New England IBM Aptiva 2140 Pentium MMX 233MHz PC

[magnetik]

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A beautiful IBM PC from 1997, the Aptiva 2140 S “Stealth” series. This was my personal workstation from 1997 until 2001, eventually running Windows 98 SE. This machine is in full working order and was tested to boot Windows 98 SE from an IDE hard disk. No hard disk is included.

Asking $299 or best offer. Please send me any offer that you have in mind. Shipping via USPS will be $45 -$90 depending on your location. Pickup is also available in the Cambridge, MA area.

This machine has been tested to boot from CD as well as floppy disk. A boot CD was used to run Memtest86+ and the included 128MB passed with 100% completion and 0 errors.

Important notes: this machine predates the implementation of cable select, so you will have to set the jumpers on your IDE devices accordingly to either “master” or “slave” mode in order for them to be detected by the BIOS. Hard disks larger than 8.4GB are also not supported. There is a BIOS update available if you search for “Aptiva 2140 BIOS”, which should allow you to use larger disks. Also note that the (top) DVD-ROM drive is not connected and is essentially being used as a cover. It has trouble opening the drive tray. The CD-RW/DVD-ROM drive below is fully functional.

In addition, this is a solid steel and plastic construction ATX case that would be excellent for modification into a retro sleeper PC.

Specs:
Pentium MMX 233 MHz CPU
Micron 128MB SD-RAM
Trident 2MB VGA adapter
Lite-On 52x CD-RW and DVD-ROM drive
IBM PS/2 Multimedia Keyboard
3.5” Floppy Drive
Sound Blaster Live!
10/100 Ethernet adapter
56k Modem

 

[twolazy]

Fun machine, but think its priced a bit too high...

 

[GiGaBiTe]

Yeah, that's far too high. It's maybe worth $100, if that. We're not Ebay, we don't pay ebay prices here.

And in no way would it make a good "Sleeper PC". It's a typical 90s hot box with very poor ventilation. It has two fan spots on the front of the case almost entirely blocked by plastic, one 80 or 92mm exhaust fan, and whatever fan is in the PSU. You're not putting sleeper anything in there without getting out the power tools.

 

[Plasma]

I've always liked those Aptivas but I've got too many Pentiums already.

"Sleeper" just means faster than it looks...and it looks like a 90s PC. It would be easy to make a sleeper with a modern low-power CPU.

 

[GiGaBiTe]

I've always liked those Aptivas but I've got too many Pentiums already.

"Sleeper" just means faster than it looks...and it looks like a 90s PC. It would be easy to make a sleeper with a modern low-power CPU.

I'm well aware of what a "sleeper" is, I've built numerous sleeper PCs over the years. The definition of a sleeper is in the eye of the beholder.

But it makes absolutely no sense to pay nearly $400 for a machine you're going to hack to pieces for just the case, when you could buy just an old case by itself for a lot less.

 

[Plasma]

I'm well aware of what a "sleeper" is, I've built numerous sleeper PCs over the years. The definition of a sleeper is in the eye of the beholder.

I guess you can make up your own definition....but for everyone else, a sleeper is something that is faster than it looks. That's it. The term comes from car culture. But I'm sure you already knew that

You don't need a hacksaw to make that Aptiva a sleeper; it has more than enough cooling. I have a Core i5 in a C64 breadbin with a single 40mm exhaust fan that runs at full load all day without throttling down. You don't need that much airflow for a low power CPU.

Whether or not it makes financial sense to turn it into a sleeper is in the eye of the beholder. But it's easily possible.