What to do with old pcs

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elec999
Posts: 273
Joined: Wed Jun 30, 2004 10:54 pm

What to do with old pcs

Post by elec999 » Wed Sep 12, 2007 6:03 am

What can I do with some older pcs. P2 233, P3 450, Celeron 300. Should I just get rid of them.
Thanks

Blacktales
Posts: 139
Joined: Mon May 07, 2007 6:58 am

Post by Blacktales » Wed Sep 12, 2007 9:20 am

Since you seem to be living in Canada, if you are located in Montreal, i'll be happy to get them off your hands, if you end up throwing them in the trash.

Otherwise, usually, in order, i ask around friends that might need them, bring them to the local recycling/redistribution center that can provide them to school and so on (though now they seem to be greedy enough to ask for a minimum 1ghtz processor) or dissasemble them to get part i might need (screws, heatsinks, HD cages ...... ) and recycle the remaining parts. But asking around is usually enough. Last time i gave an old computer, it replaced a Macintosh SE an elderly couple had in the neighborhood. ( I got the SE but can't think of anything to do with it except take it apart).

Or if you want to put them to use, you could use them as data/music servers, routers, firewalls.............

frosty
Posts: 636
Joined: Fri Jun 06, 2003 9:40 am
Location: USA

Post by frosty » Thu Sep 13, 2007 2:06 pm

Such a sad thread - almsot like pc Kervorkian or something surreal.

autoboy
Posts: 1008
Joined: Fri Dec 10, 2004 8:10 pm
Location: San Jose, California

Post by autoboy » Thu Sep 13, 2007 3:26 pm

Not much use for them I am afraid. Some people use them for servers, routers, torrent boxes, music centers, but for the most part I'm in the same boat as the schools. Anything less than 1ghz is not fast enough for daily use. A 1ghz machine with modern harddrives and 1GB of ram can be very usefull as a daily machine though. Enough 1ghz boxes exist that the slower ones are not much use anymore. IMHO I tried to work on a 750mhz duron, but even with a modern drive and 512MB of RAM it was just not fast enough to load all the multimedia from new webpages quickly enough that I didn't mind the wait.

NyteOwl
Posts: 536
Joined: Wed Aug 23, 2006 7:09 pm
Location: Nova Scotia, Canada

Post by NyteOwl » Thu Sep 13, 2007 4:29 pm

Anything less than 1ghz is not fast enough for daily use. A 1ghz machine with modern harddrives and 1GB of ram can be very usefull as a daily machine though. Enough 1ghz boxes exist that the slower ones are not much use anymore.
You are kidding right?

How much speed does word processing require? Checking e-mail, reading forums, checking out all but the most multimedia heavy website?

Give them to a non-profit, community centre, boys/girls club. I'm sure they'de be glad to have them. I have a neighbour that uses a 350MHz K6-2 as their daily personal machine. It may be a bit slow processing a massive video file during download, and might not have a gazillion fps in the latest games but for 99% of what MOST people use a machine for they work just fine. And it only has 384M in it. ;)

The machine I'm using to post this is a 600 MHz K6-III with 512M and it handles everything in daily usage except heavy compiling or rendering just fine. Most people don't need a quarter of the computer power they by. Goota have the newest/fastest/biggest just becasue is a very old and well used marketing phenomenon.

I refer you to my tagline :D

Agent_N
Posts: 30
Joined: Tue Apr 18, 2006 10:53 am

Post by Agent_N » Thu Sep 13, 2007 4:34 pm

You can check around and see if someone wants machines for Folding@Home. That way they could live out the rest of their useful days doing something worthwhile!

scdr
Posts: 336
Joined: Thu Oct 21, 2004 4:49 pm
Location: Upper left hand corner, USA

Post by scdr » Thu Sep 13, 2007 5:50 pm

I have a Pentium 133 that is connected to a scanner and I use exclusively for making photocopies (well scanning them anyway - usually just save electronically, rather than printing.) Running Windows 98, and having nothing but the scanner driver and image software on it, it starts and shuts down faster than the 2100+ Athlon that is next to it (running Win 2000).
[I don't make copies often, so startup/shutdown time is significant factor. During scanning the main limit is speed of the scanner. I put this together before the all-in-one scanner/printer units were available (and it is all second hand, except for a free after rebate scanner, so cost less)]

If you don't load them up with lots of extra programs/etc. older machines can still be plenty fast.

Other uses - could use it as a sacrificial machine for going online with [if it gets a virus/etc - who cares, restore and go on], or as a safe machine for accounting or other sensitive data that should not be connected to the net. If one tends to install new programs, or keep messing with machines, it can be nice to have something so old that you aren't tempted to play with it set up so that it just works.

Folding on it may not be a good investment. Considering the low
Points per day per Watt you would get - it would be relatively
expensive to run for minimal benefit to the project. Running folding a little on a more powerful machine might benefit the project more, at a smaller cost to you and the environment.
(see viewtopic.php?t=42087&sid=aa44344851d5a ... 6d38086642

(i.e. Machines like this are probably better suited to tasks that are I/O bound, rather than compute intensive applications like folding.)

elec999
Posts: 273
Joined: Wed Jun 30, 2004 10:54 pm

Post by elec999 » Fri Sep 21, 2007 4:36 am

I think the p3 450mhz can be turned into a music listening station. To listen to some online radio, while doing some workout.
Thanks

autoboy
Posts: 1008
Joined: Fri Dec 10, 2004 8:10 pm
Location: San Jose, California

Post by autoboy » Fri Sep 21, 2007 7:44 am

Load times on some webpages were getting quite long with my 1ghz athlon, and my Duron 750 was begining to have trouble running some dynamic pop down menus slowly. Just giving my personal opinion here. There are plenty of uses for old computers, I just wouldn't want to use one every day to browse the internet and do my office work.

However, I AM considering using an old 166mhz laptop as a music server conected to a 7in touchscreen and a PCMCIA soundcard. The laptop's fan has never come on for as long as I have had it. I don't know if it is broken, but who cares! The thing just works.

andyb
Patron of SPCR
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Location: Essex, England

Post by andyb » Sat Sep 22, 2007 11:55 am

The only really useful things I can see as a use for old PC's is as a firewall/torrent box, or a FREE PC given to someone.

Your main priority should not be recycling the PC but making sure that your data doesnt get recycled. If you dont have a data destroying program then you either need to get one, pray to the FSM or other invisible means of support, or physically destroy the HDD. The latter is the most fun.

If anyone wants a data destroying program I may be able to get you one for free (legally) - just ask and I will ask if I can hand it out to anyone who wants it.


Andy

lm
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Location: Finland

Post by lm » Sat Sep 22, 2007 1:52 pm

Just boot up a linux live cd, and run "dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/hda" as many times as you need, assuming your hdd is the first pata device in the box in this example. No need for any more complex hdd shredding tools.

The paranoid can replace /dev/zero with /dev/urandom on some/all of those repetitions.

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