After much pain and suffering I managed to upgrade a 2005 Dimension 3000 to a modern OS. Steps: 1. Maxed out RAM to 2gb 2. Upgraded XP to Vista 3. Upgraded Vista to Windows 7 This machine has no SLIC, no DVD drive and wouldn't install an OS from a USB stick (although it would try, but not complete). Why to do it? Too much time on my hands. I noticed it hiding in a corner collecting dust, so I had to act. It actually runs very nicely. Next project: I ordered a mSATA-IDE adapter and will upgrade the HD from an 80gig IDE to 128gig mSATA. Thanks to murphy78 for the AIO (via TPB).
I have a 3000, used Win7 without issue on it using 512mb ram (functional). I use it with two NICS and run it with ClearOS as a gateway, it works quite nicely I cheated and used an external USB dvd/cd drive fresh win7
I have a Sony external DVD drive that was not recognized by the system as a boot device. Funny, it works fine within the OS, but when I start the PC and go to the boot device menu, it didn't show up. The 3000 is running the "latest" BIOS - A03 - which was released in 2006. As for the RAM, the PC was completely IO bound with 512 megs under XP, so I thought I'd better upgrade to the max. No disk thrashing at all now with 2 gigs. Next up, a 2001 Dell Dimension 4400 - 1 gig of RAM max - but I believe it does have a DVD drive.
Strange, might be something with the external that the bios doesn't see then. But we are pretty close there, I also have a 4600i and it does have dvd in that one, w/ 1gb ram. The far better choice for win7 etc.