What to do with this?

[Comptech]

So I was given a old Pentium 4 Pc today. I said I will put linux on it and use it. Hardware turned out very old, pentium 4 3 gig with 2 gigs of ddr. Mint killed it pretty much, ran but very slow, but still using spinning drives, But what intrigues me is the case this is in. Full size ATX antec with a top fan bigger than the fart fan in my bathroom, to front 120's and at least a 160 in the back. Love to keep it vintage, but this is one hell of a case and ways a ton. What do you guys think? It does have a SATA Connector, pop a SSD in it, or use the cool case for a new build? Pictures coming.

 

[Comptech]

Top fan and other pics

 

[TheKrell]

Mint killed it pretty much, ran but very slow...

How depressing that Mint ran so slowly. I was hoping to put that on some of my oldest PCs.

You could put Windows 95 on it and make it very zippy!

 

[Comptech]

Well it does have a sata port so a ssd might help. And two gigs of memory is not much. Just taking opinions if I should get more memory and a cheap SSD or use the case for something neat.

 

[Comptech]

As much airflow as it has, I could mak a HEPA filter system out of it without anything in it.

 

[harshness]

Do you want to use it or keep it as a museum piece?

If you want to use it, I'd suggest a lightweight Linux distro like Puppy Linux or Debian with Xfce or MATE. Anything short of Windows 7 won't support modern Internet clients. Since Microsoft no longer offers fundamental updates for Windows 7, making a secure install is difficult at best.

I wouldn't recommend buying an SSD for a machine like this but if you do, you should insure whatever OS you use supports TRIM.

If you're desire is just to run old software, consider using a virtual machine (VMWare or Proxmox). These solutions don't require nearly the electrical energy as such an old computer. There's a reason it has so much cooling capacity and most of that manifests in the form of wasted watts.

 

[Foxbat]

I vote for swapping out the old hardware and making the case into a modern PC in the old-world case. The I/O panel on top may be an issue regarding cabling/interface, but I wouldn't go too crazy money-wise. New P/S, new MB, CPU, RAM, and GPU should fit.

The money you spend on new HW will pay for itself in the reduced power demands, plus it will give you many more options about which OS you run. Like harshness said, if you want to run the old software, run it in a VM.

 

[HipKat]

I have an old (Win 7) Acer Mini laptop. The only OS (linux) that doesn't lag is Manjaro.

 

[TRG]

I personally have given up on PC's with microprocessor architecture less than 64 bit. I used to enjoy monkeying around with old computer hardware. Unfortunately time no longer allows it with all my other projects, hobbies and life.

 

[TheKrell]

I personally have given up on PC's with microprocessor architecture less than 64 bit. I used to enjoy monkeying around with old computer hardware. Unfortunately time no longer allows it with all my other projects, hobbies and life.

I'm even more fanatical about reusing old hardware than you are. I'm typing with my W7 disk on a damnable AMD Sempron microprocessor without SSE2 instructions, and I'm unable to exceed 2GB with this MB. And I even have a W2K disk as well for all my old apps that ran just fine in limited memory.

But my proudest moment at work was finding a use for some old Atom-based Shuttle computers. They're pretty darn slow for computation, but they do run 64-bit Scientific Linux just fine in 2GB of RAM. I use them for master and slave domain name servers. They work great.

 

[harshness]

I use them for master and slave domain name servers. They work great.

There are much more capable systems that consume a fraction of the wattage that can do the same task and more. For something that is "always on" this cannot be dismissed. A Raspberry Pi with an SD card consumes about 5 watts when moderately busy. Having a backup server doubles the sacrifice.

An older ATX chassis computer without all of the modern power-saving features consumes upwards of 25 watts. One stick of DDR RAM consumes more power than a running Pi.

It is exceedingly difficult to make a case for a personal computer (regardless of OS) that can't take full advantage of the World Wide Web in this day and age of video conferencing and streaming entertainment. To keep such equipment running for the sake of "sticking it to the man" is a terrible waste of time and money.

 

[navychop]

I vote new build in the old case, even considering you may have to put in a new PS. And make sure the mobo supports W11, for future proofing.

See if you can recycle the old board and memory.

Please let us know what path you choose and how it works out.

 

[arlo]

I guess being in the pc repair sideline keeps-me-out-of-the-bars business has its advantages.
An old Asus Socket 775 board with an overclocked 3.4 Xeon and 12 gigs of ram (recently swapped out the P4 3.0 with 4 gigs of ram).
A spare small capacity laptop ssd for OS and thanks to DN, a 2 TB hard disk for storage.
An "ok" Nvidia card for my cuda core numbers crunchng.
It works better than fair for the shop to access schematics and service manuals.
And keeps a little Petty cranking away while I work.

Who says you need a W11 approved mobo and hardware to install it? "Ghost Spectre"
Or a few lines of edits in the installer. We don't need no stinking W11 approved mobo.

Of course opening brand new boxes of components and smelling that fresh, brisk Chinese air is always pleasing too.
Right?

 

[Magic Static]

Looks like an ASUS socket 478 mobo I used for a long time. P4 3.0g clocked to 3.6g. But it was SATA 150

 

[Comptech]

Looks like an ASUS socket 478 mobo I used for a long time. P4 3.0g clocked to 3.6g. But it was SATA 150

Exactly what it is. I think it will get new guts. That Antec case is kinda neat. Arlo my twin, have a shop and fix computers on the side myself.