Today, I managed to get 2 computer towers. I listed their specs in the opposite order I mention them here. Just the towers, the chasis weren't even on them! Only the front chasis piece was. No hard drive, CD or floppy drives. The MB and all the cards were there on both. They both work. I got to the BIOS on both of them, got "disk boot error insert system disk and continue" on both. I'll give you the details on them. This is a little long hope you all don't mind. The first one Gateway computer (presumably Win 98 from the front sticker) is a short tower (made 11/99) with the following missing Chasis except for front panel CD drive floppy drive HD No RAM at all but swapped RAM between it and the other one The gray ribbon cables (IDE) missing from the slots on the MB. The power supply was intact as were all the little connectors. The CPU and heat sink were fine, Intel Celeron 400 Mhz BIOS battery dead as the clock was reset. Gateway BIOS The second one is an unknown brand (Made 12/94 but had a lot of add-ons from 1998) as sticker was removed that indicated brand but had 3 lights, power, turbo and "H-disk" What did "turbo" do back then? I noticed that Turbo has since disappeared from computers a long time ago. It's a "Desktop" style sideways tower Missing the following Chasis except for front panel Floppy drive CD drive (presumably) Hard drive The gray ribbon cables (IDE) missing from the slots on the MB Had the following A single 64 MB stick of RAM 100 Mhz pentium clone CPU and heat sink. A 4 slot USB hub in the form of a PC card A PS/2 keyboard card It has a 5 pin DIN connector. 5 1/4 floppy drive but it didn't initialize when I turned it on (guess that's why they left it, that or because it's obsolete) POSSIBLY a TAPE drive. It fits the dimentions when I looked them up. It was in 2 pieces that kind of snapped back in place. Has VCR like heads inside with the front bezel missing but it initialized when PC powered up but there was no mention in the BIOS. BIOS battery dead as the clock was reset. Award BIOS Also, the "tape" drive uses a shorter IDE style one that doesn't fit current IDE's, what is this and where do I get another one? It works but is also missing the HD as I said above. What are my options for fixing these up? By that I mean, where do I find all the parts I need like the CD-ROM drives and floppy drives? The trouble would be finding an HD UNDER 40 GB these days I heard and I'd prefer to go with all new stuff since old computer parts are scarce and I have no spares around here. I plan to put Win 98 first edition on the Gateway and either Win 95 or Win 3.11 on the other one. And is it even possible to find the correct chasis pieces so they look nice or would that be almost impossible? I need to fix these up to use them, I don't buy any new computers. Thanks, Faris,

You need to go dumpster diving in a better neighborhood. Don't try to fix everyone you get. It is just a source of parts. It was just end of month in my building. 5 monitors and 7 computers were dumped, 500Mhz IBM server (no mem, no HD), Dell 733 MHz 128MB RAM (no HD) runs after adding HD, Dell 566MHz 10GB 128MB RAM running, Dell 667MHz 10GB HD 128MB RAM running, Dell 166 64MB RAM 6GB HD runs, NEC PIII 10GB 128MB RAM runs, and Compaq 500MHz 128MB RAM 13GB HD Video with TV out not checked yet. All with net connection. They are going to a school. When salvaging parts, either keep them intact or strip the usable parts. When looking remember to watch the sidewak for trash pickup days and the dumpsters. The last dumpster find was an intact Compaq with CD burner also several hundred feet of network, telephone and video cable. Just keep your eyes open.

Well, I have, I've gotten many, many monitors and keyboards on trash days but NO towers. These are the first towers I've gotten from the trash. The previous towers were bought from thrift stores or from friends. Anyway, I am intent on fixing these. Could you kindly let me know where to find the parts like small amounts of RAM and such. I heard that HD's aren't made below 40 GB anymore so I should look for them online and such. Is this a good approach? The systems work just fine. Nothing wrong with them. BIOS works correctly, everything is fine except for the tape and 5 1/4 drive. Thanks, Faris,

ebay? 754 3700+ @ 255x10 HTx4 ASUS K8Ne Deluxe 2GB PQI DDR3200 @ 215mhz Nvidia 6600GT Ultra 500w x-connect PSU

I've had bad experiences buying electronics from ebay. Bought a 17 inch monitor one time and it arrived broken. Was promised a replacement one but given a refund instead since the guy broke all of them and I really needed a better monitor so I'm stuck with the 15 inch ones still! The only successful eletronic piece I got from ebay was a keyboard and it works fine still after 2 months and is still going strong, hopefully that will continue for some time. Also, I hear hard drives are VERY sensitive to ANY movement at all and I just can't imagine it surviving being shipped from who knows where since all those mailing staff are extremely careless in my experience. Thanks for the input though. Any other thoughts? Where are floppy drives normally found? And I need all this stuff to have BEIGE not BLACK or SILVER bezels to match up and I can't stand black and silver stuff on beige stuff. Beige bezels are pretty hard to find on new stuff these days and I just don't trust too much used stuff. Yeah, I know, I'm picky but I want these things to last longer than a month or two. Thanks, Faris,

The turbo button was a bit of a mis-nomer as it was designed to slow the computer down, not speed it up. Turbo was normally left switched ON, and the computer would run normally at full speed. If you switched it OFF then it would slow down, usually to around half-speed for compatibility with some badly-written old software which would otherwise run too fast. How the slowdown worked depended on the CPU and Motherboard. 386s and older usually slow down the CPU clock, 486s and Pentiums usually slow down the memory bus speed.

Obviously your parts collection is pretty sparse. I wouldn't bother with a tape drive because new tapes are relatively expensive and you need the proper software. If your mention that it is shorter than IDE refers to the connector then it is propably a floppy tape interface. Same with the 5.25 floppy. If you don't have the disks don't bother. You choice keep them for future testing or trash them. With reference to case parts. It is hard to find front panels. Drive bay plates are made in too many varieties. Best bet is too pick up a case that has been stripped and transfer your parts into. The value of most of the parts is not worth buying. You frequently can get whole computers at thrift stores for 5-10 dollars. That would be the best for small hard drives.