Paul... I have an old MSI motherboard with a B75 chipset that I have been using for years. It has a i7-3770 with 16GB of DDR3-1600 ram and a GTX 750 graphics card. Had it since 2013. Still works great. Nothing wrong with older PC's if they are still usable for whatever. Great score on those PC's and parts. Looking forward to your next projects.Cheers

@ThatPaulGuy

23 күн бұрын

Thank you. I have a feeling a lot of it will be pretty entertaining, at least for myself.

@geofftottenperthcoys9944

19 күн бұрын

I only got rid of my i5 ivy bridge 6 years ago.

Installing the maximum amount of ram., and SSDs., and a Linux OS., such as Linux Mint gives older computers a new lease of life.

@ThatPaulGuy

23 күн бұрын

I'm looking forward to playing around with them. I also picked up a couple of dozen 80GB HDDs with the deal, so it will be interesting. Mint is pretty lightweight, though, so it will be fun to experiment.

@laurencejohnson4106

23 күн бұрын

@@ThatPaulGuy LMDE 6 and Sparky Linux Mate are also lightweight and in my opinion, are worth trying as is Zorin OS..

@thearchitect9757

22 күн бұрын

@@laurencejohnson4106 In my experience Zorin's configuration with gnome and all their flatpaks is already a bit too bloated for older PCs. The best experience i've gotten so far is Alpine Linux with Xfce,Mate or LabWC :)

@arianaponytail

20 күн бұрын

yes that and 1030 2gb ddr5 will be great. i do that too with these kinda systems.

@archerbob6847

17 күн бұрын

To a point yes and no, I have an old Celeron that I am going to throw away soon as I cannot get an up-to-date web browser to run on it as the old hardware is not supported by the software...

I still have and use a 2008 Dell Studio XPS 435 MT desktop. It has an i7 920 (Bloomfield) 2.67 GHz CPU. I upgraded the memory to 24 GB (DDR3). The hard disk has been replaced multiple times and I added a SSD. I also had to replace the power supply once. It is running Windows 10 just fine, though I don't play games though. Other than general productivity (web browsing, Office, Visual Studio etc), I often use it to run VMs (Hyper-V). At work, I regularly configure and work with many new Dell laptops (generally 2022-2024 era). For general productivity work I can't tell any differences.

@ThatPaulGuy

23 күн бұрын

@@bendono I was originally thinking this was just going to be an experiment, but more and more people are convincing me that these PCs might actually be able to have a new life.

@milescarter7803

21 күн бұрын

Looks like $10 will get you a 6 core Xeon W3670. But a dumpster dive may net you an 8th gen desktop these days.

Hey if nothing else you got some old PCs you can network and have an old school LAN party. 👍

@ThatPaulGuy

24 күн бұрын

Old school Quake or Unreal Tournament would be amazing!

@rmcdudmk212

24 күн бұрын

@@ThatPaulGuy my thoughts exactly. 👍

@bryanporth

24 күн бұрын

@@ThatPaulGuy on my way

Paul must be my long lost brother. I did the same last summer. They were all free but he asked me to pull all the hard drives. It was a good 90 degrees out and hotter in the garage. So that was fun. One of them would not open so I had to take a hammer and a large screwdriver to bust off the side panel to get the last hard drive out. The things we do! Too bad I was not making videos back then, it would have been quite entertaining watching me hammer a PC to death.

@ThatPaulGuy

24 күн бұрын

@@RobertFixit lol, what I didn't mention is that I also got about two dozen 80gb HDDs in the deal. I'm seriosly thinking about setting up a big data pool. Only as an experiment...

@RobertFixit

24 күн бұрын

@@ThatPaulGuy I have 5TB of emulation roms for you LOL.

@ThatPaulGuy

23 күн бұрын

Oh my

@j.lietka9406

21 күн бұрын

The one with the stuck cover, did you consider a blue tip wrench? 🤔 😅🤣

I was given 3 Dell Optiplex 775 mid towers, I updated the BIOS to the final release A12 then upgraded CPU to a Pentium Duo Quadcore 3.0GHz and 8gb 800-MHz DDR2 RAM which is all maxed out according to what information I can find on the web. And it runs Windows 10 flawlessly.

@ThatPaulGuy

19 күн бұрын

Nice, I'm planning on at least one or two with core2quads, just to see if I can make a go of it.

Hey, Paul. I'm new to the channel. I just found you here on KZread. I like the video.I'm going to stick around for a little while

@ThatPaulGuy

20 күн бұрын

Thank you and welcome in.

The older dell optiplexes do have an atx so you can change over to an aftermarket board and newer cpu

I daily drive a Dell Optiplex 755 and with linux mint and an ssd, it runs very fast. It has done everything that I have needed it to.

