turning two old pc's into one usable one

[mattpegher]

I have just replaced one of my desktops and have another older desktop for the kids to play with. Besides maximizing the ram on one of the motherboards and adding a secondary harddrive. Is there anything else that anyone can think of that would maximize my salvage of 2 pc's into one. Both are about 8 years old pentium 4.
For example, is there anyway to hook the two motherboards together to use both processors?
or any other thoughts.

 

[dave_the_nerd]

Nope. Dumping the ram into one machine and mix/matching best parts (say, one was a 2GHz P4 and one was a 3GHz P4) is about all you can do, practically speaking.

 

[piasabird]

It is somewhat unwise to spend any money on a 8 year old PC. The Motherboard or CPU could give up at any time, then you have nothing. Combining parts is fine, but dont expect too much in the way of an improvement. Most new computers are so much faster than a P4, so it will still be slow in comparison to a low-end Core 2 Duo. Good Luck.

 

[sm625]

In some cases, adding extra RAM can slow you down. If you originally have two sticks of DDR400, and you add a third stick of DD266, it could seriously impact performance. Same goes with a 2nd hard drive. Depending on how it is setup, it can help or hurt performance. Do you know the model# of your motherboard?

 

[themillak]

stick linux on them

 

[VirtualLarry]

stick linux on them

This. P4 machines are too slow for doing anything fun or productive anymore. Not really even good enough for Facebook games.

Put them out to pasture, and build an FM2 rig with an APU for casual gaming.

Edit: Or buy a refurb C2D machine off-lease with Win7 on it for ~$150.