[rescue] Looking to rescue a PC

[Lionel Peterson]

On Feb 15, 2010, at 12:56 PM, Scott Newell <newell at cei.net> wrote:

> Where do you think the best bang for the buck is right now?  I'm  
> needing to
> step up from my ancient dual P3-450 box to something a little faster  
> and XP
> capable.  It appears I can get an old P4 2.something, 1GB, XP COA,  
> and a
> small drive for ~$100 shipped.  (For instance,
> http://www.surpluscomputers.com/348987/dell-gx-p4-2.2ghz-tower.html).

Do you have a university nearby? I got a Dell workstation w/ dual  
older 2.4 GHz Xeon CPUs (64 bit, no Virtualization capability), some  
workstation-y graphics card and it was otherwise complete. It was  
under $75 at Princeton University... It's not unusual to find that  
kind of machine now, but friends that buy them for resale claim there  
is very little activity (no buyers).

The model number escapes me (I posted here when I got it, IIRC), but  
that would be a great upgrade.

I'd avoid GX270s, they are all dying at $work - bad caps - Dell had  
warranty repairs for them a few years ago, but had to know if a given  
machine was repaired or not. The Dell GX620s are pretty nice, and can  
take a dual core Pentium (old dual core D Pentiuns).

If you can swing $300-400, I'd take a look at some newer boxes, they  
may take much more RAM, and the ram might be more plentiful/cheaper  
than old systems (DDR2 vs. DDR or PC133).

An older Xeon server might be a good way to go - I got a dual-CPU  
PowerEdge SC1425 w/ 3.0 GHz CPUs, 8 gig of RAM, two 73 Gig SCSI HDs  
for under $300 on eBay shipped w/rails. It's going to be my domain  
server/print server, etc.

Lionel