Just scored a cheap computer...

from WinCustomize Forums

I took a hole pile of 'junk' to a 'thrift shop' called Savers today....bit of a New Year's clean-up.....which entitled me to a 20% discount on anything I bought there....

I found a little desktop PC that said 'for parts only'...for $8 ....and looked inside [it's a pop-top] and said 'what the heck....can't lose...even if it's fried' [it wasn't].

So.....$6.40 later....got it home....plugged various junk in....and fired it up.

No OS .... it had been wiped [office machine].

Ah....but on the side it had a Win XP Pro label/key....

So....half an hour later.....

I now have a perfectly fine....Core 2 Duo 2.33 with 2 gig of ram...dvd/burner combo ....386meg onboard graphics... 160gig sata hd running XP Pro SP3.

 

Now, so I don't get divorced....the old P4 1.6 with 1 gig goes to God....;) 

172,002 views 58 replies
Reply #1 from Sins Forums Top

Add an external graphics card for a few bucks and then you can play some pretty decent games with that computer.

And a P4... I thought those went extinct 10 years ago, how did you manage for so long with such a slow computer? A P4 must be a 100 times as slow as today's modern PCs.

 

Reply #2 from WinCustomize Forums Top

Quoting GeomanNL, reply 1
And a P4... I thought those went extinct 10 years ago, how did you manage for so long with such a slow computer? A P4 must be a 100 times as slow as today's modern PCs.
End of GeomanNL's quote

It's running Win 7 Ultimate [though admittedly not too quickly]...a WEI of 2.1 ...;)

I'll put the same on this thing...and see how it scores...;)

Sins of a Solar Empire: Rebellion
Reply #3 from Elemental Forums Top

the old P4 1.6 with 1 gig goes to God.
End of quote

Keep it around; you never know when there'll be a cold snap and you need an extra space heater.

Reply #4 from WinCustomize Forums Top

Wow, that is a good deal. I'd give 6.40 for an XP rig.

I recently had a similar experience.

 

My local RTO shop had a Dell Inspiron One 19T for sale "as is" for 50.00. Guy said it boots to a black screen with white letters and wouldn't go any further. Windows 7.

I figure, what the hey, it has a 500 GB HDD in it, worth the 50, so I took it home, ran a repair install, voila! So, I put 8.1 on it, to use the touchscreen capability, and.....

 

I now have a 19" touchscreen AIO PC with Windows 8.1. I took the 500 GB HDD out and added an SSD I had spare. Nice little rig.

Pentium Dual Core E5400 2.70   4 GB ram.

 

But, in doing so, I managed to get the screen in a bind, I guess. When I got this thing, it had one black pixel that I could live with. Now, after my opening it up, it has a 1 pixel blue line running vertically where the one black pixel is. All in all, still a good PC for 50.00.

Reply #5 from WinCustomize Forums Top

A "hole" pile? Kind of a contradiction in terms, wouldn't you say? hahahaha  :grin:

Reply #6 from WinCustomize Forums Top

Quoting BoXXi, reply 5

A "hole" pile? Kind of a contradiction in terms, wouldn't you say? hahahaha 
End of BoXXi's quote

Bollocks! ....[as you lot like to say]....;p

 

Got on a website for CPU benchmarking .... just to see how it compared.

The old one that'll go to God....

136

Terry's P4 [my previous machine]

361

This el cheapo...

1494

My current rig...

5008

My laptop [it's newer]...

7506

 

It's 4 times 'better' than my old computer....definitely worth 6.40 ....;)

Reply #7 from WinCustomize Forums Top

What program do you use to benchmark Jafo? Do you have a link? Thanks!

Reply #8 from WinCustomize Forums Top

Quoting Jafo, reply 6
Bollocks! ....[as you lot like to say]
End of Jafo's quote

:rofl: :rofl:

Reply #9 from WinCustomize Forums Top

Ain't nothng wrong with that! I paid $20 for my XP rig with printer and monitor at a yard sale. Added another GB of RAM ($10)and a FX5200 AGP GFX card (free) and tossed it into a custom case (also free). It does a fine job as a media center and limited internet use (occasional browsing to WC and Skype)  There are an obscene amount of WindowBlinds to run on it...Antares looks great ;) and most of all the old ODNT stuff behaves like it should. Long live XP. 

 

Congrats on a good score.:thumbsup:

Reply #10 from WinCustomize Forums Top

LOL. Long live XP. I actually thought about going back to XP at one point.

