• We’re currently investigating an issue related to the forum theme and styling that is impacting page layout and visual formatting. The problem has been identified, and we are actively working on a resolution. There is no impact to user data or functionality, this is strictly a front-end display issue. We’ll post an update once the fix has been deployed. Thanks for your patience while we get this sorted.

What are you guys using your old PC's for?

ultimatebob

ultimatebob

Lifer
I finally retired my old Core 2 Duo machine for a shiny new gaming rig with a Core-i7 3770 a few months ago. I'm curious... what are you guys using your old gaming machines for?

It's not a half bad machine considering it's age. It has 2 GB of memory, a 320 GB hard drive, DVD burner, and a GeForce 620 video card.

What would you guys do with an old piece of hardware like this? Turn it into a home theater PC? A Linux test server? A home router? A NAS box? Something else???
 
I would either use it as a Linux experimentation machine, or reformat it and give it away. (Put Linux on it before giving it away, if you don't want to waste a Windows license.)
 
Given how cheap VMs are these days and how easy VMWare ESXi is to get going, having lots and lots of PCs lying around just isn't as effective and helpful as it once may have been. I keep one PC around with lots of RAM for ESXi but aside from that --- toss it or sell it.
 
In my family the old ones usually get handed down to relatives/kids. Kids seem to be able to kill off computers, so there is always demand for new ones ;]
 
Last edited:
I know that there's only one likely destination for my old server (P3-866), but as it made it to retirement without so much as a single issue ever, I feel bad when thinking about taking it to the dump.
 
I have an old Dell Optiplex small-form-factor desktop, Pentium 4, that's still doing a fine job. It raises my monitor up by about 4 inches so that the top of the screen is level with my eyeline.
 
My old Dell Pentium D machine is upstairs as my music media ripper... I use it to rip my CDs to library as well as converting all my old audio books from cassette and CD to library. It does pretty well at that, I even spent a little money and bumped up the CPU, added a little more DDR2 RAM and another HDD (as media storage.)

It's supposed to be my daughter's school computer as well... but I always find her parked at my desktop...
 
I keep the newest as my main rig, the secondary as my VM ESXi host and then give away to family members what is left. I just gave away an i7-920 based computer which should serve as a great machine for many years to come.
 
I believe my parent still use their P4 3.0Ghz as their daily machine for general and business use. Personally, I get sell off my old PC components to put towards new builds.
 
Charlie98 said:
My old Dell Pentium D machine is upstairs as my music media ripper... I use it to rip my CDs to library as well as converting all my old audio books from cassette and CD to library. It does pretty well at that, I even spent a little money and bumped up the CPU, added a little more DDR2 RAM and another HDD (as media storage.)

It's supposed to be my daughter's school computer as well... but I always find her parked at my desktop...
Click to expand...

Kids know how to spot the good stuff. :awe:
 
One use that I didn't see mentioned is XBMC machine. XBMC is free and there are plenty of tutorial videos on you-tube. Basically, it allows you to watch free TV from all over the world. Even a pretty horrible old Core2duo computer will run XBMC. You will not get 1080p if you don't have a dedicated video card. Hell, you probably wont even get 720p. but who cares! It still looks "good" enough, especially on a small screen. People are too spoiled these days.

Another use is SEGA Genesis/SNES emulator machine. Connect a bluetooth dongle, buy a couple of bluetooth remotes, invite some friends, and have a blast! There plenty of other stuff you can run such as Neo-Geo, MAME, CPS3 and other stuff. Did anyone say... Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike?! X-Men vs. Street Fighter? Marvel vs. Capcom?

Giving it away to friends and relatives is also a good idea. You'll be surprised how many ancient machines people use. My girlfriends parents use a super old celeron computer from the Pentium 4 era. It only has 1 gig ram and takes about 10 minutes just to become usable from start. I offered to give them another one, but they refuse saying "it is good enough for their needs".

I find it funny when people bash old PCs and netbooks calling them useless and then call Rasberry Pi an awesome device. At least old PCs and Netbooks can install Windows XP or even Win 7, and netbooks already include a screen and keyboard.
 
All my old systems are in the bin or sold really really cheap. All my current systems are Sandy Bridge/Ivy Bridge. Those will be sold off in case of upgrades. I have 2 laptops and a netbook which are retired in the corner; those will be the next to chuck.
 
ibex333 said:
One use that I didn't see mentioned is XBMC machine. XBMC is free and there are plenty of tutorial videos on you-tube. Basically, it allows you to watch free TV from all over the world. Even a pretty horrible old Core2duo computer will run XBMC. You will not get 1080p if you don't have a dedicated video card. Hell, you probably wont even get 720p. but who cares! It still looks "good" enough, especially on a small screen. People are too spoiled these days.

