Project time: Restoring a Packard Bell Legend 406CD to general use/gaming spec

[SignOfZeta]

I did computer repair and such in the 90s as well and PBs were certainly known to be super shit. They were super popular and resected in the early 90s, but something happened.

In retrospect though, it's obvious they were just ahead of their time. Nowadays the idea of actually upgrading a computer instead of just throwing it in the trash is like buggy whips and carburator kits. Unless its a server or a Mac, it's about one year of use, then out goes. Nobody is interested in maintaining anything.

By about 1998 Compaq and IBM were hot on PBs trail. Computers with one expansion slot, BIOS built into a hidden sector on a proprietary drive, all sorts of janky shit. Now we have the net book, the ultimate piece if crap. Use it for a year until Windows slows to a crawl, realize its a huge pain in the ass to reinstall when the thing didn't even come with a f*cking CD, let alone a drive, decide you never liked the color anyway, buy a new one for the price of a nice pair of shoes.

[Arkhan]

My Packard Bell ran Quake II, Unreal, and Shogo out of box.   We never upgraded that machine, ever.

Everyone around had Packard Bells, including the schools.  I think Bonknuts is exaggerating.

Plus any repair-guy with a clue wouldn't compare Jimbob's computer that needs some fixins' to one that you custom built in the shop.   -_-;

Most freshly built computers will move quicker than one that some 'shmoe has been using for ~year and is full of all kinds of AOL nonsense.  It's common sense.

I had a P90 machine that ran faster than my Grandmas 300mhz AMD machine.    The reason was she had like 3 bytes of free space left and thought defrag was a game.

[ProfessorProfessorson]

Packard Bell tends to just take a lot of flack from what is really a minority of people who had bad experiences with them. Sometimes it is exaggerated, sometimes not. The majority of owners usually have fond memories of the systems, which is reflected on various computer forums. Packard Bell did put out some sub-par systems on the market, but I mean, what OEM company hasn't and still doesn't? Truth be told, no one out there was offering up the perfect end all do all pc back then, or even now. I don't care who the maker of some old 486 or Pentium MMX tower was, most all of those systems can perform well when actually configured well. That starts by removing the bloated pre installed OS junk and doing a fresh install with good drivers. This is the same problem that plagues modern store bought computers even now.

OEM desktop systems were built to just work unless you bought the really high end systems, just like now with modern pre-builds. If you can squeeze a decent amount more performance and ability out of them via upgrades, then great, and it is highly possible to do so. As long as ram slots, cpu sockets, and expansion card slots of some type exist, there is hope. A lot of those old systems, 486 to Pentium 1 non-mmx era pc's I mean, have ram, ISA and maybe 1 or 2 pci slots also, and that is basically all you need to get them going great for dos games and general use. Toss in your favorite sound card, make sure you have a nice 2D able gpu, and get at least 32 to 64 megs of ram if using a OS other then DOS, and you are pretty set for most games, etc from their time period.

Nothing started to get really demanding game wise until the Build engine games and Quake showed up. By then MMX was on the scene and things started to really progress far more rapidly then what people were used to during the 386 to Pentium non-MMX days. Direct X, 3D hardware accelerators, larger hard drives, etc. When this happened, that is when building a custom computer really started to mean something.

[Arkhan]

I think every computer we had after our IBM 386, was a Packard Bell, up until I built my own machine, and the only tweaking we ever did to any of our PB's was upgrading optical drives.   

I remember the excitement when we got a 48x CD-ROM drive.  \o/

and I think we added more RAM to the Pentium 2.

I still liked the IBM 386 the most of any computer I have ever had in my life.  I blame the fact that it had one of the most amazing power switches of all time.

Big, massive orange switch that went *THUNKKKKKKK* when you flicked it.    For awhile, it became "The Ultima VI noise", because me flicking it on meant I was going to have my face stuck to the screen playing Ultima VI until I passed out.

[Bonknuts]

I cant really comment on how they ran back in the day, but as far as loading and running games as of now, this one has been performing very close to my Gateway 2k, which is 25mhz faster, and the onboard chips are all well known quality chips for that time period. When you refer to low end builds, do you mean boards that have fake cache, etc, because the only real low end boards back then were the ones with the fake cache chips. If so, then it is not going to outpace any Packard Bell with the same cpu since the PB would have real cache and the other would be a crippled mess, unless the actual Windows installs from PB were shoddy or busted with bad drivers. That, and you guys would have been cock smokes to pass off systems with fake cache onto people too. Hard drive quality could play a factor, but I don't use the stock hard drives that came in machines like this unless I really have to, so I cant comment there. Same with the original factory OS install, usually they are bloated so I do my own.

