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Refurbing old Socket 478 PC, need advice

  • Thread starter Deleted member 72990
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Deleted member 72990

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I have an old computer in my garage that i built in 2003 that i havent used in 4 years. I fired it up the other day and it still works greate, albeit pretty sluggish compared to the two computers in my signature. I think it will be a fun project to spend $200 to $300 to refurbish this computer and max out the 478 platform and see how long it can function. Keep in mind this is only a fun project that can provide a 3rd computer for a guest to our house to use, and is not necessarily the most practical thing to do. basically i think it will be fun.

Heres what the PC currently has
Intel P4 Socket 478 2.4C overclocked to 3.0 GHz
512 MB DDR 400
IDE Hard Drive, cant remember size
Geforce 7800 gs 256mb video card
300 W antec power supply in antec sonata case

Heres what I am thinking about doing
Slapping a corsair H80 and trying to overclock to 3.2 or 3.4 ghz
upgrade to 4 gb DDR 400
replace video card with HIS 4670 1gb video card
rebuild PC in new lian li case
Install windows 7 32 bit
Hook up to 27 inch asus monitor at 1920 x 1080 resolution

I assume this computer will be more than capable of playing source based games such as HL2 and possibly portal at decent settings.

Can and of you offer some advice, one thing that comes to mind is installing a corsair H80 on a 478 platform. has anybody done it, is it even possible.

thanks!
 
not sure why you would want to do this, but to each his own so more power to you lol... anyway i wouldnt put more than 2GB of system memory into it since it doesnt have the em64t instruction set
 
MrGuvernment said:
waste of money really, sure fun, but a waste of money.
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sure it is... like any hobby its a waste of money... i wouldnt do it myself, but its his money and if that is what he wants, so be it... i too would like to see what that machine would be able to do, i bet an ssd would make it feel snappier
 
The H80 won't work with socket 478 by default.

Unlike restoring other items (cars, boats, model aircraft, furniture, jewelry, etc), there's really no tangible benefit spending that much money on a system like this. That $300 can be put towards an actual new PC that'll outperform the hell out of that PC.
 
Danny Bui said:
The H80 won't work with socket 478 by default.

Unlike restoring other items (cars, boats, model aircraft, furniture, jewelry, etc), there's really no tangible benefit spending that much money on a system like this. That $300 can be put towards an actual new PC that'll outperform the hell out of that PC.
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I have to disagree to an extent. While this computer isn't really old enough to fall into this category, but rebuilding old computer to run older operating systems that wont run on modern hardware to play software that wont run on modern operating system is worth it to some. By software, I mean old school games.

While $300 is a little high for a project like this and installing Windows 7 kind of takes away that point; which is why my disagreement is to an extent. :)
 
Well the main point is to provide a third computer into the household so that visitors can use it. The computer is perfectly functional but transferring the hardware into a new case will at least make it look nice. If I can enhance the performance a bit then I will like to do that. Also I am a bit nostalgic of the computer since my father donated the parts to me so I'm enthusiastic to keep it and will enjoy the fun of rebuilding and tweaking. I already have two fast computers so I'm not interested in pure performance. So who is with me lol. Regarding 2gb ram wouldn't the number really be 4 gb for 32 bit os?
 
Technically yes, but Windows will only use 3.25GB of that 4GB, so essentially it's a waste. If anything get 3GB.

As for getting the H80 installed, look up how people are using them on GPUs. Pretty sure you could do something similar with zipties to get it mounted good enough.
 
Skillz said:
Technically yes, but Windows will only use 3.25GB of that 4GB, so essentially it's a waste. If anything get 3GB.

As for getting the H80 installed, look up how people are using them on GPUs. Pretty sure you could do something similar with zipties to get it mounted good enough.
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i thought it was ~3GB addressable for the whole system, which included video memory
 
No it's 4GB addressable for the whole system, but you're left with right at 3.25GB of useable RAM in Windows 32Bit (I think 7 handles it a little better than Windows XP; in WinXP you're left with 3.25GB, in Win7 I think it's closer to like 3.5GB. either way, just get 2 x 1GB and 2 x 215MB sticks of RAM. That way you'll see 3GB and not waste 1GB.
 
I think your IDE hard drive is going to slow things down. What type of slots does that MOBO have? Maybe a PCI to SATA 1 or a PCI-E to SATA 2 depending on the motherboard can have you using a faster hard drive or even an older SSD. That would give you the most bang for the buck in making that system faster IMO.
 
I amuse myself doing this sort of thing all the time, here is my advise.

1) pull the cover off the PSU and check for bulging or leaking capacitors, you may want to recap the supply or swap it out.

