pentium d Archives - The Silicon Underground

The difference an SSD makes

Dave Farquhar — Wed, 02 Jul 2014 11:00:50 +0000

Back in the spring I bought a used computer. My wife wanted one, and while I probably could have cobbled something together for her, I didn’t have any extra Windows 7 licenses. So I bought a home-built Pentium D-based machine

The post The difference an SSD makes appeared first on The Silicon Underground.

The world’s fastest budget PC

Dave Farquhar — Tue, 25 Feb 2014 11:00:04 +0000

So, a relative’s PC was getting a bit aged, and runs Windows XP, barely, so I talked them into an upgrade. I noticed that Micro Center had HP/Compaq DC5700s for $99. They were standard issue office PCs a few years

The post The world’s fastest budget PC appeared first on The Silicon Underground.

Notes on the Compaq Presario SR2011WM

Dave Farquhar — Sun, 12 May 2013 11:00:22 +0000

I’ve been working on a Compaq Presario SR2011WM. It’s a basic, low-end, single-core Celeron D system from 2006 or so. It can take up to 2 GB of RAM, runs Windows XP adequately, and has SATA ports, so you can

The post Notes on the Compaq Presario SR2011WM appeared first on The Silicon Underground.

My Socket 775 adventures, Chapter 1

Dave Farquhar — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 13:18:43 +0000

So I bought an Intel Socket 775 board to support a crash webserver rebuild project. I present the story in hopes that it might be useful, or entertaining, or both. I don’t know the ultimate outcome of it yet, but

The post My Socket 775 adventures, Chapter 1 appeared first on The Silicon Underground.

Be careful when buying previous-generation hardware

Dave Farquhar — Mon, 25 Jul 2011 11:46:40 +0000

So I was hoping I could score a bargain on some older Socket 775 hardware, being previous generation and all. And sometimes you can. But sometimes you can just think you’re getting a bargain. Here’s an example. Geeks.com has an

The post Be careful when buying previous-generation hardware appeared first on The Silicon Underground.

A serious case of one-downmanship

Dave Farquhar — Fri, 24 Jul 2009 03:11:17 +0000

While researching nLite (I'm thinking about rebuilding a PC), I found a page about two Germans exploring the true minimum system requirements of Windows XP.

I won't spoil the ending, but one of them managed to accidentally discover the world's slowest Pentium.

The post A serious case of one-downmanship appeared first on The Silicon Underground.

Better upgrade advice

Dave Farquhar — Tue, 13 May 2008 02:16:04 +0000

PC Magazine has a feature about inexpensive PC upgrades. There's some good advice there, but some questionable advice too. Since I really did write the book on free and inexpensive upgrades, I'll present my own advice (but I'll skip the pretty pictures).

The post Better upgrade advice appeared first on The Silicon Underground.