HP Pavilion 734n
This is my HP Pavilion 734n desktop computer. It is a Windows XP computer from 2003, and a pretty cool looking one at that.
Its got that sweet early 2000's design without all the bubbliness, if you get what I mean.
Like this:
Not that bubbliness is bad or anything. I actually like it more. I like things to look fun and funky. But I have NEVER seen any like this ever.
ANYWAY. It's got a disc holder hidden in the top of the case, those cool flip down drive bays, and some hidden USB/Firewire ports
at the bottom of the case, its very fun.
I bought it from a lady named Kathryn who was selling it on Facebook marketplace for like 15 dollars. Was even able to find a
matching monitor at a thrift store afterwards. Worked GREAT. All I had to do was reinstall Windows and it was perfect.
At the time I was looking for a Windows XP machine for the purpose of playing the Sims 1 and using some older art/design/editing programs,
and this computer did that perfectly.
Originally it came with a 2GHz Athlon XP 2600+ CPU, Nvidia MX 420 64MB GPU, and 2GB of ram. Fairly decent specs for 2003, but not good enough...
It was really good at running Windows 98 era games; HOWEVER... If I wanted to run Windows 98 era games, then I'd get a Windows 98 PC.
I want to run WINDOWS XP GAMES.. Like ROLLER COASTER TYCOON 3, HALF-LIFE 2, AND THE SIMS 2... and many others.
Now, I don't know a lot about computers other than they can play video games and they have mices. And while it probably would be better and more efficient to just
build a new Windows XP computer from scratch, that is a project for another time.. I am too busy for all that. Plus its fun to work around limitations. That is what
humanity was born to do.
So I made it my goal to upgrade the computer WITHOUT having to rebuild the whole thing ship of theseus style. THIS WAS going to be hard.. Because the motherboard is basically maxed out.
I suppose I could have upgraded the Athlon XP 2600+ to a Athlon XP 3200+, but those things are EXPENSIVE, and it probably wouldn't boost performance all that much.
Really my only option was to upgrade the GPU, and that came with its own problem. The motherboard doesn't have a PCIe slot, only an AGP slot. (Truthfully I didn't even know what an AGP slot was
until like two weeks ago, at the time of writing this on 9/14/2024. I told you that I know nothing about computers). Because of this, my options were a little limited.
After doing some RESEARCH... I found out that AGP graphics cards with anything higher than 64mb of memory are kind of expensive... I was almost tempted to invest in a new motherboard because of this;
HOWEVER, after shopping around on Ebay for awhile I came across this for a BARGAIN price:
A VisionTek Radeon 2600 XT 512MB GPU, that connects through AGP!! Kind of overkill for my purposes, but for the price they wanted for it, I couldn't say no. It also just looks sick, with the red circuit board, and
lady staring off into the mountains on the side of the card.
Actually I need to talk about that for a second.. That era of GPU design was so boss. They were putting cool pictures of 3D ogres, SPACE MARINES, SEXY
women, and flames and shit on the side of their cards. And back then they didn't even know what glass side panels were so you wouldn't even get to see the designs after you put it into the computer.
AND NOW, in the era of RGB lights and glass panels and other shit NO ONE is putting cool designs on their GPU's like WHY dude, you're missing out. WE'RE missing out. People are so anal about their
how their computers look nowadays and yet no one is putting cool 3D goblins and dragons or literally any kind of design on their cards. GET A GRIP GUYS.
Even the boxes are boring as hell. Let's shove this $800 GPU into this plain black box with the name and picture of the card etched into it.. Yeah that really makes me appreciate how much I wasted on
that stupid shit. Like go back and look at the old Voodoo boxes, or really just any GPU box from the late 90's and early 2000's. They would always just have some random lady or something, not even from a
video game or anything. Just some random 3D lady or jacked up looking wizard. And that shit ROCKED.
Anyway... Like I said, I don't know a lot about computers, and something I didn't realize when I bought it was that it required an extra power connector; Yeah, some six pin NONSENSE.. and the only
available plug left in the PSU was some four pin MOLEX NONSENSE. So I had to buy an adapter, that turned two molex connectors into one 6 pin connector.
And then I realized that I only had one molex connector available, and I didn't want to unplug one of my CD/DVD drives, so I bought a one molex to TWO molex
adapter.
So, the card arrived in the mail, and then two days after that I received the adapters, and then I was ready to shove this thing into the computer... Well, that was until things went sour...
When I went to plug in the 6 pin connector to the GPU, it wouldn't fit. It was so cheaply made that the plastic surrounding the top middle pin wasn't cut correctly, and I had to
spend like an hour with my hair dryer and an exactoknife trying to cut it into the correct shape.
Eventually I got it, and then plugged it into my computer... turned it on.... and IT CAUGHT FIRE.... just kidding, LOL & ROFL. It worked fine but I really
did think it was going to burst into flames because the Pavilion only has a 200 watt power supply, and at this point that thing is older than methuselah so
it really is a miracle that it didn't explode and kill me and leave a soot outline of my body on the floor.
But yeah I tested it out with RCT3 and the Sims 2 and WOW... night and day difference. Both games run 1000x better. I don't have any video, but I had both games on like minimum settings in
800x600, and they still ran like crap before swapping the card out. Originally RCT3 ran at like 20-27 frames with NO RIDES or anything, and Sims 2 ran at like 15 fps max. Now I can run both
at 1024x768, MAX settings with stable framerates.. now we're running theme parks in style.. But; Most importantly...
Half Life 2 runs like a DREAM. Can't go max settings but if I bump the texture detail down to medium and leave the anisotropic filtering off, its runs at what I would estimate to be atleast
30-40 fps at 1024x768 resolution, which in my mind is pretty good. Not really aiming for the best performance with this computer, just want to play some old games on real hardware that isn't super
futuristic and fancy. Like I said before: Its all about working around limitations, and worked around them is what I have done, Orlok Style.
And so, this is my new and IMPROVED HP Pavilion 734n. And in with its new upgrades, I believe I can rename it to the ORLOK Pavilion 777j (For Jackpot). The ULTIMATE lower-middle-grade gaming computer.
Hopefully (or maybe not because I still don't have full confidence in the adapters and wires) you can learn SOMETHING
from this, and maybe save an old forgotten family computer from obscurity by forcing an overkill graphics card inside of it. OR NOT. Truthfully, a lot of these older computers are good just as they came.
This one certainly was.
Yeah, on second thought. Find an old computer, and enjoy it as it is. Don't do all this dumb stuff that I did. You WILL die.
Thank you for reading, and stay tuned for future talks on my other computer projects!
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