I think i might have the same machines and monitor as you got there. Are they :

 - 8307-xxx 1.8GHz (i got 8307-4AG, that is with 2.4GHz/533 CPU but i think same mainboard as other 8307's)

 - 8171-xxx 3.2GHz (i got 8307-CTO that is custom build, iirc with 3.0GHz CPUs)

The 8171 (of which i have several) came all bad capacitors. Replace the capacitors and it will work (capacitors are commpn problem with most models, not specific to just one)

The power supply may have bad capacitors inside it, so it might power up when you test it by shorting green + black wires, but not be able to supply a load, or not give out stable enough voltages for the computer to POST. If the mainboard looks ok and "powers up without POST" check the power supply

If nothing else, the case is standard mini ATX, you can pop in another board and rewire the front panel switches/LEDs



The monitor :

Those monitors tend to keep going when they allready have failing capacitors, and when they finally fail, they sometimes end up taking out more parts (most common would be PSU rectifiers and mosfets in the backlight driver). So while it still works, open and look for any bad capacitors

Look around the big high voltage electrolitic capacitor. I seen those fail after about 10 years (they usually start looking corroded near where the leads go into the capacitor - leaking electrolite), and as with other capacitors, sometimes take out other stuff with them as they go



I have quite a lot of IBM hardware like you pictured. About 20 desktop PCs both in tower and SFF forms - most Pentium 4's, with few Pentium D's, few Athlon 64x2's, 1 Pentium 3 and 1 Core 2 Duo, about 10 LCD's, keyboards etc, and some eServer servers and Thinkpads (one of them is my everyday notebook computer)

Great hardware, some of my favorites

That IBM NetVista reminded me that years ago I had IBM Netfinity 5100 rack server. I dont remember anymore what processor model it has but it did feature two processors. It was big, loud and used lots of electricity.

The NetVista is type 6794.

Yeah, bad caps was my first guess. Weird because they all looked perfectly fine, but apparently they can fail like that. I've already parted and scrapped the machine - it's not worth the time and effort to me to replace two dozen capacitors (which would cost me some $20) on a 10 year old computer. The power supply voltages tested fine. I've actually saved the power supply, and jerry-rigged it into a standard ATX case which will house another Pentium 4 system I'm building from parts.

I can show you which ones got bad in mine. Its the same ones in most of them, so ew can figure out they are the key failure point

The measurement of voltages is the absolute wrong way to test a power supply. You have no idea what the ripple is, or what will happen under load. Instead, try jury rigging a known good power supply nto this machine to test it

  And I repeat, I've already scrapped the computer, so it doesn't really matter.

As for the power supply, I tested it *while* it was under load, with the computer running. I actually do have an oscilloscope now, so I could certainly look at the output with that.

I recently became a member of my school's amateur radio club, which grants me access to the school's amateur radio station. When I paid a visit to the station one evening, I did some exploring and found a curious-looking suitcase thing. It turned out to be an IBM 5155 Portable PC, circa 1984. These are very rare - only a few tens of thousands were ever made (compared to hundreds of thousands of regular IBM 5150 PCs). I never thought I'd see one in my entire life.

It's in mint condition, and when I plugged it in and turned it on, it booted right into IBM Personal Computer BASIC. This is the coolest computer I've ever seen. My name is currently in the rounds - once the manager of the station (who is also one of my profs) finds out who it belongs to, he's going to see if I can acquire it. Fingers crossed that I can.

Best of luck, Trent. on a scale of 1-10, with 1 being rarest and 10 most common, how rare and valuable is it?

No clue. Vintage computers are hard to place a value on because so few people are interested in them compared to things like vintage cars and antiques. A computer is worth pretty much whatever someone is willing to pay for it. There is one of these on eBay right now for $400, but it will likely not sell for that much. As far as computers from this era go, this one is pretty special (although surprisingly probably not more so than a regular IBM PC, despite being way more rare). However, this is worth it's weight in scrap compared to other computers like the Altair 8800 and Commodore PET.

To me personally, a computer is worth something pretty much based on how cool I think it is. And I think this machine is pretty darn awesome.

No clue. Vintage computers are hard to place a value on because so few people are interested in them compared to things like vintage cars and antiques. A computer is worth pretty much whatever someone is willing to pay for it. There is one of these on eBay right now for $400, but it will likely not sell for that much. As far as computers from this era go, this one is pretty special (although surprisingly probably not more so than a regular IBM PC, despite being way more rare). However, this is worth it's weight in scrap compared to other computers like the Altair 8800 and Commodore PET.

To me personally, a computer is worth something pretty much based on how cool I think it is. And I think this machine is pretty darn awesome.

Around this time last year, I paid $91 for a powermac G% dual processor 2.0ghz. My plan was to use it for things like audio editing and attending online classes in my school, but I found out that it is almost impossible to find software supported on OS 10.5.8 anymore. Everything I find is only supported on 10.6 Snow leopard or later. It's a shame, really, since this thing is faster than most Intel i5 laptops I have seen. I just installed TenFourFox on it, so it is still usable on things like LG and Youtube.

By the way, here is a video of someone destroying a perfectly fine Mac classic. I hope to find one nonworking sometime, just so I can make a hackintosh out of it.

I recently became a member of my school's amateur radio club, which grants me access to the school's amateur radio station. When I paid a visit to the station one evening, I did some exploring and found a curious-looking suitcase thing. It turned out to be an IBM 5155 Portable PC, circa 1984. These are very rare - only a few tens of thousands were ever made (compared to hundreds of thousands of regular IBM 5150 PCs). I never thought I'd see one in my entire life.

It's in mint condition, and when I plugged it in and turned it on, it booted right into IBM Personal Computer BASIC. This is the coolest computer I've ever seen. My name is currently in the rounds - once the manager of the station (who is also one of my profs) finds out who it belongs to, he's going to see if I can acquire it. Fingers crossed that I can.

If you can get it, could you see if it has a cooling fan? I have never been able to find an answer on that.

Wow, in my opinion you severely overpaid. G5's are probably the most worthless of all Macs right now. They're right in the sweet spot of being too old to be very useful and too new to be collectable, and they suffer lots of hardware problems because they run so hot. First-gen Intel Macs would be right behind them. You can easily find them for free.

Yes, there is a cooling fan in the power supply.

In the PC world this spot is i think the Pentium 4. Which is one of my fav platforms. Windows peeps throwing, Linux user Ash collecting and putting to use....

In the PC world this spot is i think the Pentium 4. Which is one of my fav platforms. Windows peeps throwing, Linux user Ash collecting and putting to use....

I would agree, the Pentium 4 and Pentium M are right in that null era. The Pentium D and first-gen Core Solo and Core Duo aren't too far behind them. What hits the G5 Macs especially hard though is that Macs switched to a completely different architecture afterward, so PowerPC was left in the dust almost immediately, and the last traces of commercial support dissipated around 2010-2011. A Pentium 4 on the other hand can still run the great majority of current 32-bit software, including Windows 10.

I remember avoiding the Pentium 4 back in the day.  Built a real nice Athlon system that served me well for 6 years.  Finally caved at the end and got a Pentium D based system, which was the last of the Pentium 4 series.

Finally caved at the end and got a Pentium D based system, which was the last of the Pentium 4 series.

And you never had to heat your Alaska home ever again.  (At 130W TDP, the Pentium D is among the hottest-running x86 processors ever.)