The Am5x86 and heatsink/fan arrived today.  I swapped out the POD for it.  The computer seems to be unhappy, giving me repeating short beeps, but hitting delete will stop it and allow it to boot normally.  Windows seems a little snappier with the new CPU.

Wow!   That's the ADZ version of the Am5x86! They're really sought after in the 486 enthusiast community. They have higher heat/stress tolerance than the more common ADW (which I have) and ADY versions. People have run those as fast as 200 MHz.

Weird about the beeps. I assume you have the voltage, FSB, and multiplier all set correctly?

I suspect a voltage issue.  I'm sure everything is set correctly, but I'll check it again.

Another issue I had was the plug for the CPU fan coming apart (as those pass-through plugs do) and when I put it back together, it tended to trip the overload protection on the power supply.  Still did it even with the fan unplugged, so that may have just pushed that nearly 20 year old power supply over the edge.

I'm paring down my collection of old computers.  I plan on keeping the socket 3 desktop shown above, my old Gateway 2000 Pentium, a Gateway 2000 dual Pentium Pro tower, an IBM Pentium II Windows NT desktop, a unique MediaGX based desktop, an iMac DV, a Pentium III desktop which was the first PC I built, the Athlon XP desktop I built, my Gateway Pentium M notebook, an HP Pentium D Vista desktop, and my HP Core2 Duo notebook.  Everything else is going away.

That is a lot of PCs being kept still. What do the ones being thrown away consist of?

Some various socket 7 AT machines (those might all be gone now), some generic cachless Celeron mini-towers, a Compaq Pentium II laptop, a Compaq 6x86 mini tower with no L2 cache, an HP core2 laptop, maybe some other stuff.  Have to see what I find as I go through cleaning out some old sheds.

Just got another 7 IBM ThinkCenter desktops today. They will need some capacitor replacement but are otherwise fine

Not vintage, they are the normal socket 478 & 775 & AM2 boxes which are my favorite generation of computers

I haven't had a chance to look more into the other system's issues, but I have a spare motherboard lined up anyway.  This one is a Socket 7 board with an AMD K5-75 processor.

You guys planning to use these for anything practical (word processing, etc) or just for collection purposes?

My favorite generations of computers - and thats what i am actively collecting - are from Pentium 4 to Core 2 on the Intel side, and their equals on the AMD side. In sockets that would be sockets 423/478/775 and 754/939/AM2 respectively

Those are pretty much usefull for anything basic even for today. I am writing right now off one of the Pentium 4's

I have various older stuff, quite a lot of Socket 7 systems, few 486 and even one 386 board somewhere - that i found over the years but i am not specifically searching for such stuff anymore

I dream of acquiring some industrial space like a big shed, and building me a workshop with computer controlled machines. Then those will be used in there. The old boxes might get in some use too as DOS is still quite common for control applications, and the old hardware is very well supported with original drivers etc



Along with the computers (and hardware components to assemble more computers) i collect some related stuff - Monitors, Networking equipment, Keyboards, Cables (including lengths of solid core Ethernet cable for wiring), Ethernet wall receptacles etc. Those are going to be used with the computers when the time comes

And ofcourse then i will put to use a lot of my lighting stuff too. I have many 10's of fluorescent strips and shoplights just waiting to be put up, and thats before counting the other types of lights....

I mostly skipped over the Pentium 4, only giving in near the end and getting a Pentium D system.  It was more of a need+price+opportunity thing.  It was unique at the time in that it was the first assembled desktop system I'd purchased in 10 years, and the last assembled desktop system I'd buy.

You guys planning to use these for anything practical (word processing, etc) or just for collection purposes?

Mine serve a couple of purposes. First of all, I love old technology and history in general, so computers, peripherals, and software certainly fit in with that. I love learning about and experiencing how those things were all used in the past. I'm not old enough to have gotten to use things like Zip disks and tape drives back when they were relevant, so now that I can obtain those things cheaply, I can do so, and it's so cool.

Another reason is that they are extremely nostalgic for me. I grew up in a poor family and went to a poor school, and as a result I had the opportunity as a child to use computers that were already outdated at that time. The first and only computer my family owned until 2000 was a Tandy 1000, an IBM PC clone from the mid 1980s. It ran MS-DOS, used 5.25" floppy disks, and had no hard drive. And I used it fluently. Would you believe I'm 21 years old and know how to use DOS inside and out?

School was where I used Windows for the first time - this was in 1999. Where other schools would have been running Pentium II systems with Windows 98 at the time, we were running 386 and 486 machines. About half ran Windows 3.1, and the other half ran Windows 95. Indeed, as a result I am quite experienced in using Windows 3.1, and you won't find many people my age that can say that. Technically it was a rather sad situation, but I'm really glad I got to experience it. In fact, one of my favorite computers at school at the time was a 486 machine that had an LED display on the front that showed the CPU speed, and I now own an identical machine.

Which leads me to my final reason - they are just darn cool. Vintage computers, especially from the 486 era, came in so many unique and interesting case styles and configurations. With weird and wonderful things like LED CPU speed displays and turbo buttons. And 5x86 processors, which are really cool when you read the history of how and why they came about.

