Vintage hardware - Athlon XP 2500+ good for anything anymore?

[Jeffredo]

I was digging around in my junk closet and found a motherboard/CPU that I pulled from a case years ago to recycle it for a new build. Its a Shuttle AN35N-Ultra (they used to make full sized mobos) with an Athlon XP 2500+ Barton in it. Is it useful for anything anymore? I have pretty much everything I need to resurrect it save for a case and power supply. Could get them for less than $100. Should I even bother? Thought maybe I could make a Linux box or a school PC for one of my nieces or nephews. Should I just drop it off at an e-cycling place and forget about it? I hate having so much old hardware gathering dust and slowly getting useless!

 

[de.das.dude]

would make i good pc for your nephews.

i think it would also be good for a file storage server?

i had an am2 athlon 3500+, single core, and it rocked :O

 

[erocker]

I use a similar system at work sometimes. Works great for browsing the web and it handles Office quite well. I have Windows 7 running on it.

 

[DJEscreet]

I have amy old xp2400 that I built when I was at uni running down at the coastguard station that I work part time at. We use it for excel spredsheets that monitor all the equipment record checks, printing forms and scanning documents. Its not hooked up to the internet. Its running xp sp3 and office 2007 and runs like it did the day I built it. The PSU is sounding a little "whistly" right now but its still going strong. I imagine it will continue to do so for some time yet.... (with a new psu!!)

 

[Peter1986C]

An Athlon ain't useless. For most tasks regular users give their PCs it should be good enough. It is not a Netburst type Celeron we are talking about.

 

[Mussels]

it could certainly manage being an office machine or HTPC.

 

[patrico]

hey, yeah a nice little office type pc, or a pc for a child or a home file server, not useless yet

 

[qubit]

While it would work as the others have said, I don't think it's worth spending $100 on it. I donated my 2500+ system to a friend who runs XP on it and it's not exactly quick.

Also, how much RAM do you have with it? Don't even think about Windows 7 with less than 2GB RAM. A new system starts thrashing the HDD with that 1GB RAM and goes slow, so an an old system will be hit much harder and make for a very frustrating experience. 512MB is unuseable on a modern system, it thrashes so much, let alone this old one.

It would make an excellent firewall however. I use IPCop.

Spend to $20-30 perhaps, but no more.

 

[Aquinus]

Don't even think about Windows 7 with less than 2GB RAM. A new system starts thrashing the HDD with that 1GB RAM and goes slow, so an an old system will be hit much harder and make for a very frustrating experience. 512MB is unuseable on a modern system, it thrashes so much, let alone this old one.

If you notice, it doesn't start trashing until you start opening applications with 512Mb. Windows 7 loads just fine. I have a friend with a Core 2 Duo and 1.5Gb of memory and it runs fine. Heck, he can even play Garry's Mod on it, but for the purposes as an HTPC or office machine, it will do fine with 1Gb. Granted that doesn't mean open every application you can find 3 times, you have to be sensible about how much you open at once. Honestly, occasionally you will find someone selling DDR memory for really cheap. I bought 2Gb 4x512Mb DDR-400 from someone here on TPU for 15 USD. So even if memory does become an issue, it doesn't have to be.

 

[qubit]

If you notice, it doesn't start trashing until you start opening applications with 512Mb. Windows 7 loads just fine. I have a friend with a Core 2 Duo and 1.5Gb of memory and it runs fine. Heck, he can even play Garry's Mod on it, but for the purposes as an HTPC or office machine, it will do fine with 1Gb. Granted that doesn't mean open every application you can find 3 times, you have to be sensible about how much you open at once. Honestly, occasionally you will find someone selling DDR memory for really cheap. I bought 2Gb 4x512Mb DDR-400 from someone here on TPU for 15 USD. So even if memory does become an issue, it doesn't have to be.

If you install only a couple of programs on it then perhaps it might run more or less acceptably, sort of. I set my rig (see specs) to use only 512MB with a fully loaded Windows 7, including internet security software using msconfig to try it out and it thrashed like crazy. Did this for every little mouse click, too.

 

[Mussels]

i've ran a sempron 2200+ i think it was on windows 7, it worked ok with 1GB of ram.


then again, whats wrong with XP? i've had XP running at <100MB of ram at idle on a fresh install, and with something like CCCP for media playback, you know it can handle anything.

