Use for a spare computer

Hi all,

I am currently using a Laptop at uni which is fine and dandy for most stuff but is a pain with respect to noise. In our house we have a "No Downloading in the Day" policy so that people can still take advantage of out 2mb line without slowing general net access in the day. Problem is my laptop is noisy as hell at night so I never bother downloading cos it keeps me awake.

I have a spare PC that I would like to use as a downloader at night. I have no monitor or anything. Is there a way to control it using my laptop and a USB connection?

Ben

how many share you 2 meg line in the house ??? 2meg is a lot to flood ??

There are tons of windows apps and MANY linux apps that you can shedule job downloads, then just mount them over a network to your laptop in the morning.

There is no way of controlling the PC via USB for initial setup, but what you can do it borrow a house mates monitor/keyboard - set it up, and install windows terminal services or vnc and controll it over that.

Better still set it up as a server for the house and allow everyone to schedule downloads, and share files across it ?

just a thought

Theres 8 of us in the house, its not really the download speed but when using torrents the upload portion of our seems to get cained. Takes ages to request a page but it does come down fairly quickly. Was hoping to have a GUI way of doing it as I am not keen on using VNC etc, Oh Well!

use Windows Remote Desktop on it or Nomachine NX

as above if you are have WinXP on one of the machines then you can use Remote desktop.

Unfortunatly i don't think there is a no way i know of to completly setup the computer and install an o/s headless.

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Originally Posted by englishpremier

Unfortunatly i don't think there is a no way i know of to completly setup the computer and install an o/s headless.

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Practice installing the OS on your laptop, until you know where all the buttons are located to the point where you can do it blindfolded. Voila you're ready to do a headless setup.

I did similar once when I was desperate using keyboard commands.

Alternatively get one of those slipstreamed automated installations.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by englishpremier

as above if you are have WinXP on one of the machines then you can use Remote desktop.

Unfortunatly i don't think there is a no way i know of to completly setup the computer and install an o/s headless.

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So say for example (because its true!) that I'm running XP Pro on laptop, I can hook in to the spare which is running 98 (Although I could put XP on it) and remote desktop it?

Could use RealVNC viewer and server which is free to remote control the machine :)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Firelord

Could use RealVNC viewer and server which is free to remote control the machine :)

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What he said - easiest way I've found.

Try setting emule up on just one machine? The web interfce allows easy download for everyone then.

use your machine for downloads and just yours and then share the downloads with the others I doubt they would complain.

I am on a 1MB line and 4 people use the connection, I have emule running 24/7 and people can use the net just fine.

I've even got a time schedule set up on my emule so the downloads go unrestricted at night. They have 15% of the line in the day.

Think I'm gonna go the RealVNC route, seems to do more or less what I want. Thanks for the help!

Ben

Get Getright and use it's speed limit function (emule etc have this too). Set it to say 512 and leave the rest of the meg and a half for everyone else. You should only need the full 2 meg if more than 3 people are online gaming surely.

Other than that, if you don't have a video in on your laptop, get a cheap video adaptor with a USB interface.

I would use the spare PC as a server too.