# Hmmm... What shall I do with this?



## Night-Leopard-800 (Sep 11, 2009)

I have an old computer. I'm told I can't get any more out of it than it's giving me, but I have no intentions of getting rid of it. So I want to know what you guys think I could do with it!

Dell OptiPlex GX200
Pentium III Coppermine, 733 MHz
512MB RAM
HD1: 20GB
HD2: 15GB
CD drive - CD/DVD ROM
CD drive - CD-R/RW writer, DVD ROM
Floppy drive
ZIP drive available for it, but I'd have to remove one of the existing drives
Ethernet
NVidia TNT via PCI Express
Two USB 1.0 ports
Two PS/2 ports
Line-in (stereo 3.5mm)
Mic (3.5mm)
Line-out (stereo 3.5mm)

I dunno what else to tell you XD but if you think there's any use for this computer other than normal computing, let me know! When I get a new computer, I wanna have a good use for this one.


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## Internet Police Chief (Sep 11, 2009)

There really isn't a lot you can do with it other than sticking, say, Win 98/95 on it and using it to play old games without compatibility issues. That's what I do with my old PCs, anyway.


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## AshleyAshes (Sep 11, 2009)

Night-Leopard-800 said:


> NVidia TNT via PCI Express


 
There's no way in hell that machine has a PCI-Express card.  ...Or that the NVidia TNT card was EVER produced in a PCI-Express model.


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## AMV_Ph34r (Sep 11, 2009)

Well, it is definitely old, but that doesn't mean it's unusable. For now, it should be fine for everyday tasks, but I'd avoid any gaming on it. When you get a new one, you can either sell your current one on ebay, or keep it around as a backup. It always seems that it's the newer computers that break the most often.


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## Night-Leopard-800 (Sep 11, 2009)

AshleyAshes said:


> There's no way in hell that machine has a PCI-Express card.  ...Or that the NVidia TNT card was EVER produced in a PCI-Express model.



I haz photos  wanna see?


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## AMV_Ph34r (Sep 11, 2009)

Did you build it yourself? That might explain the PCI-Express card.


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## ZentratheFox (Sep 11, 2009)

Load NT server and run a fileshare and an apache box.


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## AshleyAshes (Sep 11, 2009)

Night-Leopard-800 said:


> I haz photos  wanna see?


 
Yeah. Sure. I'm absolutely sure it doesn't have PCI-Express.



AMV_Ph34r said:


> Did you build it yourself? That might explain the PCI-Express card.


 
No, no it wouldn't.


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## Night-Leopard-800 (Sep 11, 2009)

ZentratheFox said:


> Load NT server and run a fileshare and an apache box.


 can you go into more detail? This sounds interesting.

And no, I didn't build it myself. Though I strongly suspect it was owned originally by the local University, which apparently installs souped-up graphics cards in all their computers.


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## Night-Leopard-800 (Sep 11, 2009)

AshleyAshes said:


> Yeah. Sure. I'm absolutely sure it doesn't have PCI-Express.
> 
> 
> 
> No, no it wouldn't.




Alrighty lemme get those ready...


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## Runefox (Sep 11, 2009)

Night-Leopard-800 said:


> Alrighty lemme get those ready...



PCI /= PCI-Express. You might have a PCI-X card, which would be interesting considering it's a TNT2, but certainly not a PCI-Express.

*PCI connector*






*PCI-X connector* (PCI-Extended)





*PCI-Express x16 connector*





PCI-Express didn't come along until 2004. The Pentium 3 was discontinued in 2003. The likelihood that a 733MHz (mid-production) Pentium 3, much less a Dell, has a PCI-E slot, is incredibly low.


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## Night-Leopard-800 (Sep 11, 2009)

behold: PCI express, and an NVidia TNT card in one of the slots. If you look at the empty slots, you can see they are PCI express. and yes, they are the same as the one filled by the card. I have taken it out and looked.

Oh and I took those photos with my 1997 Olympus D-500L DIGITAL camera  850 kilepixels, babeh


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## Runefox (Sep 11, 2009)

That's PCI. See above. See also: PCI-E vs PCI slots visual comparison

Much less the fact that there hasn't ever been a PCI-E TNT2. It was released in around the time of the Voodoo 3 (1999), and had AGP 4x and PCI flavours.

I'd really like to stress that I'm not trying to be an asshole, but it's been said again and again that what you have definitely isn't PCI-E.


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## Jelly (Sep 11, 2009)

Cram a bigger harddrive in it.
Pop Ubuntu on it.
Use it as a media center.


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## AshleyAshes (Sep 11, 2009)

Night-Leopard-800 said:


> behold: PCI express, and an NVidia TNT card in one of the slots. If you look at the empty slots, you can see they are PCI express.


 
Those are just regular, standard, run of the mill, old as hell PCI slots.


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## Night-Leopard-800 (Sep 11, 2009)

Looks like PCI express to me. It has the one long slot and the one short one. nothing more, nothing less.


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## Runefox (Sep 11, 2009)

Night-Leopard-800 said:


> Looks like PCI express to me. It has the one long slot and the one short one. nothing more, nothing less.



