlon but the weirdness factor makes then pretty cool to me. I have a similar age Dell Dimension 8100 system with the slowest P4 Intel made, the 1.3 GHz Socket 423 Willamette with RDRAM and the Intel i850 chipset, think I have 768MB in there last I checked. It also shipped with Windows ME, though mine's running Windows 2000 as I felt it was a better fit. I also have a 1.4 GHz P3 Tualatin system which handily beats the 1.3 GHz Willamette P4 lol, even if I had a faster one around 1.8-2.0 GHz or so the P3 would probably still be faster.
Socket 423 launched with the original P4 in November 2000, and from my research Socket 478 launched around September 2001 or so, so it would be very uncommon for a Socket 423 system to ship with Windows XP, though I'm sure they did exist as supplies of 423 systems were probably in stock until the end of 2001. My Dell tower was manufactured in July 2001 judging by the date stamp on the case. From what I heard Socket 423 was ditched due to power constraints with Intel trying to get the clock speeds past 2 GHz. Even so it wouldn't have been until Northwood launched that the P4s started to become competent performers, though only for a couple of years until the dreaded Prescott P4s launched and sealed the P4's fate as a lemon.
Sony was owner of VAIO, before become independent company. The last time seeing them, when they announced Laptop using 11th Gen Intel 🐯 Lake
Love your cute expressions!
My brother was serving in the Navy back in the early 2000s. He bought one of these VAIOS from a later WinXP era with newer hardware, but it still had RDRAM. That was my first encounter with it - the stuff was mega expensive (more than triple the price of SDRAM as I recall), and impossible to source locally. I think we hit every electronics store in Jacksonville, FL trying to hunt that stuff down before giving up and ordering online once I got back home to my computer. It's crazy to think how much time we wasted on something my cell phone could solve today. Thanks for the trip down memory lane Mike.
I have a PIII VAIO with the same case. The bottom flap is present but the floppy cover is missing. My biggest problem is that the side panel (and apparently also the top panel) is held on with plastic tabs. Once those break the cover flops open.
I used to work at Circuit City back in the early 2000s and I'd dread having to sell these VAIO units because I just knew the customer would be back in a few days needing help with some bizarre SONY software.
to test memory stick you can buy a memory stick to micro sd adapter
I still have my 1996 Sony Vaio PCV-70 with the 15" Trinitron monitor, mouse and keyboard. 128MB of 72-pin SIMMS (came with 32MB), 166MHz Socket-7 Pentium. I believe it was the first Vaio model released. I think it was about $2500 + another $400 or so for the CRT monitor. Mine has the 16-bit ISA slot. That's where the 14.4 modem went. It hasn't been powered up in probably 20 years.
I love these machines, shame they don't build them anymore
I was still a PC tech back when the first P4 came out, I was so excited until I finally got to use one. It wasn't until the Northwood p4 that I started to love the p4 then intel ruined it with the Prescott. I'm recreating my favorite computer I ever owned, a 3.06 Northwood p4. It was the first hyperthreaded cpu.
I would absolutely do a Sleeper build in one of these cases if I found one with a totally dead motherboard...
Finally! worth the wait
"Rubber baby buggy bumper Seagate" lmfao.
I've been trying to say that really fast, and ****ing up every time. : )
Yay new video! Happy to see ya back man
The problem is that the Sony Vaios often came with accessories that are now pretty rare or difficult to find. (Including accessory cards and special drivers). Good luck trying to get a complete system if the listing doesn't feature the matching accessories. You're probably missing half the experience without the proprietary accessories or drivers/software.
I want the Vaio with the hole pc suspended in a small formfactor under the lcd I can't remember the model number though
yoooooo uploaded on a good time for me about 2:45 pm
Damn those Sony cases look dope!
18:30, took words out of my mouth : )
Oh Sierra Card Studio /Event planner are totally legit! My name's in the credits for Card Studio 3. I think 2004 is Card Studio 4 tho, this was part of Sierra Home before everything got rolled into Sierra Online.
I never owned one of these either since this would have been during the time that I was just getting started with my career and couldn’t afford a multi thousand dollar PC. That said, I did always like the unique blurple color they used.
Soooo happy you're back!!!!