10-yr-old computer: plan to revive it.

[koishkim]

Hi there,

I've always had this weird urge crawling up (and I think there are some folks out there who also enjoy this?) to revive old computers whenever I find them doable. I think old computers can be still much more powerful than we realize.

I found a computer lying around my parents' house - a system with Athlon 64 X2 4400+, 4G DDR2 RAM, 8500 GT GPU. I decided to install a light OS such as Ubuntu on it, and use it for my academic/home activities - writing papers, reading articles on the web, making slides, watching movies, etc. The HDD has been serving well, but old. So thinking to replace it with a new one.

I wonder if this system is capable even beyond that. Anyone with a similar build with apt usage?

Thanks.

 

[USAFRet]

With a new drive, it will probably be OK.

 

[SKIPPY PB]

idk what it is laptop or what but I fix up old pc's all the time. My Dell XPS 400 from 05 is still kicking over. I maxed out the ram, threw in a better CPU, move HDD's and a better GPU all of which was about less than 100 bucks. I use it for misc programs like automotive diagnostic software and it does that job well as a dedicated machine. If its name brand it probably has a Windows XP license key on it.

 

[photonboy]

Hey,
I've got almost EXACTLY the same rig as an old PC.

I use Linux MINT and it works great. There should be a link to recommend a better NVIDIA driver instead of the default one.

*For movies, I've been experimenting with two programs:

1) VLC (easy to install)

2) KODI (KODI site has instructions to install for Linux and they work. sudo apt-get, etc. pretty easy actually)

Other:
replace HDD?
Hard to say. It rarely utilizes the HDD once it loads. I did upgrade to a spare 60GB HDD (Vertex 2) which made it snappier overall but not really a necessity.

*You can also burn a distro to a thumb drive with Rufus (from Windows) then experiment with different distros. Simply insert the USB stick with no hard drives attached (or select USB path from BIOS) then boot into it. If you like it you can INSTALL it, or if not just shut down and try a different distro.

Update:
My X2-4800+ system works nearly as well as my i7-3770K system for most tasks. In fact, I had W7 on that system before so I know it will run Windows 10 quite well.

W10 isn't free unless you have W7 or W8 already though.

 

[koishkim]

Hey,
I've got almost EXACTLY the same rig as an old PC.

I use Linux MINT and it works great. There should be a link to recommend a better NVIDIA driver instead of the default one.

*For movies, I've been experimenting with two programs:

1) VLC (easy to install)

2) KODI (KODI site has instructions to install for Linux and they work. sudo apt-get, etc. pretty easy actually)

Other:
replace HDD?
Hard to say. It rarely utilizes the HDD once it loads. I did upgrade to a spare 60GB HDD (Vertex 2) which made it snappier overall but not really a necessity.

*You can also burn a distro to a thumb drive with Rufus (from Windows) then experiment with different distros. Simply insert the USB stick with no hard drives attached (or select USB path from BIOS) then boot into it. If you like it you can INSTALL it, or if not just shut down and try a different distro.

Update:
My X2-4800+ system works nearly as well as my i7-3770K system for most tasks. In fact, I had W7 on that system before so I know it will run Windows 10 quite well.

W10 isn't free unless you have W7 or W8 already though.

1. Surprising that you have an almost exact system. Do you know what the NVIDIA driver is you're referring to?
2. I wonder why my parents' system was very slow when Win 7 was on. They couldn't just deal with it, so I had to build a new one for them.

 

[demoth]

CPU and RAM advances over the last few years haven't really impacted gaming much or most activities beyond multicore specific computations. The gamer who way back in the day shelled out for an upper end I7-2700K, decent cooling and a OCable motherboard are still cutting edge today and going past 1080ti speeds.

In your case, If that current PSU can handle a decent vid card (up to a GTX 950) it could do most anything including 4K video with older gen PCIe a non factor.

