The Stock Hardware:
Compaq Presario Model 7470
533 MHz AMD-K6(r) 2 CPU
97 MHz system bus
512 KB L2 Pipeline Burst Cache
128 MB 100MHz SDRAM (1 x 128 MB DIMM) 120 MB available program memory
8 MB shared video memory running at 1024 x 768 x 32 bit resolution
20.0 GB UltraDMA hard drive (Maxtor)
CD-R and CD-RW compatible optical drive
3.5 inch floppy

The Added Hardware:
17.0 GB UltraDMA hard drive (Fujitsu)
512 MB 100MHz SDRAM (2 x 256 MB DIMM) 504 MB available program memory
Creative Labs Encore Dxr3 DVD optical drive
Creative Labs Sound Blaster 16 Pro audio
Envision 19 inch monitor
Wal*Mar $9.99-special keyboard
Radio Shack Wireless Scroll Mouse
Actiontec GT701-WG DSL Modem running at 256Kbs
A pair of some off-brand desktop speakers I paid $32.00 for that really crank out the tunes and sound great.

The Software:
WinXP Home Edition w/SP2
Apache 2.0.55 HTTP Server (Freeware)
EngInSite V1.2.0 Build 66 (Freeware Apache GUI configuratin utility)
Macromedia Dreamweaver 2.0 Web Developer
Advanced Web Statistics V6.5 Build 1.857 (Freeware GUI Web traffic analyzer)
Adobe Acrobat Reader 6.0
Mozilla FireFox (Always the latest version)
Internet Explorer 6.0
HTML-Kit (Freeware HTML Editor)
Core FTP (Freeware FTP Client)
Limewire Pro (Inexpensive File Sharing Client/Server)
WinZip 8.0 (Shareware)

Notes and history about the system:
Originally, this system was purchased from a company called UBID.com in the year of 2000. UBID is an online auction house that deals mostly with electronic items of all types. I have also purchased other items from them and have been pleased so far. I recommend them highly. This particular model (7470), was produced for sale abroad, not for the US market. The unit itself was acquired as a refurb at a cost of around $450.00. Though a refurb, the unit came with a full manufacturers warranty and arrived in brand new condition with a keyboard, mouse and really cheapo speakers. The original Operating System was Win98 Second Edition. The OS came pre-installed on a logical partition on the boot drive. There were no disks. The stock equipment was 128 MB Ram, CD-RW drive 3.5 inch floppy, integrated Trident Blade 3D/MVP4 video, integrated ESS audio and a junk PCI modem.

After I received the system, I removed the 17gig Fujitsu drive from my old system and installed it in the new one. I am a long time firm believer in Fujitsu hard drives. These drives have well proven themselves to me with continued flawless performance. The one I have now is almost 8 years old and has outlasted every other brand I have tried, even the best Western Digital drives have not given such good performance. I will continue to use Fujitsu drives.

We all know the first thing that seemingly MUST be done to any system is add more memory. So, the first upgrade was to add an additional 256 MB of ram. Back in those days, memory was still pretty pricey and to add 256 MB cost me close to $200.00, but now I had bragging rights with all my friends [grin]. Memory is something I never skimp on when it comes to money. I always buy only memory that comes with a lifetime warranty. You pay more for it but I feel it's worth it in the long run. So far, I've not had any failures with the memory I've purchased with a lifetime warranty. About a year after I added the first 256 MB DIMM, I decided it was time to add another 256 MB. My system was starting to run a bit more slowly, it seemed anyway, so I figured it was time to max out the memory(512 MB) in an effort to improve overall system performance. By this time the memory prices had dropped a bit and the new memory was about $15.00 cheaper than the first one I had gotten. I replaced the original 128 MB DIMM with the new 256 MB DIMM and sold the old one on Ebay for around $45.00, which I thought was a fair price at the time. Sadly, the additional memory didn't seem to help performance at all. That was about 5 years ago.

Though Win98SE was a grand relief over the Win95 OS I was running on the system I had before this one, it surly has it's problems. Of course, when I first received the system it worked almost perfectly right out of the box. In time however, some very strange things began to happen. Sometimes bad things. I always had problems with the video driver. Most of the time it would flip into some strange mode that would make the monitor act like it was a magnifying glass. This was pretty weird. As I moved the mouse around the screen, the desktop would scroll around. It was like the desktop exploded to about four times it's normal size and the screen was like a movable window about the desktop. The computer would still function normally, for the most part, and it was actually kind of fun that way, but it was annoying when it happened because I'd always lose my Internet connection at the same time. Sometimes, I'd get the dreaded "Blue Screen of Death", which is always a bummer. When ever that happened it was always the same old thing. Power down, reboot, scandisk (which we all know takes forever) OS load while waiting for that silly blue line at the bottom of the screen to do something, anything, and then finally, the system would come back to life, usually. Another more common problem was the sleep mode never worked right, ever. Half the time it would never go to sleep. The other half the time it did, the system might not wake up again, so guess what that means! Yup...power down, reboot, yawn...you get the picture. One problem that plagued the system was that it sometimes would just hang. The mouse would still scroll around the screen, but nothing else would do anything. Another minor, but annoying problem was, that in time, I'd notice the system clock would gain time. After about a month of use, I'd have to reset the clock because it would be running about an hour fast. That wasn't a catastrophic failure by any means, but just one of those things that ticks a person off.

More later...........Thanks for looking!

Yo-