@ThatPaulGuy

19 күн бұрын

I'm excited to see what I can make out of a few of these. I still haven't been able to get the MT with DDR3 to post but I did discover that's either the MoBo or the E7600 that's in it.

These look like the type of fleet computers that were being disposed of 10 years ago for upgraded HP ProDesks that ran 7. I remember the 1708FPt Dell branded monitors they’d come accompanied with alongside the SK-8115 keyboard

@ThatPaulGuy

19 күн бұрын

I loved the old Dell keyboards. Almost indestructible.

@damian9303

19 күн бұрын

@@ThatPaulGuy I remember seeing one get thrown out during detention because an otherwise quiet kid banged it in anger and snapped part of the internal circuit board from the sheer force. But that one was the real vintage sort with the circular multimedia buttons, something that would’ve came with an Optiplex GX260 system instead.

Descent first came out back when 486DX was still pretty common and then Descent 2 and Descent 3 came out. All 3 are still pretty popular with our generation and feel a bit different on older hardware than they do using DOSBox or Steam. You might want to consider those too. My sister liked Lemmings with her husband's Pentium because of it being a bit of a puzzle several levels in without the blood and gore of first person shooters,. He was the who introduced me to Descent.

@ThatPaulGuy

17 күн бұрын

@@petenielsen6683 Descent was ahead of its time. I think my favorite 3D came shortly after -Duke Nukem 3D. Games like Doom, Quake, Unreal, Half-life and Wolfenstein were all amazing to play in that era.

DDR 2 and 3 pcs wont be worth bothering with soon unless they want for older software its a shame

@ThatPaulGuy

19 күн бұрын

But they will be remembered fondly.

I've got a pair of Dell 745s that I flashed the BIOS on and was able to stuff in 8 gigs of DDR2 memory (faster memory helps) and drop in a Q6600 4 core processor. I call them my Super Potatoes and with a single slot video card they run Linux Mint very well. I'm not a gamer so I can't speak to gaming on these machines but I've had a lot of fun with them. Nice bargain!

@ThatPaulGuy

22 күн бұрын

That's funny because I was thinking of calling the best I can get working out of the bunch "Potato Salad". I'm hoping to get the larger one that takes DDR3 to post with a BIOS update and a Q9550 that I ordered. It isn't posting yet, but I'm working on it.

Not too long ago I was using an Optiplex 380 as my daily driver. I upgraded to Core2quad. 8gb DDR3 was the max it could handle. But worked fine as a basic machine with Windows 10. What you have would be great for older OS's. XP and Vista drivers will be easy to find for these systems.

@ThatPaulGuy

19 күн бұрын

It should be an adventure.

i just discovered your channel. I like your spirit. Here goes my sub :)

@ThatPaulGuy

22 күн бұрын

Thank you, so much!

If the cases themselves are in good condition and can take a standard motherboard they should be worth 20 or more dollars apiece anyway, especially for desktop cases that are a rarer thing these days because buying a brand new case to vertically mount a heavy GPU these days can be on the pricey side of things.

@ThatPaulGuy

17 күн бұрын

@@archerbob6847 the cases will be a challenge. They are all flipped the opposite way with a daughter board for front panel USB and power.

Possibly an ITX board with a PCIe riser running under the motherboard might fit in a BTX?

@ThatPaulGuy

19 күн бұрын

I also discovered an issue with the power button, though, that will make it tough.

Just got given a HP Pavilion 754 Socket running XP. Put in an extra 1gb ram (so 2 all up), SSD. Using it for an emulation box for my Amiga, and other games!

@ThatPaulGuy

19 күн бұрын

I used to LOVE my Amiga. Hard to believe that was over 30 years ago. I bet its a great emulator.

Windows 7 was their best OS ever, but it is getting harder and harder to keep running. I would suggest a light Linux distro to get the most out of that old hardware.

@ThatPaulGuy

21 күн бұрын

I'm considering Mint OS. I've worked with it before and its lightweight.

You would be surprised at what video cards will run in a low end system. They are usually so slow that its hard to get the video card pulling much power, the CPU isn't feeding it. Also Don't be afraid to run 2 power supplies. You can just add a relay to a molex connector of the first supply, and connect it to the PSOn of the second. Then just run the yellow wires of the second supply into your graphics card. I'm a little bummed I missed the LGA 771 boat 😂. Might have to try it sometime.

@ThatPaulGuy

19 күн бұрын

Definitely thinking about alternate PSU ideas.

Imagine the mining possibilities.

@ThatPaulGuy

13 күн бұрын

imagine the power bill, lol.

great show

@ThatPaulGuy

19 күн бұрын

Thank you

You can run windows 10 on the core 2 duos, but it's pretty terrible, even as an office pc.

