Question

[CanaBalistic]

I have a question for you guys. I can get older computers for dirt cheap. Are they good for anything? Can they be turned into a decent HTPC or a file server? The computers range from 386's to p3's.

[AKA_RA]

p3s might work as a htpc, depending on what speed and what motherboard you got. but i cant imagine a 386 bewing much good really, unless you need a really big paper weight.

[CanaBalistic]

What about a file server, a p3 should be good enough for that right? Lets say i got a p3, what would my best os be if i wanted a file server?

[OvRiDe]

I have been testing FreeNAS for a while now.. http://www.freenas.org/ It works great! Takes only 16MB of disk space (so you could put it on a cheap Flashdrive and save your disk drives for storage), and has a web based interface to adminster it, so you don't need a keyboard, mouse or monitor once you finish the install.

Hope this helps ..

[Nagoshi]

Or just use Windows XP. Im runnin XP on my P3 right now, and it runs about 25% faster than with 98SE or ME.

Or you can use NT for networking.

But note, for a P3, you may surely need an extra HD controller, to allows bigger sizes. If you are lucky enough, you may get an ABIT BE6-II motherboard, which has 2 controllers, for a total of 4 UDMA/66 HDDs and 4 UDMA/33 devices. Im having 3 HDDs and 1 CD drive (would have 2 drives if I wouldnt be missing molex splitters). But even then, HPT366 does not support more than like 80Gb of hard disk, or somewhat around that, I cant remember the right number. So you will probly need one of those PCI controllers.

[silverdemon]

I'm using windows server 2003 on a AMD K6 II 500 MHz system... works very good... and uses less resources than winXP ...

[nil8]

386's are fun to burn up or shoot.

FreeNAS looks like fun to play with.

[fiendskull9]

run FreeNAS, Slackware Linux, or an other lightweight linux distro.....

dont run windows NT, youll get alot better performance with FreeNAS >_<

if you dont know how to use linux, go to a local computer nerd shop, and ask if anyone does, explain that your setting up a file server.....

or google around

-clay

[nil8]

Google is a better option. There's enough linux users out now to solve almost any dilemma a new user will have.

[Omega]

As for the 386s; try to see if you can overclock the **** out of them and take off the heatsink.

CPU go boom! :D

[Nagoshi]

386s got no heatsinks... if you want proof, I can take a picture of my 486 CPU. And I dont think we can overclock them, as they have no apparent jumper configurations, nor BIOS settings (as far as my memory goes).

[Cevinzol]

386/486 machines can be overclocked but you have to do it manually.
really manually.
Like removing (desoldering) the quartz timing chip on the motherboard and replacing (resoldering) it with a faster one. Good luck finding compatable chips these days.
not worth doing
but playing around with the rest of the parts would be great for supplies for future mods.
you could practice on the cases and have a blast!

If you have the storage space, I'd grab them and mess around.
make some system test platforms.

[Drac998]

The 386 processor really has no value or use today. The cases themselves may prove usefull for parts and raw materials. Other then that, to the junkyard they go.

What are you really going to overclock a 386 to? 50 Mhz? 75?

[Nagoshi]

50 mhz?? ure generous! 486 were cadenced from 33MHz to 100MHz, and I think there were some at 133... Dont expect too much from 386s... And trust me, Ive got an old IBM PS/2 that may have, what, not even 5MHz CPU speed... Theres no BIOS in it so I cant know how it works. Well, the ''BIOS'' is integrated on a software on the hard drive, and its really complicated. Theres no apparent BIOS in that computer anyway.

[CanaBalistic]

No overclocking? Isnt the turbo button a one touch oc?

I'll actually have to get a system or two to see what they have and usefulness they have. I went to the salvation army yesterday and they had nothing (there were 2-3 there a few weeks ago). Someone bought them... Ill keep checking there and also at value village.

[Nagoshi]

Yea, but when the turbo button was at ON the CPU was runnign at 100% speed. Short explanation :

I had a 486 DX4/100MHz. Turbo off = 40MHz but Im not sure. It went down by half. It all depends on the CPU speed. Turbo ON = 100MHz.

And who anyway would turn off his damned turbo button? Our comps were already very slow, we did not needed to slow 'em more!


Except in school, playing with old P1s with those turbo buttons have never been sooo funny :)

[XcOM]

While at uni, me and my mate had a challange, who could overclock there P2 266MHz machine the most and still get it to work,

My mate adam, got his to 600MHz with a HUGE HSF, I got mine to 2.3GHz:eek:

Using an aray of HSF's and a fridge !!!!!!!, clingfilm coated foil to direct heat away, and yes it was very stable, got windows XP to install on it, and play a few games quite well (GPU Limitations were reached though)

All in all, i was shocked myself it still worked.8) Just go to show, anything can be overclocked beyond reason and beyond what the advrage Script Kiddie thinks is possable.

[Nagoshi]

2.3....GHZ?!

I cant trust you! I can hardly get my P3 550MHz to 787MHz, and temps are just like stock (around 32C idle)! How the heck could a 266MHz go to 2.3GHz? RAM would be ****ing up, and PCI clocks too! You hacked the CPu multiplier??

I need pics :D

[CanaBalistic]

well i am unsure about thoes clocks but as soon as i get my hands on an old machine, you bet your ass ill try and overclock it.

[Cevinzol]

And who anyway would turn off his damned turbo button? Our comps were already very slow, we did not needed to slow 'em more!
Originally the "turbo" button was designed to provide backwards compatability with old games.

