Old company computers
#1
Hi all,

The company branch that I've been working on will be updating most of its workstation in a few months. There would be like 50 workstation with P4, 256-512MB ram and 40-80GB HDD each (will be replaced with i7, 4GB ram and 500GB-1TB HDD). I was just wondering if there's something I can do with these old computers instead of just sending them to recycling? Thanks
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#2
Stick in an nvidia GT 220 (AGP) and try if it plays 1080P under Linux...
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#3
Yes or even a GT 210..... Smile they are cheaper... I got some extra on ebay....
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#4
Thank, will try that. I'm not very mcuh familiar with linux. Which distro should I use?
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#5
WhiteLighter Wrote:Thank, will try that. I'm not very mcuh familiar with linux. Which distro should I use?
Ubuntu or Linux Mint.
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#6
Or xbmc live, or openelec
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#7
To the above ...

Yes with the GPU upgrade the machine will be able 1080p accelerated but everything else will lag. Websites in 2011 consume a lot of flash and the old processors just can't handle them... similarly XBMC will be slow and sluggish although videos will play just fine.
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#8
not to mention that buying new low-power solutions (ion, zacate) will propably turn out cheaper in long-term (electricity bill)
Always read the XBMC online-manual, FAQ and search the forums before posting.
Do NOT e-mail Team-XBMC members asking for support. Read/follow the forum rules.
For troubleshooting and bug reporting, make sure you read this first

My previous forum/trac nickname: grajen3
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#9
Thanks all Smile

I was also thinking if P4 and 512MB of ram is enough to run xbmc properly. Just thinking of what can I do with these old computers. I was also thinking of creating an unraid box from it but the mobo only has ide on it.
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#10
WhiteLighter Wrote:Thanks all Smile

I was also thinking if P4 and 512MB of ram is enough to run xbmc properly. Just thinking of what can I do with these old computers. I was also thinking of creating an unraid box from it but the mobo only has ide on it.

That is an option as well just by adding a pci sata card, however, you still run into that whole electricity thing. Running an UnRaid with an old inefficient machine may save you up front but you will pay for it monthly in power.
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#11
Well I have a similar machine but it's Athlon based and full to the brim with sata cards, disks ide and sata, gigabit card, it's basically been re-purposed to be my one touch back up server.
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#12
I run a P4 2.8/1gb/8400GS(PCI)/Win7 with a nightly build of XBMC. It's used in my living room which is the least used screen in the house. It's also in a large cabinet along with a CRT HDTV, so the size, noise, and appearance are concealed. It was cobbled together from spare parts and the only real cost was the video card, which I traded for on another forum anyway.

Playback is flawless up to 1080p from MKV H.264 and/or M2TS at around 8-10gb per movie. While UI navigation has a bit of lag, but is still perfectly usable. I would put it on-par with the UI navigation of the ATV2s I have in other rooms in the house.

If you're really interested in using at lease some of these PCs for XBMC, I would just rob RAM from some of the others and install a capable video card. With Live or OpenElec, 512mb of ram may even be plenty.
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#13
A good use for those old desktops is building a server/NAS/whatever, which becomes your centralized 'media warehouse'.

That's what I did. I bought an old IBM P4/1GB/40G machine. Added a 1TB WD Green drive, wiped Windows, installed Xubuntu (lighter than Ubuntu) and configured it as NAS, torrent-downloader with Ktorrent (it's got a nice RSS feature, so it's automated).
There's also a Dynamic DNS client running there... and I'm probably forgetting something else it does for my digital life Big Grin

Believe it or not, that P4 CPU is more than enough for all these tasks while running that OS.

No monitor, I access a full desktop with VNC via SSH, runs 24/7. The original 40G drive holds the OS, the 1TB drive holds the media (HD movies, music, photos) plus backups from other PCs in the house as it's a simple Samba server.

Been serving me well for over 2 years and cost me about 150 bucks, including the brand new 1TB drive.
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