BleepingComputer.com: Old Pacific Tower Case

In my quest to become more knowledgeable in the computer world I have been getting old computer towers donated to me and I've been rummaging through, tinkering with and updating various machines running different versions of Windows.

This tower is running Windows 98. It works fine and is now going through the process that I mentioned above. It even has the old style 5 pin Din connector for the keyboard.

It also has a digital display on the front of the case that has read 300 since start up. I've done some Google searches (I.E. Digital readout on old Pacific computer tower) and have come up empty handed. Just wondering if anyone knows what the readout signifies? Wattage being drawn? Some sort of self test readout? Just curious.

One other question.....When responding to another person's post on BC, how do you copy and paste what they wrote so that it shows up as a "quote" window?

Thanks guys.

This post has been edited by elomont: 18 February 2009 - 06:12 AM

Hi elomont

From what you have described (old style 5 pin Din connector for the keyboard), this PC has an AT motherboard. This was the form factor of motherboards until the late 90's. Modern motherboards tend to be ATX or a varient of ATX.
I seem to recall that the older PCs with AT motherboards had a Turbo Switch which allowed you to change the clock speed of your CPU. These PCs would also have a display to show what mode or speed the CPU was running in. I'm guessing that the display on you PC is something to do with that.
If you find a switch marked "Turbo" try operating it to see if the display changes. Operating the switch while the PC is running will not cause it any harm.

Quote

In the reply box you will see some formatting buttons at the top. The one that looks like a speech bubble is the one to use for quotes. Copy the required text, press the button and then paste the text between the two bracketed tags.

You can also just wrap the text being quoted in BBCode. Use the open bracket ([) and follow immediately with the word quote and the place the close bracket immediately after (]). At the end of the text use the open bracket and then follow it with a forward slash (/), then quote, then close bracket. The parenthesis are not used in BBCode.

The display could have also been to monitor various temperatures

or the Mghz of the cpu

Those displays are usually configured by jumpers. If that's the case for yours, there will be a crapload of jumpers on the back of the display. Here's the general idea...

http://www.amsky.com/%7Ecirkuit/comptips/speddisp.html

If configured by jumpers, the 300 display you mention won't change by itself.

Quote

I never looked at the display that closely to recognize them as jumpers, but indeed they are just that.

Quote

If you follow the wiring from the back of display it goes directly back to the power supply with a small branch that goes to the fan mounted on the heatsink. Again, I'm new at this, but I would have thought it would lead directly to something on the motherboard.

skiplc I will try to wrap my head around that link later tonight.

I'll try to remember to keep you updated if I find anything more associated with it. I need to look for a 5pin Din connector to a PS/2 cable so that I can actually use a keyboard with this specific tower and some other odds and ends (memory) for some of the other towers I have.

Thank you SLIX. As you can see I figured out the quote thing.

Until next time.

This post has been edited by elomont: 18 February 2009 - 03:27 PM

You can also just click the "Quote" button at the bottom of someone's post. It'll open the new post editor with that person's quote already in the box and formatted.