WANTED:A spare old PC knocking about in the attic?

Dr Bob · 21-03-2011 1:56pm #1

Kind of a weird one but I'm looking to get hold of an old Pentium (or older!) PC to use as a c64 hdd server (i.e. storing c64 images).doesn't matter what state its in (as long as it starts), don't need the hard disk either (as I've a few old ones knocking about I can use).
As long as it has a printer port it should work fine!
if anyone has one unused let me know!

o1s1n · 22-03-2011 1:25pm

I just binned an old DELL pc out over the weekend.

Harvested everything but the motherboard and the power supply. (I tried, but they were more hassle to remove than they were worth)

So have the following if you want to put a PC together yourself -

1x CD-RW drive
1x DVD drive
1x 20GB Hdd
2x 256 RAM
1x ATI Geforce 128mb card (I think, will have to have a look at this again)

Dr Bob · 24-03-2011 1:29pm

ah cheers
pity I didnt think to ask here till this week,, tbh though I've a few spare parts knocking about here , its the PC I need ..doh!, but thanks anyway

polyfusion · 24-03-2011 5:11pm

I was offered 2 GX150's yesterday, but declined them. Spec is about P3 1GHz, 512MB, all the legacy ports, USB1.1, a few PCI slots and an AGP slot, floppy, Zip and DVD-ROM drives.

Both were the "small mini-tower chassis" (link), clamshell-type cases, so biggish, but were nice and clean.

Is the spec too high? I'm often offered stuff, so let us know if that spec is too much, or ok for the job. If they're gone, I'll keep a watch out for what might suit you better.

zom · 24-03-2011 5:37pm

o1s1n wrote: »

I just binned an old DELL pc out over the weekend.

Why you people don't use freetrade to recycle that stuff? Almost always there will be someone looking for some old PC, video or TV. Don't you want to be GREEN?

Dr Bob · 24-03-2011 5:47pm

polyfusion wrote: »

I was offered 2 GX150's yesterday, but declined them. Spec is about P3 1GHz, 512MB, all the legacy ports, USB1.1, a few PCI slots and an AGP slot, floppy, Zip and DVD-ROM drives.

Both were the "small mini-tower chassis" (link), clamshell-type cases, so biggish, but were nice and clean.

Is the spec too high? I'm often offered stuff, so let us know if that spec is too much, or ok for the job. If they're gone, I'll keep a watch out for what might suit you better.

Howaya , nice one I'm going to have a look at the specs for 64hdd , I reckon the gx150 might do what I need!
If its gone no bother , I'll drop you a pm later

Myrddin · 24-03-2011 7:03pm

zom wrote: »

Why you people don't use freetrade to recycle that stuff? Almost always there will be someone looking for some old PC, video or TV. Don't you want to be GREEN?

Us people? You think by giving an old pc away, so someone else can bin it in a year or two is green?

Dr Bob · 24-03-2011 7:05pm

speaking of freetrade , reckon this is for reals..or just some youngefella putting his mates mobile no down for muchas hassling:) ?
http://www.freetradeireland.ie/item_detail.php?item_id=65737

Dr Bob · 24-03-2011 7:07pm

EnterNow wrote: »

Us people? You think by giving an old pc away, so someone else can try and sell it at a car boot and eventually bin it in a month or two when it doesnt sell is green?

FYP

Myrddin · 24-03-2011 7:07pm

luas_dublin wrote: »

speaking of freetrade , reckon this is for reals..or just some youngefella putting his mates mobile no down for muchas hassling:) ?
http://www.freetradeireland.ie/item_detail.php?item_id=65737

Likely a wind up, but worth a shot

Either that it'd be a like a scene from Deliverence when you went out to collect it

Optimus Prime · 24-03-2011 7:22pm

Is it just me or does that look like a PS3 Birthday Cake?

Myrddin · 24-03-2011 7:27pm

keithgeo wrote: »

Is it just me or does that look like a PS3 Birthday Cake?

Either that or its inflatable, weird looking thing.

o1s1n · 24-03-2011 7:58pm

zom wrote: »

Don't you want to be GREEN?

No. Now excuse me while I go and burn some binbags.

Did you not read the rest of my post about harvesting the old componants, no? Just chose to ignore that bit then yeah?

pdbhp · 24-03-2011 8:01pm

o1s1n wrote: »

No. Now excuse me while I go and burn some binbags.

Did you not read the rest of my post about harvesting the old componants, no? Just chose to ignore that bit then yeah?

He probably didn't see ther trading forum either where we can swap / giveaway items we no longer use

Myrddin · 24-03-2011 8:02pm

pdbhp wrote: »

He probably didn't see ther trading forum either where we can swap / giveaway items we no longer use

There's a trading forum? Normally I just burn everything :P

pdbhp · 24-03-2011 8:04pm

EnterNow wrote: »

There's a trading forum? Normally I just burn everything :P

Yes we can use it to trade endangered species and charred remains of plastic items that will never degrade

o1s1n · 24-03-2011 8:08pm

Anyone know where I can get some plutonium? I fear my 20 year old Megadrive isn't causing enough environmental damage as is.

pdbhp · 24-03-2011 8:11pm

o1s1n wrote: »

Anyone know where I can get some plutonium? I fear my 20 year old Megadrive isn't causing enough environmental damage as is.

No plutonium but I do have a truck load of toxic waste that we can pour in the Liffey for giggles :pac:

zom · 24-03-2011 10:19pm

EnterNow wrote: »

Us people? You think by giving an old pc away, so someone else can bin it in a year or two is green?

