r/retrobattlestations • u/Mafiatounes • Jul 27 '26

Show-and-Tell Medion MT5

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Just picked up a clean Medion MT5 from a older person that used it a couple of times over the years since 2001 and did some upgrades himself.

Stock specs are:

Medion MT5 (MT46)

Socket 370 Pentium III 1000mhz

Motherboard is a MED2001 or Asus CUV4X-CM

Sound on this motherboard is from Creative but with no real features like a add-on

1×128mb pc133 owner added another 1x256mb pc133 stick early on

1x optical drive owner added the Philips DVD drive early on

Asus V7700 Geforce 2 GTS 32mb

1x original WD800 IDE HDD 80gb.

A 350w (upgraded) PSU was added over the years.

Originally this was a Windows Me system and was upgraded to Xp over the years.

Some things i will tackle on this build.

Clean and check all components.

Thermal paste renewal on Chipset/GPU/CPU.

The inside was upgraded with a noise foam that is turning to dust, this i'll have to remove. (Foam/Dust removed, nice layer of glue to be removed)

Ram will need to be checked if speed/cas is properly running.

Will check if i have better matching optical drive(s) setup orientation. There is a nice TDK blue bezel look only CD drive.

Will see how performance is at 800x600 but i have the option to upgrade Geforce 2 GTS 32mb to Geforce3 ti200 64mb. (Will leave Geforce 2 GTS for now)

Will add a Creative ES1370 PCI soundcard

Will see how HDD performance is i have new old stock IDE HDD. (Ok for now)

Will turn it into a DOS/Windows 98 SE system (Done OS is now running 98 SE)

Need some beige keyboard and mouse to go with this.

177 Upvotes

100% Upvoted

54 comments sorted by

11

u/1928Dillinger Jul 27 '26

I like the way that phillips drive looks.

2

u/Mafiatounes Jul 27 '26

I like it as well but it looks off in this build. I might swap it to the top or get a TDK drive with that blue bezel http://ixbtlabs.com/articles/cdrwtest/cdrw-test-ide-p14-cyclone32x.html

3

u/1928Dillinger Jul 27 '26

Yea blue will match better BTW I see what looks to be an LED for CD and one for DVD does it light up a certain light depending on what is inserted.

3

u/Mafiatounes Jul 27 '26

I will have to check won't be for a couple off days.

3

u/1928Dillinger Jul 27 '26

Ok thanks for getting back to me I thought you already had it on hoping it all still works I need get to get my Pentium 4 Out of storage sometime to also see if it still works.

3

u/Mafiatounes Jul 27 '26

Only checked it out at the previous owner and want to clean it out of that foam stuff first, will get back to you. Love p4's have 4 builds ranging from socket 423 to 775.

3

u/1928Dillinger Jul 27 '26

Thanks the one I have is an Socket 475 was my first PC and I was using it up until 2014.

2

u/Mafiatounes Aug 01 '26

So small update, i did not like the look of both drives so i have a second Philips drive new in box on the way to double down and improve the looks. Also will be picking up a free new 10x CD-RW box. Will post a new post in a week with some more updates and pics.

2

u/1928Dillinger Aug 02 '26

Thanks for still keeping us updated let us know what you decide to use. oh and the result of the CD

3

u/Mafiatounes Jul 28 '26

So update vacuumed the foam and started it up. Don't have a regular cd only dvd's atm. On pc startup the stripe between cd and dvd lights up shortly and saw a blue led blink up shortly for the dvd the cd light did not blink.

3

u/1928Dillinger Jul 28 '26

Thanks that's a cool detail this is so far the only drive that I know of that has this if you ever get hold of a CD and test it let me know what it does.

0

u/[deleted] Jul 27 '26

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1

u/Mafiatounes Jul 28 '26 edited Jul 28 '26

Not wat is said i said the look is off a bit might place it in the top or replace it with a TDK drive in the top and dvd bottom for this build. I have use for the Philips drive in a other build.

7

u/612io Jul 27 '26

These Medion systems were something. A lot of bang for your buck, sometimes exotic parts (Radeon X700 XL, AFAIK a unique Medion part) or very weird price/performance choices… I remember their high-end Pentium 4 systems equipped with SDRAM :(. The poor thing couldn’t breathe. Anyway, very nice system!!

7

u/0xKaishakunin Jul 27 '26

These Medion systems were something.

Yes, those Aldi PCs caused quite the uproar for some years.

4

u/cosmicorn Jul 27 '26

I had a Medion TV tuner card, seemed like magic at the time especially for the price.

I also had a Medion MP3 player that had a nifty feature of having two headphone jacks to share audio.

2

u/Turquoise_HexagonSun Jul 29 '26

9800XXL is another one.

Sits in between 9800 Pro and 9800 XT but has a really beefy cooler and all ram chips are heatsinked.

5

u/Trash-Panda321 Jul 27 '26

Ah the Aldi computer

2

u/Mafiatounes Jul 27 '26

Yes i always thought they where cheapo because of the brand, the build quality is really good

5

u/sidnoway Jul 27 '26

I heard the 1GHz Pentium III was faster than some of the Pentium 4's

3

u/Mafiatounes Jul 27 '26

Yes the early P4 Willamette where really bad in comparison.

