What to do with my 5 year old PC?

[jtac84]

Hey all,
I have a 5 year old PC sitting around and I'd like to utilize it for a project like a very cheap HTPC, Linux box, etc. However, I believe the board is fried because I tried a little overclock tweaking in the BIOS the last time I used it (the board was a cheap one from PC Chips). Anyway, the components are as follows:
AMD Athlon XP 2500+
1 Gig DDR 400 Ram
80 Gig HD
ATI Radeon 9800 Pro

Is it worth finding an old Socket A Motherboard to replace the old one and get the system up and running again? What would you do with this outdated hardware?

Thanks

 

[mpilchfamily]

Well you can get a new board for about $30
http://search.pricewatch.com/m...oards/socket_754-0.htm

But i wouldn't have a use fro it. Its quite old hardware. But would be good if you wanted to get some experience with Linux.

 

[JackMDS]

If you get a new board and Windows Home Server Trial version (free from Microsoft) you can have yourself a Nice Windows Home Server to play with for few months.

Then you can get the OEM version for less than $100 from bewEgg.

http://www.ezlan.net/WHS.html

NAS - WHS Thread, http://forums.anandtech.com/me...ght_key=y&keyword1=WHS

 

[pugh]

+1 what JackMDS said. WHS all the way.

 

[0roo0roo]

not worth the power it consumes.

too slow for a home theater pc.
esp if you do hd.
any toss in a corner type application means that video card is using way more power than its worth...integrated would be good enough for server and such. and the rest isn't so good either.

 

[mindless1]

What? ?

That's fast enough for a HTPC if you stick to formats supported by capture card encoding and video card decoding, or don't need HD, MPEG4/10 or other very high compression codecs. Come to think of it I used to have a HTPC which did realtime Divx software encoding and playback of CATV programming with an Athlon XP/256MB memory system, though it was only 640x480.

The link to pricewatch is for skt 754 while that's probably a skt A CPU. You might still find a board for $30 just be aware the linked boards won't work.

I could not recommend paying $100 for WHS for this project. Buy new parts to build a premium priced home server with a new $100 WHS license, otherwise you can get reasonable use as a fileserver with the original (probably XP) OS installed still. Throw a RAID card in if you want the data redundancy.

jtac84, are you certain the board is dead? With what you've told us it could be as simple as clearing CMOS or replacing the battery. Unless the capacitors are visibly vented or other signs of substantial thermal stress, overclocking by bios settings alone doesn't usually kill a board. If all the original parts are still together as a system, I'd as soon suspect the PSU without aforementioned visible sign(s) of heat damage to the motherboard.

The question is really one of "what can't you do with that system?". It's plenty fast enough for typical PC uses. Sure we can try to list highly-demanding uses but practically speaking you can run Office, browsing, email, light photoshop, P2P, audio, video capture, most things... remember that 5 years ago people didn't use PCs significantly differently than they do today, and managed to get plenty of work and play done.

It's more a question of whether you have need for a second PC, if the use is worth the cost. It probably is, but a new OS probably isn't worth it tied to aged parts by the license.

 

[imported_wired247]

what's the fun of HTPC if you're NOT capable of running high def content???

IIRC, X.264 , blu ray uses quite a bit of CPU even if you have a "supported" video card

 

[mindless1]

The point is, we could arbitrarily claim it can't do XYZ, but in 5 years someone will say the same about today's new parts that we're perfectly content with now. You really have to consider the specific application before ruling out any piece of hardware, often it would be like claiming it's a problem to drive a Toyota on the freeway because it doesn't go 200MPH. What's the fun of the freeway if it's not 200MPH? Granted this is not an ideal HTPC by any stretch, but for some purposes it could suffice, or for any other non-realtime-processing use, even moreso.

 

[somethingsketchy]

What about a homemade firewall? All you would need is two ethernet ports, some version of open source firewall software and you're good to go. Granted the video card would be extremely overkill sitting in the machine, but the hardware for the most part is pretty good.

On the other hand you could set the computer up as a jukebox with mp3 (or your preferred audio format) files and place the computer in a work area, kitchen, or living room. That would be a very good use for the 80GB hdd you have.

 

[mindless1]

For something as undemanding as a firewall or very minimal fileserver, it would probably cost less in a year, definitely less over a lifetime's worth of saved electricity to buy one of those all-in-one Via C3/C7 or Intel Atom boards instead of using a full blown set of separate components. It seems as though the OP needs to figure out what he wants to do with a system, then decide if this one is up to it. It's also worth considering that even if this system isn't the best match for the application, it could still be useful to someone, worth the $30 to get it running again then sell or donate it to someone needy.

You don't necessarily need two ethernet ports for a firewall. You'd cut latency some but that delay won't be much on what I'd presume would be a home lan use.