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A List of New Uses for Old Computers


gamehead200

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And for the most part, I wouldn't even use it for that, I'd rather have one PC with VMWare Server and a dozen Virtual Machines/Appliances eating ~200w in total instead of a dozen old clunkers lying around each one using up 200w. Old PCs are slow, not so reliable, replacement parts tend to cost more (like older RAM) or even be hard to find (e.g. socket A or 370 CPU), etc. It also takes up a fair amount of space, and makes a wiring mess: for a dozen PCs, you'd have 12 network cables, 12 power cables, 12 video cables, 12 keyboard and 12 mouse cables - 60 cables in total. You'd also need an expensive 12 port KVM switch and a medium network switch (another expense, another thing lying around, etc). Like someone said before, I'd pick the "paperweight" option if this was a poll.

crahak, I totally agree with you on using VMWare. I've had a computer running an Asterisk PBX system in my basement for the past year or so, and haven't used it very often. After finding out about how much my electricity bill was adding up to, I decided to shut that one down and install a newer version of the PBX as a Virtual Machine under VMWare on my main desktop (which goes on at 7AM and shuts off at midnight each day). I also had a Dell (family computer) running as a printer server which was eating up even more juice as the printer connected to it was hardly being used. I shut that one off and told my parents to only use it when they absolutely needed to use that printer and shut it off when done, since we have a way faster one upstairs near the bedrooms that is directly connected to the LAN, AND because we all have wireless laptops. :wacko:

I never had an issue with wiring. I either used SSH to login to my Asterisk PBX or Remote Desktop to login to my current Windows file/HTTP/MySQL/FTP/proxy server.

However, I'd still like to be able to use these two spare computers for something. I was planning on installing something and installing Hamachi on them and sending them over to my dad's office so that I wouldn't have to worry about my home electricity bill! :P

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If I had an old machine, I would probably put two or more HDs on it. The first drive I would use for testing programs. The second drive I would use for more storage of stuff. I think those are probably the two most common purposes for old machines in home environments.

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:lol:

i go to the dump :thumbup

today i got a few fans, 3 sound cards 512MB of RAM [be jealous] and next week someone will give me a few SCSI drives because he doesn't have a single use for them, and i need space in terms of GB for music editing [which i do frequently]

Edited by bonestonne
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That´s right! Kick that sh*t! When you install ME it´s almost getting useless exept for kicking it :P...

I don´t know about the others here but for me ME is the worst OS ever made in de Windows line. Better to get 98SE.

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Well... Today, I decided to just add some hardware to one of the computers... So I removed the floppy drive, added an old SCSI CD-R 8x burner I had lying around, added four hard drives (2x 10GB, 1x 15GB, 1x 20GB). I partitioned one of the 10GB drives into two, installed XP on the first partition, and took the additional three drives and made them a spanned volume (JBOD Array)...

So now I have two 5GB partitions, and a giant 45GB "disk" I have to figure out what to do with! :P All this running on an AMD-K6 processor @ 550MHz with 128MB SDRAM! :P

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i modded my case earlier, took out my fan scoop, added a case fan, and put in a bunch of bound cables...theres so much extra space in it, you wouldn't believe it.

hopefully i can put in the other case fan soon under the HDD's to cool them off, i want to lower that case temp by a lot so its more efficient for the editing i do.

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