As for practicality, certainly none whatsoever for the average person. I did write an essay in 12th grade on my 486 machine, though. I do quite often entertain the thought of using it or another one of my vintage computers as a writing/productivity machine. One of my vintage computers actually serves an extremely important purpose though - I have a Compaq Deskpro EN, a Pentium III machine from 2000. It's my only computer with FireWire ports, and as such is the only way I can get video off the camcorders I use to film my YouTube videos.

It's funny you mention FireWire.  In the Athlon XP system that I built, I put in a FireWire card.  Never used it, but it was there.  I later replaced that with a USB 2.0 + FireWire card.  After doing that, I got an external hard drive, and finally used the FireWire port for something.  Eventually made use of the USB part of that card when I replaced my floppy drive with an internal media card reader, which required a USB port inside the computer, or a pass-through to use an external one.  The card had the internal USB port, so that worked.  I later put the USB 2.0 feature to use when I got an iPod, which by than had just stopped supporting firewire for syncing.

You guys planning to use these for anything practical (word processing, etc) or just for collection purposes?

You can't really use a phone server for word processing.  

Honestly for most things I do if I were to use anything I kept for those reasons they wouldn't be able to handle it.  I am used to more powerful PCs so I do a lot of image editing, video editing, multitasking, gaming, etc.  So these are strictly collection or to mess around with.  It is really neat to see how older things were, how they worked, and just being able to actually own something like that is really cool.  While you can use a VM to run an older Windows or Mac OS, there is just something satsfying about running an older OS natively on the computer it was intended to run on.  I have Windows 3.1 in a VM, and I can say, it just doesn't as fun to use as an actual Windows 3.1 machine (which I have).  And since I also have access to more unusual things (like phone servers) that you don't normaly see, why not collect it?

It's funny you mention FireWire.  In the Athlon XP system that I built, I put in a FireWire card.  Never used it, but it was there.  I later replaced that with a USB 2.0 + FireWire card.  After doing that, I got an external hard drive, and finally used the FireWire port for something.  Eventually made use of the USB part of that card when I replaced my floppy drive with an internal media card reader, which required a USB port inside the computer, or a pass-through to use an external one.  The card had the internal USB port, so that worked.  I later put the USB 2.0 feature to use when I got an iPod, which by than had just stopped supporting firewire for syncing.

Ah very neat, I have very rarely used FireWire myself, I think I used it once for an external HDD and then 2 more times for an old camcorder with Mini DV, haven't used it any since then though. (that was probabaly 3 years ago since I last used it).  EDIT: I see that might have been aimed at The MaritimeMan...I also mentioned a FireWire card so...yeah.

EDIT2: @Ash: Cool, I also collect computer monitors (especially CRT) and other computer parts.  I have fans, monitors, keyboards, a couple video cards.  I also keep a lot of LEDs from cases for use in other projects I hope to do.  They have such long cords, very useful.

That was just like me ~10 years back

I still used my Pentium 3 as a main desktop, and had a few Pentium S / MMX too, and a 486

I was doing some stuff on them, for one, i would do C programming for computer class on a Pentium S running MS DOS (sometimes one with Windows 3.11 and sometimes one with just the DOS), and print them out on a dot matrix printer. I would run my electronics class I/O assembly hacks on them and it would run perfect, without the unreliable timing issues that everyone else had on newer computers

I liked the Socket 7 generation of computers - They were fairly capable, but also complete true legacy. I liked them more than the slot based CPU ones. I still like them for what they are, though they are now in the second place



Since then some things changed....

I moved from using a mix of DOS and Windows 3.11/95/2000 (never had XP as an installed OS) to Gentoo Linux

I started my liking to Pentium 4's about 8 years ago, when i started finding them thrown out and could collect and assemble them, and see that they are great computers - basically a real step up after the Pentium 2/3, and that they are GREAT computers to run Linux on

The Pentium 1's were not very usefull with Linux - It takes more RAM than Windows 2000, and they did not have (and didnt support) anywhere near sufficient ampunt of RAM

The Pentium 3 was soon promoted from main desktop role to a downloads server role, but it did not last very long in that role either due to HDD space limitations

Within a year from finding my 1st Pentium 4, all computers i was running were ultimately Pentium 4 and Celeron of Pentium 4 (all from trash finds), Everything below was taken out of service

I still have those old computers, and i can pull them out if i want anything DOS - from control application to some DOS games....



I have collected over time more than a few CRT monitors, including one 21 inch that can do 2048x1536 resolution. (that one also had a fault and i hacked with its electronics to get it going)

But i am now more into collcting LCD's :

 - I just find more of them (its been a while since my last CRT find, but only a short time since i got my last couple LCD's)

 - LCDs have faults that i know how to repair. With CRT's its a more tough call

 - Good LCDs are becoming obsolete as well. LCD's i find have CCFL backlights, while all new LCDs have LEDs which are inferior



And i collect loads of hardware that i can use to repair/upgrade/assemble computers