Spare box doing nothing

Post by **DiscoDave** » Fri Mar 03, 2006 5:29 pm

A mate of mine recently gave me an old PC, its something like a 1.0ghz athlon, 256MB ram etc and im not quite sure what to do with it. Anyone got any ideas?

I was going to put linux on it but recently I have no use for it

Post by **phantasmagoria** » Fri Mar 03, 2006 5:30 pm

fileserver

Post by **Foo** » Fri Mar 03, 2006 5:32 pm

File server - network it up, chuck all your large drives in it, and use it for storage

Docking station - can be part of the above. Somewhere handy to dock pendrives/mp3 players.

Lounge PC - add capture card and such and quiet fans

Game server - have it set to fire up a LAN Q3/Q1/UT/HL server on demand.

Post by **BlueGene** » Fri Mar 03, 2006 5:35 pm

Donate it to a school? Servers require bandwith, your really wana hog yours?

Post by **R00k** » Fri Mar 03, 2006 5:38 pm

Foo wrote:File server - network it up, chuck all your large drives in it, and use it for storage

Docking station - can be part of the above. Somewhere handy to dock pendrives/mp3 players.

Lounge PC - add capture card and such and quiet fans

Game server - have it set to fire up a LAN Q3/Q1/UT/HL server on demand.

All good ideas.

You could also set it up with Win2000 Server and turn it into a NAT machine - essentially a router/firewall in one package. Put a wireless card in it and you have no need for an internet router.

Post by **Doombrain** » Fri Mar 03, 2006 5:40 pm

lol no to all. clean it up, install office and ger it ready for the net and sell it

Post by **mjrpes** » Fri Mar 03, 2006 5:55 pm

The only problem with settings up computers like that for router/firewall is they use up a lot of power when left on all the time. You probably would spend $6-15 a month on power for it, depending on where you live. Better to buy a linksys or netgear device if router/NAT is all you need.

Post by **R00k** » Fri Mar 03, 2006 6:14 pm

Nope, just don't hook a monitor up to it, and it barely uses any power at all. Just use VNC or TermServ to connect and work on it.

Post by **DiscoDave** » Fri Mar 03, 2006 6:17 pm

I like the idea of a file/backup server, unfortunatly i'd have to purchase a rather large drive which I can't do right now

.

Post by **Doombrain** » Fri Mar 03, 2006 6:19 pm

and you don't need one. sell it.

Post by **Tsakali_** » Fri Mar 03, 2006 8:48 pm

yeah main point here just because it's available you don't have to find reasons to use it.
I have 2 systems siting in my closet doing nothing, and that's how it is going to stay.

They are worthless, unless I will use them as a temp system when somethign goes down with my main one. And also the occasional LAN party which is to say the least a rare situation

Post by **R00k** » Fri Mar 03, 2006 8:51 pm

Anytime I have a spare PC I use it to train myself with new OS's or software I want to learn how to configure.

But that's mostly for IT professionals.

Post by **l0g1c** » Fri Mar 03, 2006 8:51 pm

Throw linux on it and use it for MythTV

firewall/router
Apache server
torrent fetcher
Mp3 player/server

Lots of fun possiblilites. Doing this myself this weekend, actually :icon14:

Post by **Turbine** » Fri Mar 03, 2006 8:52 pm

How mutch for it?
And anyone else got a Sub 1Ghz computer to sell? Specialy in Canada.

Post by **duffman91** » Fri Mar 03, 2006 9:08 pm

l0g1c wrote:Throw linux on it

firewall/router
Apache server
torrent fetcher
Mp3 player/server

Lots of fun possiblilites. Doing this myself this weekend, actually :icon14:

That's what I do with my spare box. It's great if you want to learn.

Post by **Turbine** » Fri Mar 03, 2006 9:14 pm

MythTV is the way to go.

