My Hardware Collection

PCs

Laptops & Tablets

Compaq Armada 1530 (1997)

• CPU: Intel Pentium MMX 133 MHz
• GPU: Cirrus Logic 7548
• RAM: 80 MB EDO
• Display: 12.1" 800x600
• Storage: 2.5" IDE Drive, 1.44 MB Floppy Drive
• Ports: 1x PC-Card expansion, Serial, Parallel, VGA, PS/2, Docking, IrDA

Purchased in 2021 from a local thrift store together with its proprietary docking station. It's a pretty slow machine and annoying to work with due to the missing CD drive. The HDD is not that easy to remove too, so installing anything besides DOS, Windows 3.1 and Windows 95 from floppies can be a hassle. The display has lots of tearing, making it unusable for gaming. One great benefit however is the integrated power supply, so you cannot lose it.

Toshiba Libretto 50CT (1997)

• CPU: Intel Pentium 75 MHz
• GPU: Chips & Tech. Accelerator F65550 Rev. 5
• RAM: 16 MB EDO (proprietary module)
• Display: 6.1" 640x480
• Storage: 2.5" IDE Drive, 1.44 MB Floppy Drive via PC-Card
• Ports: 1x PC-Card expansion, Docking, IrDA

Purchased in 2021 on eBay together with its two docking station variants, the PC-Card floppy drive, a secondary 3rd party rechargeable battery and the original user's manual. Originally running Windows 95, it can also run Windows 3.1 really well and runs Windows 98 and Windows NT, although they aren't running great on 16 MB RAM. Overall amazing little device.

IBM ThinkPad 390E (1998)

• CPU: Intel Mobile Celeron 300 MHz
• GPU: NeoMagic MagicMedia 256AV
• RAM: 64 MB SDRAM, upgradeable to 512 MB
• Display: 12.1" 800x600
• Storage: 2.5" IDE Drive, 1.44 MB Floppy Drive, CD-ROM Drive
• Ports: 2x PCMCIA, 1x USB 1.1, Serial, Parallel, VGA, PS/2, Docking, IrDA

Purchased in 2016 on eBay as my first retro computer I got as an adult. Great little Windows 98 machine, however runs everything from Windows 3.1 to XP really well too. It can even run Windows Vista and Windows 7 with the RAM upgraded to 512 MB, however the experience is not great. Over the years the display hinges have destroyed themselves, making using the laptop really annoying.

Toshiba Satellite Pro 4290 (1999)

• CPU: Intel Celeron 550 MHz
• GPU: S3 Savage4
• RAM: 64 MB SDRAM, upgraded to 320 MB (256 MB + 64 MB onboard)
• Display: 12.1" (?) 800x600
• Storage: 2.5" IDE Drive, 1.44 MB Floppy Drive , CD-ROM Drive
• Ports:

Purchased in 2022 on eBay for only ~30€, it's a really nice and performant business class laptop. Originally it likely ran Windows 2000, but it can also run Windows 9x and Windows XP really well.

Sony Vaio PCG-SR21K (2001)

• CPU: Intel Pentium III E 650 MHz
• GPU: S3 Savage/IX
• RAM: 192 MB SDRAM
• Display: ??" 800x600
• Storage: 2.5" IDE Drive, Memory-Stick
• Ports:

Purchased in 2023 on a local flea market without any accessories or any idea if it works. Turns out to be a really amazing compact Windows 2000 machine. Due to its compact size it does not have a Floppy or CD drive, which makes installing things from CD really annoying as it cannot boot from USB. Also the BIOS is very strange with two variants, one for Windows 2000 and one for Windows XP, which you need to re-flash if you want to change OS, or otherwise certain devices would not work. But even with the XP BIOS, actually getting XP to boot is not easy. Currently after some maintenance unfortunately the trackpad stopped working, but I haven't invested more time yet into fixing that.

Gericom Webshox Per4mance XL 2430 (2002)

Given to me by the family of my former room-mate, this laptop is not a very great device. It's slow, runs hot, the DVD drive is flaky at best and the battery is dead. Recently it does not work properly anymore, it turns on and off at random, making it unusable for anything.

Apple iBook G4 (2003)

Purchased in xx on eBay as my first real Apple laptop. Overall a great PowerPC based laptop!

IBM ThinkPad T41 (2003)

Purchased in xx on a flea market, it came with a BIOS password lock that the previous owners did not remember. After ordering hardware to attach to the BIOS chip to crack the password, it turns out that it was 0000 all along. Overall a great XP era machine that performs really well with a nice display. Downsides are the DirectX 8 graphics card, making it unsuitable for Windows XP Media Center Edition or Windows Vista+ with Aero, as well as the lack of a floppy dive and the very limited Wi-Fi chip that only runs at 802.11b speeds on WEP or WPA (not WPA2) networks.

Compaq tc1100 (2004)

Purchased in xx from xx, it's a well known XP Tablet. Overall runs well and OEM recovery media is readily available. The included keyboard attachment is really clunky to use though and the rubberized plastic is disintegrating which is annoying.

HP Pavilion dv6700 (2007)

Purchased in xx from eBay, it was supposed to be an alternative to my T61p, however in the end I did not use it too much.

Lenovo ThinkPad T61p (2007)

Given to me by the family of my former room-mate, it's a really nice Vista era laptop. With a crazy 1920x1200 display and decent dual core CPU, it can almost be used as a daily driver, especially when upgrading to an SSD and a more modern OS. It would even run some earlier Versions of Windows 11 if you wanted to.

