What to do with an extra PC?

[master7045]

So my parents dumped on me thier old Dell PC. It's a Dimension XPS D226. PII and a 40 GB hard drive. I was thinking about giving it away, but thought it would be a fun project PC, even though I have no idea what "project" to make of it. So thats where everyone else comes in, what do you think??? Let me know your ideas, thoughts, questions, comments, concerns, etc.

thanks and looking forward to the replies.

 

[mfenn]

Grab a PCI NIC (or 2) and play around with having a high-powered router!

 

[alfa147x]

Nas

 

[bendixG15]

Sorry......... PII = recycle bin

(you can't give it away because nobody wants it .. oh yes try Best Buy)

 

[0roo0roo]

not worth the power consumption
installing sh*t on it takes too long, its too slow to play with.
these days if you want to play with new o/s or multiple os you can run vm's with no problems at all ..cpus so fast. hell linux running in windows will beat the pants off that p2 on any reasonably decent system.

 

[Bl0cks]

I had an old system sitting around, got a cpu+mobo from frys, and stuck it in there. Worked like a charm.

 

[mfenn]

not worth the power consumption
installing sh*t on it takes too long, its too slow to play with.
these days if you want to play with new o/s or multiple os you can run vm's with no problems at all ..cpus so fast. hell linux running in windows will beat the pants off that p2 on any reasonably decent system.

Actually, if he's got a 250nm PII, the TDP is only like 25W.

 

[somethingsketchy]

Grab a PCI NIC (or 2) and play around with having a high-powered router!

Just a variant of mfenn's suggestion is also a firewall (MoNoWall, Smoothwall, IPcop, etc, etc).

 

[corkyg]

Put a NIC in it and you can have a LAN to play with.

 

[Ayah]

I wouldn't use a P2 for routing, imo it's a bit slow.
EOL this antiquity.

 

[mfenn]

I wouldn't use a P2 for routing, imo it's a bit slow.
EOL this antiquity.

Eh?

At residential speeds, a PII is MORE than enough. Hell, a 486 is probably enough.

 

[0roo0roo]

Actually, if he's got a 250nm PII, the TDP is only like 25W.

entire systems draw is probably quite a bit higher, everything else was less power efficient back then.

 

[Sp12]

I would combine all of the above and make it a proxy/fileserver/router/firewall.

Though admittedly fileserver/proxy only make sense if you have multiple computers on your network

 

[mfenn]

entire systems draw is probably quite a bit higher, everything else was less power efficient back then.

Very true.

I was just pointing out that the power draw isn't more than a low-end system of today.

 

[Ayah]

Eh?

At residential speeds, a PII is MORE than enough. Hell, a 486 is probably enough.

Run an untangle system with packet inspection and you'd crush anything that isn't relatively recent.

 

[mfenn]

Run an untangle system with packet inspection and you'd crush anything that isn't relatively recent.

If you're going to go crazy with the filters, then sure. The OP is looking for something to use is old rig for. It will handle something like pfsense, smoothwall, m0n0wall, IPCop, etc. just fine. Those packages have more than enough features to keep a residential user happy for a long time.