Repurposing an HP p6140f

wpirobotbuilder · September 5, 2015

I got the computer in the summer of 2009, just before I went off to college. I wanted a desktop because I knew I would be doing intensive engineering work, so having a quad core would be very helpful. It was inexpensive ($500 for the desktop and monitor), had a Q8200, 8GB memory, and a 1TB HDD. I had a netbook with an Atom processor in it for working on the go, and that suited me fine.

It ended up being really useful. I got into light gaming, and it did really well with programs like SolidWorks and MATLAB. I added a GT 620 so that I can run Minecraft at 60 fps, and I ended up playing far cry 3 on it for a while. Then I realized how much I care about gaming, and built my current desktop.

This computer's been sitting under my desk for a year, doing nothing. Now it will get a new life in the hands of a friend of my girlfriend's.

The new computer will run Windows 10, rather than 7, and will have a second boot drive they can use to boot Ubuntu off of. It will be used primarily for R programming and Excel work in Windows, mainly for financial analysis.

To do:

1) New boot drive. The old one is 6 years old and was used a lot. I'm giving them that to dual boot Ubuntu.

2) New OS CD. I have an unused 8.1 disk that we'll use to get it started, then do the upgrade.

3) Install Ubuntu on secondary drive.

4) Buy replacement keyboard for me, since I'm using the one that came with it.

5) Update all drivers and packages.

6) Get RStudio set up and upgraded to the latest.

7) Run my handy Ninite installer to get all the basics.

I ordered the parts on Amazon, they came lickity-split.

The first thing I did was make sure the drive was recognized, which it was. I then created an Ubuntu live USB and ran the desktop with that, to make sure everything worked, especially the video card. It did.

Then I plugged the old hard drive into my desktop and backed everything up to my server (Tophat). Once that was done, I formatted it fresh, and shredded it with CCleaner.

While I waited for that to finish (about 3 hours), I indulged in Island Defense.

In parallel with the gaming, I also installed Windows 8.1 and put a whole bunch of stuff on it with Ninite -- mostly web browsers and runtime software like Java. I also installed R Studio.

Finally, I installed Ubuntu 14.04 and packaged it up. Here are shots of the computer, as it's being delivered.