HISTORY
The owner of this computer was experiencing stability problems and decided to replace the tower with a new model. This is a very typical desktop system of the later Windows Vista era, when multiple gigabytes of RAM and dual core processors became common. In some respects little has changed since, with many new models only coming with 4GB of RAM as standard. However, the processor is weak in comparison to modern machines, but it may still provide adequate performance for general use.
INITIAL SPECIFICATIONS
Machine Type: Desktop Tower
Model: PACKARD BELL IMEDIA B2217
Year of Manufacturer: 2009
Motherboard: ECS MCP73VT-PM (V1.0)
Chipset: NVIDIA NFORCE 610I
Processor: INTEL CELERON E1400 2.00GHz 64-BIT Dual Core (Socket 775)
RAM: 3GB DDR2 (1x 1GB, 1x 2GB 240-Pin DIMM)
Hard Drive(s): 250GB SATA 3.5"
Optical Drive(s): DVD-RW SATA 5.25"
Graphics: Integrated (Nvidia)
Audio: Integrated (Realtek)
Network: Integrated (100Mbps Ethernet)
USB: 2.0 (2 Front, 4 Rear)
Power Supply: FSP 250W
Other Features: None
COA: Windows Vista Home Basic
INITIAL INSPECTION
The motherboard looked in good condition, but some bad capacitors were found in the power supply. These would have likely been the cause of the stability problems.
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| Bad capacitors inside PSU |
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| PSU following recap |
REPAIRS & MODIFICATIONS
- 1000uF PSU capacitors replaced
PREPARATION
Once the repair on the power supply was completed, fans cleaned and CMOS battery replaced, the system fired up and completed diagnostics successfully.
SETUP
The system had been previously running Windows Vista Basic, but Microsoft and Google support has ended for this operating system. Unlike Windows XP, Vista was not well liked and is no longer widely used. Therefore, the options were Windows 10 or a variant of Linux. The loophole that allowed users of Windows XP and Vista to upgrade to Windows 10 for free has now been closed, but a working, valid key can be purchased from eBay for just a couple of pounds! Just how this works I am not sure, as Microsoft sells the same thing for about 50x the price. However, these cheap keys do work, and having used a few, both for Freecycle and to upgrade customer's machines, have so far not run into any problems with activation. With this in mind, I opted for Windows 10, which installed OK. Initially there was no graphics driver available, and performance was dreadful. However, the Windows 7/8 driver from the Nvidia website worked, and appears to be stable.
CONCLUSION
Performance is adequate, but not the greatest, mainly due to the slower Celeron processor. It's a good example of what a system needs to be to run Windows 10 properly, as minimum and even recommended system requirements are usually not realistic in the real world. The problem is that computers are often doing more than one thing at a time, even if the operator is only working on one task. A slower system might run OK most of the time but then slow to a crawl when Windows starts to check for updates, for example.
Performance is adequate, but not the greatest, mainly due to the slower Celeron processor. It's a good example of what a system needs to be to run Windows 10 properly, as minimum and even recommended system requirements are usually not realistic in the real world. The problem is that computers are often doing more than one thing at a time, even if the operator is only working on one task. A slower system might run OK most of the time but then slow to a crawl when Windows starts to check for updates, for example.
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