My Various Computers Throughout the Years
- Thread starter andrevautour
- Start date
andrevautour
New member
August 2009, my dad started to build a new system for himself,
It was built in a Cooler Master HAF 932,
Asus P6T Deluxe V2
Intel Core i7-920
OCZ Gold Series 12GB 1600MHz
Ultra Xconnect X3 800W PSU (more on this later)
He got a Thermaltake BigWater 760 is, but never ended up using it.
2X Sapphire HD 4890 in Crossfire
Now about that Ultra Xconnect X3. It seemed it run OKAY for the first while, at least we didn't expect anything at first, but there was a couple of "defective" HD 4890s at the time, but then they were replaced and everything seemed to run okay for a couple years. But then, later on P6T board died, then as my dad was buying hardware for a new build, he had a problem with a EVGA 580 dying, then when he got an entire 2011 system built up with the board he uses now (rampage 4 extreme, 2x 580s etc) the system wouldnt even boot, it wouldnt get past the black windows screen. At this point there had been so many "defective" and dead pieces of hardware throughout the lifespan of the PSU i started to get suspicious of it, and as I was tryingto troubleshoot why the new system wasn't booting, I suggested getting a new PSU and trying that, so my dad went out and got a enermax platimax, and i installed it, and everything ran fine.
I also had an Xconnect 3 power supply in my system for a couple years, and it didn't kill anything, but it did die after a couple years.
So, good quality power supplies only for me in the future.
Anyway, here are some pictures of his hardware that I took when we were building that system in august 2009, for some reason I need to have pictures of everything except the sapphire 4890s from that time, but my sister is still using those today, so i have a picture of them in her computer that i will had at the end.
IMG_0478 by Andre Vautour, on Flickr
IMG_0480 by Andre Vautour, on Flickr
IMG_0481 by Andre Vautour, on Flickr
IMG_0473 by Andre Vautour, on Flickr
IMG_0484 by Andre Vautour, on Flickr
IMG_0486 by Andre Vautour, on Flickr
IMG_0508 by Andre Vautour, on Flickr
The 2 Radeon 4890s from my dads computer in my systers computer:
IMG_0519 by Andre Vautour, on Flickr
IMG_0516 by Andre Vautour, on Flickr
It was built in a Cooler Master HAF 932,
Asus P6T Deluxe V2
Intel Core i7-920
OCZ Gold Series 12GB 1600MHz
Ultra Xconnect X3 800W PSU (more on this later)
He got a Thermaltake BigWater 760 is, but never ended up using it.
2X Sapphire HD 4890 in Crossfire
Now about that Ultra Xconnect X3. It seemed it run OKAY for the first while, at least we didn't expect anything at first, but there was a couple of "defective" HD 4890s at the time, but then they were replaced and everything seemed to run okay for a couple years. But then, later on P6T board died, then as my dad was buying hardware for a new build, he had a problem with a EVGA 580 dying, then when he got an entire 2011 system built up with the board he uses now (rampage 4 extreme, 2x 580s etc) the system wouldnt even boot, it wouldnt get past the black windows screen. At this point there had been so many "defective" and dead pieces of hardware throughout the lifespan of the PSU i started to get suspicious of it, and as I was tryingto troubleshoot why the new system wasn't booting, I suggested getting a new PSU and trying that, so my dad went out and got a enermax platimax, and i installed it, and everything ran fine.
I also had an Xconnect 3 power supply in my system for a couple years, and it didn't kill anything, but it did die after a couple years.
So, good quality power supplies only for me in the future.
Anyway, here are some pictures of his hardware that I took when we were building that system in august 2009, for some reason I need to have pictures of everything except the sapphire 4890s from that time, but my sister is still using those today, so i have a picture of them in her computer that i will had at the end.
IMG_0478 by Andre Vautour, on Flickr
IMG_0480 by Andre Vautour, on Flickr
IMG_0481 by Andre Vautour, on Flickr
IMG_0473 by Andre Vautour, on Flickr
IMG_0484 by Andre Vautour, on Flickr
IMG_0486 by Andre Vautour, on Flickr
IMG_0508 by Andre Vautour, on Flickr
The 2 Radeon 4890s from my dads computer in my systers computer:
IMG_0519 by Andre Vautour, on Flickr
IMG_0516 by Andre Vautour, on Flickr
seumasbeathan
Banned
2 4890's, that must be still pretty damn fast these days right?
andrevautour
New member
yes they are pretty good, the 3dmark score is close to a single 6950 (i think they are a few tousand poins less gpu score) but in real world gameplay on newer games like skyrim, battlefield 3, etc the 6950 is MUCH better.
