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[Burger Meister]

K So I have an old Pentium 2 355mhz, upgraded the 64mb of ram to 256mb and I have some really old 8mb video card in there (PCI Slots only). My problem is that I didn't upgrade it before and I can't open the case. It's a Compaq Deskpro (no clue what model), but from the internet it seems everyone hates this case too. So I see 3 screws for the PSU that are easy to take off... but on the front there are 2 side panel half moon push in things. Thing is that they don't see to budge, am I missing something here.

[Scatty]

By chance I have the same Pentium II too (400 Mhz), so here's how:
It doesn't open at the front. Instead (there are no screws to remove at the back), push the entire metal cover forward and lift up, in direction of front, not back like on other desktop computers. Putting the case up so it stands on the back, and pulling the cover might help there.
It's quite simple once you've figured out how.

[Burger Meister]

Ok my other friend from abandonia here, Tseki helped me out. I got the case open. Found the awesome AGP gfx card - ATI 3D Rage Pro 8mb... gonna upgrade that to a 32mb ATI Rage 128 I believe. I cleaned the entire case/components with compressed air. Put it back together and I'm uninstalling everything right now. I have to ask my dad if I can totally take controll of the pc (as it is his)... if he lets me I'm gonna re-format to windows 98. My main goal is to be able to play old games flawlessly on it such as Carmageddon 1 & 2, Age of Empires 1 & 2, etc. It can run Age of Empires 2, but since there are no drivers for windows 2000 for my gfx card, the game starts to chop a little. Any of suggestions of what I should do to it?

[The Fifth Horseman]

First of all, you should run Windows 98 on that machine.

[Burger Meister]

Yep, just gotta wait 3 hours for my dad to come home... maybe he'll want to do a father-son project Him and I also modded my xbox 1 really nicely. I'm gonna try to reformat to 98:SE ASAP. Any other suggestions?

[The Fifth Horseman]

Perhaps replace the graphics card with a Voodoo 3 or 5 series one? Would be useful for games which make use of Glide.

An off-random idea is that you could buy a 1 or 2 GB SSD device and install Windows on that instead of regular HDD. Since SSD units are really only limited by the speed of their interface, this would be a major boost to the speed at which the system and games start.

[Burger Meister]

How much would an SSD unit cost? and I don't think there is another slot for an HDD

[The Fifth Horseman]

The cost depends on the size and manufacturer. At the moment I'm looking at an offer of 1 GB Disk-On-Module Compact Flash devices (that's practically the same thing as an SSD, and I intend to buy one to experiment with when I can spare the cash) for 150 PLN - that's about $50 at the current exchange rate.

Regarding space, PCs usually have from two 3,5" and two 5,25" bays upwards. You probably can install it in a free 5,25" bay. A typical SSD is in 1,8" or 2,5" form factor, so it's not like it's large.
Some modules are built in such a way that you connect them directly into one of the IDE connectors on the motherboard, thus occupying practically no space at all.
Unless you meant the IDE connectors. Most motherboards with integrated ATA controllers have two channels, allowing for maximum of four HDDs or CD/DVD drives to be connected. That's pretty much standard since early Pentium days, but if your motherboard has only one, there are additional ATA controller that fit into a PCI slot.

[Burger Meister]

I doubt I have those devices in town and I really don't feel like ordering anything online. the Harddrive is 12gb. so I could probably partition windows to about 1gb then the other 11gb for apps and games.

[Scatty]

If you download these Windows 98 USB Mass Storage Device Drivers (since Windows 98 / 98SE doesn't have native USB disk drivers by default) and install one of the two that is the correct one for the Windows version you have (assuming that you have USB ports on this computer), you could use a simple USB stick with 1-2 GB as a semi-HDD to install games on it et cetera.
The USB 2.0 port surely would have faster data transfer speed than the HDD currently on your computer (60 MB/s), but 1.0 might be actually slower than the HDD (1.5 MB/s).

As about partition for Windows, maybe 2-2.5 GB would be better, for the virtual memory on HDD and additional programs.