Packard Bell

**Doctor Feelgood** · Posted: Mon, 12 Feb 2007 20:24:25 Post Subject: Packard Bell

Did anyone know these guys were still around? Or back?

Yikes

They used to be terrible... wonder if anything has changed...

http://www.packardbell.com/

**Modulok** · Posted: Mon, 12 Feb 2007 21:12:28 Post Subject:

if you select country on the products page, USA isn't listed Confused

Blue|Fusion · Posted: Mon, 12 Feb 2007 21:26:35 Post Subject:

Bad? Our first computer was a Packard Bell in 1993. Worked like a charm right up to the day I finally convinced my mom to upgrade from Windows 98 (originally 3.11) on a 1.7GB HDD, 32MB RAM, and a Pentium I to a new Dell workstation in 2004. she used that thing daily at work, too, mind you.

We also acquired my aunt's old PAckard Bell (1989) which was practically the same except only a 600MB HDD, around 4MB of RAM, a Pentium 486, and Windows 3.11 which my sister used for a year or so in 2003. Also worked like a charm until the day I smashed it with a sledgehammer.

**Doctor Feelgood** · Posted: Mon, 12 Feb 2007 21:55:36 Post Subject:

They had a terrible reputation for service and reliability... and I thought they went bankrupt.

I had a P-133 back in 1996, and it was OK at first, but a dog to do anything to. Everything was proprietary and cheap.

Maybe they left the US to swindle Europeans. Laughing

BeerCheeze · Posted: Tue, 13 Feb 2007 10:47:39 Post Subject:

I think someone bought the name.

My first x86 based system was a PacBell 386. Bought in the early 90's sometime. Laughing

Ran a dial up BBS on it for a while.

mrweasel · Posted: Tue, 13 Feb 2007 11:12:39 Post Subject:

I thought I saw something aboot PB monitors a while back.

Just like the herpes, they never really go away

slugbug · Rated XXX Joined: 30 Oct 2006 Posts: 772 Location: Canada

My first PC back in '95 was a Packard Bell Pentium 75 with 8mb of on board ram and a 1gb hard drive. Radio Shack sold Packard Bell up until a few years ago.

acruxksa · Posted: Wed, 14 Feb 2007 00:08:43 Post Subject:

Used to have a Packard Bell SX-25 4MB of ram. (25Mhz 486 without the math co-processor). My first computer upgrade/oc was to keep the HDD, ram, floppy and psu and replace the case, mobo, video card and cpu. Went with an AMD 5x86 133 and oc'd it to 160 (4x40). Also doubled the ram to 8Mb then eventually 16mb...............I think I paid about $120 for the first 4mb and another $100 for the second 8mb. Don't miss those days too much...................

Last I heard, They were bought out by Compaq. Maybe that was only their US operation though.

knight0334 · Posted: Wed, 14 Feb 2007 00:59:31 Post Subject:

My cousin Curt has one he named Wentworth. I'm pretty sure he still has it running and worships it as a god. Was a 75mhz P5 originally, but I found a hack to make one of Intel's Overdrive processor to work(133mhz w/MMX???)

Kilamon · Rated XXX Joined: 22 Mar 2005 Posts: 811

I used to work for the company that handled all the field service for PB. I used to dread calls with that origin. Going to anyone's house who had a Packard bell usually meant they were computer illiterate, had a dog, more than 3 kids and their house showed it. These places were never clean. The computers were, more often than not, shutting themselves off due to heat or "running slow" because of the crap that was loaded on them. Those calls were only topped by having to go to the Purina factory. That SUCKED. I had to reschedule my day as it became necessary to shower after that call. I can't imagine working at that place every day. The dog food becomes this fine dust and it gets in everything.