Another use is SEGA Genesis/SNES emulator machine. Connect a bluetooth dongle, buy a couple of bluetooth remotes, invite some friends, and have a blast! There plenty of other stuff you can run such as Neo-Geo, MAME, CPS3 and other stuff. Did anyone say... Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike?! X-Men vs. Street Fighter? Marvel vs. Capcom?

Giving it away to friends and relatives is also a good idea. You'll be surprised how many ancient machines people use. My girlfriends parents use a super old celeron computer from the Pentium 4 era. It only has 1 gig ram and takes about 10 minutes just to become usable from start. I offered to give them another one, but they refuse saying "it is good enough for their needs".

I find it funny when people bash old PCs and netbooks calling them useless and then call Rasberry Pi an awesome device. At least old PCs and Netbooks can install Windows XP or even Win 7, and netbooks already include a screen and keyboard.
Click to expand...
Core 2 Duos computers can never be called horrible since their CPU performance is not too bad. Pentium IIIs and IIs era computers, on the other hand, are useless to most.
The Pi is praised because it's cheap, has low power consumption, and can do light serving, all in a small form factor. In addition, programmers can make use of it in other creative ways. It sucks at many things, but people aren't expecting them to open up Word.

Whereas PCs and netbooks are expected to perform consumption and "production" tasks such as browsing the web or youtubing. That is where they fail to meet expectations, while providing many inconveniences in the process.
 
Torn Mind said:
Core 2 Duos computers can never be called horrible since their CPU performance is not too bad.
Click to expand...
Well, I still think you need 2.4+ Ghz Core2 CPUs to run decently. And 4GB of RAM. Anything less than that falls into the "slow" category for me. (Not "painfully slow"... just "slow".)

Pentium IIIs and IIs era computers, on the other hand, are useless to most.
Click to expand...
Unless you have an ISA SB16 card and a Voodoo 3 AGP card, then you can play older DOS games.
 
I gave parts of my Core 2 Duo system to my parents to build a replacement for their aging Compaq system (Windows XP era.) I threw some leftover RAM into it and turned it into my media/data server. Works well with our Samsung Blu-ray player.

In the past I have usually upgraded a part or two at a time and sold the old ones on eBay, but the recent computers have lasted much longer, and eBay has really gone down hill, making that option no longer worth the hassle.
 
VirtualLarry said:
Well, I still think you need 2.4+ Ghz Core2 CPUs to run decently. And 4GB of RAM. Anything less than that falls into the "slow" category for me. (Not "painfully slow"... just "slow".)


Unless you have an ISA SB16 card and a Voodoo 3 AGP card, then you can play older DOS games.
Click to expand...
Definitely 4 GBs of RAM is needed these days. Web browsers consume RAM and it just feels great to have a bunch of apps open without having to worry about bogging down the system.

I actually have a couple hand-me-down gifts with PII and PIII CPUs. Got an old PII rig my piano teacher gave use that easily got supplanted by a $500 Dell with a 2.0Ghz Celeron in 2004(her son was in the military, so it had DoD warning). I turned it on in January to see if it still works, and it did, but now it is collecting dust again. The PIII was a laptop that was sluggish, yes, but still played light videos and flash ok, but it was at its limit with flash then, skipping a few frames.

I find the 1.6 Ghz Core 2 Duo in my X61 tablet fine for basic web browsing; it must be the 4M cache that made a difference, as a Pentium E2xxx did drag a little bit. Perhaps the hard drive also play a difference. At those speeds, an SSD is necessary though to smooth out the experience though.

Certainly, 2.4 Ghz is cutoff I can agree with when it comes to making the system "snappy", but I think cache can play a pretty significant role too in perception of system performance. For basic tasks, an E6550(2.33 GHz) was pretty good for the brief time I used it.
 
I have an old p4 3.0 ht with 2g ram and a 7600gt that's used for league of legends/ diablo 2 and Sims 2 for the wife. Boots in like 15 sec not lieing lol
 
My old pc parts are just collecting dust right now. My younger cousins and nephews rather use consoles than PCs for gaming.
 
My own PCs (laptops) are usually dead in some way or another before I buy another one. My parent's Athlon XP (3000+) desktop I sometimes put to work with Blender, just feed it 10%-15% of the workload, and it usually finishes its run slightly after my laptop. (Arrandale Core i5 @ 2.53 GHz)

Even if it is a little, I'm not gonna turn down free compute power. 😛
 
I use it to watch TV and sometimes to browse internet. Also for extra storage and very occasionally for multiboxing in games. It is an o/c'd q9550 w/ radeon 5870, 8 gb ram and a few harddrives
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.

TRENDING THREADS

Back
Top