My Gigabyte Windforce 6950 can play Skyrim at 2560x1440, Everything maxed out on Ultra settings, 8x AA, 16x AF and its 60+ fps all the time. Meanwhile the 4890s can barely play Skyrim at Medium settings on a 1080 screen. That is a bad example though because skyrim is kind of a weird hog-ish game and it may just like the newer gpu and perform much better with it for whatever reason.
Overall the 2X 4890s are pretty good and play most things very well on a 1080 screen, sometimes with reduced graphics settings. My guess is they are probably similar to a more recent card thats a couple notches down from the top except for the DX11 type features. Something like a 560 or a stock 6950. Some games seem to prefer the newer GPU even the the approx power is almost the same.
andrevautour
New member
Thank you!
andrevautour
New member
This is a post about the laptops we've had over the years.
The first laptop my dad got was in 1995. It was a non-name custom made sort of thing were you could choose various specs when you were ordering it. I only remember that it was Pentium 133Mhz, 1gb hard drive, and I'm not sure the ram but it would have been very little.
The next was a dell Pentium II that my dad got from a friend and fixed the display panel on it. I don't remember exactly the hard drive but it was very small also about 5gb or 6gb something like that. I'm guess it had 128mb or ram or 256mb. I think my dad upgraded the ram on that one at some point, so it may have even been more.
Unfortunately I don't seen to have any photographs of either of those one. They were actually still sitting around were until very recently, but I believe they are gone now.
The next laptop my dad got was in 2004. This was an eMachines from Tigerdirect. It had an AMD Athlon 64 processor, AMD mobility 9600, 40gb hard drive, and 512mb of ram.
In May 2008 I got an Acer Aspire 6920, which was called "Gemstone Blue" which was a piece of garbage. The build quality was so low, everything felt like flimsy crap and it was all cheap think plastic. It had one of those touch panels on the size for volume and playback controls which took up SO much space and did almost nothing and it was made out of the thinnest little sheet of clear plastic film, like something you could laminate paper with. you could lift up the edges of it with your finger nail. The hinge was awful, the speakers were garbage, the screen was mediocre at best. Everything about this was horrible.
After about a month I gave this to my dad, who used it for a few weeks before it broke (dead motherboard) then he sent it back to be repaired, and it broke again after a couple weeks.
I know there are PC laptops that are much better quality than that, but that was not a cheap laptop, and it was absolutely awful. After that I couldn't wait for the unibody macbook pros to come out in October, and I got one on the first day, like I said in the previous post.
In July 2008 we got a Dell XPS 12 inch for my mom, one ones that had a silver bezel and and you could ger black red or blue. This was an open box special price, it only came with the extended life batter that stuck out of the back(and created a stand that sort of propped it up) This was obviously a lemon too because it constantly overheated, it was so hot to touch you could barely use it, the fan would spin at full speed almost all the time, and then the battery stopped working all together after a period of working only sporadically. It died after maybe 8 months at the most, and then my mom got my original MacBook Pro when I ordered a another one.
Again I know the Dell XPS laptops were supposed to be pretty decent at the time for the money etc. We obviously got a lemon model though. Its always a gamble buying open box/display models/returns/refurbished etc.
In November 2009 I ordered another MacBook pro for myself. This time with 8gb of ram and a 750gb hard drive. My mom got my Oct 2008 MacBook pro and she still uses it today.
My dad got another cheap Gateway laptop for Tigerdirect in 2010. This one has a Core i3 2.13GHz Cpu, 4GB of memory, 640GB hard drive, and a AMD Radeon mobility HD 5650 with 1gb dedicated memory. This computer was extremely cheap, so it's only expected that the build quality is also cheap, which is it, but it works. the trackpad is almost unusable in my opinion, at least with the gateway trackpad software which always tries to do gestures everytime you try to use the tackpad for anything. it may be better with that uninstalled. It had a small fall and now the hinge is broken, but it still works fine.
My dad's laptop rarely gets used since he has an X79 desktop system now, but it still is there and gets used from time to time.
Here are a few pictures of each of the laptops.
eMachines 2004:
IMG_3043 by Andre Vautour, on Flickr
IMG_3044 by Andre Vautour, on Flickr
Gateway 2010:
IMG_3050 by Andre Vautour, on Flickr
IMG_3048 by Andre Vautour, on Flickr
May 2006 Acer Aspire 6920:
IMG_6125 by Andre Vautour, on Flickr
IMG_6136 by Andre Vautour, on Flickr
IMG_6151 by Andre Vautour, on Flickr
July 2008 Dell XPS
IMG_6883 by Andre Vautour, on Flickr
IMG_6880 by Andre Vautour, on Flickr
IMG_6885 by Andre Vautour, on Flickr
IMG_6882 by Andre Vautour, on Flickr
The first laptop my dad got was in 1995. It was a non-name custom made sort of thing were you could choose various specs when you were ordering it. I only remember that it was Pentium 133Mhz, 1gb hard drive, and I'm not sure the ram but it would have been very little.