Most casual users will be heavily dependent on single or dual core limited no matter how many cores you have and the X2 is still decently fast in that regard.

Your current vid card is the major limit to using that system for entertainment and is actually much worse than today's entry level onboard.

 

[SKIPPY PB]

Hey,
I've got almost EXACTLY the same rig as an old PC.

I use Linux MINT and it works great. There should be a link to recommend a better NVIDIA driver instead of the default one.

*For movies, I've been experimenting with two programs:

1) VLC (easy to install)

2) KODI (KODI site has instructions to install for Linux and they work. sudo apt-get, etc. pretty easy actually)

Other:
replace HDD?
Hard to say. It rarely utilizes the HDD once it loads. I did upgrade to a spare 60GB HDD (Vertex 2) which made it snappier overall but not really a necessity.

*You can also burn a distro to a thumb drive with Rufus (from Windows) then experiment with different distros. Simply insert the USB stick with no hard drives attached (or select USB path from BIOS) then boot into it. If you like it you can INSTALL it, or if not just shut down and try a different distro.

Update:
My X2-4800+ system works nearly as well as my i7-3770K system for most tasks. In fact, I had W7 on that system before so I know it will run Windows 10 quite well.

W10 isn't free unless you have W7 or W8 already though.

1. Surprising that you have an almost exact system. Do you know what the NVIDIA driver is you're referring to?
2. I wonder why my parents' system was very slow when Win 7 was on. They couldn't just deal with it, so I had to build a new one for them.

alot of the old computers where made around things like XP and vista and tend to run better on them. My alienware laptop is like that, XP is smooth as silk and windows 7 is a little iffy.

 

[koishkim]

Hey,
I've got almost EXACTLY the same rig as an old PC.

I use Linux MINT and it works great. There should be a link to recommend a better NVIDIA driver instead of the default one.

*For movies, I've been experimenting with two programs:

1) VLC (easy to install)

2) KODI (KODI site has instructions to install for Linux and they work. sudo apt-get, etc. pretty easy actually)

Other:
replace HDD?
Hard to say. It rarely utilizes the HDD once it loads. I did upgrade to a spare 60GB HDD (Vertex 2) which made it snappier overall but not really a necessity.

*You can also burn a distro to a thumb drive with Rufus (from Windows) then experiment with different distros. Simply insert the USB stick with no hard drives attached (or select USB path from BIOS) then boot into it. If you like it you can INSTALL it, or if not just shut down and try a different distro.

Update:
My X2-4800+ system works nearly as well as my i7-3770K system for most tasks. In fact, I had W7 on that system before so I know it will run Windows 10 quite well.

W10 isn't free unless you have W7 or W8 already though.

1. Surprising that you have an almost exact system. Do you know what the NVIDIA driver is you're referring to?
2. I wonder why my parents' system was very slow when Win 7 was on. They couldn't just deal with it, so I had to build a new one for them.

alot of the old computers where made around things like XP and vista and tend to run better on them. My alienware laptop is like that, XP is smooth as silk and windows 7 is a little iffy.

Thanks. Maybe that's why it was fast on XP, and become a snail with Win7. The system I have is a custom-built PC by the way, not a laptop. Forgot to reply to your comment.

 

[koishkim]

CPU and RAM advances over the last few years haven't really impacted gaming much or most activities beyond multicore specific computations. The gamer who way back in the day shelled out for an upper end I7-2700K, decent cooling and a OCable motherboard are still cutting edge today and going past 1080ti speeds.

In your case, If that current PSU can handle a decent vid card (up to a GTX 950) it could do most anything including 4K video with older gen PCIe a non factor.

Most casual users will be heavily dependent on single or dual core limited no matter how many cores you have and the X2 is still decently fast in that regard.

Your current vid card is the major limit to using that system for entertainment and is actually much worse than today's entry level onboard.

My monitor for watching movies won't be like 4k. I have two 24" 1080p monitors, and I think 8500 GT should be just fine for that..?