Reusing really old/weak PC

[horace528]

Not a really new build per say, but got really no idea where to post this one.

Dug around, and found a really old home PC that still functions from around 2009. Really bad computer, with an Atom 230 for a CPU and GMA950 for graphics.

It also has 2 SATA ports and a IDE port, along with 1GB of RAM (max. 2GB ram supported). For the I/O, USB, Onboard sound, Ethernet, VGA, SCSI Printer, Serial, and PS2 ports are all there and intact. There is also a PCI (not PCIe) port that can be used.

 

After finding said PC, I started thinking about how I can repurpose this ancient piece of hardware and put it back into use, without junking it of course. First I thought that a HTPC would be a good idea, but upon finding out that the hardware couldn't even play 1080p video, I decided to give up on it. As of now, I am thinking that repurposing the hardware as a NAS would be the best idea, but wanted to see what the LTT forums can think of to reuse the PC.

 

So, what do you guys think would be the best idea for this PC (without throwing it out and recycling it)?

[CardinalHunter]

11 minutes ago, horace528 said:

Not a really new build per say, but got really no idea where to post this one.

Dug around, and found a really old home PC that still functions from around 2009. Really bad computer, with an Atom 230 for a CPU and GMA950 for graphics.

It also has 2 SATA ports and a IDE port, along with 1GB of RAM (max. 2GB ram supported). For the I/O, USB, Onboard sound, Ethernet, VGA, SCSI Printer, Serial, and PS2 ports are all there and intact. There is also a PCI (not PCIe) port that can be used.

 

After finding said PC, I started thinking about how I can repurpose this ancient piece of hardware and put it back into use, without junking it of course. First I thought that a HTPC would be a good idea, but upon finding out that the hardware couldn't even play 1080p video, I decided to give up on it. As of now, I am thinking that repurposing the hardware as a NAS would be the best idea, but wanted to see what the LTT forums can think of to reuse the PC.

 

So, what do you guys think would be the best idea for this PC (without throwing it out and recycling it)?

Leave it as it is? I mean with a pc like that, you're gonna have to upgrade the mobo, the cpu, thegpu and the psu which just means building a new pc.

[tlink]

you could make it into a router, or as a dropbox that you can access anywhere. or do both in one. would only really require a semi decent network card depending on how your current infrastructure is.
 

 

[CardinalHunter]

Just now, tlink said:

you could make it into a router, or as a dropbox that you can access anywhere. or do both in one. would only really require a semi decent network card depending on how your current infrastructure is.
 

 

yo that would be cool

[fjdhdhcyfhf]

You cannot upgrade an atom it should be a SoC.

Good news its very low power so you can throw in a multi-port NIC and turn it into a proxy server, NAS, and a packet sniffer.

Throw in a BSD between you and the rest of your LAN or the internet and be a little bit safer from a worm outbreak.

I wonder if it has built in wireless? that would be good for spying on unencrypted wireless traffic.

http://ark.intel.com/products/35635/Intel-Atom-Processor-230-512K-Cache-1_60-GHz-533-MHz-FSB

I think this is what I had in my little netbook. That was a cool little single core portable trouble maker. Only 4W thats better than todays celerons that do 6W. Should handle 2 Sata drives & network traffic well as it has hyper threading. It can definitely not handle 1080p movies, there was a decoder card released for netbooks but they were not very popular and I could never get mine working in linux.

 

One more thing it can boot linux in 10 seconds, its just got crap graphics & RAM so can't take a full desktop manager like gnome. I used open box to get that boot time

 

[horace528]

3 hours ago, SCHISCHKA said:

You cannot upgrade an atom it should be a SoC.

Good news its very low power so you can throw in a multi-port NIC and turn it into a proxy server, NAS, and a packet sniffer.

Throw in a BSD between you and the rest of your LAN or the internet and be a little bit safer from a worm outbreak.

I wonder if it has built in wireless? that would be good for spying on unencrypted wireless traffic.

http://ark.intel.com/products/35635/Intel-Atom-Processor-230-512K-Cache-1_60-GHz-533-MHz-FSB

I think this is what I had in my little netbook. That was a cool little single core portable trouble maker. Only 4W thats better than todays celerons that do 6W. Should handle 2 Sata drives & network traffic well as it has hyper threading. It can definitely not handle 1080p movies, there was a decoder card released for netbooks but they were not very popular and I could never get mine working in linux.

 

One more thing it can boot linux in 10 seconds, its just got crap graphics & RAM so can't take a full desktop manager like gnome. I used open box to get that boot time

 

Hmm I dunno about a multi-NIC card for a PCI slot, can't find a reasonable one that supports PCI, at least in my country that is. Even if i can get a NIC card with one Ethernet port, I don't think it'll be worth turning it into a router with only two ports. Anything over two ports, and either it's for PCIe or the price is too high to justify.

[nerdv2]

I would recommend you use that PC as a local FTP/Samba/NAS server using linux/FreeNAS or sorts, since it has a 2 SATA port that you could use for hard drive expansion.