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The Compaq AP550 Workstation

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First post, by Darkman

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very recently I managed to get my hands on a machine Ive been wanting for a while , That being the Compaq AP550 , especially since my Dell Precision 220 stopped working (it kept on freezing despite no IRQ issues)
The machine is in overall good condition , it hasn't yellowed too badly , especially given its age (the stamp on the inside says the machine left the factory in May 2001). It came with a single P3 866 CPU, 256mb of RDRAM a Compaq branded LG 40X IDE CD drive (the other 5.25 slot was empty, with no blanking bezel to cover it). It also had a 32mb Elsa Synergy II-32 RivaTNT2 based graphics card. There was no hard drive present.

There are several things I like about this machine : its an SMP machine , its running the i840 chipset (which is quite uncommon it seems) , and it has onboard U160 adaptec SCSI, so no need to waste a PCI slot, along with an AGP Pro slot.

I replaced the single CPU with dual P3 1000 (the positioning of the CPU slots meant most heatsinks won't work , so I borrowed the heatsink from the 866, as well as another like it I already have)
For RAM I figured why not go with the most this board supports (as far as I know) , and so Im running 2GB of PC800 RDRAM
The hard drive just had to be SCSI and so Im using a 15K RPM Seagate Cheetah 300GB drive (ST3300655LC) with 16mb of cache.
Sound card is an Audigy2 ZS , while an SBLive is more appropriate for the system , I found the Live to have various issues with SMP (constant BSODs , skipping sound in FMVs etc)
the 40X CD drive worked well , however I replaced it with dual DVD drives , one by Sony, the other by LiteOn (which I may replace as its a bit more yellowed the the rest of the system).

As for the graphics, Im trying various ones, the TNT2 is a bit weak for this system , so it will get replaced by something like a Geforce2 or V5500 , depending on results

excuse the potato quality camerawork

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the Elsa card and one of the CPUs
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Quake 3 (default settings , 1024x768) and 3DMark2000 , running on the Elsa Synergy II

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HDD benchmark

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Reply 1 of 8, by chrismeyer6

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Beautiful system those Compaq workstations were always my favorite built like tanks and just as reliable

Reply 2 of 8, by Paul

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Bravo!

P-III-S 1400Mhz, ASUS TUSL2-C, 2x256 Hynix, STB Voodoo3 3000 AGP, Sound Blaster Live! 5.1 (SB0100) / Aureal Vortex 2, 80GB Samsung SP0812N, Teac CD-W552E, Logitech M-S35, IBM Model M, FSP Blue Storm FSP350-60THN-P, USB 2.0 via PCI, Samsung 959NF.

Reply 3 of 8, by Jade Falcon

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Nice system!

Reply 4 of 8, by jade_angel

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Very nice indeed!

Main Box: Macbook Pro M2 Max
Alas, I'm down to emulation.

Reply 5 of 8, by chinny22

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Jealous! You've maxed out the win2k Pro CPU count. and with 1GHz cpus as well, neither of my SMP Slot 1 boards can go that high.
While I have a few Duel socket systems they are all servers and it just feels "wrong" not installing the server version of windows.
Like the rest of the hardware as well, big fan of the Audigy 2 ZS and the 300GB Cheetah drives were legendary.

Honestly don't think I would have done anything different.
Not sure what AGP Pro cards are out there but standard AGP Id continue with the maxing out theme and a GF4 ti4600

Reply 6 of 8, by clueless1

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Beautiful access time on that Cheetah! 15k rpm must practically torque the entire case when it spins up. Well done, good luck with finishing it up!

The more I learn, the more I realize how much I don't know.
OPL3 FM vs. Roland MT-32 vs. General MIDI DOS Game Comparison
Let's benchmark our systems with cache disabled
DOS PCI Graphics Card Benchmarks

Reply 7 of 8, by Darkman

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Thanks everyone, Another thing I added to the computer today was a second fan . Doesn't seem like much ,but the system had a single 92mm rear fan , with space for another 92mm fan at the front, meaning the system could get quite hot (especially with fanless CPUs, 4 RDRAM sticks and a 15k RPM drive) only annoyance is that the motherboard fan connection is proprietary (its a Compaq circa 2000) so I ended up using a standard 3 pin fan with a molex adaptor. CPU temp with one fan was around 46C after benchmarking, which went down to a somewhat better 41C after the 2nd fan was added.

interesting to note one game I tried on it was Grim Fandango , and to my surprise, the speed related issues the game has are gone (when running the game with something like a 700mhz Coppermine, there are issues with the menus not being responsive, and even the occasional freeze) , a very nice surprise given these issues existed on every chipset Ive tried (440BX , 440GX , i820 , i815E, VIA)

chinny22 wrote:
Jealous! You've maxed out the win2k Pro CPU count. and with 1GHz cpus as well, neither of my SMP Slot 1 boards can go that high. […]
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Jealous! You've maxed out the win2k Pro CPU count. and with 1GHz cpus as well, neither of my SMP Slot 1 boards can go that high.
While I have a few Duel socket systems they are all servers and it just feels "wrong" not installing the server version of windows.
Like the rest of the hardware as well, big fan of the Audigy 2 ZS and the 300GB Cheetah drives were legendary.

Honestly don't think I would have done anything different.
Not sure what AGP Pro cards are out there but standard AGP Id continue with the maxing out theme and a GF4 ti4600

I like the Audigy2 ZS (this one is an OEM card , but its identical to the retail one other than the coloured plastic connectors), the sound quality is better than the Live as well , which is a great Win98 card, but due to the issues stated , its kind of a non starter for an SMP Win2k system. The system obviously has onboard audio too , and even an internal speaker (a full speaker, not just a beeper ) but as you can imagine it sounds like the system is underwater

interestingly I do have a Quadro4 XGL 900 , which is basically a TI4600 , so its an option (not sure if it works though , it was giving me issues before). Other than 3DFX , I have a Geforce2 Ti , as well as an OEM Geforce3
the PSU is rated at 375w so power isn't a problem.

clueless1 wrote:

Beautiful access time on that Cheetah! 15k rpm must practically torque the entire case when it spins up. Well done, good luck with finishing it up!

its certainly quite loud, though the system in general is actually fairly quiet given what its running, certainly compared to my Lian Li PC60 case which sounds like a small jet fighter due to 5 80mm 15 year old case fans

loading is indeed very, very fast , and the 300GB drive means I can do many full installs, the drive does use an 80 pin connector, so I had to use an adaptor for it.

Reply 8 of 8, by Adrian_

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Hi, the solution for the second fan is quite simple, just cut the rpm (yellow) wire of a classic 3-wire fan and make a loop to the red (power) wire. If you look carefully this is how the Compaq original fan is wired. The yellow wire going to the fan (which now has no plug at it's end) needs to have it's end insulated and then you can tie it to the other two wires.

Btw, did you found a convenient solution for routing the scsi cable? The port is very badly located on the "wrong" side of the MB...

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