The next was a dell Pentium II that my dad got from a friend and fixed the display panel on it. I don't remember exactly the hard drive but it was very small also about 5gb or 6gb something like that. I'm guess it had 128mb or ram or 256mb. I think my dad upgraded the ram on that one at some point, so it may have even been more.
Unfortunately I don't seen to have any photographs of either of those one. They were actually still sitting around were until very recently, but I believe they are gone now.
The next laptop my dad got was in 2004. This was an eMachines from Tigerdirect. It had an AMD Athlon 64 processor, AMD mobility 9600, 40gb hard drive, and 512mb of ram.
In May 2008 I got an Acer Aspire 6920, which was called "Gemstone Blue" which was a piece of garbage. The build quality was so low, everything felt like flimsy crap and it was all cheap think plastic. It had one of those touch panels on the size for volume and playback controls which took up SO much space and did almost nothing and it was made out of the thinnest little sheet of clear plastic film, like something you could laminate paper with. you could lift up the edges of it with your finger nail. The hinge was awful, the speakers were garbage, the screen was mediocre at best. Everything about this was horrible.
After about a month I gave this to my dad, who used it for a few weeks before it broke (dead motherboard) then he sent it back to be repaired, and it broke again after a couple weeks.
I know there are PC laptops that are much better quality than that, but that was not a cheap laptop, and it was absolutely awful. After that I couldn't wait for the unibody macbook pros to come out in October, and I got one on the first day, like I said in the previous post.
In July 2008 we got a Dell XPS 12 inch for my mom, one ones that had a silver bezel and and you could ger black red or blue. This was an open box special price, it only came with the extended life batter that stuck out of the back(and created a stand that sort of propped it up) This was obviously a lemon too because it constantly overheated, it was so hot to touch you could barely use it, the fan would spin at full speed almost all the time, and then the battery stopped working all together after a period of working only sporadically. It died after maybe 8 months at the most, and then my mom got my original MacBook Pro when I ordered a another one.
Again I know the Dell XPS laptops were supposed to be pretty decent at the time for the money etc. We obviously got a lemon model though. Its always a gamble buying open box/display models/returns/refurbished etc.
In November 2009 I ordered another MacBook pro for myself. This time with 8gb of ram and a 750gb hard drive. My mom got my Oct 2008 MacBook pro and she still uses it today.
My dad got another cheap Gateway laptop for Tigerdirect in 2010. This one has a Core i3 2.13GHz Cpu, 4GB of memory, 640GB hard drive, and a AMD Radeon mobility HD 5650 with 1gb dedicated memory. This computer was extremely cheap, so it's only expected that the build quality is also cheap, which is it, but it works. the trackpad is almost unusable in my opinion, at least with the gateway trackpad software which always tries to do gestures everytime you try to use the tackpad for anything. it may be better with that uninstalled. It had a small fall and now the hinge is broken, but it still works fine.
My dad's laptop rarely gets used since he has an X79 desktop system now, but it still is there and gets used from time to time.
Here are a few pictures of each of the laptops.
eMachines 2004:
IMG_3043 by Andre Vautour, on Flickr
IMG_3044 by Andre Vautour, on Flickr
Gateway 2010:
IMG_3050 by Andre Vautour, on Flickr
IMG_3048 by Andre Vautour, on Flickr
May 2006 Acer Aspire 6920:
IMG_6125 by Andre Vautour, on Flickr
IMG_6136 by Andre Vautour, on Flickr
IMG_6151 by Andre Vautour, on Flickr
July 2008 Dell XPS
IMG_6883 by Andre Vautour, on Flickr
IMG_6880 by Andre Vautour, on Flickr
IMG_6885 by Andre Vautour, on Flickr
IMG_6882 by Andre Vautour, on Flickr
andrevautour
New member
At this point (August 2009) my sister was using my dad's old Nvidia 680i LT board with the Q6600 and Geforce 8800GTS in a very old A open case from around 2001 which had no cable management or anything, but it was steel and it had a great build quality.
Here is what that looked like.
IMG_0808 by Andre Vautour, on Flickr
Here is what that looked like.