Reply #11 from WinCustomize Forums Top

Quoting kona0197, reply 10
I actually thought
End of kona0197's quote

I hope you didn't hurt yourself. That is uncharted territory for you, kona.

Reply #13 from WinCustomize Forums Top

Interesting. My CPU gets a low score. Figures. Thanks Jafo!!

Reply #14 from WinCustomize Forums Top

Well...

Here I am on the $6.40 machine.....now running 7 Ultimate 64 on my old 60gig OCZ SSD.

WEI is 3.3 ....onboard vid being the issue....;p

5.5

5.8

3.9

3.3

5.9

Now to add a second HD for data....got a sata 250 7200 around here somewhere...;)

Reply #15 from WinCustomize Forums Top

Quoting Wizard1956, reply 9

Ain't nothng wrong with that! I paid $20 for my XP rig with printer and monitor at a yard sale. Added another GB of RAM ($10)and a FX5200 AGP GFX card (free) and tossed it into a custom case (also free). It does a fine job as a media center and limited internet use (occasional browsing to WC and Skype)  There are an obscene amount of WindowBlinds to run on it...Antares looks great and most of all the old ODNT stuff behaves like it should. Long live XP. 

 

Congrats on a good score.
End of Wizard1956's quote

 

I recently went back to XP - besides not having the 'aero' look my pc works fine (XP was reasonably stable anyway) & I have all those old but brilliant skins from long ago. To me it is also much more user-friendly getting around explorer. Don't miss Win 7 at all.

Reply #16 from WinCustomize Forums Top

Quoting Jafo, reply 12
It's a website...listing CPUs
End of Jafo's quote

Thanks for the link, that's a little stash of information.

For your amusement -   Your P4 @ 361 slightly trumps my P4 @ 332.  All things being relative, an i3 @ 5143 looks pretty tasty and makes me think an i7 would be totally wasted on me :\

Reply #17 from WinCustomize Forums Top

Quoting beachbummer, reply 15
I recently went back to XP - besides not having the 'aero' look my pc works fine (XP was reasonably stable anyway) & I have all those old but brilliant skins from long ago. To me it is also much more user-friendly getting around explorer. Don't miss Win 7 at all.
End of beachbummer's quote

Too bad you will have to go back to 7 in April or risk using an unprotected computed since MS is dropping support for XP. That's all that keeps me from using XP. That and I like the folder organization in 7 better.

Reply #18 from WinCustomize Forums Top

Quoting DaveRI, reply 16
All things being relative, an i3 @ 5143 looks pretty tasty and makes me think an i7 would be totally wasted on me
End of DaveRI's quote

The '5008' current rig is an early i7 920 2.67 Ghz ....and it's the main bottleneck when running FSX [Flight Sim].

I think when I 'upgrade' next it'll be something that scores around 20,000 ....;)

Reply #19 from WinCustomize Forums Top

Hey Jafo I bet you would not mind having that AMD FX-9590 Eight-Core CPU. Scores at 10457. :)

Reply #20 from WinCustomize Forums Top

The i7 4960X is 7th on the list...and better bang for buck at 14185 than any higher rated...;)

Reply #21 from WinCustomize Forums Top

Yeah but I never did have a strong love for Intel processors. :)

Reply #22 from WinCustomize Forums Top

Quoting kona0197, reply 17



Quoting beachbummer,
reply 15
I recently went back to XP - besides not having the 'aero' look my pc works fine (XP was reasonably stable anyway) & I have all those old but brilliant skins from long ago. To me it is also much more user-friendly getting around explorer. Don't miss Win 7 at all.


Too bad you will have to go back to 7 in April or risk using an unprotected computed since MS is dropping support for XP. That's all that keeps me from using XP. That and I like the folder organization in 7 better.
End of kona0197's quote

Wrong. MS has backtracked on that.

Microsoft has announced this that it will continue to provide anti-malware support for Windows XP until July 2015 - a little over one year after its end-of-life date on April 8.

 

http://www.techradar.com/us/news/software/operating-systems/microsoft-backtrack-on-windows-xp-security-offer-malware-support-1215734

XP loses product support, but not security support. There is a deadline for being able to install MSE on it though.

Reply #23 from WinCustomize Forums Top

Nice pick-up, Paul..........to use another British phrase related to your use, in the first instance.........I would say your 'find' is "the dogs bollocks"  |-)

Reply #24 from WinCustomize Forums Top

For those of you that are not familiar with such 'Britishisms'.................http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/dog's%20bollocks.html