Hello, I've not seen you for a while!

I was at my parents this morning when I was presented with a computer that I lent my father about 7 years back 'just for a few months', and I'd forgotten all about it!
It's an Athlon XP 2500+ based system on an ASUS A7N8X board with 1.5GB DDR RAM, 1x120GB sata drive with 2x40GB pata drives, an AGP Gigabyte GeForce 6600 (128MB), and a 802.11G PCI wireless card all contained in an EZ Cool Alpine case (the one that looks like a Mac Pro). It was quite well specced in it's time!
I just wish I could fire it up at home but all of my VGA cables are in the office, but the question is, what do I do with it? I do have an old socket 775 motherboard and top spec P4 in the office which could be used in there to make it work a bit faster (I may have an old Core 2 or Core Duo around as well) but it does seem a shame to waste the opportunity to cobble together a few old components to make a new system.

Pulling the mainboard might cause more bother than its worth - once you disturb the dust the magic smoke might emerge. I'd just reinstall it and give it to someone who'll appreciate it?

XP 2500+ : would it be a Barton core? There's not a P4 on the planet that I'd swap that out for!
Then again, even modern Celerons make them look ancient these days :(

It is indeed a Barton core. It's a pity it's only DDR (333mhz) compatible whereas the spare P4's I have are final editions (HT) and can utilise DDRII 800. The machine is mint TBH, and spotless both inside and out. I really like the case and definately want to use it for something else.

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But I shall have a really good play with it on Monday and can't wait to see what I had installed on there!

Not a bad looking case tbh, certainly far worse out there!
I've chopped up a few real Mac cases and put some proper hardware inside, binning the rubbish that used to be there, but sometimes when someone want's that sort of look it's better to not have to take a Dremel and a screw tapping kit to something that's still worth a hundred quid on eBay ;)

Problem with the last P4s in Prescott and Prescott 2M is they run hot enough to melt lead. Couldn't that model of Athlon XP be easily modded into a 3200+ too, IIRC? Hate to admit it, but we're still running quite a few Athlon XPs as teacher PCs at school, and they're fine for basic work (along with a batch of Northwood P4s). Plenty of RAM and decent graphics cards help.

Well, DDR RAM and AGP graphic cards are now getting a little thin on the ground, and I'm well aware of the P4's heat issue. I'll have to try and dig out the old Core Duo (it may be Core 2 actually) that I'm pretty sure is lurking in the office somewhere!

Nothing quite as effective for warming cold techy hands than wandering into a room full of running P4s! Mmmmm, toasty!

We (ICTSwapShop) have a large box of DDR memory although mostly 256mb sticks if anyone needs! :)

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Originally Posted by synaesthesia

Nothing quite as effective for warming cold techy hands than wandering into a room full of running P4s! Mmmmm, toasty!

We (ICTSwapShop) have a large box of DDR memory although mostly 256mb sticks if anyone needs! :)

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You could also hear the electric meter going heywire as it struggled to keep up with the sheer power the P4's were consuming!

I remember a p4 suite heating up from 15C to 24C in a shade under an hour. 30 machines did the job nicely. What it saved in heating it cost in electric. Lol

Hmm, it's only got a 400W PSU and no SATA power or PCI-E power connectors either. It's a great example of a fully speced system the month before they changed all of the standards!

Heh, the time when Asrock made a mint by making motherboards with both DDR1 and 2, AGP and PCI Express etc :D

Well, I've fired it up in the office and looking at the logs, the last time it was run was in the summer of 2008! And *bonus* the processor is a Barton core Athlon XP 2700+ and not the 2500+ I thought it was.

If you ebay'd that lot you could probably make a fortune, whilst it is "old", as you say it was a fully spec'd machine before the standards changed, but you would be surprised how much those parts are in demand!

As for the old school RAM, I might have some laying around if you want it?

I've just biinned an Athlon 2800+ on an MSI KT6Delta. Nothing wrong with it, really, but even with 2 Gig of PC3200, it just wouldn't do it anymore. Current replacement is not as state-of-the-art as the KT6 was when I built it. No onboard Firewire, which I miss. Only 4 x USB's onboard.

Been meaning to build a new one for the last couple of years, but it looks like this year will be THE year. I fancy an acrylic case with all the flashing led's and fluorescent cabling. It's gonna be the last one I build myself before I go totally tablet....iPad....whichever, so I might as well indulge myself.