Question What can I do with this 15 years old PC ??

[monere]

Hey, guys!

My parents gave me their (15 years old) computer to do with as I please as they're not using it anymore (and truth being told they've only used it for like 2-3 years when they've purchased it around 2008-2009)

So, I dismantled it, dusted it off a little bit, and took inventory of the components... and got disappointed really fast

I don't think there's any value in this PC, I even thought of outright putting it up for sale hoping that someone might find some value in it, but then I remembered the components and I got even more disgruntled....

So anyway, what do you think the best thing is that I can do this system? Here are the components:

1. AsRock ConRoe1333-D667 rev. 1.0 (motherboard)

ASRock > ConRoe1333-D667 R1.0

LGA 775 for Intel Dual Core Core™ 2 Extreme / Core™ 2 Duo / Pentium Dual Core / Celeron, supporting Dual Core Wolfdale processors; Intel 945GC A2 Chipset; Compatible with all FSB 1333/1066/800/533 MHz CPUs except Quad Core; Supports Dual Channel DDR2 667/533 x 2 DIMM slots with max. capacity up...

www.asrock.com

2. Intel Pentium E2180 (CPU)
https://ark.intel.com/content/www/u...ssor-e2180-1m-cache-2-00-ghz-800-mhz-fsb.html

3. Adata DDR2 800 Mhz (RAM, but only 1 stick, this system has been purchased "as-is" so I'm not surprised that it's only come with 1 stick of RAM even though the MoBo supports Dual Channel)
https://www.taobao.com/list/item/567657782560.htm

4. WD 320 GB, 7200 RPM, Sata2, 16 MB Cache (HDD WD3200AAKS Caviar SE16)
(probably this one, but I'm not sure) https://www.amazon.com/Western-Digital-Caviar-Drive-WD3200AAKS/dp/B000RT3GHI?th=1

5. Some generic Delux ATX-450W P4 PSU for which I can't even find a link online. I mean, I did find several of them, but neither of those PSUs had an on-off switch, which - amazingly - this one does lol

6. no GPU at all!

So, as you can see, this system is pretty basic and I don't think that it can meet any of today's requirements, so I have no idea what to do with it. Should I sell it as is? Should I dismantle it and sell each component individually? Should I continue using it? If yes, what for and how? I even doubt that it supports 64 bits OS... And speaking of OS, I didn't bother powering it up first to check whether it's still working and what OS it uses, as I was curious to see what's inside of it, so I don't know if any OS is installed on it, and which one. But, knowing how my parents don't even know how to power on a computer I assume they've used Windows, but which one I can't say until I put the PC back together and power it on....

But anyway, what do you guys think is the best thing that I can use this computer for? Sell? Keep? Use (if yes, what for)? Use with Windows (if yes, which Windows, if not which Linux would still work great for it)?

Please let me know what you would do with it as I'm honestly not getting any ideas...

Thanks in advance for your valuable tips!

 

[Matthew44]

Hey, guys!

My parents gave me their (15 years old) computer to do with as I please as they're not using it anymore (and truth being told they've only used it for like 2-3 years when they've purchased it around 2008-2009)

So, I dismantled it, dusted it off a little bit, and took inventory of the components... and got disappointed really fast

I don't think there's any value in this PC, I even thought of outright putting it up for sale hoping that someone might find some value in it, but then I remembered the components and I got even more disgruntled....

So anyway, what do you think the best thing is that I can do this system? Here are the components:

1. AsRock ConRoe1333-D667 rev. 1.0 (motherboard)

ASRock > ConRoe1333-D667 R1.0

LGA 775 for Intel Dual Core Core™ 2 Extreme / Core™ 2 Duo / Pentium Dual Core / Celeron, supporting Dual Core Wolfdale processors; Intel 945GC A2 Chipset; Compatible with all FSB 1333/1066/800/533 MHz CPUs except Quad Core; Supports Dual Channel DDR2 667/533 x 2 DIMM slots with max. capacity up...

www.asrock.com

2. Intel Pentium E2180 (CPU)
https://ark.intel.com/content/www/u...ssor-e2180-1m-cache-2-00-ghz-800-mhz-fsb.html

3. Adata DDR2 800 Mhz (RAM, but only 1 stick, this system has been purchased "as-is" so I'm not surprised that it's only come with 1 stick of RAM even though the MoBo supports Dual Channel)
https://www.taobao.com/list/item/567657782560.htm

