What to do with extra PC?

[stuste]

i would not go for emule because it is far to slow. what you should do is hook it up to your tv with a svideo cord buy a newsgroup acount and then you will never need to go to the vid store or use netflix again. because newsgroups maxes you out. 1 movie in 20 minutes with 5 megabit cable. http://www.newshosting.com


then go out and get a dvd burner (if you dont already have one) and 200 dvds. wait till you get your 80 gigs full and take a couple hours and burn everything you have downloaded. then buy somthing to keep them in and mark them so you know whats on the dvd. keep doing that untill you have a blockbuster of your own.


(what i did was bought a 224 or so cd wallet and used 3.5 in cards to put the dvd information on them then numbered the card along with the dvd)

 

[TitantheDragon]

Lots of nifty things can be done!

- Base for a small coffee table
- oversized paper weight for those really windy days
- Counterweight on a trebuchet?

lol

File Server/Backup Storage is always nice.

Or give it to someone how has a really crappy computer or none at all. (grandkids, teens, parents, grandparents, depending on your age)

Even a church if you feel generous (The secretary at my church was using a type writer and photocopier up until 01 and there are many churches smaller then ours.)

Any good use other then a dust collector.

 

[mesarectifier]

Seriously, this is just a horribly environmentally unfriendly thing to do

Are you the sort of person that writes in and complains about Top Gear?

 

[wun911]

If you keep it use it for something....

If you are not using it sell it! before it depreciates and you get less for it tomorow.

 

[Datman]

Set it up for everything you want except your games.
Internet surfing, HDTV viewing and/or what other suggestions that have been made that interest you.

This way you keep your games machine lite for better performace in game.

 

[The_Abyss]

Seriously, this is just a horribly environmentally unfriendly thing to do

Are you the sort of person that writes in and complains about Top Gear?

Nope - the complete opposite infact. It is just that the solution was complete overkill for the suggestion.

 

[p8ntslinger676]

You could give it to good will and get a real nice tax break, hehe, say it is worth like $1000 after you maybe put like a cheap ass 250 gig hd in it, MMMMMMMMMMMMMmmmmmmmmmmmmm cheaper taxes.

 

[HDDFreak]

Set it up for everything you want except your games.
Internet surfing, HDTV viewing and/or what other suggestions that have been made that interest you.

This way you keep your games machine lite for better performace in game.

Excellent Idea. I have a dual boot system for the same reasons. A lite games install and then an office one and never shall the two meet. Well until I run out of HDD space. Why can't microsoft do something like this with Vista?

 

[Dade_0182]

Don't you have any friends that would like to LAN with you that just don't have a good enough pc or nothing at all. Just stick an X800GTO in there or something and you can play games on it for a while still. Not on the highest graphics but you would still play most of the new games on at least medium. Just a though...

 

[gambit6259]

I have a box somwhat like that, and I use it for a fileserver/media center/backups. Mine is currently running a Athlon 64 3000+, 512MB RAM, 650GB of HD Space, and my older ATI9800pro...

I like having it so I can store copies of all the apps that I use, so when I need to load a system I don't need any disks, I have a backup of all my music stored on it, all of my Digital Photos, and the main thing I use it for now is storing video. I also have a TiVo and use the TiVo server application to access, TV recordings/MUSIC/Photos on my home entertainment center. There is always use for a spare computer...

 

[Jebazor]

Good idea, use it for a server or a computer to download stuff with, no use in lettingit just sit around, you can use an old computer for a VERY long time for this purpose (I still use an old socket7 w/a K62 in it for this).

 

[Randy77]

Do anything and everything you want. I'm a big fan of VMWare, because I run my firewall, fileserver, video capture, and my VPN machine to connect to work, all on the same box, three different operating systems, all running at once. And if I feel like it, I can always test out a new linux distribution in a new virtual machine, and delete the virtual machine when done. Performance is great, even with four VMs running, on a 3000 or better AMD processor. The biggest thing you need is RAM. I use 256MB per virtual machine, or, up to 1GB at any one time (three running VMs plus the host).

For the firewall, you'll need to add a second NIC, and within windows uncheck EVERY protocol except the VMWare protocol, so that the host operating system (windows in my case) can't access the card that is directly connected to the internet. Oh... and you'll probably want more than 80GB for storage. I have almost that much in digital photos alone, and then there is 2gb per hour of digital video. 🙂

And it is definitely environmentally friendly. Just think of how much power it would use to run everything in seperate physical machines.