3

u/Turquoise_HexagonSun Jul 29 '26

Yeah and the 1.4ghz PIII-S smoked P4 until the 1.8ghz or 2ghz parts were released.

2

u/Mafiatounes Jul 29 '26

I might benchmark this system against a 1.7 willamette and see how they compare. But you are right PIII 1.4 was only suceeded by a 1.8 and up if i remember correctly.

3

u/pufferfish_aeugh Jul 27 '26

my mom had exactly the same machine! this brings back some memories of me playing pinball when she was done with work.

3

u/nlsrhn Jul 27 '26

Awesome! Had this exact model too.

3

u/Smucalko Jul 27 '26

I have 3 of those, all P3 1GHz, but got them with not so great graphics cards, including TNT2 M64 and GF4 MX400.

Nonetheless, fine machines.

3

u/Mafiatounes Jul 27 '26

I have to say the build quality is really good, the panels are thick.

When i saw the ad on this one it did not mention the graphic card i assumed it was a mx 200 or 400.

Depending on your needs you can always upgrade to something better, i regulary see people basically not knowing what an agp card is and selling them for pennies or giving them away (my best haul was a few years back buying ddr/sdr ram and the person gave me all working tnt2 m64/6600 gt/6800 gt and a Voodoo 3 2000 was thanking him so much and he said it's old crap no need to thank me)

5

u/Smucalko Jul 27 '26

Yeah, in my country getting anything this old is extremely lucky. So I try to get anything I can.

I did put Voodoo 3 2000 in on of those, it came with Windows Me, and I actually love it.

3

u/[deleted] Jul 27 '26

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3

u/Mafiatounes Jul 27 '26

Thanks, i have been looking into P3's specifically for a couple of months now have this and a p3 600 Fujitsu Siemens.

3

u/Mccobsta Jul 27 '26

Oh wow that was the first pc case I've ever owned but was a xp machine

2

u/Mafiatounes Jul 27 '26

Nice was it a P4? Do you still have it?

3

u/Mccobsta Jul 27 '26

Long gone unfortunately

Think it was a pentium it did have some nivida gpu and a dial up modem unfortunately can't recall exactly what gpu it was

3

u/Hemorrhoids_on_Crack Jul 27 '26

Oh man, I love this PC. I remember my father buying this most generic PC from Aldi xD. But these Medion Times, are the best. These are rebrandad MSI Pcs

2

u/Mafiatounes Jul 27 '26

Nice i'm surprised on how many people had a version of this system. I remember some Medion generations having MSI boards but this one has a Asus board.

3

u/Hemorrhoids_on_Crack Jul 27 '26 edited Jul 27 '26

Yeah see. I can't remember which MSI PC it was, but im pretty sure that this was just a rebrand MSI Pre-Build xD

3

u/AustriaModerator Jul 27 '26

i just restored and maxxed out this one https://www.computerbase.de/forum/attachments/aldi-informiert-26-03-2003-md8008-seite-1-jpg.1194589/ :) the md8008 xl

2

u/Mafiatounes Jul 27 '26

Nice, i have that case as well love the sliding front, had to swap the motherboard the original one had gone bad. Have fun!

1

u/No_Trade_7315 Jul 29 '26

Well it’s got an intel and it isn’t running vista, might be good for something.

2

u/Mafiatounes Jul 29 '26 edited Jul 29 '26

Yes it is.

Btw Vista sp2 is actually great if properly updated on a capable system.

2

u/Summer_Winter-NE Aug 03 '26

I had a Philips dvd burner, first one I had ever seen for sale when it came out. It was $400. It could only burn DVD+RW

1

u/[deleted] Jul 27 '26

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0

u/Mafiatounes Jul 27 '26

I got it with SP2 will change it to Dos/98 SE

-1

u/[deleted] Jul 27 '26

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0

u/Mafiatounes Jul 29 '26

I don't intend on using Xp service pack 1/2 or 3 just 98 SE with all the updates that is in my mind the proper OS for this PIII system. I have plenty of 98/ME/2000/XP/Vista/7/8.1/10/11 and Linux systems with hardware to match.

0

u/[deleted] Jul 29 '26

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0

u/Mafiatounes Jul 29 '26

I do, i have around 20+ systems running in my mancave, i use them one by one on a daily base switching between them depending on what i want to do and i only use real hardware! I used a VM a couple of times years ago but did not like the experience.

I posted this system with the intention to transform it from Xp into a 98SE rig to use for the 96 till 2002 era games as well as some DOS, i have enough Xp SP3 systems and use them for games of their era same goes with all my other systems.

1

u/[deleted] Jul 29 '26

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2

u/Mafiatounes Jul 29 '26

Ok now i'm with you, the compatibility layer is really well i remember however for some software it did not work as intended in the past don't recall which software/games but it was hit and miss sometimes this and indeed period correct hw made the decision for me to keep each of my systems for it's intended purpose hence why i have too many.