2) also carefully inspect the caps around the CPU socket in the VRM area

3) find a way to get an SSD to boot on it, if it has SATA awesome, if not IDE to SATA adapters can be had but you will be limited by the IDE buss, PCI to SATA adapters can also be had but it can sometimes be difficult or impossible to get a system to boot from it.

4) previous commenters are correct with regard to the maximum usable RAM

5) locate and install the fastest CPU your board supports

6) have a ball with it!!
 
Skillz said:
I have to disagree to an extent. While this computer isn't really old enough to fall into this category, but rebuilding old computer to run older operating systems that wont run on modern hardware to play software that wont run on modern operating system is worth it to some. By software, I mean old school games.

While $300 is a little high for a project like this and installing Windows 7 kind of takes away that point; which is why my disagreement is to an extent. :)
Click to expand...

virtual machines.
 
But in case of 3D games, isn't it better to run them directly on the CPU?

@bjornb17: Have you had a look if your mainboard has a SATA controller? Maybe it supports SATA even though you had an IDE drive installed.

See you,
NeilManlius
 
You may want to see how a 3.4 GHz Pentium 4 stacks up: http://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu_list.php

It rates under 500 on the PassMark benchmark, and even a Celeron E3300 or AMD A4-3400 does about triple that, although that may not matter if the computer isn't used for games or high definition video. Also because Pentium 4s are such power hogs and the motherboard is so old, it could have bad capacitors around the CPU, DIMM slots, and AGP slot. My point is, instead of spending $200-300 refurbishing a Pentium 4 computer, the money would be better spent on a budget motherboard & CPU and a moderately fast graphics car, and I recently spent well under $100 for a brand new motherboard, retail boxed CPU, and 8GB of DDR3 memory.

If the Pentium 4 motherboard doesn't have SATA ports, you may want a PCI controller based on a Silicon Image chip (the cheap ones on eBay are fine) or one of these SATA-PATA adapters:

http://www.meritline.com/ide-to-sata-or-sata-to-ide-adapter---p-36542.aspx

That adapter is currently $5, delivered, but sometimes it's $3. PCI controllers don't always work well with CD or DVD drives, but this particular adapter does.
 
I tried this but the computer I had only had pci and agp slots for the video; no matter what I did, it still wouldn't play 1080 videos smoothly. It was a p4 northwood 3.0 ghz, 1 gig memory, with a ATi 4650 agp video card that had 1 gig memory also. I tried it with xp sp1, 2 and 3, with best video drivers, still no dice. It had ide and sata drive support, but that didnt seem to make a difference either. And, in order to get a ssd to function you had to install on a platter drive and then ghost the drive onto the ssd. I don't see much of a function for this type of machine other than basic use and retreiving email. Oh yeah, you can surf the web, run 720p videos or play dvd's fine. But 1080 won't play.
 
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nightfly said:
I tried this but the computer I had only had pci and agp slots for the video; it still wouldn't play 1080 videos smoothly. It was a p4 northwood 3.0 ghz, 1 gig memory, with a ATi 4650 agp video card that had 1 gig memory also. I tried it with xp sp1, 2 and 3, with best video drivers, still no dice. I don't see much of a function for this type of machine other than basic use and retreiving email. Oh yeah, you can run 720p videos or play dvd's fine. But 1080 won't play.
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Hmmmm, I'm sorry that did not work out for you.

my 4650 AGP will play 1080 on every machine I have put it in; P4, 462, even the hotrod P3 here
 
HI jojo, can you tell me which video drivers you're using? And which version of windows? I'd really like to get this machine to play HD video. Maybe even blu ray discs if possible! thanks.
 
Well, past configs I would have to think on.

That card is currently on a K8VSEDX/Athlon64 3200+ system running XP SP3 and the latest CCC

I just loaded up my standard 1080 test vid to be sure and it ran fine.
 
Well I decided to move forward with this little project and things are going great. I bought a 3.4E cpu on ebay from china for like $7. Motherboard recognized it and overclocked to 4.0Ghz with the slightest of voltage bumps. Bought 4 GB ram from a member on this site for pretty cheap. Got a new case and GPU arriving in the mail in a couple days.

Decided to repurpose the PC - I hooked it up to my 47" tv in the game room to serve as a bit of a HTPC - mainly to stream video from sites such as hulu, and to serve as a general purpose PC for visitors. Surprisingly, tribes ascend works fine, albeit a bit choppy, with the 256 mb 7800 GS that is currently in there. I suspect the 4670 arriving soon will help a bit.

I was surprised to learn that my motherboard was one of the first one with SATA ports. Maybe I'll pop a SSD in there someday.
 