Interesting point of view... Is that any sense to recycle? To collect alu cans or paper when even if reused, it finally MUST finish as a rubbish? Good bye my green bin - all my stuff will go straight to grey one!

And speaking about freetrade - recently some guys started to do not nice jokes putting fake cars, laptops or LCDs on it. It may be end of that website..

Myrddin · 25-03-2011 11:55am

zom wrote: »

Interesting point of view... Is that any sense to recycle? To collect alu cans or paper when even if reused, it finally MUST finish as a rubbish? Good bye my green bin - all my stuff will go straight to grey one!

And speaking about freetrade - recently some guys started to do not nice jokes putting fake cars, laptops or LCDs on it. It may be end of that website..

Unless somone from freetrade is going to disassemble an old pc, sort out all the different metal constituents, from lead to aluminium & recycle each part individually then yeah, its a waste of time.

I'm all for recycling, but binning an old pc instead of giving it away will make about as much difference as the man in the moon will. I'm all for saving the planet, but this 'green' brainwashing is funny sometimes. Take a trip over to India, & tell me we've any hope

o1s1n · 25-03-2011 1:08pm

There are two different scenarios here.

1. As Enternow said, someone would have to break it down into all it's fundamental componants - not going to happen.

2. It'll have to be passed on from person to person until the end of time.

As I stripped the casing of its useful parts, the empty shell is not going to be passed on forever - further to that, I left it out for recycling. So if anyone knows if it can be recycling, it's the people who collect the recycling.

Optimus Prime · 25-03-2011 1:10pm

Its like organ donors. You take out and transplant the insides but no one can do anything with the body. So its time to bury that bad boy!

pdbhp · 25-03-2011 1:13pm

There's a place in Blanchardstown that does that very thing, breaking down old pc's into thier components for re-use and recycling, supposedly there's a lot of money to be made in it

Optimus Prime · 25-03-2011 1:29pm

Probably similiar to what they do with the mobile phones. They get the gold off the boards. I remember reading somewhere that people are making a fortune getting the gold out of old phones.

Myrddin · 25-03-2011 2:39pm

pdbhp wrote: »

There's a place in Blanchardstown that does that very thing, breaking down old pc's into thier components for re-use and recycling, supposedly there's a lot of money to be made in it

Ah yes, drive over & pollute the atmosphere in order to save the planet

Ya gotta love eco warriors...you never get something for nothing, ever. Actually tbh, two trucks going around collecting bins in every town of every city now where 1 truck used to do it all...very green.

yrwhu8jxtni06a · 25-03-2011 3:13pm

And if someone is offloading some piece that's rare/valuable the vultures are your friends all sudden

And yes the used pc components are handy for upgrading up old pcs instead paying over odds new.

o1s1n · 25-03-2011 3:54pm

Brandon Plain Backstage wrote: »

And if someone is offloading some piece that's rare/valuable the vultures are your friends all sudden

.

Ah, tell me about it. The moment people heard I had the ultra rare Dell Dimension 3000 desktop going for free they descended on my house like an angry mob. I had to throw it out to protect myself

Brandon Plain Backstage wrote: »

And yes the used pc components are handy for upgrading up old pcs instead paying over odds new.

Well that's pretty much what I did. I mainly use laptops now, but I always like to have a desktop about for whatever reason. I found a Dell Optiplex in a bin last week and it was about 1/3 (or less) the size as my Dimension. So out went the big monstrosity and in came a nice little thing.

It's so small I was thinking I might even put it in the candy cab once that gets fixed. (I know, I know. No, I haven't banged my head)

Optimus Prime · 25-03-2011 3:58pm

Luas i think i have a pc you can have, its a p2 or 3 i think. it a few years old. ill send you a pm.

Dr Bob · 25-03-2011 5:52pm

o1s1n wrote: »

Ah, tell me about it. The moment people heard I had the ultra rare Dell Dimension 3000 desktop going for free they descended on my house like an angry mob. I had to throw it out to protect myself

Well that's pretty much what I did. I mainly use laptops now, but I always like to have a desktop about for whatever reason. I found a Dell Optiplex in a bin last week and it was about 1/3 (or less) the size as my Dimension. So out went the big monstrosity and in came a nice little thing.

It's so small I was thinking I might even put it in the candy cab once that gets fixed. (I know, I know. No, I haven't banged my head)

its not an sx270/280 is it?
They're nice small machines but have a HORRIBLE motherboard failure rate due to some dodgy capacitors.

Optimus Prime · 25-03-2011 6:00pm

I had two of those sx's myself and both stopped working. Its a pity because they would have been perfect size to fit inside an old NES case! :pac: Broken NES of course.

polyfusion · 25-03-2011 8:30pm

luas_dublin wrote: »

its not an sx270/280 is it?
They're nice small machines but have a HORRIBLE motherboard failure rate due to some dodgy capacitors.

If the caps are Rubycons, they'll probably be ok, and if they're still working at this stage, chances are that they'll continue to work.

I've seen a large number of GX270s and GX280s through work, all with Rubycons, and they're all fine. Must have been lucky with those PCs and the batch they were made in.

If they have Nichicon caps though, better to pre-emp any leakage, and change them now.

GX270 is a nice PC if you can get your hands on one for nothing or cheaply; 2xSATA and 2xIDE, and 4 slots for up to 4GB DDR2. CPU averages about 3GHz (just before dual core), and I think the last Dell to use PS/2 ports. So a good workhorse PC to have for everyday stuff or as a reserve.

WANTED:A spare old PC knocking about in the attic?

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