Just been given a PC, what to do with it ?

[Behemoth]

I sold some friends my old PC as they were finding theirs really slow, I went over to vist them this evening and they said they needed some files off the old PC. When I asked what they wanted doing with it after they said they were going to bin it unless I wanted it. Needless to say I can't see potentially good kit going to waste so it soon found it's way to the boot of my car.

My first plan was to strip it down and sell the parts, till I saw what was in it !

It's a Dell Dimension C521, and I expected it to be some general run of the mill P4 thing. But to my surprise when taking the lid off discovered it was AMD based (Athlon 64). It also has 3 gig of DDR2 Ram and a 160 gig HDD.

So I'm now thinking perhaps a server of some kind or perhaps a download box.

Annoyingly it's got an XP Media Centre COA on it, and because I don't have any media for that version of XP thats the idea of using its COA right out the window.

Providing it works, then its really a case of finding a suitable server OS for it, can't afford any of the MS options so thats really going to leave me with the likes of some flavour of Linux or another. Now while I don't need a server per se, it would be nice to gain a bit of experience with tinkering, thats how I learn, not so much by reading on things but by doing.

The good thing is, it's small enough for me to tuck away in a corner of my room somewhere and not know it's running

Your thoughts please.

[format]

NAS/backup box? Media server (if you need one)?

Hardware firewall if you really want?

[Molotov]

Had a rather similar situation today

Found my old laptop and one a mate of mine gave me for the hell of it :
Spent the whole day on them - took both apart completely, which was intimidating but turned out to be hell of a load of fun and just been messing with the two.

IMHO like you said if you enjoy learning by doing and an opportunity like this came up - why not use it ! Mess about with it as much as possible and when you are bored (and if its still standing ) it's always there to do something trivial with !

[MadduckUK]

sell it on ebay, get about £80 for it, buy a p3 optiplex for £30, and a intel 1000MT for £10, make a smoothwall out of those, gain a fantastic router that will last forever and £40.

[Behemoth]

It would apear it's a Athlon 3500 on an AM2 socket running 2.2 GHz.

Decided to make it my download box.

[scaryjim]

Any idea which version of the 3500+ it is? I've found three different versions with TDP between 35W and 62W!

If it was me I'd be turning it into a local web (and potentially mail) server for messing around with php / perl etc., but not everyone's as much of a sad geek as me

You could always wap a GT240 in it and use it for folding...

[Tattysnuc]

As Jim says please stick a copy of Stanfords folding@home app on it and join our folding fun....

[Pob255]

If it was me I'd be turning it into a local web (and potentially mail) server for messing around with php / perl etc., but not everyone's as much of a sad geek as me

And here's me thinking MOD IT!

Secure FTP for a personal file server?

[Singh400]

I'd give it to a needed family or charity. That's what I did with my old PC.

[Behemoth]

I've given stuff away before, the last time I did the kids killed it (literally) fed it a jam sandwhich so vowed never to give stuff like that away again.

[Pob255]

What you mean it wasn't jam sandwich compatible? or where they using non-standard bread?

[MSIC]

Behemoth do you own any iOS devices?
I ask because I've become a huge fan of Air Video, (not made by Apple) which streams video wirelessly to iPads, iPods and iPhones. But you need the PC / server on though (clearly), so needs to low power and yet powerful enough to transcode on the fly. Your new pc would sound ideal.

[Behemoth]

I used to own an iPod touch but it died so replaced it with a 2tb external HDD instead.

[BWVictorious]

Before you decide to keep it as a server, nas or whatever make sure you double check where to place it.

I converted an old pc into a samba server with PVR capabilities only to realise that it was
a) making to much noise to be in the living room (at least always on!)
b) too ugly to mesh with the rest of the living room furniture
c) running it all day on a small cubicle made it turn off due to heat.

In the end i threw it away as it was just not worth it.

Yours Truly
K