It’s not every day I get rid of one of my computers.
My computer collection has grown to include 11 computers, with some fully functional, some not functional at all and others missing. (The Acer AspireOne netbook is still yet to be found.) My bedroom has very limited space, and with the addition of the 1991 Macintosh Classic I’ve decided to get rid of one of the lesser functional computers.
The HP Pavilion A1000 desktop, referred to the XPavilion in some of my posts and pages, has been in my collection since I acquired it in 2016. The machine was given to me after wiping the hard drive. Since the machine runs Windows XP, I decided to keep it.
The XPavilion was only used in a couple pages back on the main site (this was the pre-WordPress days.) I used the machine for playing around with Bleeper Music Maker (see “Making the Beeper Cool Again!”) and Samba (see “Communicating via Samba”).
This machine hasn’t been powered up since we moved back in 2017. I tried to power it on earlier this week and… nothing. The power LED on the front panel is steady orange, and the hard drive spins up. No video, beeps or any signs of life.
As I mentioned on this machine’s profile page, it has suffered from bad capacitors. Motherboards from this era are, unfortunately, plagued with defective caps that bulge and quit working. This machine is no exception. I’m assuming that these caps are the fault.
Either way, the XPavilion is going away to the electronics recycler. I haven’t used it in a few years, and there is nothing special about it. The only reasons I’ve kept this machine is more/less nostalgia. The first modern computer my family had was a HP Pavilion that looked identical to this one, but ours had Windows Vista and an AMD Athlon-64 processor. Also, this is the only machine I have that has Windows XP – the first contemporary operating system I used.
Getting rid of this computer gives me a better space for the Classic, which has been residing in a dark corner of my room between my printer and a wall. Spoiler alert – A huge update on the Classic is coming soon, as the logic board is being recapped.
In the meantime, I harvested some parts from the XPavilion. I kept the hard drive – which is a 40GB Seagate Barracuda. Unfortunately, this is an IDE hard drive and, therefore, will not work in any of my other computers (I think.) I’d also like to give props to HP for making this case easy to work with.
I also received the original PS/2 keyboard and mouse with this machine. Believe it or not, I still semi-regularly use the keyboard with the MintTin. The mouse, however, is no longer used.
For those wondering, below are the original specs for the XPavilion.
Sayonara, XPavilion!
Update: 5/24/2020
Due to boredom, I disassembled the XPavilion a little further before taking it to the recycling center.
It appears I was correct in dating this machine. Most of the components have date codes of late 2005, from the 30th week to the 38th week. The board itself has a manufacture date of the 40th week of 2005. This machine was likely assembled in late 2005 and sold in early 2006 – meaning it’s less than a year older than the original HP my family purchased back in December 2006.
This computer had a nice selection of legacy ports. This computer was a relic from the time when computers had ample ports – unlike my 2019 13″ MacBook Pro that I’m typing this on, which has precisely two Thunderbolt 3 ports that do everything from charging, drive external displays and data transfer.
There’s also the infamous piezoelectric beeper (“bleeper”) that I recorded for my Bleeper Music Maker page. This computer is the only one that I have – as far as I know – that has an actual piezoelectric beeper.
Last is the CMOS clock battery. I don’t remember if I replaced the CMOS clock battery in this system or not. (As far as I remember, it was still keeping time and settings.) But I would like to note the interesting vertical position of it.
