Any ideas on this???

So my father got a new laptop and gave me his old PC just to get it out of his way. Now I'm trying to think of something it would be good for besides an oversized paperweight.:think: It's a 233mhz PII with a 10gig hd and 500mb of ram running winows xp pro in a great big Seanix beige block. Was thinking possibly dedicated firewall?? But then I don't know how to set one up if this would even work for that. Someone on here has to have an idea that would be doable so I'm thowing it out for suggestions.

Should do nicely for a dedicated firewall, but it'll need two network ports to do the job properly - one to connect to the internet, one to connect to your network.

I'm sure there are alternatives out there, but try looking up "Smoothwall"

maybe a print server?

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Originally Posted by msmrx57

It's a 233mhz PII with a 10gig hd and 500mb of ram

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Wow! What the heck was your dad running with it? Many base clocks are faster than 233mhz nowadays...and Windows XP probably took up half the HDD and most of that ram...so the rest of the HDD was taken by page file space...lol. Unfortunately, I think the number of jobs that thing could do 'as-is' are quite limited. Chances are you'd need a new NIC to use it as a dedicated firewall; and I was going to recommend using it as a JBOD NAS but you'd likely need an IDE or preferably an SATA controller card. I'd just chuck it in a closet/attic and sell it (as an antique) for millions when you're aged enough to retire.:D
If antiques aren't your thing, you could set it up folding out of sight and just forget about it. It might be fun to see how little it accomplished after a year or two! :)

Old laptops make awesome media storage servers....

Please correct me if I'm wrong hardware gurus....

They have really low power consumption so you just set them up as a really basic server, connect them to your home network, and connect an external HD up to them. Then they can hold all your shared stuff like music and movies.......

I heard this from Tech TV years ago....

TD

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Originally Posted by Commando

Old laptops make awesome media storage servers....

Please correct me if I'm wrong hardware gurus....

They have really low power consumption so you just set them up as a really basic server, connect them to your home network, and connect an external HD up to them. Then they can hold all your shared stuff like music and movies.......

I heard this from Tech TV years ago....

TD

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Only problem with that is that all the drives have to be connected externally. All depends on what kinda throughput you need to the storage server.

I don't think the old, inherited computer is the laptop...or am I wrong?

Nope, as far as I ascertained from the OP, it's a Seanix tower.

Hardware firewall would be good, or FreeNAS server. As mentioned, HW Firewall requires two nics, and the FreeNAS would require a dedicated Sata or IDE controller, and loads of hard drives.

Your best bet is to strip the case out, and use it to mod. Scrap the components. :)

Thanks for the input everybody. So if I can find the room for it this is probably going to end up a firewall box.

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Originally Posted by mDust

I don't think the old, inherited computer is the laptop...or am I wrong?

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Correct the inherited computer is NOT the lap top. Luke is right, big old tower. On another note I did inherit a laptop that I don't know what to do with. It's my moms old Gateway 2000 running win98. It works just slow and small.:whistler:

Mod the case.

Also, if you like downloading freeware of the net, I would possibly use the PC for that, install the software on that PC (if it's fast enough) and test it out before filling up your main PC with useless software that doesn't completely uninstall.