Is this Old Computer worth keeping?

[RKS]

It's an old Dell. I believe it has/had XP Pro on it. 512MB ram, 30 GB hdd, 128 MB GPU, etc.

I could add a wireless card and use it for internet use in another room or is it enough to run a file server /backup with a new HDD (got plenty lying around)?

 

[Farmer]

????

You have a 128MB GPU on your PIII 333MHz? What GPU is this? AFAIK, the first "GPU" came in 32MB flavor, and was released probably 2 years after the PII 333.

You should keep it just to keep it. At this point, it's not going to sell. Might as well keep it as a souvenir.

 

[RKS]

Originally posted by: Farmer
????

You have a 128MB GPU on your PIII 333MHz? What GPU is this? AFAIK, the first "GPU" came in 32MB flavor, and was released probably 2 years after the PII 333.

You should keep it just to keep it. At this point, it's not going to sell. Might as well keep it as a souvenir.

This was my main machine for years and I eventually upgraded everything except for the chip. If I don't use it I'll part out the items for free or just donate it.

 

[Blain]

It would be slow, but I'd hang onto it.
I just did a fresh Windows 2000 load on a similar PC (old Gateway), for my sister.
Don't tear into me. She was clear that all she wanted was a PC to surf the internet.

 

[lobbyone]

You could use it to play old classic DOS games. 🙂

 

[hurtstotalktoyou]

I would sell it piece-by-piece. You might be able to get almost $200 if you did that, which could probably get you something more useful, such as perhaps some new clothes or a DVD recorder.

 

[AllGamer]

these old P3 / P2 machines are still good for most Office type of jobs, and web browsing

it'll work great as a cashier machine if you have your own retail store 😀

 

[regnez]

DSL!

 

[piasabird]

Still use my Intel Celeron 1.2 Gig Tulatin Core based computer at home. It can handle a PIII 133 FSB and PC133 RAM if I had a better processor to put into it. I play some old games on it like MS Age of Empires, and Dune 2000 on it. I run XP on it and it runs pretty good. XP has compatability mode for 16 bit games.

 

[imported_Imp]

Burn it...

I have a P4 1.7GHz with 256 RIMM (what a pos), a geforce 2 (have a 9600 sitting around), and it's still only sitting around in a 'store' room. The P133 is somewhere too, who knows exactly...

 

[BurnItDwn]

You're p2 333 with 512mb of ram is more than powerful enough to be used as a home server or a web surfing box.
XP would run like crap due to the low CPU speed.
2K wouldn't exactly run "well", but it would work.
95/98 are garbage IMO, but they would run fast.
Linux, or any of the BSDs would run excellent on there as long as you ran CLI only or if you installed a GUI, you stuck with something somewhat light.

 

[MichaelD]

Originally posted by: BurnItDwn
You're p2 333 with 512mb of ram is more than powerful enough to be used as a home server or a web surfing box.
XP would run like crap due to the low CPU speed.
2K wouldn't exactly run "well", but it would work.
95/98 are garbage IMO, but they would run fast.
Linux, or any of the BSDs would run excellent on there as long as you ran CLI only or if you installed a GUI, you stuck with something somewhat light.

Best reply yet. I agree with most of it except for the "W2K not running well'. It will run just fine, ONLY b/c you have 512MB of ram.

Do a fresh install of W2K_SP4. Just the OS/device drivers/antivirus software and you've got a mighty fine little file server. Now, I said FILE server, not MEDIA server. There's a big difference.

Add a couple of $20 PCI IDE controller cards (4 drives per card 🙂) and a bunch of cheap 500GB IDE drives and you've got all the storage you could ever want...possibly even redundant (RAID1) if you so choose.

Keep it!

 

[BurnItDwn]

Originally posted by: MichaelD

Originally posted by: BurnItDwn
You're p2 333 with 512mb of ram is more than powerful enough to be used as a home server or a web surfing box.
XP would run like crap due to the low CPU speed.
2K wouldn't exactly run "well", but it would work.
95/98 are garbage IMO, but they would run fast.
Linux, or any of the BSDs would run excellent on there as long as you ran CLI only or if you installed a GUI, you stuck with something somewhat light.

Best reply yet. I agree with most of it except for the "W2K not running well'. It will run just fine, ONLY b/c you have 512MB of ram.

Do a fresh install of W2K_SP4. Just the OS/device drivers/antivirus software and you've got a mighty fine little file server. Now, I said FILE server, not MEDIA server. There's a big difference.

Add a couple of $20 PCI IDE controller cards (4 drives per card 🙂) and a bunch of cheap 500GB IDE drives and you've got all the storage you could ever want...possibly even redundant (RAID1) if you so choose.

Keep it!

Well, I guess I was rather vague. When I said 2k wouldn't run "well" I simply meant that applications would run slowly. Though chances are it wouldn't run much slowwer than 98 ro 95, and it would be TONS better.

Another option is if the chipset is 440bx (or any other chipset that supports 100mhz fsb) would be for you to pick up a cheap used faster p3 or celeron CPU and a slotkit (if needed.)

I bet for under $25, you could double or maybe even triple the CPU on that thing.

 

[MichaelD]

Originally posted by: BurnItDwn

Originally posted by: MichaelD

Originally posted by: BurnItDwn
You're p2 333 with 512mb of ram is more than powerful enough to be used as a home server or a web surfing box.
XP would run like crap due to the low CPU speed.
2K wouldn't exactly run "well", but it would work.
95/98 are garbage IMO, but they would run fast.
Linux, or any of the BSDs would run excellent on there as long as you ran CLI only or if you installed a GUI, you stuck with something somewhat light.

Best reply yet. I agree with most of it except for the "W2K not running well'. It will run just fine, ONLY b/c you have 512MB of ram.

Do a fresh install of W2K_SP4. Just the OS/device drivers/antivirus software and you've got a mighty fine little file server. Now, I said FILE server, not MEDIA server. There's a big difference.

Add a couple of $20 PCI IDE controller cards (4 drives per card 🙂) and a bunch of cheap 500GB IDE drives and you've got all the storage you could ever want...possibly even redundant (RAID1) if you so choose.

Keep it!

Well, I guess I was rather vague. When I said 2k wouldn't run "well" I simply meant that applications would run slowly. Though chances are it wouldn't run much slowwer than 98 ro 95, and it would be TONS better.

Another option is if the chipset is 440bx (or any other chipset that supports 100mhz fsb) would be for you to pick up a cheap used faster p3 or celeron CPU and a slotkit (if needed.)

I bet for under $25, you could double or maybe even triple the CPU on that thing.

Oh, I misunderstood you. 🙂 I agree; any apps on that box would just be a dog (woof). But a clean install of nothing but the OS (fully patched of course) and it just serving files? That would be a nice little server.

I had a P3-533 with 256MB of ram doing the same job, running W2K and it was fantastic. The bottleneck were the drives on the MB controller, not the CPU.