What's the worst PC you've ever owned?

For me, an old hand-me-down laptop I got off a friend for free. It was a Gateway MT6730 and it wouldn't boot into Windows Vista, so I ran Ubuntu on a LiveCD until I installed Windows 7 using the install disc I used on the gaming rig. It was an overall bad laptop, with 2GB of RAM, a 120GB hard drive with I think like 340 bad sectors and it crashed often, but when it was running it I used it as my Netflix machine and I ran basic games on it too. It also had a bad battery and it wouldn't run unless it was plugged into the charger. It also ran hot all the time and I got the benefit of a heated keyboard

It's demise: I was streaming '90s Nickelodeon from NReboot.com and the laptop overheated to something stupid like 99 degrees C but it never shut down because I turned off thermal shutdown in the BIOS (dumb idea I know). Ended up melting a hole in the plastic of the bottom of the laptop and the processor warped and fell out of the motherboard. But again I got the laptop for free so nothing was really lost. I ended up pulling the hard drive, optical drive, and the speakers out of it and trashing the rest.

Many.

My family's first computer, a Gateway 2000 with a Pentium II then upgraded to a Pentium III
My second computer which was built by my father. That one was a Celeron with 64MB of RAM and a 20GB HDD.
My own computer which was given to me by my grandparents, a Dell Dimension 2100 with a 1Ghz Celeron and 128MB RAM

Looking back at the specs of my old PCs I laugh a little today but back when I owned them I liked them a lot and didn't really complain so it's hard to pick a 'worst' PC. I guess in terms of worst reliability it has to go both of my old IBM ThinkPads: an A31 and an R40. Normally ThinkPads last forever but these two were written off and had clearly had a hard life when were handed to me for free about 6 years ago. Both died within months of motherboard failures, but they weren't my main machines so I wasn't concerned and they started my love affair with ThinkPads.

The motherboard I used for my first ever build was rubbish (Foxconn H55M-S or something) and I killed it when trying to update the BIOS one night about 4 years ago. That's hands down the worst motherboard I've ever used or seen. You can read my full opinions on that motherboard after that here: http://www.computerforum.com/threads/bios-flash-failed-now-motherboard-is-dead.207586/ I replaced that motherboard with an ASUS P7P55D-E which was one of my favourite motherboards. The rest of the system was good though (though I built the system with a GT 220 which I very quickly replaced with a GTS 450 when I realised that the GT 220 was crap. I only bought it because it was '1GB'! We were all rookies and 12 years old once! )

So for me it's hard to pinpoint a worst computer because although most of the countless Pentium 4 PCs I owned as a kid were old and slow, they were fine for me and I was very content with them. The day I went from a Pentium 4 HT to an i5 760 was a huge leap and after that I had quite a few other i5 setups and machines.

I had a Pentium 120 MHz with 4 MB RAM, that was pretty damn slow. Had to upgrade to 16 MB RAM to play NASCAR 2

Other than that it's been a constant upgrade path since building my first one. Probably the worst combos I've had in recent memory was when one of my 256 MB sticks of PC133 died in my Athlon 1600+ system. Unreal Tournament 2003 ran like complete dog crap on only 256 MB (although the Geforce 3 was chugging along happily).

beers said:

I had a Pentium 120 MHz with 4 MB RAM, that was pretty damn slow. Had to upgrade to 16 MB RAM to play NASCAR 2

Other than that it's been a constant upgrade path since building my first one. Probably the worst combos I've had in recent memory was when one of my 256 MB sticks of PC133 died in my Athlon 1600+ system. Unreal Tournament 2003 ran like complete dog crap on only 256 MB (although the Geforce 3 was chugging along happily).

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That just reminded me of my FIRST PC I've ever owned.

Here's the story behind it:
I have always liked computers and I've been a PC gamer since age 3 and I started at age 3 playing educational games and crap. Anyways, in my elementary school I quickly became the "smart computer genius" and a lot of teachers would come for me for simple tech support. Well, one of the 4th grade teachers said she had an old retro computer in her basement she'd let me have and she called my parents and arranged for her husband to drop it off at the house later that night. It was an old IBM Personal Computer 300GL, and to this day I remember the specs on it. It has Windows 98 Second Edition, a Pentium II, a 4GB IDE hard drive, and 256MB of RAM, none of the USB ports worked, and I used this old PC to run DOS games and I sold it after I accidentally bricked it by setting the BIOS boot password then immediately forgetting what I set it as. It was a dumb mistake and I kinda felt bad because that IBM was quite the beast.

The VCR King said:

I accidentally bricked it by setting the BIOS boot password then immediately forgetting what I set it as.

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That's when you break out the CMOS clear

First PC I ever owned in about 2004 was a beige box. I think it had an old Pentium or Pentium II in it or it may have actually been an AMD setup (Duron?) I think it may have been a Duron setup but it's kind of unlikely that it was AMD because my Dad only ever went with Intel. I remember it had Windows 98 on it and that was about it. I wasn't interested at all in the specs back then when I was about 7, that interest didn't come until I was about 11 or 12 really.

When I was in grade 7, so like 1993 era our school board sold off a bunch of computer assets, and a bunch of us got Unisys ICON machines for next to nothing.

As I recall, these things basically could do math, spelling, grammar programs, a basic drawing thing, and primitive number games. READER RABBIT was DOPE!!!!! I think they were basically made and sold to the elementary school board in Canada through the late 80's early 90's.

That, hands down, was the worst machine I've ever had..

The worst PC I ever owned was a Mac mini. It was slow and clunky, especially for how much Apple charged for it. Even though it cost nearly $1000, it ran every bit as good as a $400 Windows computer. I used it for a few months then gave it to my daughter. She used it about a month then begged me to give her a Windows computer and take the Mac mini back.

I ended up trading it for a Toshiba laptop and feel I got the better end of the deal.

beers said:

That's when you break out the CMOS clear

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I was like seven or eight years old. I didn't even know what a "RAM" was back then... I've been stalking Craiglist and Ebay for another IBM P.C. 300GL because I really do miss that old behemoth of a computer.

beers said:

Other than that it's been a constant upgrade path since building my first one.

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Pretty much the same here.

I've never really owned a bad PC. This was my first. GF (now wifey) bought it for us back in Christmas 2003. Expensive (over $2k iirc) and current enough for that time. Lasted us til 07, when I finally built my first rig. Installed my first set of RAM, secondary HD, replaced the GPU; learned a lot on that Sony. Even tried to shove an ATX PSU in there, but didn't pan out (proprietary case). I'll never get rid of it. Cleaned out the entire garage last week, didn't think of scrapping it with the other crappy boxes I had lying around.