What's the oldest bit of kit you still have running?

[MartinT]

We still have Stone NT310-H and Stonebook Pro laptops which are 6+ years old. Some testing has shown that W11 works perfectly fine on them using MDT for deployment (not the commercial installer). These are all for loan, no longer issued to staff.

[Dos_Box]

Just found an RM Slate in a box in the attic, circa 13 years old.

I've just got it powered on, which isn't easy with Windows 8.1 running on a dual core Atom and 2GB RAM!

I can't get the wi-fi to switch on in Windows and the rubberised edge coating has started to degrade and go tacky.

Now I want to see if I can't get it back up to speed with updates etc.

Oh, and it only takes 32 bit Windows and the RAM is non-upgradable.

[6Foot2]

When I left my last place, we still had a number of 3Com switches (about 10, I think) here and there around the network. They were old when I posted about them in 2012:

 

Link: Hardware - HP v Dell

 

Whenever this post is updated, I find myself wondering if they are still in place, or have they (FINALLY!) been replaced.

[Dos_Box]

When I left my last place, we still had a number of 3Com switches (about 10, I think) here and there around the network. They were old when I posted about them in 2012:

 

Link: Hardware - HP v Dell

 

Whenever this post is updated, I find myself wondering if they are still in place, or have they (FINALLY!) been replaced.

 

I do have to wonder just how much kit I fitterd in varous schools over the years is still out there, just sat in a remote, forgotten location, doing what it was setup to do, but sending packets out to nowhere now.

[psydii]

I once returned to a site I'd long left to rescue them from disaster. Had to pull a crate of tapes I'd stashed in a service shaft five years previously to fix it.

[Dos_Box]

I once returned to a site I'd long left to rescue them from disaster. Had to pull a crate of tapes I'd stashed in a service shaft five years previously to fix it.

 

Did anyone know they were there still?

[psydii]

I told the Head and Business Manager they were there in my 'resignation' letter. A copy of which I found hidden in the IT office when I returned. Apparently communication from the before-times was forbidden knowledge among techs working there in my absence.::shrug::

 

The NUT rep had a sealed copy too, in case things really went sideways.

[3s-gtech]

Last week I was handed one of those little Promethean tablets that came with the boards, complete with pen. Connect via PS/2 or round DIN serial. Still in its box with instructions. Not seen one for years.

 

Must be 20 years old at least, if not a touch more (DIN serial connectors disappeared off PCs, what, 25 years ago?)

 

Bit of a contrast after fitting a Dell Canvas screen in an Art classroom (and that’s not new!)

[psydii]

Speaking of the before times. I found an OM1 patch lead in service yesterday, it was installed in 2009. So I replaced it with the *very* cable that should have been installed in the first place.

Edited April 16, 2024 by psydii

[Ditto]

Just on the thread title, I just realised it's me!

[Net_Man]

Ditto, I was just thinking exactly the same thing when I saw the title lol

[soapyfish]

We have a bunch of HP 2848 switches from 2004 Edited April 16, 2024 by soapyfish

[Dos_Box]

We have a bunch of HP 2848 switches from 2004

 

Still in use and working fine?

[Oaktech]

Actually in production...

An HP DC7800 usff running chromeos flex for chrome sign builder.

 

As curiosities...

An 1998 LG Phenom PDA and a pair of 1999 G3 iMacs that we play 2 player retro games on.

[DavR]

Ditto, I was just thinking exactly the same thing when I saw the title lol

 

On that score, I think it would be our cleaners, some of whom are 70+ years old now. They still work, but need a lot of downtime for maintenance, and parts are hard to come by....

 

 

On a hardware score, perhaps not the oldest, but, I have an HP LaserJet 1320 from 2008 under my desk that I was instructed to throw away because it kept jamming. That instruction was nine years ago, but I've had it sat under my desk, popping out maybe 10 sheet a week, ever since. I was only going to keep it til the toner ran out, but I'm still on the same toner nine years later, and still have one in stock.

 

HP printers from the "golden age" will outlive us all. Might even outlive Keith Richards!

[chazzy2501]

I'm told that the majority of it is from 1955:

 

[soapyfish]

Still in use and working fine?

 

Oh yes they are working but I am less comfortable with the security situation!

[Brax]

On that score, I think it would be our cleaners, some of whom are 70+ years old now. They still work, but need a lot of downtime for maintenance, and parts are hard to come by....

 

 

On a hardware score, perhaps not the oldest, but, I have an HP LaserJet 1320 from 2008 under my desk that I was instructed to throw away because it kept jamming. That instruction was nine years ago, but I've had it sat under my desk, popping out maybe 10 sheet a week, ever since. I was only going to keep it til the toner ran out, but I'm still on the same toner nine years later, and still have one in stock.

 

HP printers from the "golden age" will outlive us all. Might even outlive Keith Richards!

Lol I use that model for small printing for some practice exams. In some ways it's much better than some modern laserjets we have across site, rarely run into issues with it! Edited April 16, 2024 by Brax

[Davit2005]

Still running HP 2650 switches in a few places. They are been replaced as part of project, still under warranty but becoming more and more unreliable 90% of problems are power issues, 10% random issues with traffic pass through, MAC address related issues i.e. DHCP.

[Jcx500]

Still running some old hp g6 blades for legacy software. Soon to be gone though

[dmj]

We're running a vintage 1975 model dmj.

Memory is starting to fail, and i/o uptake definitely a lot slower than newer sysadmins.

Generally reliable, with a few quirks. Seems to work more efficiently on *nix than windows.

[AJ4000au]

An HP DC7800 usff running chromeos flex for chrome sign builder.

 

Hello there. Apologies for replying to a 6 month old post, but I found it Google searching "DC7800 ChromeOS Flex" and it was one of only a handful of relevant results.

 

I was wondering if you'd be able share some information on how you managed to get ChromeOS Flex to install and boot on your HP DC7800. Long story short, we have a fleet of old PCs of various makes and models that we're converting from Windows XP to ChromeOS Flex for a customer information kiosk. The only model we have been unsuccessful with converting is the DC7800. They just stall on the ChromeOS Flex logo boot screen and never start, even if we install it using another PC and swap the hard drives. They're all Core2 Duos with at least 80gb HDDs and 2Gb of RAM, but we've managed to install it on devices that are older with lower specs. We've tried updating the BIOS, enabling or disabling various options, different hard drives, more RAM, less RAM, and a bunch of other things with no success. Any info at all would be very greatly appreciated!

 

And to keep the thread on topic, a large number of our selling terminals that are still in constant service have Intel Pentium 3 era Celeron 566mhz processors with 256mb of RAM and IDE hard drives. They just barely have USB support but are unable to boot from it, meaning we need to carry around an IDE CD-ROM drive to reimage them. We are also unable to upgrade them to use IDE to SATA or SD card adaptors because any changes to the terminals require government regulator approval.

 

 

[dhicks]

I was wondering if you'd be able share some information on how you managed to get ChromeOS Flex to install and boot on your HP DC7800.

 

We've found issues with the latest version (129.0.6668.80) of ChromeOS Flex on our 6-year-old Intel NUCs model NUC7JY (BIOS revision JYGLKCPX.86A.0054). We had 9 of those in our staffroom as general-use workstations, they suddenly stopped booting when they did an upgrade to v129. Trying to boot from a USB stick to re-format them didn't work, either. Other devices seem fine, including variously-assorted (and cheaper) NUC-alikes, it seems to be just that specific model. Your HP DC7800s might be similar.

[Roberto]

Oldest kit? Not sure of the years but a wedge of Itanium servers and a few AS/400s