 

[Tonim89]

I use a Dell Pentium4-based with 1GB DDR 400 at work and it runs smoothly for office tasks and email.

I think it could be interesting to revive this equipment and use it as workstation, if you have someone else to use it for simple tasks and web browse.

 

[jeepdriver]

I run a Athlon MP, OC'd to 2.43 GHz. Infinity NFII ultra board, 2 gig ddr 400, ATI X1950 AGP, 500w psu, modded Tt3 case. XSPC water block, pump/reservoir, corsair fans, and a automotive transmission cooler for a radiator. Ubuntu 12.04. Got under $400 in it and I love it !

 

[brandonwh64]

I would like to find something similar to this to use as a router. Something like a ITX with a PCI slot.

 

[Jeffredo]

While it would work as the others have said, I don't think it's worth spending $100 on it. I donated my 2500+ system to a friend who runs XP on it and it's not exactly quick.

Also, how much RAM do you have with it? Don't even think about Windows 7 with less than 2GB RAM. A new system starts thrashing the HDD with that 1GB RAM and goes slow, so an an old system will be hit much harder and make for a very frustrating experience. 512MB is unuseable on a modern system, it thrashes so much, let alone this old one.

It would make an excellent firewall however. I use IPCop.

Spend to $20-30 perhaps, but no more.

Only have 1GB of RAM for it (PC2700). I could install XP on it - that's what was on it previously. Just have an 80GB IDE hard drive for it, but I wouldn't install much so that's not an issue. Yeah, the cost of a case and PS is the only outlay. If I had those it would already be built, but its hard to turn loose of any money for a PC I don't really need.

 

[yogurt_21]

print server

 

[Frick]

I'd use it as a workshop computer.

 

[Aquinus]

I'd use it as a workshop computer.

Absolutely! Do you need Windows? Could Xubuntu suit your fancy as a Windows alternative? It's pretty lean on memory and CPU so it leaves more resources for music, video, browsing, etc. If you really want to talk about saving memory you could customize a bare (cli only) Ubuntu installation and install only what you need.

 

[Jeffredo]

Yeah, I have XP (or I could install Mint or something).

In a nutshell:

Athlon XP 2500+ Barton
Shuttle Nforce2 mobo
Rosewill HSF 92mm Socket A HSF
2GB Crucial Ballistix PC 3200 RAM (found it in another junk box!)
80GB Maxtor IDE hard drive
Radeon X850 XT AGP
Either Win XP or a Linux distro

Again, looks like all I'm missing is the case and PS. I'll see what I can scrounge up on sale.

 

[MilkyWay]

Depends how much ram it has but some distro of linux will run acceptable on it, theres many with lots of pre installed programs to get you started. I cant directly compare but a 939 pin Athlon 64 3500+ was okay at surfing the net when i used my cousins pc (highly useable), where as an old pentium 4 was really slow and pushing it.

At least with the 939 pin it has SATA and pci express, not so sure about older sockets.

EDIT: Yeah looking at the specs above it would run okay for just daily computing tasks. Try look for power supply and case bundles as those are usually cheaper, i wouldn't spend a lot.

 

[Aquinus]

2GB Crucial Ballistix PC 3200 RAM (found it in another junk box!)

If you have 7, I would throw that on there. If not, give Linux a try. It won't hurt. Worse comes to worse you can always go back to XP, but I would rather use some form of linux before I did that.

 

[Jstn7477]

You may need to use XP if you want working AGP GART drivers. Thank NVIDIA for dropping the ball 7 years ago on that one.

 

[jeepdriver]

Directron has some case/psu combos for just under $40. The power supplies with these may not the greatest, but for the price.......

 

[TRWOV]

radeon x850 xt agp

ygpm

 

[nleksan]

Well if you decide you don't want the X850XT AGP anymore, PM ME!

 

[jeepdriver]

I run a Athlon MP, OC'd to 2.43 GHz. Infinity NFII ultra board, 2 gig ddr 400, ATI X1950 AGP, 500w psu, modded Tt3 case. XSPC water block, pump/reservoir, corsair fans, and a automotive transmission cooler for a radiator. Ubuntu 12.04. Got under $400 in it and I love it !

Well, 4 days after my post the Infinity board went down. I swapped in a ASRock 880GM, 965BE, 4GB of Kingston HyperX, and a Heatkiller.