IMG_0808 by Andre Vautour, on Flickr
andrevautour
New member
in august 2009 i got a new case, a cooler master haf 932. i got it at the same time as my dad got one for his system.
i choose the case because of its good feature set for the time, good airflow, and solid build quality, plus it was well priced for what it was.
i never really liked the way it looked, even back then. i always thought it treaded the line of stylized stuff that looked like a piece of equipment from doom 3 (the haf x is a much worse offender of this in my opinion) some of the things i disliked most about the case included the tacky HAF decal on the left side door, the design of the front panel, and the look of the door with the 3/4 mesh section then the small window at the top.
there were some half baked aspects of the design too, for example, the holes that the front panel optical bay covers clipped into were clearly visible at the front, and when you put a drive in, you could see a huge section of the grey color of the drive. to address this cooler master actually included a sheet of black stickers for you to sick on the sides of your drives so it wouldn't show grey at the sides of the case from your optical drives. the area around the usb port at the front was a bit flimsy, and a few of the usb ports on my dads case ended up breaking. the leds for power and hard drive activity were so bright it was insane, they would light up an entire room. i took one of the black stickers for the drives and stick it over the leds, then i put my optical drive in the bottom bay and let the light from under the leds glow downwards into the empty bays of the case and you could see the power and hdd light inside the case through the mesh panels at the front. the quick release clips for the pci slots were also really annoying, they were not strong enough to hold a video card in well, and they would get in the way of installing a card and get in the way of screwing in a card. i took them out and used screws. i also didn't like the red led fan at the front, but that is just a personal preference thing. later on i set it up with only 2 fans i removed the side and top fans and used on of the black fans for the front, and i had only an intake at the front and the exhaust at the rear. there was also no real dust filters or rubber grommets on the cable management holes, but that was less standard back then. there was loads of bare cable management holes and lots of room at the back for cables.
Overall the case had lots of great features esp for when it was released nad only a few fairly minor flaws and things that I personally didn't like.
At the time I was still using my MSI motherboard from the hp pavilion along with the ram and video card upgrades. The case was very large so these things looked very small in the case, but that was fine with me.
I also had the 800w version of the Ultra X3 psu, and like I said that ended up dying on me, but only right at the end of the time I used that system for and I was getting ready to build something new anyway. It never damaged anything of mine.
IMG_0508 by Andre Vautour, on Flickr
IMG_0511 by Andre Vautour, on Flickr
IMG_0512 by Andre Vautour, on Flickr
IMG_0513 by Andre Vautour, on Flickr
IMG_0514 by Andre Vautour, on Flickr
IMG_0515 by Andre Vautour, on Flickr
IMG_0516 by Andre Vautour, on Flickr
IMG_0517 by Andre Vautour, on Flickr
IMG_0518 by Andre Vautour, on Flickr
IMG_0519 by Andre Vautour, on Flickr
IMG_0520 by Andre Vautour, on Flickr
IMG_0523 by Andre Vautour, on Flickr
IMG_0525 by Andre Vautour, on Flickr
IMG_0532 by Andre Vautour, on Flickr
IMG_0609 by Andre Vautour, on Flickr
IMG_0610 by Andre Vautour, on Flickr
IMG_0615 by Andre Vautour, on Flickr
IMG_0616 by Andre Vautour, on Flickr
IMG_0618 by Andre Vautour, on Flickr
IMG_0623 by Andre Vautour, on Flickr
IMG_0672 by Andre Vautour, on Flickr
IMG_0787 by Andre Vautour, on Flickr
IMG_0789 by Andre Vautour, on Flickr
IMG_0799 by Andre Vautour, on Flickr
IMG_0807 by Andre Vautour, on Flickr
i choose the case because of its good feature set for the time, good airflow, and solid build quality, plus it was well priced for what it was.
i never really liked the way it looked, even back then. i always thought it treaded the line of stylized stuff that looked like a piece of equipment from doom 3 (the haf x is a much worse offender of this in my opinion) some of the things i disliked most about the case included the tacky HAF decal on the left side door, the design of the front panel, and the look of the door with the 3/4 mesh section then the small window at the top.
there were some half baked aspects of the design too, for example, the holes that the front panel optical bay covers clipped into were clearly visible at the front, and when you put a drive in, you could see a huge section of the grey color of the drive. to address this cooler master actually included a sheet of black stickers for you to sick on the sides of your drives so it wouldn't show grey at the sides of the case from your optical drives. the area around the usb port at the front was a bit flimsy, and a few of the usb ports on my dads case ended up breaking. the leds for power and hard drive activity were so bright it was insane, they would light up an entire room. i took one of the black stickers for the drives and stick it over the leds, then i put my optical drive in the bottom bay and let the light from under the leds glow downwards into the empty bays of the case and you could see the power and hdd light inside the case through the mesh panels at the front. the quick release clips for the pci slots were also really annoying, they were not strong enough to hold a video card in well, and they would get in the way of installing a card and get in the way of screwing in a card. i took them out and used screws. i also didn't like the red led fan at the front, but that is just a personal preference thing. later on i set it up with only 2 fans i removed the side and top fans and used on of the black fans for the front, and i had only an intake at the front and the exhaust at the rear. there was also no real dust filters or rubber grommets on the cable management holes, but that was less standard back then. there was loads of bare cable management holes and lots of room at the back for cables.
