**Unboxing an Old Gaming PC: A Surprising Experience**

I recently acquired an old gaming PC that I thought was a complete loss. However, as I started to disassemble and test the components, I found some unexpected surprises. In this article, we'll take a closer look at what worked and what didn't, and how it performed in various tests.

**The Initial Assessment**

As I removed the case cover, I saw that the system was quite old, with a CPU from around 2007, RAM, and a graphics card. I thought to myself, "This is going to be a long process." My goal was to see which of these components worked and then hopefully identify the dead component.

**The Power-On Test**

I plugged in the power cord and pressed the power button. To my relief, it posted successfully! This wasn't surprising, considering that this was a completely different PC at this point.

**Component Swapping**

Next, I started swapping the components back in to see which ones worked. The 12 GB RAM and graphics card were tested first, with the latter being run in its original bracket with the Riser cable. To my surprise, it didn't work initially, leading me to suspect that the GPU might be dead.

**GPU Investigation**

I removed the GPU from the bracket and got the Riser cable out of the way. Thankfully, I found that the GPU was indeed working! This was a huge relief, as I had worried that it might not have been salvageable.

**Windows Installation and SSD Tests**

With the system up and running, I installed Windows and tested the two 512 GB NVMe drives. These days, you can buy these for around $40 new, making them a great addition to any PC build.

**The Esports Connection**

As I explored the system further, I found some interesting surprises. The wallpaper was that of Rainbow Six Siege, and there were various driver installations for different peripheral brands. This led me to suspect that this system might have been used in an Esports tournament, specifically the Berlin major of 2022.

**Cyberpunk 2077 Performance**

Finally, I tested the system's performance with Cyberpunk 2077 at 1080p high settings. To my surprise, it ran smoothly, with frame rates hovering around 120 FPS and temperatures staying below 70°C on the GPU and CPU.

**Conclusion**

In conclusion, despite my initial skepticism, this old gaming PC turned out to be a pleasant surprise. The system's performance was impressive, especially considering that the only dead component received was the motherboard. While I wouldn't recommend buying an old system like this for its monetary value (I paid $750 USD for it, not including shipping), it's a great way to learn and experiment with PC building.

In my next video, I'll be trying out VR for the first time! If you want to see that and more, subscribe to the channel.

WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enit's because of purchases like this, listed as 'broken terrible Predator pre-built' off of eBay  that the CRA must be convinced I'm either terrible at laundering money or my credit  card was stolen by a 13-year-old Romanian child hopped up on pixie sticks. Either way, luckily I  have some help for my terrible spending habit. today's video is sponsored by Lexar...'s double teaming of your memory requirements. SSD, Ram from Lexar is absurdly fast NM 790 nvme  drives to their Aries ddr5 that's available in speeds up to 7,200 MHz. Lexar has your high-end  gaming memory needs covered so if you're in the market for some theic memory bandwidth check out  Lexar using the link in the video description thank you Lexar for sponsoring today's videonow the point of today's video is to see if I can get this Predator working and then maybe get  some exciting hardware for a good deal out of it which I mean the starting point isn't particularly  exciting so I I don't know how likely that is but the last time I did one of these I did get  a Dell Cronenberg 380 out of it and some alien wear so who knows maybe it'll be finewow that is a prostate chattering pile of crap and by that I mean it's it's very big it's a piece of  crap that's large so it it'll hurt possing it it's also pretty dusty so not particularly fresh oh wo  it's also super heavy and there she is uh I can't remember anything about this system  I don't know what specs are in here or if they even listed a potential cause of failure for it I  bought it ages ago uh but it seems pretty complete like I can see storage from here graphics card  Ram there's there's a power supply in there the sticker on the front also says it's got some i7  in it is that more concerning or less concerning that there isn't stuff missing but I guess the  first thing we need to do is see if it works maybe they just forgot to plug it in or sumone  okay oh well it's reacted to me just plugging it in which I guess is a good sign things are  lighting up which means nothing's exploded maybe okay so there's no signal I  then tried different outputs on the graphics card and smashing some keys on a keyboard for  some reason okay so as is expected we're not getting a signal out of the system it would  have been really weird if it just worked now aside from the no signal thing uh the system  isn't giving us a whole lot of information here this motherboard doesn't seem to have a post LED  code readout thing so it's not going to give us any specific feedback on what the issue is which  I guess means we're going to have to do this the old fashion way with some good old bruteforcing it's a nice glass mechanism now on the inside of the system aside from some very  hastily wiped down dust on top of our ice tunnel here there isn't anything immediately telling me  something's broken in here now I'm going to assume for now for the time being that the power supply  is okay because the system did light up power did go into it uh it doesn't mean that the power  supply isn't broken but I I think it's unlikely at this point I've also had a look at things like  RAM and the graphics card everything seems to be seated decently on the note of the graphics card  we do get an RTX 370 ooh uh so I guess gu that means CPU wise this is like a 12th gen i7 at  this point I don't know why but my guts telling me that this PCI Riser cable is the problem it  it it's not based in any logic it's just my gut rumbling at me and and I'm very suspicious of  that but before we replace this let's try the ram out because the behavior that we see on Startup  could also be something like defective memory so let's swap this Domino's Pizza Ram out for  something we know works and see if that helps oh 16 gigs of ddr5 this system must have been wildly  expensive when it first came out oh and I know of just the ram to replace it with some Lexar  baby yeah there you go but unfortunately not even Lexar ddr5 could revive the system okay well now  it's time to listen to my gut and rip out that Riser cable so let's do that but to get to the  Riser cable first I had to undo a complex network of screws to get the bracket out I guess the whole  thing oh there's another screw in here that holds the whole bracket in and then you pull itout oh wait but it's stuck on the ice tunnel is the I think this is oh damn okay well that's gone  into the infinite abyss of Madness so let's remove our ice tunnel oh look at that the ice  tunnel's just a Dusty bracket so can I get the graphics card out now yeah and with the graphics  card free I could finally remove the Riser cable now when it comes to the Riser cable it looks  fine there's no obvious signs of terrible things having happened to it but it's quite plasticky  and I feel like this is the kind of thing that fails quite easily wait how hard is it it to  remove this graphic Scot from that bracket maybe I can just plug it straight into themotherboard okay no never mind the graphics card looks like it's chemically bonded with  this bracket so this is the replacement Riser cable I've used it before I know it works that's  so dumb oh my word now I'm not sure why my knee-jerk reaction was of such outrage but  obviously there's mounting clearance issues very nice which meant I had no choice but to undo the  million screws holding the graphics card into its erection bracket which with a stripped screw  almost ended in disaster oh yeah there we go the lenus screwdriver worked like a charm there but  then there's still the front bit that is separate for some reason but after removing the front piece  of the bracket I could drop the graphics card straight into the motherboard like God intended  but the system still wouldn't post okay well I guess my was wrong the system still isn't  posting so I dropped a known working graphics card into the system which unfortunately also  didn't give us a signal out but that's also not giving us a signal out Okay so we've identified  that the ram wasn't the issue and neither was the graphics card so now it's starting to get  a little bit more complicated I think the next thing we need to do is pull out the CPU in fact  the last time I did one of these videos with an alien wear system there just wasn't a CPU in the  system so I don't know maybe maybe that's the case this time too let's give it let's give it a looksee oh would you look at that this time there is actually a CPU in here that's  very exciting uh but maybe it's a dead CPU so it might not be that exciting  and if that doesn't