Question about a second rig

I have a LOT of hardware sitting around my house. It's all stuff that I don't want to get rid of because it has all treated me very well. in my rig right now (which is down for some unknown reason, have yet to troubleshoot it) I have an AXP 3000+, 6800 OC, 1gig PC2700, CD-Rw, DVD-Rw, with a Chaintech Mobo (which I think is my problem and is likely to be changed soon). I also have in a box sitting around, an Athlon 1.33Ghz, radeon 9200, CD-Rw and a ZIP250 drive. I picked out a bunch of el-cheapo components (the cheapest mobo, cheapest 256mb of ram, cheapest case, cheapest HDD) on Newegg, and I was thinking of building it and giving it to my parents (their comp right now is a four year old Dell). Is their anything I could do with this budget rig? I was thinking my main rig would be my Design/photography/iTunes rig and the second would be my surfing/gaming/OC'ing rig (even though it would suck for gaming-I just want a rig I can tinker with and not worry about f-ing it up) What would you do? Give the gift of a decent computer or keep it for yourself to tinker with? I need some more input into this. Happy Holidays!

It's really up to you of course, but I'd give it away unless you planned on doing something constructive with it. Maybe build yourself a PVR for example? You'll most likely want to use your main rig for gaming because it's much faster. With that in mind, I can understand the appeal to keep it for tinkering but to me it's kind of wasteful just for that and surfing.

file server box, or spyware box.

Thanks man... thats the way I was leaning cause my mother is a teacher and could really use a rig with more then 128mb of ram and a 4gig HD. BTW, whats a PVR?

A PVR is a personal video recorder. Tivo and replaytv are examples of PRVs. You can build one yourself out of any pc with a 800Mhz or faster processor by purchasing an encoder/capture card and using free/open-source software. A good website for info is byopvr.com

I didn't even know that was possible! That is an awesome idea... my mother wants a tivo anyways.... Thanks for the heads up.

No problemo mi amigo. Always happy to help out.

Well, I decided to bypass on the PVR deal, just too much time and not enough money to make a good one. Looks like dad will be getting her the Tivo. In the meantime, I am building them a new PC. A while ago, my father purchased a retail version of XP pro for the rig they use now. He upgraded from Win98. I was just curious, does anyone know if Microsoft will let me install it on this new rig? Or do I need to get a new copy? I would like thise thing to run right out of the wrapping paper... I want to surprise the sh*t out of my parents, they deserve it. Thanks for your help.

as long as you areonly using it on one computer it should be fine to use the old liscence. Just don't keep it on the other computer at the same time.