4. WD 320 GB, 7200 RPM, Sata2, 16 MB Cache (HDD WD3200AAKS Caviar SE16)
(probably this one, but I'm not sure) https://www.amazon.com/Western-Digital-Caviar-Drive-WD3200AAKS/dp/B000RT3GHI?th=1

5. Some generic Delux ATX-450W P4 PSU for which I can't even find a link online. I mean, I did find several of them, but neither of those PSUs had an on-off switch, which - amazingly - this one does lol

6. no GPU at all!

So, as you can see, this system is pretty basic and I don't think that it can meet any of today's requirements, so I have no idea what to do with it. Should I sell it as is? Should I dismantle it and sell each component individually? Should I continue using it? If yes, what for and how? I even doubt that it supports 64 bits OS... And speaking of OS, I didn't bother powering it up first to check whether it's still working and what OS it uses, as I was curious to see what's inside of it, so I don't know if any OS is installed on it, and which one. But, knowing how my parents don't even know how to power on a computer I assume they've used Windows, but which one I can't say until I put the PC back together and power it on....

But anyway, what do you guys think is the best thing that I can use this computer for? Sell? Keep? Use (if yes, what for)? Use with Windows (if yes, which Windows, if not which Linux would still work great for it)?

Please let me know what you would do with it as I'm honestly not getting any ideas...

Thanks in advance for your valuable tips!

I mean if you don’t want it and do want to sell it, maybe some vintage pc hunters might want it. How much are you thinking of selling it for? I could buy it, but I need to know how much you want for it

 

[Karadjgne]

Donate it yo someplace like Goodwill or Salvation Army. There's also ppl who refurbish older pc's for use in schools. That pc would work well enough for that as many elementary schools still use the same 20year old Barney programs.

Or you could add some more storage and turn it into a media center/server for backups of your main pc.

 

[USAFRet]

Please let me know what you would do with it as I'm honestly not getting any ideas...

A whole house file server or media server.
That's about it.

 

[monere]

I mean if you don’t want it and do want to sell it, maybe some vintage pc hunters might want it. How much are you thinking of selling it for? I could buy it, but I need to know how much you want for it

I'm OK selling it, but I don't know how to price it, so you name the price you think it's worth...

But the problem is that I might not ship it abroad because - depending on where I'd ship it - it might cost me 2x or 3x what I'd get for it lol. I'm from Romania, by the way...

Donate it yo someplace like Goodwill or Salvation Army. There's also ppl who refurbish older pc's for use in schools. That pc would work well enough for that as many elementary schools still use the same 20year old Barney programs.

Or you could add some more storage and turn it into a media center/server for backups of your main pc.

I thought about donating it but this will be the absolute last option as I'd like to get something out of it. Thanks for your suggestion, though! But might I ask what a "media center" is?

Also, about adding the extra storage, I wouldn't mind doing it but - as you can see from the MoBo's page - the connections are SATA 2, and I'm not sure that any SATA 2 storage even exists anymore (I'll have to check, though)

A whole house file server or media server.
That's about it.

no idea what a media server / center is, but suggestion acknowledged! Thanks

 

[USAFRet]

I'm OK selling it, but I don't know how to price it, so you name the price you think it's worth...

$50, only to a local buyer.
(and only after you've completely wiped the 320GB HDD of ALL data)

Also, about adding the extra storage, I wouldn't mind doing it but - as you can see from the MoBo's page - the connections are SATA 2, and I'm not sure that any SATA 2 storage even exists anymore (I'll have to check, though)

Any spinning HDD will work.

no idea what a media server / center is, but suggestion acknowledged! Thanks

If you don't know you need one or what you'd use it for, you don't need one.

 

[monere]

If you don't know you need one or what you'd use it for, you don't need one.

good one! But probably true

$50, only to a local buyer.
(and only after you've completely wiped the 320GB HDD of ALL data)

Any spinning HDD will work.

thanks!

 

[GarrettL]

MAME arcade emulator pc. Perfect for it.

