upgrades

[killerkid]

hi all, i have a gateway desktop, i didnt buy it my parents did a long time ago. they arent using it any more so they gave it to me. i was wondering if it is even worth keeping, it is an 800mhz amd athlon, with 128mb sddram NOT DDR, 32 or 16mb nvidia video card, it has a 2x agp slot, i have no idea what that means, and a 13gig hdd, i can put in up to an 1100mhz processor, i can upgrade the ram to 768 sddram NOT DDR, and i can put up to a 40gig hdd in it. is the thing even worth keeping lol? if i put in a 1100mhz cpu, couldnt i always o/c it? gateway said tho mobo wouldnt support anything over a 1100mhz cpu.

well thanks.

 

[dorimon81]

Hey, in my opinion, any computer is worth keeping
It would be cool if you could upgrade it. 1.1 Ghz is pretty fast. If you could overclock it, you could get faster speeds. Only one thing, I would just upgrade the RAM to 1 stick of 512 MB because most systems both run better using only one stick.

 

[/\\/3|2o]

is it worth keeping? ARE YOU INSANE?? YES OF COURSE IT IS!

Throw linux on it and turn it into an ftp or something! Turn it into a personal proxy for you and your friends! You can do a ton with it!

 

[killerkid]

can you tell me more things i can do? can you be more specific, i dont know what a proxy is, can you tell me why i should do this. i cant put in 1 stick of 512 in it, i can only put in 256 sticks, so i can either have 1, 2 or 3 sticks of 256 and its not ddr is the sddr or w/e.

 

[/\\/3|2o]

well when my house finally got more than one computer, i learned a LOT about networking (home networking that is). So if you dont already know how, grab a router and hook it up to the net. You can use that box as your "chatting/music box" and the other one for gaming. So you dont have to alt+tab all the time.

Theres a ton of things you can do with it. Now, if you dont spend that much time on computers then i guess you probably wouldnt be interested in doing anything with it.

 

[killerkid]

thanks for the tip but there already networked, ive got my laptop, my main rig, 2.4ghz p4, 1gig geil golden dragon pc3200 ram, radeon igp 345 128mb gfx card, 40gig hdd, dvd/cdrw, etc. i got the new linksys 802.11g 54mbps wireless router with a 4port dsl/cable switch, its pretty nice, everywhere throughout my house im wirelss, even outside. Do you have any other ideas of what i could do? all i do is spend time on my comps lol.

 

[/\\/3|2o]

If I had an extra comp then i would use it as storage. I would put it up as an ftp and let my friends/family to use it but not put it out to the public. Thats what I would do.

 

[dorimon81]

How would you go about using a computer as an FTP? I would be interested in using one of my rigs as an FTP.

 

[mrm1957]

Make it fold for Team 32

 

[reverse]

that computer has a decent amount of nuts left.

 

[Zerileous]

definatly go for it. This machine still has great potential. I dont see why your harrdive size is limited at all unless it is using some form of scsi...otherwise any IDE drive should work, you just might not get the same speed out of it. The processor upgrade is not a necessity for anything but gaming, but if you want to do it its worth a shot aint it? You could always try a little overclocking, you can get a way overkill HS fairly cheep now, My moms 1 gig athlon has something so tiny it belongs on a NB but its run stable for 3 years and is not too hot. Ram, max it out, as long as you are not going to oc the system to the bleeding edge of insanity then the more ram you have will negate any harmed performance by using multiple sticks.

An example of a quite usefull old computer:
My dad has a 667Mhz Celeron
It came with 64MB ram, i added 256 cuz it was slow.
Now running diskeeper nightly, this thing browses the web (on compuserve) as fast as my friends crappy SBC-Yahoo DSL (he plans to switch to earthlink) on a 2200+.

Note, my current system can run any game on the market and only has minor trouble in Planet Side (the only game i have any trouble with at all)

 

[killerkid]

what about the gfx on it, it has a 2x agp slot, what is that?

 

[DOHCrazy]

I dunno if you play games, but i have an old compaq, 733MHZ running CI (an anticheat program) for my clan 24/7.

So many things you could do with it, thats a perfectly good computer!

 

[killerkid]

i play alot of games but mainly on my laptop, does anyone know what a 2x agp slot is, maybe if i can put in a really nice gfx card, it would be a better gaming rig then my laptop

 

[DaWiper]

2x agp menans that the agp-slot is able to handle 533 MB/s(+/-some) dataflow. 1xagp=266 MB/s. Fastest today is 8xagp=2132 MB/s.
---
Put a ethernet card in it and install linux(mandrake is easy). Use it as a fileserver for your archive. I currently have a PII 333MHz w/128 MB ram 60GB hd running mandrake linux. I use it as a fileserver and my transfer-speed record is 9 MB/s sustained datarate. With your spare machine you should be able to do the same...
And to top it off. I use wake-on-lan to power on the machine. It's hard to get up and walk 5-10m to press the powerswitch...
..

 

[killerkid]

i have a legit copy of suse linux, will that work? i just put xp pro on it, guess i will take it off tho. should i really put in 3 sticks of 256mb sddr ram? also, can i put an 8x gfx card into a 2x agp slot, will it work? is it even worth it?

 

[dorimon81]

How could you set up a web server?