Post by **Doombrain** » Sat Mar 04, 2006 12:20 am

media centre

Post by **mjrpes** » Sat Mar 04, 2006 2:51 am

R00k wrote:Nope, just don't hook a monitor up to it, and it barely uses any power at all. Just use VNC or TermServ to connect and work on it.

I am using a Dell 1GHz PC as a file server and it uses ~65W without monitor. That's around $12/month where I live. I also have a router and it uses ~12W. Seeing that my power bill is well over $60, I'm doing everything I can to cut down costs... even thinking of replacing my server with a ~20W older laptop.

Post by **Deathshroud** » Sat Mar 04, 2006 3:06 am

Throw a good size HDD in there, and get yourself a nice capture card, then throw this summabish on it...

http://www.mythtv.org/index.php

You'll be golden.

Post by **R00k** » Sat Mar 04, 2006 3:42 am

mjrpes wrote:
R00k wrote:Nope, just don't hook a monitor up to it, and it barely uses any power at all. Just use VNC or TermServ to connect and work on it.
I am using a Dell 1GHz PC as a file server and it uses ~65W without monitor. That's around $12/month where I live. I also have a router and it uses ~12W. Seeing that my power bill is well over $60, I'm doing everything I can to cut down costs... even thinking of replacing my server with a ~20W older laptop.

65W? What is that in kw/h's? The power meter isn't measured in watts. I can't imagine a single Dell PC adding $12 a month to your power bill. Have you measured it, or did you just read the specs and extrapolate?

edit: And if your power bill is $60 a month in winter you're probably not going to get much better without turning off your fridge, water heater or other appliance.

Post by **mjrpes** » Sat Mar 04, 2006 4:30 am

R00k wrote:
mjrpes wrote:
R00k wrote:Nope, just don't hook a monitor up to it, and it barely uses any power at all. Just use VNC or TermServ to connect and work on it.
I am using a Dell 1GHz PC as a file server and it uses ~65W without monitor. That's around $12/month where I live. I also have a router and it uses ~12W. Seeing that my power bill is well over $60, I'm doing everything I can to cut down costs... even thinking of replacing my server with a ~20W older laptop.
65W? What is that in kw/h's? The power meter isn't measured in watts. I can't imagine a single Dell PC adding $12 a month to your power bill. Have you measured it, or did you just read the specs and extrapolate?

edit: And if your power bill is $60 a month in winter you're probably not going to get much better without turning off your fridge, water heater or other appliance.

There was a thread here a couple months back where I discussed this. I bought a device called 'Kill-o-Watt' which measures the wattage of any device you hook into it.

Looking back at my records, I see that I was wrong and that this Dell computer I have is actually is using ~73W. ~73W * 24hours * 30 days = 52560 watt-hours. Divide by 1000 and you get 52.6 kwh. The electric company bills at .216 cents per kwh (probably higher than you pay... so keep that in mind), which ends up being $11.30/month. So I was off but it's still a nice chunk of change each month.

I wouldn't want to spend that amount just to have it act as a router; I'd buy a small linksys device for something like that. But it is a bargain to install linux on it and run a web/mail/file server off a static IP... which is what I'm currently doing with it.

Post by **mjrpes** » Sat Mar 04, 2006 4:41 am

Speaking of power draw, this new AOpen MiniPC is enticing

http://anandtech.com/systems/showdoc.aspx?i=2707&p=9

A cool 25W draw at idle

Guest · Post by **Guest** » Sat Mar 04, 2006 4:42 am

mjrpes wrote:
Looking back at my records, I see that I was wrong and that this Dell computer I have is actually is using ~73W. ~73W * 24hours * 30 days = 52560 watt-hours. Divide by 1000 and you get 52.6 kwh.

Actually thats right.

Post by **mjrpes** » Sat Mar 04, 2006 4:44 am

Then correct it.

Post by **mjrpes** » Sat Mar 04, 2006 4:54 am

yehh... I was about to point you over to our good friend wikipedia