What to do with old PC?

shadow_boxer

shadow_boxer

shadow_boxer

Soldato
Joined
9 Oct 2009
Posts
9,284
Location
United Kingdom
As the title really. I've got very old machine, brought about 7/8 years ago and upgraded to the one in my sig last year. Since, the old pc has just been gathering dust and not doing anything. Not really sure what to do with it. Not keen on selling as I dont think I'll get much for it and prob not worth my time to be honest.

It was an old evesham prebuilt pc (bought before I knew anything about computers for uni). Athlon XP2600+, Radeon Pro 9600, 1.5gb RAM, CD drive, DVD RW.

Any ideas?

Was thinking maybe turning into a HTPC perhaps, buying a new case and larger HDD and upgrading graphics card perhaps? is it worth it? Could keep it for a general browsing, office work, but would like to get a nice small midi case or htpc case for it??
 
http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/video/display/ati-powercons_10.html#sect0

ATI Radeon Pro 9600 power consumption - 20W. Mad days. I'm wondering why we need nuclear plants to power up any decent rig these days... Seeing what Nvidia does to their children and how all high-end cards are power eaters nowadays, I can't imagine what will happen in the next 5 years or so. Anyways...

This rig sounds sweet for an HTPC, low power=low noise.

Get a silent drive for it and a small factor case, not sure what mobo it is, ATX, mATX?

I imagine you have no SATA connectors as well, will need to find a cheap IDE drive. I would look for a used as the new ones are SO expensive now. Unless you're willing to get a new mobo as well?

Cheap media centre case - http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CA-020-OP&groupid=701&catid=7&subcat=
 
thanks, its an ATX mobo unfortunately, good point...completely forgot that it IDE not SATA! Doh! Will looking to making it a htpc. Time to get on with some research. thanks for that.

e: if making it into a htpc, would it be worth getting a better AGP graphics card, not sure what would be most suitable as the cpu will be the obvious bottleneck.

As for a downloading rig, good idea too...never even crossed my mind.
 
Last edited:
Ok, so I've looking around at HTPCs, would quite like a small unit. May be a stupid question but if I pick up a cheap mATX mobo can connect current HDD, would it boot or would it require a clean reinstall as its a new mobo?
 
Will most likely need a clean install, on the odd occasion I've managed to change a motherboard without reinstalling windows, but I'm not quite sure how considering it's not supposed to be possible.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom