Need advice: old PC worth using?

Vinny

Vinny

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There's an old HP a250n sitting in the basement. It was my brother's and it hasn't been turned on since 2006 I'm guessing. He was gonna donate it (and thus pulled/gave away the HD) unless I could use it for something... I was planning on turning it into an emulator machine but never got around to doing anything with it.

I was thinking of turning it into something I can leave on for long periods (since my PC turns my room into an incubator after an hour of use) to use for homework, torrents and possibly an XP gaming machine for older games that I never got around to playing (System Shock 2, Oni, etc.) since many of those games are hit or miss on Windows 7, even with compatibility patches.

The problem is, it's dusty as fuck (it'll likely take at least 2-3 hours to clean) and doesn't have the HD (I have a spare, and the XP serial # is still on the side!)... so I'd have to do a lot of prepwork before I can turn it on.

Here's a spec sheet. I think he kept it stock besides the graphics card, which he upgraded (though I don't know to what) and since the graphics card need it's own power source, he had to upgrade his power supply too.
http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/document?lc=en&dlc=en&cc=us&docname=c00024879

Is it worth salving? Any recommend upgrades (more memory? OCing, assuming I can access the BIOS?)? I get that since it's a vendor PC, it has proprietary parts but I'm pretty good at jerry-rigging.
 
You likely wont be able to OC, manuf MBs are almost always locked.

Anyways, this is a pretty standard P4/512MB RAM computer that you see sold in droves today for less than $50. You won't get much out of this computer, performance wise, other than internet/office and if you want games, really old games/emulators.

2GB is the max RAM it would take. You won't notice a huge difference. And you'd really be wasting money unless you're a hobbyist.

Get what you can out of it but don't put any money into it. And if you have problems getting XP installed (there's numerous versions of Windows XP within the Pro brand,) just download a HP branded Windows XP disc and it'll install without the product key required.
 
yeah i wouldnt put any money in it

My friend got some old pcs from work and wnated to get em working. he was looking at spending a little over 200$ because out of production stuff like ddr2, ribbon cable hds and gaming vid cards are are about as expensive as some of the newer stuff.

really you can get a low end barebones system pretty cheap, something like 200$. probably even cheaper if you go ebay. Even the low end emachine stuff is going to be much much better than an upgraded out of date pc. :)
 
With a hair blower set on cold and an old tooth brush you can have that PC spotless.

You have a lot of options. Personally, I would format that rig, put Linux (Freespire) and learn it if I did not already do so.

You can also turn it into a 4 player arcade machine with Windows XP Pro SP3. Just leave it as is and download games within it's spec.

HTPC that bitch too.

That's a decent rig for some home projects.
 
I'm just hoping it can run Office 2010 without much fuss and play some emulators (hoping it can handle epsxe at least). I guess I'll avoid throwing money into it.

[quote name='Megazell']With a hair blower set on cold and an old tooth brush you can have that PC spotless.
[/QUOTE]

Really? I've never heard of this trick. The problem is the dust that is in the female connectors.. so that's gonna be a pain.
 
Holy shit, it took like 3 fucking hours to clean the damn thing.. and it was hot as hell outside, which didn't help matters.

I pulled everything out, cleaned it off with a duster/brush. Re-sealed the CPU and GPU and got everything running perfectly. I was even able to use an old OEM copy of XP pro (which is registered to another computer) since I don't have a disc for XP Home (which is what the serial number is for).

This thing flies compared to my laptop and I haven't seen it go over 150 watts under load, though it does hang sometimes if I try to multitask. I'm thinking about upgrading the CPU to a 3.4GHz processor, which can be had for $8, but not sure if I'll see a substantial increase.

I just hope the graphics card holds. AGP graphics cards are fucking expensive.
 
You wouldn't want to buy a new AGP card because they definitely are expensive. Grab a used one off of eBay for $15-20 if yours goes out, they're not that bad and a newer card would bottleneck with your CPU/RAM anyway.

I'd say $8 for a small CPU upgrade is worth it if you actually plan on putting the machine to use.
 
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I would take a look at Freecycle.org for a video card or another free used computer that has one. I got a ton recently and just made 20 killers rigs out of 30 free ones.
 
[quote name='red flare graf']You wouldn't want to buy a new AGP card because they definitely are expensive. Grab a used one off of eBay for $15-20 if yours goes out, they're not that bad and a newer card would bottleneck with your CPU/RAM anyway.

I'd say $8 for a small CPU upgrade is worth it if you actually plan on putting the machine to use.[/QUOTE]

Well, I don't plan on upgrading the graphics card at all. I just hope it survives for a few years since AGP cards, even used 7000/8000 series cards, are ridiculously expensive. If anything, I'll be upgrading the graphics card on my gaming computer once I set it up in the basement.

The 6800 in there now seems to be plenty capable for what I want to do (run PS1 emulation and a few older games) but it does run pretty hot- 55C at idle and 68C under a very short load.

[quote name='Megazell']I would take a look at Freecycle.org for a video card or another free used computer that has one. I got a ton recently and just made 20 killers rigs out of 30 free ones.[/QUOTE]

Thanks for the tip... I didn't even think about doing this!
 
Get some cheap parts and make a HTPC. I love mine and run some emulators on it. I have mine set up to boot directly into XBMC.
 
[quote name='Vinny']The 6800 in there now seems to be plenty capable for what I want to do (run PS1 emulation and a few older games) but it does run pretty hot- 55C at idle and 68C under a very short load. [/QUOTE]

You could try pulling the heat sink off of it and applying some new thermal paste. A good paste like Arctic Silver is pretty inexpensive (a must have if you ever work on/tinker with PCs, anyway) and it's really hard to mess that up.
 
[quote name='red flare graf']You could try pulling the heat sink off of it and applying some new thermal paste. A good paste like Arctic Silver is pretty inexpensive (a must have if you ever work on/tinker with PCs, anyway) and it's really hard to mess that up.[/QUOTE]

As I mentioned earlier, I already did that (though I said "re-sealed" instead of "re-seated"). I don't think it's either the fan or the thermal compound... looks the temps are pretty normal based on some really old reviews I found (but it seems like temps were as big a concern back then since very few reviews even mention it).

But fucking hell, I can't get ePSXe to work which was like my #2 reason for doing all of this.:whistle2:(
 
Well, it turns out one of the optical drives can't read PS1 discs for some reason (works for other things, since I used it to install Office 10 and a wifi adapter's drivers). But it's got another one that reads 'em.

Games run pretty nicely, full screen @ 1680x1050 and with plenty of filters! Sweet!!:D

Man, finally done. Glad I set this baby back up! Now my room can stay slightly cooler...:lol:
 
Like someone else said, AGP cards are a dime a dozen. I see them posted every couple weeks on my local Freecycle. I also regulary discard them. They have no real market.

On the other hand, I do use PCI cards from time to time. Yes, PCI. Not PCIx. lol
 
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