 

[monere]

MAME arcade emulator pc. Perfect for it.

without a gpu?? But yeah... I love Mame

 

[GarrettL]

without a gpu?? But yeah... I love Mame

I have a super low end one in it, was less than $30 I beleive. Was several years ago but that pc is still running

I have the Tank Stick set up from X Arcade. Also bought the arcade cabinet that they use to sell a few years ago.

My "gaming" days go back to the marvel of seeing Pong for the very first time as a young kid. The original Pong in a shopping mall.

Have been hooked ever since.

 

[Eximo]

Not likely anyone is going to pay you $50 for it. You can buy a refurb office PC with an i5-4590, 8GB of ram, 500GB hard drive for $70, shipped.

Churches, re-use stores like Goodwill and the Salvation Army, there are charities that operate solely on donation of hardware to then give away for free to the needy. I have a somewhat local one called Tech Reconnect.

Emulation station is cool, but if you already have a system, then it can do it as well. And then you have to rely on the 15 year old hardware to not die on you.

 

[GarrettL]

Not likely anyone is going to pay you $50 for it. You can buy a refurb office PC with an i5-4590, 8GB of ram, 500GB hard drive for $70, shipped.

Churches, re-use stores like Goodwill and the Salvation Army, there are charities that operate solely on donation of hardware to then give away for free to the needy. I have a somewhat local one called Tech Reconnect.

Emulation station is cool, but if you already have a system, then it can do it as well. And then you have to rely on the 15 year old hardware to not die on you.

I have two old pc's waiting in the wings in case it does

Like you guys have said, they are at the end of the road it would seem. It was a sad day when I parked my i7 920 x58 rig in the back up pile a few weeks ago.

 

[monere]

Emulation station is cool, but if you already have a system, then it can do it as well. And then you have to rely on the 15 year old hardware to not die on you.

true! I can (and I do) run Mame on my current PC, so I know that it works

I don't think, however that there's "salvation army" here in my local area to donate to. And yeah, I also thought that I might not get even $50 for this PC, I mean I wouldn't pay $50 for this garbage LOL

Oh well, I'll see if any local computer shop accepts it for a small fee, I still don't want to have anything to do with this geriatric...

My "gaming" days go back to the marvel of seeing Pong...

is... is this the game that had a black screen with a white vertical line in the middle of it and with 2 smaller white lines on each side that were hitting a white circle?? Damn, I remember that thing... I used to come back from school and play before even undressing my school uniform. Damn, good 'ol days...

 

[Tac 25]

assuming it still works, i would have purchased that if we were the same country. Sadly, I'm too far. Philippines.

have been looking for awhile now, for an old machine to install Windows XP into.

 

[monere]

assuming it still works, i would have purchased that if we were the same country. Sadly, I'm too far. Philippines.

have been looking for awhile now, for an old machine to install Windows XP into.

sorry, amigo! I know that it sucks

Maybe you can find something similar in Indonesia / Malaysia (around your area that is) if you visit the local classified sites...

 

[Tac 25]

@monere

thanks for the suggestion. But I can get from own country.

Actually, there's a lively market on retro gaming pc's over here. This screenshot is an example from one website.

just waiting to encounter something affordable, as the ones I see in online stores are still out of budget range.

 

[Viking2121]

I got an old HP something laying around that had a core 2 duo in it, what I did with it was Install windows 10 on a 120GB SSD I also had laying a round, had a another computer with a q6600 that had leaking caps and didn't work all the time so I upgraded that HP and upgraded the ram to 8gb, all crap I had laying around, I put a 6TB HDD in it and I use it for my Pihole ad blocking server and a file server, Don't have to use windows for this but I'm more familiar with it.

Can also use it for a Jellyfin/Plex media server, even a Core 2 duo should be enough for non transcoding kind of stuff.

There are some uses for it, if you can find a quad core like a q6600 that your board supports, it will do normal web browsing and youtube just fine, 4k youtube is a bit too much for even a q6600 but its still vary usable at anything below that, a little on the power hungry side though.

 

[monere]

I got an old HP something laying around that had a core 2 duo in it, what I did with it was Install windows 10 on a 120GB SSD I also had laying a round, had a another computer with a q6600 that had leaking caps and didn't work all the time so I upgraded that HP and upgraded the ram to 8gb, all crap I had laying around, I put a 6TB HDD in it and I use it for my Pihole ad blocking server and a file server, Don't have to use windows for this but I'm more familiar with it.

