A
1995-era
pentium PC, with a
slimline case. It can take processors from 66-133 mhz, and has :
1 (one) internal 3 1/2
" drive bay
1 (one) external 3 1/2
" drive bay
1 (one) external 5 1/4
" drive bay
1 ISA card slot
1 ISA/PCI card slot
4 72 pin simm slots
BIOS support for HDs up to 8 GB
140 watt power supply
Wow.
Fully kitted out, it does actually make quite a good
SOHO network
server (Don't laugh). Mine has 64 megs ram, a 133, a 60GB hard disk, and two network cards. It runs a
webserver,
samba,
icecast,
postgresql,
mysql, and a webproxy/
ip-masquerade, as well as bridging two
ethernet segments together, without noticable problems...
1
Opening it
The case is opened by unscrewing the two large screws at the rear, set into (and possibly holding on) the decorative grey strips on each side. The top slides forward, and can then be lifted off.
Cards
Cards can be inserted/removed at this point without having to take anything else out (quite a departure from
packard bell design principles...)
Processor/memory
The processor is cooled by a passive heatsink, blown on by a fan at the front of the case. In another radical departure, it isn't soldered on to the motherboard! Wow!. Three of the
SIMM sockets are normal (insert horizontal, turn to vertical), but one of them is the opposite so it won't foul the
floppy drive. To get at them you'll have to...
Remove the drive assembly
The drive bay assembly is held in by two screws - one on top, to the left of the floppy drive, the other on the right side, holding on a green earth wire (the drive assembly being made of plastic, of course. If the IDE cables are neat enough, the assembly can be slid back, and lifted out upwards. If not, you'll have to remove the power supply, and cross-brace.
Remove the power supply
The power supply is held in by three screws on the back of the case - unscrew, slide forward, lift up. If you need to get it all the way out, having loosened the drive assembly, unscrew the screw on the bottom of the case near the power switch, and pull the power switch out from under the drives.
Remove the cross-brace
The cross-brace is screwed to the drive assembly, the front of the case, and the
riser bus. Unscrew the two screws holding it to the riser (one on each side of the PCI slot), and the small screw at the front. Lift the front up and unhook it. You should definately be able to get the drives out now (after removing the
cards,
power supply and bits of the case, you'd better be able to...). The riser bus can be removed by pulling up.
Removing the drives
The hard drive is held on in the usual manner, two screws on each side. The CD and floppy drives are held on by screws on the bottom. One of the screws holding the CD on is above the hard drive, and smaller than the others (If you use a regular screw, the hard drive will only just fit, and then the assembly won't fit back in the case.
Be warned.)
Doing something useful with it
With a later-generation 133 pentium, and a larger heatsink, you can safely disconnect the case fan. If you use a small
/boot partition at the start of the drive, you can use any size drive (the bios doesn't hang, it just detects it wrong.) Windows 9X (and therefore
partitionmagic) doesn't work this way, but
diskdrake,
parted all work fine.
Turning it into a games machine (ho ho)
I haven't tried it, but I've read that it has no problem with
powerleap processor adaptors, so it could even take a
k6-III if you're so inclined. The PCI slot could hold a Geforce or a
voodoo 3, and the ISA slot a sound card. Power!
Not a great machine, but a small, quiet one. A
ford fiesta, rather than a
robin reliant.
1 - It does, however, only serve to five other machines...
Why such a detailed, specific, obscure node? Because I've been working on this 590 all night, and it's my web proxy...