Eric

My personal rule of thumb is to leave anything second hand (computer
related), unless you feel 100% comfortable with the item. In your instance,
and looking at some of your own comments, I'd leave it (and I haven't looked
at the specs yet). However, if you are 100% comfortable with supporting the
machine yourself (the odd of bit troubleshooting etc) then go for it.

Looking at the specs now though, it was really lousy specs back then when
those celeron machines first came out and I have no doubt that it would be
terrible purchase today. (I think it was the L2 cache or the lack thereof
that slowed them down so much). The later celerons usually marked 300A (note
the "A") included 125kb cache which sped things up a little for those
machines processors.

Your assessment of the memory is probably correct, especially with 8Mb going
to video. I'd also want 64Mb as an absolute minimum - make sure there are
memory slots available.

Taking an overall look and everything considered (and not really knowing the
US market - I'm in South Africa) I'd look around some more. You'll should
find something better than what you've been offered, especially taking the
new computer prices into account.

Good luck

Brendon


<snip>

> Wonder if I can ask for any advice or experiences with the following
> system that has been offered to me for about 150 dollars sans
> monitor.
>
> Mobo: MB748LMRT, I think the brand is Xcel 2000, system chips
> are SiS 620 by pcchips. It has a 300 MHz celeron in the slot 1 and
> also a 370 socket (not real sure about the terms, etc. here so bear
> with me). From searching the web, it seems that this will hold up to a
> PIII at 500. Any idea how much this processer should cost used?
>
> It comes with 32 MB memory, 8 of which is shared for onboard
> video. That'll probably have to go up to at least 64, no? Seems to
> have a decent sound system but the onboard modem seems to be
> fried. It has a modem card in it but was not configured (or doesn't
> work) when I looked it over briefly.
>
> The HD is a 3.2 GB fujitsu. Win98SE is installed and loads slowly -
> probably memory related? Perhaps putting Win95 on it would be
> better.
>
> I'm looking for something cheap for the kids to play with and basic
> inet connection and easy sorts of stuff, etc. I'm willing to
> work out a
> few kinks but what I don't
> want is a can of worms or continual time-draining headaches in
> keeping
> it running.
>
> What do you suggest?
>
> Thanks in advance,
> Eric
<snip>

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