ASUS Eee PC 1005HA & 1005HAG (2009)

Originally purchased around 2011 as my first actual laptop, I used this little amazing device up until 2016 as my daily driver. Back then I used every OS from Windows XP up until Windows 8.1 and with some tweaks it was able to do anything I wanted (even some Minecraft back then with lots of optimization mods). Surprisingly it can also run Windows 2000 with almost all XP drivers just working, and it can go up to the latest Windows 10 release (limitation being the 32-bit CPU), however anything beyond Windows 8.1 needs strong patience.

As one day the charging port started to break, I purchased the 1005HAG from eBay in xx to "replace" it as my main Netbook. This time with a white shell it additionally sports a 3G modem and comes with Windows 7 Starter instead of Windows XP. The performance is pretty much identical.

ASUS Eee PC 1008HA (2009)

Another Netbook purchase from eBay in xx, this device is a little more slim and compact but sports the same (mediocre) performance as the 1005HA models. It's a nice little and compact XP machine but it can also run Windows 7 really well. However swapping or upgrading components is a pain because half the machine needs to be disassembled. Plus the CMOS-Battery is dead which means it will ask for the time to be set on every boot.

Acer Aspire One 756 (2012)

Originally my sister's laptop, the display and hinge broke a few years after purchase and it made it into my collection many years later. However I don't really use it currently.

Microsoft Surface (2012)

Purchased from eBay in xxx it is one of the few Windows RT devices that were made and subsequently disliked by everyone. Over time hacks became available to let you run unsigned software as well as a strange leaked ARM32 build of Windows 10 which is fun to explore.

Microsoft Surface Pro (2012)

Purchased from eBay in yyy it is the x86 brother of the Surface. It came with Windows 8 but runs Windows 8.1 really well and allows upgrading to Windows 10 too, however I'd stick with 8.1 as the touch UI is way smoother. Great little tablet device overall.

ASUS X552MD (2014)

Given to me by a friend back in 2016 after they purchased a new laptop for themselves, it was my daily driver up to 2019. Back then it was a big leap coming from a Netbook with way better CPU and GPU performance, even allowing some lighter games at good FPS. Biggest downsides are the mediocre trackpad with its huge latency, the mediocre display with even worse viewing angles and the overall build quality not being that great.

Chuwi Hi8 (2015)

Purchased from Ali Express in 201x, it was an interesting tablet device. I used it very briefly as a daily driver between the Eee PC and the ASUS, however besides the okay performance it was very clunky to use and had some annoying issues like bubbles forming under the screen once it got warm. Plus the slow eMMC with its tiny 32 GB didn't leave much room for anything, especially if dual booting Windows and Android, the latter being a big selling point.

Lenovo ThinkPad X260 (2016)

Purchased in 2019 on eBay, it has become my daily driver since then. Later upgrades included a 1080p panel as well as 16 GB DDR4 RAM. Briefly also used it as my daily driver desktop with the docking station, however for today's standards it's getting a bit slow with its dual core processor.

Hyrican Enwo Pad (2022)

Purchased in 202x on Hyrican's eBay store, it is a rebranded OEM tablet from China sporting an ARM64 CPU with Windows preinstalled. The device itself has good performance, an amazing screen and even comes with a built in LTE modem. However software support from Hyrican is basically non-existant. There's no recovery media and bare installs of Windows will result in trouble due to lack of drivers. You basically have to create recovery media yourself if you ever want to reset it. Upgrading to Windows 11 is supported, however I ran into BSODs when trying to use Insider builds. Another issue is the screen refresh rate being locked to 37 Hz due to a driver bug that neither Hyrican nor other vendors of the same rebranded device want to fix. Luckily there's a community fix for it, which however requires you to turn off Bitlocker and Secure Boot: https://github.com/ju-sti/hyrican-enwo-pad-60hz-fix

Desktops & Workstations

DEC Personal Workstation 600au (1997)

Purchased on Kleinanzeigen (German Craigslist) in 2024, it's a really interesting machine sporting one of the last Alpha CPUs ever made. It can run Linux, UNIX and Windows NT 4.0 as well as Windows 2000 betas and the infamous Windows XP AXP64 build.

Apple PowerMac G5 (2004)

Purchased in 202x on eBay, it's a great late PowerMac with dual CPUs, able to run Mac OS and Linux with good performance.

HP Compaq 8300 Elite SFF PC (2012)

Purchased in 202x on eBay for using it as a server. It ran either Windows or Proxmox for a long time with WD USB-HDDs serving as the NAS storage. Overall good performing and yet somewhat compact machine.

Custom Builds

Joy-it Desktop (~2009)

Given to my by my dad probably around 2009 after my previous PC was confiscated by him for illegally downloading stuff on the neighbours Wi-Fi. Used it for quite a while, first with the integrated GPU, later with a GT 240 for a bit better performance. The original Seagate HDD died at some point due to a firmware bug.

Custom built ATX Desktop (2020)

My current daily driver, runs anything I need it to. Purchased the RX 7700 XT in 2024 to give it a good GPU, but otherwise there's not much to upgrade from here on. It's probably gonna last me many more years.

Custom built mATX Desktop (2023)

Built as a replacement for the Compaq NAS, together with a QNAP JBOD enclosure. It's running Proxmox with various services, including a NAS and Jellyfin, the latter having the integrated GPU passed through. The PRO-model was chosen because they were the only AM4 CPUs that have an iGPU as well as ECC memory support. So far it runs anything I need it to and the power consumption is not that bad either.

Servers

HP Integrity rx2600 (2003)

Purcahsed two of these machines on eBay in 202x and later sold one of them. A great machine to get your feets wet in the Intel Itanium world. It can run anything from Server 2003 up to 2008 R2, the latter crashing a lot though. It does not run the 2002 XP release due to the CPU and chipset being too new. It also runs HP-UX in various versions as well as different Linux releases. Overall the performance is very poor for today's standards, especially when considering the enormous power consumption, however newer Itanium machines cost way more and don't run more legacy operating systems.