Bad RAM and power supply (revisited)

Hi,

It has been 5 years since I wrote here about reviving a 15 years old computer which had faulty power supply , and because of that bad RAM and ten blown capacitors on motherboard. (Discussion Bad RAM and power supply in 'PC Hardware') Does anyone wish to know how it went?
Well, I'm going to let you know anyway...
(I noticed it is not possible to reply to original thread since its older than 5 years, so I started a new one)

That computer has been running well, without any other hardware problems, with its original HD (Seagate made good harddrives...)CD-RW, DVD drives, display adapter, CRT monitor, keyboard, mouse, speakers. etc, Windows Me was re-installed along with all bundled software that came with it at 2001.
I have been using it as my 'main' computer (online banking, etc. excluded) e-mail, newsgroups, light web surfin, saving, editing pics from digital camera, watching DVD's, burning MP3's to CD, watching videos saved from Youtube (after the .mp4's are converted to .wmv format for Mediaplayer 7.0). I'm not a fan of those 'soap box-style' speakers that were sold with computers, but the ones that came with it are not the smallest in size, and for comparison, they definitely sound better than speakers in a flat screen TV.
I have also done some actual work with it, using Word for text editing and Autocad 2002, which BTW runs very nicely on just 128 MB's of RAM.
Not bad for an 20 years old computer, has really been worth the money spent. About $1900 when bought at 2001, and 'new' RAM stick and PSU five years ago and having the caps replaced ~$150.

Since this is one my vintage computers, I have kept a log about it's usage and any 'situations' that have occurred. Log is of course not 100% accurate. During five years there has been about 960 hours of up time (hibernation not counted), during 755 'stints', 11 BSOD's. Computer was locked up 15 times during boot or getting back from hibernation, and 5 times during shutdown. Getting out of either situation usually requires a forced shutdown from powerbutton. I didn't write down what exactly I was doing when the BSOD's occurred, but as far as I can remember, they often seem occur after getting back from hibernation, nearly always there was also an USB device (USB drive) attached at that time. hibernation functionality seems unreliable, or then I might have some bios setting incorrectly, or something, but at the moment I'm avoiding using it and anyway, normal bootup is just as fast as getting back from hibernation. Also it seems like BSOD's are not related to/occur during running third party software, such as software that came with my digital camera (fuji, at 2002) or Autocad 2002, which as far as I can remember, hasn't crashed a single time on this.

About the OS, Windows Me was criticised quite a bit on it's time, but from my experience, it seems exaggeration. One feature that draw criticism back then, was the then new System Restore functionality of Me. Mainly because it consumed quite a bit harddrive space, and I can see a point there. After five years of fresh install, I have about 10 gigs of stuff at my HD, System Restore takes ~5 gigs of that...
I recently reduced the amount of HD space reserved for it, but without really noticeable change. But the HD is 40 gigs, so that's not an real issue. And System Restore could be disabled entirely.
When comparing overall reliability of that comp running Me with previous versions (98SE, 95) of brand name and self assembled comps I've used, I think reliability is the same or better.
And when comparing to xp, Vista, (I have used xp for much longer time, and still have it on one comp) I seldom had BSOD's with xp. Few positive things that I noticed right away, are the bootup and shutdown time. They are clearly among the fastest I have seen in fresh installs of 95, 98SE, xp, Vista and Win 7 computers, I have used during the last ~10 years.
And overall responsiveness when navigating through directories with explorer, is clearly better/faster than with a ~10 years old install of xp on a comp that has twice the amount of RAM.
Those were some thoughts and experiences about reviving and using 20 years old comp with Win Me during the last five years.

 

Problem with using ME is that it is vulnerable to viruses because of no more support from MS. (My opinion on this).Doesn't matter how much protection that you have, the minute you go on the WWW web, you are taking a big risk. But glad to see you are enjoying it.

 

Thank you for the reminder about viruses, it is of course good to mention to all forum viewers. But during the last ~15 years, I have used all Windows versions from 3.1 to 10 (except Win2K) online (www, email, ftp, nntp, telnet, gopher) without problems.

 

It will come to haunt you sooner or later. Think that the majority of us have been there and done that. Look at all these big companies and places with their data breeches.

 

Well, e.g. none of the e-mail accounts that I use on those computers, are among the pwned e-mails. Last checked yesterday. None of those Computers are used to log in anything but isp's smtp/pop server and an nntp server.
And btw, what about Win 3.1, a 16-bit OS. Not much 16-bit malware floating around these days.