What to do with a 10 year old pc (dell t500)

[JimmyDean]

So, do I throw in a tualatin processor and 768 mb of ram, throw it away, make it a MAME machi.. errr... Legal... thing.....
It has no psu, btw. I used it in my jamma supergun. I'll post pics of the supergun when its 100% complete!

[NateN34]

So, do I throw in a tualatin processor and 768 mb of ram, throw it away, make it a MAME machi.. errr... Legal... thing.....
It has no psu, btw. I used it in my jamma supergun. I'll post pics of the supergun when its 100% complete!

I woulden't invest a lot of money into a new psu. A 10 year old pc, will be pretty S@#$ at everything.

[nevermind1534]

If you need a new, PSU, how about something like one of these?

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6817148033" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6817148027" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Or if you want a more prestigious/reliable brand, maybe one of these:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6817371034" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6817341016" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6817341022" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6817139008" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

But for that computer, one of the cheap ones should be fine for a while, (probably at least 5 years or more, unless you get a bad one).

[NateN34]

If you need a new, PSU, how about something like one of these?

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6817148033" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6817148027" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Or if you want a more prestigious/reliable brand, maybe one of these:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6817371034" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6817341016" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6817341022" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6817139008" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

But for that computer, one of the cheap ones should be fine for a while, (probably at least 5 years or more, unless you get a bad one).

Get the 15 dollar one, because as I said before, a 10 year old pc is not going to be able to run much, it won't even run youtube.

[nevermind1534]

I have a similar compy, and it easily does youtube videos; you just don't want to go crazy installing stuff on it.

[vskid]

A Dell of that age might have a special ATX connector pinout. Not sure though.

[nevermind1534]

Yeah; I'll check on that. I think it might be shortly after that that they started using non-standard pinouts, though.

And the upside to buying a better PSU would be that you would be able to use it in a better computer later on, if you decide to build one.

Edit: Upon further research, it appears as though the t500 is one of the dell compys that had the non-standard ATX pinout. Look at the adapters here: http://www.google.com/products?q=dell+a ... &scoring=p" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

There's two different types of a second plug that your motherboard may or may not have; one is 6 pins, the other is 16, I think. If one of those extra plugs is on your motherboard (I don't think you'll have one), make sure you get the correct adapter cable.

[JimmyDean]

yeah, it has a nonstandard psu, unfortunately. I just found out.

[OMGpedobear]

could set it up as a server, there a fun project and often very usefull. Also you probably want to install linux or bsd on it as windows 2000/95/98/ME is an experience no man deserves and xp wont run well.

[bicostp]

2000 isn't hard ata ll, especially when compared to the messy clusterfsck that is Linux. I've been running it on my P3 600 laptop for quite a while; things just work, like they do with XP. You want a challenge? Get it going on NT 4. (No USB mass storage, no FAT32, no plug and play...) XP will run fine on it, especially since it has 768 MB of RAM.

However, it's not a PC worth spending any money on. If you can scrape together the parts to make it work for free that's great, but don't go spending even $25 on a new power supply.

[JimmyDean]

Yeah, I might repair it since it has s-video. I could use it as a media server since it has a dvd drive and a reasonably big hard drive. That would be cool. It would be just like my mom's rich friends house I went to on vacation with my family. He has 5 400 disk dvd changers all chained together. It was pretty cool. His son is so spoiled, though. Whenever he wants a game, he has it overnighted from some website. I wish I had that kind of money.

[FatylPCs]

grind the paint off of the case, get some bondo and do what this guy did

[nevermind1534]

grind the paint off of the case, get some bondo and do what this guy did

That guy owns the modding forum, thebestcasescenario.com (as you could probably tell from the watermarks in the pics). Great place, tons of interesting mods.