Computer necromancy

[malada]

So about that pile of computers I rescued from the dump... eh, er... yeah.

After careful Googling I discovered that two to them could have their CPUs upgraded. One came with a 2.2 Ghz dual core and the other a Pentium D single core. Upgrade the first one to a 3.0 Ghz cpu - 5 dollars? Sounds good.

Swap the old one out and put that into the other one. Now it's rocking dual cores! Upgrade cost: 0 dollars.

Will these 10-12 year old machines ever run GAMES? You know... first person shoot 'em ups? Seems to be the only game type out there. Eh, maybe some older ones with the right graphics cards. And they'll be Linux systems because Windows is 100 dollars a pop. Gaming on Linux is a different discussion. But word processing, web surfing, audio editing, graphics, video editing... a little chancy on the last one but otherwise they'll be fine.

-m

Comments

[siliconshaman]

There's a reason my user name is what it is.. I talk to dead computers, sometimes resurrect them. My daughters gaming computer is basically a Frankenstein machine with mostly old parts and some new. My workshop machine and the media player computer are fully recycled parts only. I think I've spent maybe £150 on all three [mostly a new-ish graphics card, before the prices went silly.]

Just because something is old, doesn't mean to say it isn't useful.

[marahmarie]

I talk to dead computers

Yeah, me too - also cell phones, laptops and tablets. Like malada a lot of the stuff we have around here didn't cost us anything (besides parts: the kitchen laptop has a new charger and has chewed through two keyboards but seems OK with the third; the Surface has a new charger, too, but otherwise cost only what it took to drive it home from the curb). Oh, and (edit) my cell phone has a new USB port board, case and glass, but was otherwise no cost, as well.

[siliconshaman]

Well, technically, anything with a cpu is a computer... and that's my thing. You know what they say; Repair, Reuse, Resurrect!

[marahmarie]

I get confused about that really easily because I'm used to back in the day when someone said "computer" but they meant "that tower over there"; if they had something else they'd say so, back when towers were still the default. I never know who defines computer as the old-timey tower over there, alone, and who defines it as we do (anything with a motherboard, basically) so I tend to default to elaborating!

[marahmarie]

Where do you get a (3.0 GHz, dual-core) CPU for $5? I'm pretty impressed.

[malada]

It was an Amazon reseller. The price was originally 15 dollars but there was a price drop.

I could have put in a 3.3 Ghz processor - but it was going for 25 dollars. Eh, no.

I had to do a BIOS update from a USB stick to use the faster CPU. I tried a floppy disk but there wasn't enough room on the disk to expand the flash program.

-m

[marahmarie]

I tried a floppy disk

Now there's some old school tech. I literally haven't touched or even seen a floppy disk in the wild since maybe 2003. And the last time I seriously used one was on an Apple computer, back in 1988 or 1989, at my high school.

I had to do a BIOS update from a USB stick to use the faster CPU

So the BIOs can support the faster processor with the BIOS update, at least. Not all can, and I hate reaching a ceiling on them that can't be circumvented.

It was an Amazon reseller. The price was originally 15 dollars but there was a price drop.

Yeah, I could see that. I've looked up older CPUs/mobos we have kicking around here to sell on eBay and the best I could do on most of them was maybe $27 each, and those are some old damn processors (single core, max speed maybe 1.7 GHz?). And I thought/still think that at that price it isn't worth the trouble of listing them. So to get one at that speed for $5 sounds pretty good.