Danny Bui said:
The H80 won't work with socket 478 by default.

Unlike restoring other items (cars, boats, model aircraft, furniture, jewelry, etc), there's really no tangible benefit spending that much money on a system like this. That $300 can be put towards an actual new PC that'll outperform the hell out of that PC.
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I just spent $370 to get a CDW bstock i5-2500 w/ 4G ram, 500G hard disk & win7 pro-64.

I definately wouldn't put $300 into 478, even for fun.
 
Robstar said:
I just spent $370 to get a CDW bstock i5-2500 w/ 4G ram, 500G hard disk & win7 pro-64.

I definately wouldn't put $300 into 478, even for fun.
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Agreed, even for a hobby I would still build a newer comp with that much money.
 
Robstar said:
I just spent $370 to get a CDW bstock i5-2500 w/ 4G ram, 500G hard disk & win7 pro-64.

I definately wouldn't put $300 into 478, even for fun.
Click to expand...

You guys keep missing the point. Lets say I was going to do a new build. The case woud have been required regardless. The ram and processor cost me a total of like $37, and the video card is $110. So $147. $147 just to goof around and do it for fun, afterall it is a hobby. I have two fast computers so I had no need for a third one. But $147 satisfies the curiosity to see how relevant I can make a 9 year old computer that might be used just few times a year anyway.

Basically, when I upgrade my computer that currently has the Q9550, the hardware will get recycled down into the computer I'm refurbishing.
 
Don't listen to them. There is another thread going right now where a guy is building a dual socket 370 setup booting an SSD through an adapter. It is about what you enjoy.
 
jojo69 said:
Don't listen to them. There is another thread going right now where a guy is building a dual socket 370 setup booting an SSD through an adapter. It is about what you enjoy.
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All most of us did is say what we would do, we didnt tell him not to do it. Just our opinion. ;)

I would just rather play with more current stuff is all.
 
Well, here she is! Seems to be running pretty snappy as well. Will get some before pics later on, as well as some pics in its final habitat.

C2RP8.jpg

kKVAf.jpg

riujj.jpg
 
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Wow, that is one pampered 478 setup for sure.

Since you have SATA on the board you should really look into an SSD, best bang for buck upgrade available.
 
jojo69 said:
Wow, that is one pampered 478 setup for sure.

Since you have SATA on the board you should really look into an SSD, best bang for buck upgrade available.
Click to expand...

Looks like my main 40 GB (Lol) hard drive is about to crap out so I'll probably do that!
 
You will be rewarded, best upgrade you can make to vintage systems IMO.
 
bjornb17 said:
Well the main point is to provide a third computer into the household so that visitors can use it.
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So when people show up at your house, they have to use a PC? Must be pretty dull at your place, eh?

+1 for $300 Walmart PC instead of fixing up old PC
 
Met-AL said:
So when people show up at your house, they have to use a PC? Must be pretty dull at your place, eh?

+1 for $300 Walmart PC instead of fixing up old PC
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Obviously you have not read through the thread - but it is a moot point now. It's a perfectly functional PC for now that will later receive parts from one of my other computers when it is time for an upgrade. I have absolutely no interest in a $300 POS from wal mart. Is this SoftForum or what?
 
bjornb17 said:
Obviously you have not read through the thread - but it is a moot point now. It's a perfectly functional PC for now that will later receive parts from one of my other computers when it is time for an upgrade. I have absolutely no interest in a $300 POS from wal mart. Is this SoftForum or what?
Click to expand...

So essentially you paid for a case, RAM, and a video card and now will probably get an SSD? $147? That's really not bad. And like you said, you can just move components in as you upgrade. Not bad at all.

Edit: Nevermind, that price wasn't including the case. Still - cool project.
 
bjornb17 said:
Obviously you have not read through the thread
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..and I also thought I was posting in Genmay. I rarely venture out into the regular forum anymore, but did by accident today.

Please disregard my post and enjoy your neato PC.
 
Met-AL said:
..and I also thought I was posting in Genmay. I rarely venture out into the regular forum anymore, but did by accident today.
Click to expand...

must be degrading to be among us commoners and not realize it :rolleyes:
 
Well here she is! Added a SATA SSD and SATA DVD Drive - got rid of those ugly IDE cables. Computer is surprisingly snappy in its current configuration. Windows boots up in just a few seconds and clicks are very responsive, most likely due to SSD. It is working perfectly for watching youtube/hulu/etc which was the intended purpose. I love these lian li cases! EDIT: just realized the power supply is backwards (epic fail)

TLfnm.jpg

ikuyE.jpg

q14mn.jpg
 
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