Can this old computer be of any use?

akasixcon

This is sparta!
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I have (luckily) a 7-year old computer, pentium 3, 866 MHZ, 256mb Sdram.

I was wondering if there are any fun things I can do with it. I'm reformatting it right now with the Windows XP Pro OS. But maybe I might cancel that out and put the Ubuntu Linux, hoping that it will run faster on that right?

I'm going to put this computer on the network and use it as the storage for downloads, movies, and music in iTunes. So all the computers in my network (four computers so far).

Other than that, are there any other ideas? Will a 7-year old computer be prone to failure and such? Meaning I shouldn't store/rely to put my date on that computer because the harddrive might crash?

Will spending a few dollars to increase the harddrive/memory and such be worth it or is it just better to buy a new desktop?
 
I would put cool mods and light and sell the case and keep the parts and sell them :p thats what i did and i got some good money :D
 
My old laptop, 600Mhz, 256MB RAM, 12GB HDD, 4MB graphics, ran XP nicely, and was a nice office computer, and torrent box..why not huh?

Maybe get a nice big HDD, and a nice net NIC, maybe some more RAM, and it will be a nice little home server..
 
NIC? Whats that?

Where would I buy old parts for this computer? The sdram cost almost as much as the ddr ram, and I'm getting pissed off by that. I dont think I'll be needing a bigger HDD. 40 is alot for music alone.

My only problem is that its 7 years old. Does age affect harddrives?
 
XP Pro should run fine on that, it surpasses the recommended system requirements, but I'd say Linux would probably be a little bit faster, mostly because Linux by nature is made to run on almost any machine.

NIC stands for Network Interface Card. It's the thing that you connect your Ethernet cable to.

As for adding more RAM, Kingston sells some good SDRAM that isn't too pricey:
128 MB - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16820133012
256 MB - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16820136009
512 MB - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16820153101

How much did you use this drive? The only way it will really fail is from wear and tear on the moving parts.
 
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