Option to buy used system

[CanadianJet]

I have the option of buying a used computer or a few from the school my wife works at. Not sure if they are worth my time to use in anything, my hope would be to convert into an easy home theatre pc. Should I? Lenovo Thinkcentre M57p 4gb ram, 160 gb hdd, E8400 Core Duo 3Ghz, Gigabit network port, cd/dvd drive. Thanks!

[SenKa]

As genwyn said, it depends on price.

 

That would be more than fine as an HTPC with an SSD, thats all you'd need to really change.

[CanadianJet]

Thanks guys for the quick response. I can get them for $40 for 1, $70 for 2, $90 for 3, plus $30 for cd/dvd readers and dual vga/dvi support in all of them.

[SenKa]

2 minutes ago, CanadianJet said:

Thanks guys for the quick response. I can get them for $40 for 1, $70 for 2, $90 for 3, plus $30 for cd/dvd readers and dual vga/dvi support in all of them.

No need to pay extra for the optical readers. That is a good price for those models, lenovos hold their value well due to build quality. I'd buy em.

[Lenovo1984]

12 minutes ago, CanadianJet said:

Thanks guys for the quick response. I can get them for $40 for 1, $70 for 2, $90 for 3, plus $30 for cd/dvd readers and dual vga/dvi support in all of them.

That's not a good price. Core 2 Duo systems can be had for free these days. I have a ThinkCentre M57p, and it struggles with 1080p video. 720p is decent, but not full HD. I would only get those if they were $10 each, and paying more for the optical burners and DVI adapter isn't necessary.

[Lenovo1984]

18 minutes ago, SenKa said:

No need to pay extra for the optical readers. That is a good price for those models, lenovos hold their value well due to build quality. I'd buy em.

I suppose you haven't used those models? They really aren't as good as the specs suggest. Core 2 Duos should be fine, but these aren't great. I don't know about the holding value part either. My company recently sold a lot of M73 machines with 4th Gen i3s for $30 each. 

[SenKa]

18 minutes ago, Lenovo1984 said:

I suppose you haven't used those models? They really aren't as good as the specs suggest. Core 2 Duos should be fine, but these aren't great. I don't know about the holding value part either. My company recently sold a lot of M73 machines with 4th Gen i3s for $30 each. 

I used them for a year or so, once a day, 3 days a week. Mind you these were on W7, they probably do chug quite a bit harder on Windows 10 if thats what OP decided to run. It was pretty obvious they were C2D's, but perfectly usable for what I did with them (1080p video stream, not much outside of a web browser and word).

 

I see C2D thinkcenters selling for $50-80 with Windows 10 around here. $40 is nothing spectacular, especially assuming they'll be wiped, but would make a very competent media PC on a de-crapified Windows 10 (with like a GT1030 or other Low profile GPU), Windows 7, or light weight Linux.

 

The issue with W10 on most C2D machines relying on their iGPU is that they were considered legacy when Windows 8.0 came out and killed driver compatibility with XPDMA drivers (which worked XP-7). New drivers were never made, and that creates a big issue as the Microsoft Basic Display Adapter driver is horrid and gimps performance by massive margins.

[CanadianJet]

So what I am learning is that a couple smallish upgrades and these will work great for playing a dvd, (though i would swap one drive out for a blu-ray). A budget gpu will allow them to work just fine for watching NHL livestreams. There would be no software installed besides powerlink dvd. these would not be for gaming under any circumstance...

[Lenovo1984]

21 hours ago, CanadianJet said:

So what I am learning is that a couple smallish upgrades and these will work great for playing a dvd, (though i would swap one drive out for a blu-ray). A budget gpu will allow them to work just fine for watching NHL livestreams. There would be no software installed besides powerlink dvd. these would not be for gaming under any circumstance...

What is the need for PowerDVD? What form factor are the machines? If they are the USFF model, you can't add a GPU or swap out the optical drive for a Blu-ray drive.