 I'm not referring to bloated/loaded down OEM OS installed systems, although that probably lent to the majority of people perceptions of low-end PBs. I'm talking a new HD with with a fresh OS install (straight from the OS CD, no drivers or such) on a PB (the HD's that came with the PB's were almost always slower in performance than the OEM stock we hand on the shelf). I never did phone support or 'tech', we did real tech work. Diagnose/repair, upgrade, and build custom PCs for people or companies. I worked 5 days a week / 9 hours a day doing this stuff. We'd benchmarked our systems and customer systems, etc all of the time (part of the burn-in/stress test after repair/upgrade/build). Most of the benchmark utils were self boot or dos type, but some were for windows as well. Didn't matter what we did to the PBs and ASTs and many other brand PCs. They were slower. And definitely more noticeable in windows. Yes, we had the correct drivers installed (we had a huge database of drivers and we were constantly adding to it when we came across new drivers). I would have to hazard a guess, I'd say the wait states on the ram and peripheral timing is where the bottleneck was. The onboard video on the PBs were fairly slow, so I guess it wasn't exactly fair to compare it against a stock (but low end) PCI video card (later 3D onboard chipsets seem to have the same issue).

 As far as the low end motherboards; no not fake cache chips. We did have a batch of no name boards come in with fake cache chips - but we RMA'd them all back to corp and raised a fuss. So no, we didn't sell them except for maybe the few that went out before we (tech shop) caught them. The low end boards used the OPTi chipset, which for the pentium days were a piece of shit (they seemed fine for 486 boards and older). There probably wasn't a difference in speed between the OPTi boards and the intel FX Triton boards we had, but the difference was failure rate and how often you'd get crashes in win95/98 - ugh. And we went through different brand MB manufactures for the low end series too (which all seemed to choose OPTi), so it wasn't just one particular OEM manufacture. But back on cache, I did notice quite a lot of PBs without the COAST modules (an empty slot, and no tell tale signs of the typical cache chips on the board itself). I'm surprised to see mention of fake cache models and chips. No one we know outside our tech circle of associates/friends knew about that and that to look for it (not that it was that common and buying online for computer parts didn't exist like it did today or even ten years ago).

I think Bonknuts is exaggerating.

We were PC techs 9hours a day / 5days a week and still on our time/days off (most of us did side jobs too). We lived and breathed this stuff; we weren't simply just hobbyists, amateurs, fiddlers, and backyard techs. So yeah, maybe we were a little more sensitive to these things than your average user/non-tech Exaggeration is a matter of perspective. That said, looking back now at the performance gap - it probably doesn't standout much at all.



 For the record, I never owned a pre-built/made PC in my life. Well, I did have this 8080 'portable' compaq computer given to me in 1992 - but that thing was ancient and doesn't really count. My parents wouldn't buy a PC and I didn't have enough money for one myself, so I built mine. Back in the summer of 1992. I bought a AMD 286 20mhz cpu with 1megabyte ram onboard (all dip), tower+ps, keyboard. I took the floppy drive controller and CGA video card from the 8080 compaq. The next month I saved up enough for a 40meg HD, IDE controller, ISA vga card, and vga monitor, and DOS (6.0 IIRC). Couple of months later I bought an AMD 386 40mhz board, 4meg simm ram, etc. Then later 1mebayte VLB video card, VLB HD controller (mother board had two VBL slots). My brother caught the bug and started building his own too, though he was a little older and more income to throw at it. All thanks to this local computer shop that let me bug them with questions over and over. So I never had the pleasure of getting nostalgic over a computer brand name, for good or for bad.

[ProfessorProfessorson]

I didn't grow up owning a Pc type computer, so I am not really fond of any particular brand. Basically the only judgements I can make on my own are with what I see in front of me now. I had a couple of friends who had one growing up, sure, and plenty of access to them during electronics class and at the library and all, but my actual ownership and real interest did not happen until 2001 when I started of late in the game with a Pentium 1, which I soon ditched for a K6 system and Voodoo 3, and moved up from there constantly. The interest in starting to save some of this stuff started in 2005 when I started to bulk up on parts and systems, and still do when I can. Typically any of these prebuilt systems I come across, I break them down, rebuild them, etc because I want more then it just working. Other then power on testing maybe prior, I dont bother doing any test until after my own work is done. Anything I can do to see the stuff get use again and keep it from filling landfills, I am all for.

