Recycled PC: Old Computers with a New Purpose

jmke · 8th June 2009, 12:54

Frequently, we find that new technological breakthroughs make old hardware that was just fine seem quaint. Be it a race toward higher clock speeds, faster front side buses, multiple cores, etc, computers become disused and replaced. Green attitudes have dissuaded people from tossing out components that are, for all intents and purposes, quite harmful to the environment. Moreover, current operating systems are becoming more power hungry let alone the software that runs on them. What's interesting about these computers is that in many cases they're perfectly usable.

http://benchmarkreviews.com/index.ph...26&Item id=38

8th June 2009, 13:57

What a coincidence, just salvaged an old PIII 800 and turned it into a multipurpose linux server ^^ .
The good thing is that it hardly consumes energy, it's quiet and linux makes it fly as if it where new.

jmke · 8th June 2009, 14:36

check power consumption nonetheless, these olds PCs are surprisingly power hungry compared to a recent power-friendly cheapo setup

8th June 2009, 15:02

Yeah, many only seem to be power misery. Many use ~60-70% efficient PSU's, and PIII's were always hungry for power.

8th June 2009, 15:09

I know they're quit power hungry, I've been looking for a pinmod to undervolt it since undervolting in the BIOS doesn't work

. So far I've found one, but it's not as easy as expected :/ .

Anyway, got a nice server now and it doesn't have to run 24/7 so power consumption isn't such a big problem

19th June 2009, 14:45

Just found out that the cheap Matsonic board has jumpers for settings VID and multiplier. Changing multiplier or FSB doesn't work, so I'm now looking how low it can go at default speed

.

8th June 2009, 12:54	#1
jmke Madshrimp Join Date: May 2002 Location: 7090/Belgium Posts: 79,022	Recycled PC: Old Computers with a New Purpose Frequently, we find that new technological breakthroughs make old hardware that was just fine seem quaint. Be it a race toward higher clock speeds, faster front side buses, multiple cores, etc, computers become disused and replaced. Green attitudes have dissuaded people from tossing out components that are, for all intents and purposes, quite harmful to the environment. Moreover, current operating systems are becoming more power hungry let alone the software that runs on them. What's interesting about these computers is that in many cases they're perfectly usable. http://benchmarkreviews.com/index.ph...26&Item id=38 __________________

8th June 2009, 14:36	#3
jmke Madshrimp Join Date: May 2002 Location: 7090/Belgium Posts: 79,022	check power consumption nonetheless, these olds PCs are surprisingly power hungry compared to a recent power-friendly cheapo setup __________________

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8th June 2009, 13:57	#2
wutske Posts: n/a	What a coincidence, just salvaged an old PIII 800 and turned it into a multipurpose linux server ^^ . The good thing is that it hardly consumes energy, it's quiet and linux makes it fly as if it where new.

8th June 2009, 15:02	#4
Kougar Posts: n/a	Yeah, many only seem to be power misery. Many use ~60-70% efficient PSU's, and PIII's were always hungry for power.

8th June 2009, 15:09	#5
wutske Posts: n/a	I know they're quit power hungry, I've been looking for a pinmod to undervolt it since undervolting in the BIOS doesn't work . So far I've found one, but it's not as easy as expected :/ . Anyway, got a nice server now and it doesn't have to run 24/7 so power consumption isn't such a big problem

19th June 2009, 14:45	#6
wutske Posts: n/a	Just found out that the cheap Matsonic board has jumpers for settings VID and multiplier. Changing multiplier or FSB doesn't work, so I'm now looking how low it can go at default speed .