work then we may have a little bit of a bigger issue physically  I guess I don't know if you really care about that motherboard being dead or notI mean there's no obvious damage to the pads on the base of the CPU and the  socket also looks fine a 12 700k nice so after 40 minutes of digging through old  systems I finally managed to find another 12 gen Intel chip so hopefully this one works  let's drop it in and see what happens it also didn't work basically the only two components  of any significance that we haven't changed yet is the motherboard and the power supply  now again I'm leaning towards it not being the power supply because power supplies fail  quite spectacularly I don't think this would be happening if that power supply exploded at some  point which leaves us with just the motherboard which is annoying cuz it's going to be a lot of  effort to remove having said that it does look like a standard matx motherboard so we should be  able to keep all of the components in this case which doesn't matter too much this case is about  as desirable as it leech to the eyeball but we're trying to see how much we can salvage here now the  first thing I want to do before I decide whether or not to keep this case equivalent of your child  deciding to study drama is I do want to see what kind of front panel connectors we have cuz it's  kind of hidden under this and if I can't use the power button then it's just going in the trash  like my child's Dreams yeah so hopefully this isn't some dumb proprietary piece ofcraft well it looks fine so I guess little Timmy gets to cripplingly indebt himself for sometheater wow that Samsung SSD just folded in a half when I pulled it out because of the glue on  the thermal pad it it seems to have kind of reset fine hopefully it's okay okay there we go  it's free I must have overtightened the the aiio block when I remounted it because when I tried to  loosen it it just snapped that bracket off that's wild but here is our pre-built motherboard in all  its Glory honestly not a terrible looking board at least we've got reasonable power delivery and  like cooling for it and stuff uh but at this point I think this is our most likely culprit  otherwise what do we have left of the power supply it's going to going to be the power  supply isn't it now the motherboard in question is this strix z690 board which is also matx so  that we can keep that weird tiny motherboard in huge case aesthetic that HP wants for some reasonmounting the AIO was a bit of a nightmare because the acch mounting  bracket that I used had slightly shorter screw threading than the HP bracket which  meant I had to apply massive pressure to the quivering screw which didn't quite want to  align with the bracket well well that sucked now at this point it's an entirely different  PC aside from the power supply hopefully the power supply wasn't the issue all along and  destroys all of these new components now the reason that I'm going to test it like  this is to see if it works and then I'll slowly swap the old components back in like the old CPU  Ram graphics card to see which of those components works and then hopefully at the end of the day  we've just had to replace the motherboard thing but the power button does work a few moments later  okay there we go it's posted it would have been very worrying if it didn't post uh but so there  we have a functional system which again is not surprising considering that this is a completely  different PC at this point but now we can start swapping things back in there we go the 12 700kworks now with the graphics card I decided to test it in its erection bracket with the Riser  cable again because be oh no we're not getting a signal out no way I think the GP is also dead no  oh this GPU is dead I got super screwed with this system uh but maybe maybe my gut was correct let's  remove it from the bracket get that Riser cable out of the way and hope pray that the GPU is stillworking oh oh oh thank gab that works wow that would have really sucked if the GPU  didn't work anymore and once I confirmed the ram working it meant that the only dead component in  the system was the motherboard which means I still didn't get a whole lot for my money but  we'll talk about that in a bit because there was an interesting surprise with the windows  installed and now that this is all running we also get to see which of the two ssds work and  how big they are oh they're two 512 gig NVM drives yeah I mean these days you can buy these for like  $40 new and that's the way you should buy them you really shouldn't buy them used so I wouldn't  really count this as added value but we can see what kind of Windows install it has on it I mean  who knows maybe there's some Bitcoin on it that would be cool that's a very weird wallpaper for  a system to have on it kind of makes me think was this used in like an Esports tournament I  don't know the fact that there's only Rainbow Six Siege Discord TeamSpeak and a bunch of drivers for  different peripheral brands on this system it really looks like a system that was set up for  use in an Esports tournament more specifically the Berlin major of 22 cool so with that let's  see how our Pro Gamer machine runs cyberpunk yo so Pro Gamers play on like butt cheeks PCS  that's crazy so it's cyberpunk at 1080p High settings low and behold our RTX 370 with 12  700k is running very well we're hovering around 120 frames per second with a very  smooth frame time graph temperatures are also great the system is quite noisy but that's just  because of the the fan profiles uh currently on the motherboard and luckily we have a lot  of Headroom for temperature so we can definitely make that be quieter uh the graphics card also 64  C on that little Abomination HP card is pretty good uh but I've just started playing so I'm  I'm going to run around for a while and and we'll we'll see what the temperatures do overtime so it's been a while and the temperatures aren't going anywhere we're still looking at  63° C on the GPU and in the 50s on the CPU very impressive and considering that the  only dead component we received was the motherboard I think it worked out pretty  well but considering that I paid $750 us for the system not including shipping then um well it it  didn't go great uh yeah which brings me to the end of the video for the next video I'm going  to have my first ever experience with VR I'm really excited to vomit buckets subscribe to  the channel if you don't want to miss that and yeah until then thank you for watching bye-bye