Can also use it for a Jellyfin/Plex media server, even a Core 2 duo should be enough for non transcoding kind of stuff.

There are some uses for it, if you can find a quad core like a q6600 that your board supports, it will do normal web browsing and youtube just fine, 4k youtube is a bit too much for even a q6600 but its still vary usable at anything below that, a little on the power hungry side though.

I powered it up yesterday and noticed it had Win XP SP3 Professional (32 bits) on, and the system barely moved at all. I took Win XP down and put PuppyLinux on it (since Puppy only needs 128 MB of RAM to work) and, despite of this, I still couldn't watch Youtube. The first time I opened up YT it took YT 6 minutes to load up the homepage. On Puppy Linux LOL. I don't even want to find out how my parents have managed to surf the internet on this tractor 15 years ago...

Anyway, what I wanted to say (but digressed) is that none of the things you mentioned would work on this garbage because...

1. SATA 2,
2. DDR 2 (up to 4 GB maximum supported by this lousy MoBo, and it currently has only 1 stick of 1 GB RAM and it "works" like crap on the most lightweight OS system that I could find)
3. 100 MB/s LAN card
4. not even sure that I can install an SSD on this PC. I mean, even if that's possible I don't think it's worth the investment because then I'd have to get more RAM (which, by the way, I am having a hard time finding anymore here in my country since nobody uses that anymore... or they're not having any for sale anymore), and a GPU, and a better CPU, and... before you know it I will have spent money on a completely new computer, and this defeats the purpose of trying to this one useful
5. no GPU

I'll just put it up for sale tomorrow and see if I can manage to sell it by the end of the year. If not, I'll probably try to find someone who wants it...

 

[USAFRet]

I don't even want to find out how my parents have managed to surf the internet on this tractor 15 years ago...

The internet and websites, incl utube, were not so heavily infested with ads.

That level of PC was very typical. We all used them, and survived.

Having a 100mbps connection was not an issue back then. 15 years ago, 2007, I probably had a 25/25 connection, just upgraded from 15/15.

 

[monere]

The internet and websites, incl utube, were not so heavily infested with ads.

That level of PC was very typical. We all used them, and survived.

oh, now that you mentioned it, yeah it kindof makes sense as I do remember to have surfed the internet back then without any complaints. I don't know why I forgot about this

Having a 100mbps connection was not an issue back then. 15 years ago, 2007, I probably had a 25/25 connection, just upgraded from 15/15.

dang! We (well, technology) have gone so far in 15 years, it's both amazing and a bit saddening (because you sense the pass of time) when you look back from where we started.... Damn, now I'm getting all emotional and nostalgic...

 

[USAFRet]

dang! We (well, technology) have gone so far in 15 years, it's both amazing and a bit saddening (because you sense the pass of time) when you look back from where we started.... Damn, now I'm getting all emotional and nostalgic...

And actually, a 100mbs connection is not an issue today.
That is exactly what I have and am using as we speak....100/100 FiOS.
Zero issues, and I see no need to upgrade.

 

[monere]

And actually, a 100mbs connection is not an issue today.
That is exactly what I have and am using as we speak....100/100 FiOS.
Zero issues, and I see no need to upgrade.

wait a minute! So, why on Earth was I not able to navigate the internet then?? I only had the OS installed (so I could test whether the USB ports, LAN and sound cards, etc work)? Could it be the lack of RAM?? Or was it the lack of a dedicated GPU card? Which one of these is more impactful to internet activity?

 

[USAFRet]

wait a minute! So, why on Earth was I not able to navigate the internet then?? I only had the OS installed (so I could test whether the USB ports, LAN and sound cards, etc work)? Could it be the lack of RAM?? Or was it the lack of a dedicated GPU card? Which one of these is more impactful to internet activity?

Just a badly underpowered system.
Primarily, RAM and CPU.

 

[monere]

Just a badly underpowered system.
Primarily, RAM and CPU.

CPU, huh! And here I thought it was the GPU

Anyway, thanks for the tip, at least I know for the future where to put my money into

 

[punkncat]

IMO a complete waste of electricity to have powered on. There are SBC and ARM devices that use a fraction of the power and are more capable.