[Arkhan]

We were PC techs 9hours a day / 5days a week and still on our time/days off (most of us did side jobs too). We lived and breathed this stuff; we weren't simply just hobbyists, amateurs, fiddlers, and backyard techs. So yeah, maybe we were a little more sensitive to these things than your average user/non-tech Exaggeration is a matter of perspective. That said, looking back now at the performance gap - it probably doesn't standout much at all.

You'd be surprised how many hobbyists, amteurs, fiddlers and backyard techs can talk the talk AND walk the walk better than most "professional" techs, lol.

but, it mostly sounds like you left out some bits of info the first time around that explains why the PBs "crawled along" compared to the stuff you guys built.

ProfProf:  My first machine I bought on my own was a 300mhz AMD K6. it ruled. 

[ProfessorProfessorson]

Yeah I collect Socket 7 K6 stuff. I have a decent amount of boards and cpus from that generation, and my other main Dos machine besides the Gateway 2k is a custom build K6-3 machine. That line of processor was a lot more interesting to me then the Pentium 2-3.

[Deletion]

One of my first computers was a Packard Bell Force 101CD (F101CD) that I bought in '94 from the now-defunct Computer City chain. It was a Pentium 60MHz with 8MB RAM and looked just like the one in the pic below. It was connected to a 15" NEC MultiSync 3V CRT monitor. The pair didn't get along too well as the monitor would flicker badly and make clicking sounds for the first couple of minutes before it settled (and quieted) down and functioned normally. I found that coiling up the VGA monitor cable also helped to alleviate the problem. The monitor didn't exhibit this odd behavior with other computers and I never figured out what it was that was causing it.

[roflmao]

My Dad had a Leading Edge 8088 (8mhz?) back in the late 80s, then upgraded to a 286, which was, I think, 12mhz.  We used that for the longest time till I paid one of my Dad's friends to build me a 386 SX 16mhz machine back in 91ish.  I ran a bbs off it until I saved up enough for a 486 DX2/66 in late 93/early 94.

I don't remember being a real fanboy of one brand over another.  I had friends with Packard Bells, Amstrads, IBMs, etc, and if they worked, then they worked.  I always felt my first machine was a "bastard child" because it wasn't built by a big name corporation, it was homebuilt by someone.  But it still kicked ass in my mind.  I've been building computers pretty much ever since, so go figure. 

[Arkhan]

I love the straight up IBM 2/3/486 line more than anything.

I remember the first computers *i* bought myself were a Digital p90 that I jacked up to the point where I could play Diablo 2 on it.

and one of those weird ass Monorail all-in-ones.  Those were pretty cool.  Steve Jobs thought he came up with the innovative shove everything in one unit idea, but these dorks at Monorail did it first.

That HP Pavilion with the AMD K6 in it was still the best.  I paid like 100 bucks for that thing when it was still fairly current, and played Icewind Dale, Doom 2, and Ultima Online on it religiously.  It's the reason I still use AMD cpu's.

[Bonknuts]

No love for the AMD 5x86 chip??? I was impressed with AMD before (putting out the 40mhz 386 and 20mhz 286, and for cheap too), but this chip really impressed me. The front end sales counter of our tech shop sold the 133mhz model and board and it was comparable to a P75. Well, we overclocked them to 150mhz and 160mhz for ourselves (comparable to a P90). The boards were nice, no VLB, ~3 PCI slots, 72pin memory sockets (some boards were dual both 30pin simm and 72pin dimm). I remember the board and cpu was like $80, while the P90 was like ~$100 by itself.

 I skipped the K5 series (we didn't even carry them because there were problems with them or some such), and upgraded to a P120 until we carried the K6 line. The intel Triton chipset boards had this undocumented bus setting ~87mhz (which ran PCI bus at ~43mhz) and I used this to over clock my P120. Ahh, the days when the multipliers and bus settings were configured by jumpers.

 I think I still have an old socket 7 intel 200 or 233 mmx cpu sitting in the closet. Not sure why...

[HercTNT]

Nothing but love for the AMD 5x86 133! My 486 system with that cpu could keep pace with my parents compaq pentium 100 in most things. Games heavy on fpu were its only drawback. I still have a 5x86 133 cpu in a box on my bench.