After installing Windows XP with minimal drivers on a 40 GB PATA hard drive from Seagate to perform some hardware tests, I noticed the following:
- The CPU fans on both PCs have clear bearing damage and need to be replaced
- The thermal paste needs to be replaced* as the fan speed is always quite high
- The fan on one of the power supplies is also noisy
- The more powerful ATI Radeon 9800 XXL in the P4 system is partially defective: the VRAM is damaged, the image is occasionally distorted and displayed with color distortion, and under load, it leads to an irreversible black screen
- Everything gets very warm; legend has it that the Pentium fours were real heaters. That’s about right.
Spare parts are needed
I simply removed the noisy fan in the power supply, cleaned it, greased the bearing, and reinstalled it. I only recommend this to electronics engineers, as opening power supplies is dangerous. Now the fan is even quieter than the other, more inconspicuous one.
I replaced the thermal paste with my favorite MX-4 from Arctic* – the original paste on the processors had hardened so much that, despite letting the system warm up, the CPU was stuck to the cooler on both PCs. Very dangerous—straightening bent pins is no fun. I had to hammer the Celeron D off the cooler from the side with a flathead screwdriver (!). I was lucky in my misfortune, not a single pin was bent. The paste was also renewed on the chipset.
As a replacement for the partially defective Radeon 9800 XXL, I found a working Radeon 9600 Pro from Sapphire, AGP 8x, in my collection. It fits very well. The driver is exactly the same.
The CPU fans are 80 mm – a rather unusual size. I found generic ones that match the power LED on the power switch, which glows blue. A small visual upgrade, you might say. They’re not the quietest of their kind, but they’re much better than the originals were.
Hard drives were no problem at all. If there’s one thing I have a lot of, it’s data storage devices of all kinds, designs, and models.
The Hardware
| MD 8030 (Celeron D) | MD 8083 (Pentium 4 HT) | |
|---|---|---|
| Processor | Intel Celeron D 335 – 2,8 GHz Original | Intel Pentium 4 HT – 3.0 GHz Original |
| Mainboard | MSI MS-7012 Original | MSI MS-7012 Original |
| Memory | 4 x 1 GB DDR-400, Corsair Value Select Upgraded | 4 x 1 GB DDR-400, Corsair Value Select Upgraded |
| Graphics | Sapphire Radeon 9600 Pro Converted (spare part) | Medion Radeon 9800 XL Converted (previously in the Celeron system) |
| Storage devices | 3.5″ Samsung SP with 200 GB 3.5″ Hitachi Deskstar with 160 GB 2.5″ HDD with 500 GB via USB 2.0 connected to an expansion card, bracket printed | 3.5″ WD Caviar with 250 GB 3.5″ Seagate with 250 GB 2.5″ HDD with 500 GB via USB 2.0 connected to an expansion card, bracket printed |
| Miscellaneous | Various PCI expansion cards | Various PCI expansion cards |
And now?
Since the basic system should remain as close to series production as possible, I got the most out of the intended operating systems. As already mentioned, Windows 98 SE should run as a minimum, but I went to the limits of what is possible, which in this case is AGP 8x, for which there was simply no support at some point.