Grandma Needs a Computer...

[covert24]

I recently recieved this old S370 computer from a friend of mine and would like to give it to my Grandma for her birthday. Only problem is this thing is slow as hell and i would really not want her to use it.. As of right now its got a 128mb stick and a 256mb stick of ram = 384mb of ram.... 20gb hd which isnt that bad but would be nice if she had at least a 80gb just so she could store a lot of stuff. Mind you she has her own business and her dell laptop just crapped out a couple days ago. Luckily she and I backed up all her data before this happened so all is well.

I know this kind of sounds like just begging but [begging details deleted]

Thanks guys,
-Billy

Please take deadpiratedoug's advice below and post your op in our freebies thread. I hope you can understand why we can't let begging threads proliferate, no matter how noble and fine any one single request may be.

Perknose
Senior AT Mod

 

[dougp]

You might want to check this thread:

http://forums.anandtech.com/me...=2014859&enterthread=y

I know that Hard has one also, probable Ars too...

 

[gorcorps]

Need to be more specific... what type of ram? DDR? Do you need an IDE hdd I'm assuming? We have a freebie thread for this in FS/FT I thought.

 

[covert24]

fixed in the original post. the ram is 168-pin DIMMs. HD is IDE.

 

[gorcorps]

You really can buy some cheap stuff in the FS thread. I'd be willing to bet that you could get an older socket 754 or 939 mobo/cpu/ram combo for under $100.

 

[dartworth]

perhaps some peeps would like to donate to my paypal fund too?

 

[covert24]

Originally posted by: gorcorps
You really can buy some cheap stuff in the FS thread. I'd be willing to bet that you could get an older socket 754 or 939 mobo/cpu/ram combo for under $100.

yea ive been constantly looking in there for just old junk that still works but haven't really came across anything yet. Not looking to spend a whole bunch of money on a free computer though you know?

Originally posted by: dartworth
perhaps some peeps would like to donate to my paypal fund too?

Thanks for the flame. Are we done here? I think so now you can leave.

 

[olds]

Originally posted by: dartworth
perhaps some peeps would like to donate to my paypal fund too?

Dude, you suck.
But, I am taking PayPal donations for my grandfathers "false teeth" fund.

 

[Cdubneeddeal]

Originally posted by: oldsmoboat

Originally posted by: dartworth
perhaps some peeps would like to donate to my paypal fund too?

Dude, you suck.

Completely agree Chris.

OP, have you tried posting a WTB thread in the classifieds forum? I wish I kept all my computer hardware but most if not all of it was discarded some time ago. Does your grandmother have a credit card? She can get some really good deals for a basic computer from Dell. Or check Geeks.com. They often have good deals as well.

 

[covert24]

she does have a credit card. i guess ill check out geeks.com. ive purchased there quite a bit personally and have had good service. Thanks guys...

 

[mageslayer]

Why don't you personally build her or buy her a $500 computer and make an old woman happy?
Giving a computer using part donations and scrap materials for your grandma's birthday sounds pretty cheap and scummy.
Money comes and goes. Do something nice.

 

[loup garou]

Originally posted by: covert24
she does have a credit card. i guess ill check out geeks.com. ive purchased there quite a bit personally and have had good service. Thanks guys...

The geeks refurb debadged HP boxes are good deals, we bought a bunch of them for our office a while back at $250. Beware though, we had a bunch come with bad RAM. They also sent us one with a wireless keyboard with no receiver. Their support was awesome though, I emailed them explaining I had about 10 sticks of bad RAM and a keyboard without receiver, they sent me replacement RAM and a keyboard, no questions asked, didn't ask for the bad stuff back.

 

[ultimatebob]

Originally posted by: loup garou

Originally posted by: covert24
she does have a credit card. i guess ill check out geeks.com. ive purchased there quite a bit personally and have had good service. Thanks guys...

The geeks refurb debadged HP boxes are good deals, we bought a bunch of them for our office a while back at $250. Beware though, we had a bunch come with bad RAM. They also sent us one with a wireless keyboard with no receiver. Their support was awesome though, I emailed them explaining I had about 10 sticks of bad RAM and a keyboard without receiver, they sent me replacement RAM and a keyboard, no questions asked, didn't ask for the bad stuff back.

Pacific Geek also offers killer deals on refurbed Dell and IBM systems. They've had some killer daily specials on Pentium 4 systems for around $100 lately.

 

[voodoochylde]

It's a shame this thread wasn't about a month earlier. I just gave a coworker an older s754 Athlon 64 2800+ system (ECS mobo, 2gb ram, thermalright copper hs with 92mm fan and an older antec BQE case).

I've got nothing but an old Intel D845GRG mainboard and a coupl'a sticks of PC2100 (either 128MB or 256MB each) layin' around. I don't hoard hardware like I used to.

Good luck in any case

 

[alkemyst]

My wife uses a PIII 1.2 laptop that serves up web/email totally as fast as my Opteron @ 2.7GHz...

Just moving her to a faster HD and 512MB of ram (under XP home) made a HUGE difference.

at the time I bought her a WD Scorpio 120GB

Ghosted her 30gb drive down with two partitions, and then ghosted it back up to the new drive.

PC's today are really too powerful for most people.

 

[MegaVovaN]

Originally posted by: gorcorps
You really can buy some cheap stuff in the FS thread. I'd be willing to bet that you could get an older socket 754 or 939 mobo/cpu/ram combo for under $100.

Geeks.com $115+ship
HP D530 Pentium 4 2.6GHz 512MB No HDD Barebones Tower - B

Everything but hard drive and CD instead of DVD.


edit: but as a bday gift, I would get something fast. I agree with whoever said dumping your 15 yr old junk on her would not be the best way to handle stuff.

 

[kevnich2]

Originally posted by: alkemyst
My wife uses a PIII 1.2 laptop that serves up web/email totally as fast as my Opteron @ 2.7GHz...

Just moving her to a faster HD and 512MB of ram (under XP home) made a HUGE difference.

at the time I bought her a WD Scorpio 120GB

Ghosted her 30gb drive down with two partitions, and then ghosted it back up to the new drive.

PC's today are really too powerful for most people.

I'd have to agree. For most people who only use a computer for web surfing, email & occasional word processor usage, they don't need the latest dual core with 2gb of memory. My dad is still using a 1ghz with 512mb that I built about 6 or 7 years ago. It won't do the latest games but for their web and email, it works perfectly fine. The only reason I upgraded to a dual core was because it was a very light laptop that didn't put out as much heat as my older one.