Games written for the really old Intel 8088 CPU (4.77Mhz) were coded based on the CPU speed. Running one of these games on a new (at the time) 386 DX-40Mhz CPU would mean the game would run 10 Times as fast as it was supposed to. Those aliens would land, take over, build a condo and invite you over for a BBQ before you fired a shot.

Hence the "TURBO" button. or more precisely the 'UNtorbo' button. This forced the M/B to slow down. The turbo button was really for the 286 CPU and though it appeared in many 386 machines, it really couldn't make the CPU go as slow as 4.77Mhz.

oldcomputers.net (http://oldcomputers.net/index.html) has a nice history of the development of the computer. It a fun read because its easier to appreciate what you have once you know where its from.

[CanaBalistic]

its easier to appreciate what you have once you know where its from.

How true, Its also easier to understand the mechanics of it all. The first thing i learnt in my pc repair program was computer history. Old code breaking machines and the like.

Trivial Trivia:
Leonardo Davinci built the first analog computer. It was a self propeled and self steering cart.

[Nagoshi]

Oh yea now I remember, playing Warcraft 1 on my 486 computer was really fast. The water was running at like 100FPS :D But even with the turbo button off, it was still fast :)

[CanaBalistic]

I found a really cool thing in XP a few min ago. You can use the hibernate function to skip startup and make your comp ready to go in seconds.

I set it so when i press the power button it goes into hibernate and shuts down in 10 sec. When i press the power button again it'll skip a bunch of stuff and turn back on with all my programs still running.

Im going to use this if and when i make a HTPC...

[tybrenis]

I found a really cool thing in XP a few min ago. You can use the hibernate function to skip startup and make your comp ready to go in seconds.

I set it so when i press the power button it goes into hibernate and shuts down in 10 sec. When i press the power button again it'll skip a bunch of stuff and turn back on with all my programs still running.

Im going to use this if and when i make a HTPC...

Yeah, hibernate is a good feature, but still is quite different from actually turning off your PC... my only reason if I ever turn off mine is for heat issues in my room, but with AC... well, you know.

[Nagoshi]

Yea hmm well hibernating does what it means.

Briefly shown, it won't ''empty'' your cache and RAM as if you would shut it off. It will keep all your components ''filled''. If you want an exemple, try playing a really demanding game for many hours, leave your computer on and do as many things as you can do. After, like, 1 or 2days you will notice its getting slow. Thats why I recommend shutdown instead of hibernate.

For example, let's say a big cute bear has dirt on his fur. He goes into his den so he can hibernate for winter. Then when springs come he gets out. He'll still have some dirt on his fur. Well you could compare the fur with your components, like your computer cache, RAM, and video card RAM, and the dirt could be the useless datas that will remain there.

The bunch of things he skips are actually many things a computer needs to do when launching. And imagine, you ''shut down'' your computer with the power button without thinking about if your OS is really shutted down or no. Doing so, he enters Hibernation. You grab your case and change the video card. You launch it back. Now it enters the already ''loaded'' OS which will be pretty screwed up now. Since he'll still be thinking all your softwares and drivers are already loaded, he'll be screwed up when he will detect a new video card.

Youd better shut it down, it will prevent some problems if you just put it into hibernate.

[silverdemon]

if you change parts you should always shut down!

in hibernation mode, the RAM is copied to the harddrive, when you 'restart' it'll load the image on the HDD to your RAM again, so the thing about the 'useless data' is true. Because that will also be loaded again.

I run my laptop without any problems for a week or so, I suggest that you turn off your computer every once in a while, like nagoshi said. But for one week it will be fine...

[cheztir]

Take advice from a Mac person as well, i can "sleep" my system for about 3 weeks before i notice too much of a slow down. hen you must reboot, but normally by then there is a software update. Also, i've changed hardware while my Mac was asleep, it freaked out when it woke up. (Went from 3 monitors down to one). PC's are the exact same, the occasional reboot or shutdown is not a bad thing.

[Nagoshi]

reboot will not ''clear'' everything as if you wuold shutdown it. When I reboot my computer because its getting slow, it gets a bit more faster, but the cache does not have the time to empty fully. Shutdown is still the best thing to do.

[CanaBalistic]

Yeah i realize all that but i dont have problems with it getting slow (some might argue) But i have a plethora of things to help me out.

My registry gets cleaned and optimized once a week or more.
My memory gets a defrag and optimization as soon as my system goes idle.

I have no problems with viruses or buffer under-run errors.
I run a tight ship, and it shows. My computer runs as good as new all the time. Even though i havent had to reloaded windows or had any major problems in close to 2 years.

[monoflap]

Um.. I thought memory defragmenting was bunk :? . Anyway, I run a game server on a pentium 2 and it gets the job done. However it is scraping by the minimals :p . Personally, I think anything less than a Pentium 1 is worthless as far as actuall productivity and thats being pretty flexible. I would experiment with the reall oldies :D .

[Nagoshi]

Memory defrag...? Defrag is for hard disks.

And even if you clean your registry each week and defrag your comp, its still better to shutdown your computer than hibernate it.

You may not have any problems with it getting slow, but try to hold it a whole week working, you'll notice a difference in performances.

For example, after like 5 games on Warcraft 3 with my P3 787MHz, the games will take some more seconds to load. the game will start to lag.

[CanaBalistic]

Well they call it "memory optimization" now.