Trust me, it's a PCI slot. Check the comparison image I posted. Also check the Wikipedia link I posted in my last post; It's *definitely* PCI.

This kinda reminds me of when I was in grade school, and I saw PS/2 ports for the first time, and, having only ever seen serial/AT-keyboard ports before for keyboard/mouse, mistook them for that USB thing I'd only ever heard about.


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## Night-Leopard-800 (Sep 11, 2009)

But I looked at the pics and everything. What makes it a PCI?


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## AshleyAshes (Sep 11, 2009)

Night-Leopard-800 said:


> Looks like PCI express to me. It has the one long slot and the one short one. nothing more, nothing less.


 
And that is the description of a normal PCI slot. PCI-Express is different.

Look at this picture.  The first four are PCI-Express slots, a 4X, a 16X, a 1X and another 16X.  At the very bottom is the standard PCI slot.  See how it's very different and even it's position on the motherboard is different?


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## Runefox (Sep 11, 2009)

Night-Leopard-800 said:


> But I looked at the pics and everything. What makes it a PCI?



Well, for one, you can see that the PCI card has two notches, and that the slot itself has the smallest section on the right. PCI-Express has the smallest section on the left, and has only one notch (and a tab on the right on the graphics card) - Not to mention that the pins are far smaller and more numerous. The PCI-E slots themselves on a motherboard are also thinner, and are typically coloured differently from the PCI slots to further differentiate them at a glance. The PCI-E x16 (typical graphics card) slot also has a clip at the right end that helps to keep the card in position, particularly useful for longer cards or heavier ones.

EDIT: Well, Ash went and did what I probably should have with that link up above.


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## Night-Leopard-800 (Sep 11, 2009)

this is PCI express. it looks exactly like what I've got.


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## AshleyAshes (Sep 11, 2009)

No that looks NOTHING like what you have.


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## Runefox (Sep 11, 2009)

Compare this with yours and tell me which one it looks like?

There have been many slots over the years:

1) ISA (I won't go older than this), retired shortly after the Pentium II was introduced. Very slow, 8/16-bit, 8MHz. Introduced 1981.
2) PCI, ISA's replacement. All-purpose expansion slot, 32-bit, 33MHz. Introduced 1993.
3) AGP, an attempt to increase video bandwidth while at the same time reducing strain on the PCI bus. Twice as fast as PCI at minimum (AGP 1x). Introduced 1997.
4) PCI-Express (PCI-E, PCIe), a replacement for PCI and AGP with dedicated serial lanes. Twice as fast as AGP 8x at minimum for a x16 slot. Introduced 2004.

The fact that your mid-production Pentium 3 doesn't even have AGP is pretty symbolic of the class of machine you've got on your hands (entry-level business). It was never meant for anything requiring intense graphics operations.


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## Night-Leopard-800 (Sep 11, 2009)

Like the one on the top! With one long slot and one short slot.


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## AshleyAshes (Sep 11, 2009)

Night-Leopard-800 said:


> Like the one on the top! With one long slot and one short slot.


 
That's just because it's keyed for 3.3v.  The PCI Express card is physically larger.  It also has that key for locking it in and the PCI card doesn't


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## Night-Leopard-800 (Sep 11, 2009)

So mine, although shaped like PCI express, is PCI regardless?


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## AshleyAshes (Sep 11, 2009)

Night-Leopard-800 said:


> So mine, although shaped like PCI express, is PCI regardless?


 
The keying is irrelevent. The keying just keeps different PCI cards from going into a slot it's not meant to and over/under volting.

The PCI-Express slot is physically larger (The photos of actual cards you've been given, the cards were not to scale of each other')

If you look, the PCI-Express slot has gaps for those little prongy hook things to snap into to be secured where as the PCI slot is nothing but a row of connectors, nothing for securing the card.

Also, I have linked this thread to a lot of people, they are laughing at you and one person has also asked me to murder you.


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## Night-Leopard-800 (Sep 11, 2009)

Who asked you to murder me?


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## Runefox (Sep 11, 2009)

OK. Please, take my word for it, your video card is *PCI*. I know these things. I've worked with computers for the better half of my life (several years, recently, were spent in the field of computer/network repair/building), and I know that 1) TNT2's were not made even in the same millennium as PCI-E's rollout, 2) your computer wasn't, either, especially since it sports USB 1.1 ports, and 3) the difference between PCI and PCI-Express in terms of visual differences isn't very difficult to discern.


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## Night-Leopard-800 (Sep 11, 2009)

I know that now. What I want to know is why someone now wants me dead just because I didn't know the difference between PCI and PCI express...


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## Greyscale (Sep 11, 2009)

This thread has made my night. xD


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## lilEmber (Sep 11, 2009)

Leave it alone, Night.


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## Rel (Sep 12, 2009)

Night-Leopard-800 said:


> I know that now. What I want to know is why someone now wants me dead just because I didn't know the difference between PCI and PCI express...


Dude, she was just joking lol, don't worry about it. Ive seen people think that they dont need the tower, that they only need the monitor, mouse, and keyboard, disregarding and bashing employees on trying to sell them the computer.


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## net-cat (Sep 12, 2009)

.... this thread is over.

Epic, epic derailment.


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