Overall the case had lots of great features esp for when it was released nad only a few fairly minor flaws and things that I personally didn't like.
At the time I was still using my MSI motherboard from the hp pavilion along with the ram and video card upgrades. The case was very large so these things looked very small in the case, but that was fine with me.
I also had the 800w version of the Ultra X3 psu, and like I said that ended up dying on me, but only right at the end of the time I used that system for and I was getting ready to build something new anyway. It never damaged anything of mine.
IMG_0508 by Andre Vautour, on Flickr
IMG_0511 by Andre Vautour, on Flickr
IMG_0512 by Andre Vautour, on Flickr
IMG_0513 by Andre Vautour, on Flickr
IMG_0514 by Andre Vautour, on Flickr
IMG_0515 by Andre Vautour, on Flickr
IMG_0516 by Andre Vautour, on Flickr
IMG_0517 by Andre Vautour, on Flickr
IMG_0518 by Andre Vautour, on Flickr
IMG_0519 by Andre Vautour, on Flickr
IMG_0520 by Andre Vautour, on Flickr
IMG_0523 by Andre Vautour, on Flickr
IMG_0525 by Andre Vautour, on Flickr
IMG_0532 by Andre Vautour, on Flickr
IMG_0609 by Andre Vautour, on Flickr
IMG_0610 by Andre Vautour, on Flickr
IMG_0615 by Andre Vautour, on Flickr
IMG_0616 by Andre Vautour, on Flickr
IMG_0618 by Andre Vautour, on Flickr
IMG_0623 by Andre Vautour, on Flickr
IMG_0672 by Andre Vautour, on Flickr
IMG_0787 by Andre Vautour, on Flickr
IMG_0789 by Andre Vautour, on Flickr
IMG_0799 by Andre Vautour, on Flickr
IMG_0807 by Andre Vautour, on Flickr
Last edited:
dalewakelin
New member
the specs of my current rig are similar to that of your 2007 rig lol :'(
seumasbeathan
Banned
^ Man you need a new pc :L
andrevautour
New member
What kind of stuff do you use it for?
andrevautour
New member
I wish i had more of the really early stuff!
here is the specs of my dads first laptop in 1995. i just found the box used for storage the other day and took this picture
andrevautour
New member
my dad said he built his own apple ii in the early 80s ,, i found this flight sim for it recently
andrevautour
New member
AMD Athlon XP 3200+ Build
This is a build that I did for my sister back in 2007. The motherboard and CPU are from my dad's system back in 2005 approximately.
Case: AOpen black steel case.
Motherboard: Asus A7N8X-E Deluxe
Processor: AMD Athlon XP 3200+
Cooler: Zalman Copper heatsink with 92mm fan
Memory: 2GB OCZ Unknown Speed
Graphics: Originally ATI 9600XT, updated to Radeon HD 2600XT AGP in 2007
Sound: Sound Blaster Audigy 2 ZS
Hard Drive: Seagate Barracuda 160GB
Optical: DVD-RW Drive
Power Supply: Ultra Xconnect 400W
Fans: Vantec Stealth 80mm
Original ATI 9600XT with Arctic Cooling Silencer cooler:
Upgrad card: ATI HD 2600 PRO by Sapphire
This is a build that I did for my sister back in 2007. The motherboard and CPU are from my dad's system back in 2005 approximately.
Case: AOpen black steel case.
Motherboard: Asus A7N8X-E Deluxe
Processor: AMD Athlon XP 3200+
Cooler: Zalman Copper heatsink with 92mm fan
Memory: 2GB OCZ Unknown Speed
Graphics: Originally ATI 9600XT, updated to Radeon HD 2600XT AGP in 2007
Sound: Sound Blaster Audigy 2 ZS
Hard Drive: Seagate Barracuda 160GB
Optical: DVD-RW Drive
Power Supply: Ultra Xconnect 400W
Fans: Vantec Stealth 80mm
Original ATI 9600XT with Arctic Cooling Silencer cooler:
Upgrad card: ATI HD 2600 PRO by Sapphire
andrevautour
New member
This was my desktop and desk area in 2003.