@ThatPaulGuy

19 күн бұрын

I'm going to upgrade the bios on a few and see how it goes.

I toss so many of those. Just tossed a Dell 8400, the single and dual core systems with first gen SATA are just not worth saving.

@ThatPaulGuy

22 күн бұрын

I'm thinking the vast majority of these will be passed on to someone else or used for decoration, but I'm curious about the the full size with DDR3 that I haven't gotten to post yet.

i doubt you can make a modern sleeper pc, as the motherboard faces the wrong side of the case.

@ThatPaulGuy

19 күн бұрын

I have also found there is a daughter board that controls the power switch etc that will make it VERY difficult.

Older gfx cards didn't need all that extra power so maybe they could take a Geforce 8800 or similar?

@ThatPaulGuy

24 күн бұрын

@@bryanporth I've started looking at some older ATI and NVidia cards to see if I can find something suitable. I have a gt730 and gtx1030, but both may try to pull more than the PCIe slot can handle.

@JamesSmith-sw3nk

24 күн бұрын

@@ThatPaulGuy In that case, then I suggest using a 750ti or 1050ti, (maybe a 1060) with a 6pin power requirement (those psu's probably don't have 6pin cables) and use an molex to 6 pin adapter. I ran gtx 1050ti's that way on Dell 225w sff pc's. The gtx 1060 6gb worked but the psu "howled" a bit under load. Your mileage may vary.

@ThatPaulGuy

23 күн бұрын

Good suggestion, thank you.

For the flipped motherboard, if it is just an upside down ATX motherboard, you're probably fine swapping in a newer motherboard. However, if it is one of those BTX (basically a mirrored ATX from the early 2000s for "better airflow") style ones where they also had them mounted on the left side, then you're out of luck. As someone who has around 20 old laptops, these old computers just really aren't worth running as they are too slow and consume way too much power. At least with the desktops, if they adhere to the ATX standards, you can swap in newer parts, like an N100 motherboard and make a server with mirrored drives and use it as a NAS/VM homelab kind of thing. I'm actually looking for old Compaq, HP, or Gateway computers to do that with. Old computers are really just only good for their cases, they're good for sleeper builds or servers as most modern cases lack sufficient options for mounting storage drives or durable construction.

@milescarter7803

21 күн бұрын

Most of these are BTX

@ThatPaulGuy

19 күн бұрын

I just found that there is a weird daughter board combo for the power switch and front usb. Its going to take some serious playing around if I do it.

@iiisaac1312

19 күн бұрын

@@ThatPaulGuy sounds like a long night with the multimeter and wire crimpers

@ThatPaulGuy

19 күн бұрын

@@iiisaac1312 lol

I Got a Palit of mixed PCs Free but I Had to pay for shipping that was £25 I had 4 msi laptops 7 monitors 7 desktop PCs and a bunch of other stuff, I got everything working spent $60 on parts Ram and that sort of stuff. I made £1700 profit. on my total outlay of £85.

@ThatPaulGuy

23 күн бұрын

@@JustMyFish thats a heck of a deal. I bet it was fun going through everything. Nice profit.

@JustMyFish

23 күн бұрын

@@ThatPaulGuy it was great the laptops in particular I just upgraded the memory got Got £220 each for them. They were all Gen3 940mx

If electricity is cheap you got some low end servers I'd say decent for docker, if docker is supported.

@ThatPaulGuy

23 күн бұрын

@@4megiiThese are all 45w and 65w chips, but I think I'll be waiting until the end of summer to try any big experiments with several together.

The fact that the cpu fan is 10 000 RPM and its for a servers and one costs 50$ is enough.

If they had LGA1155 or later you'd be good. The 1155's can socket 3rd gen i7s; the i7-3770 which are 3.4GHz, 4 cores, 8 threads, uses DDR3 RAM up to 8GB (1600MHz) per DIMM slot. But what that guy dumped off on you is $10 of dead weight. Pass.

@ThatPaulGuy

15 сағат бұрын

Unfortunately, all of them are socket 775. I have a Q6600 and Q9550 to try in a couple of them. The testing is going slow, but I should be able to get e few working PCs out of it.

Got a hold of some Dells like yours (got them, last year I think) from a dumpster (a hobby to look for electronics) but don't have real time to build them up. Nice cases, one has a ransomware, another has the CPU removed (it's in the case but a few pins are bent)... Unreal GOTY plays great in Win XP & 7!

@ThatPaulGuy

19 күн бұрын

I'm looking forward to installing this copy of Unreal on disc sitting over here next to me.

@j.lietka9406

19 күн бұрын

@@ThatPaulGuy nice!! Game On!

the thing with older dells are you have to disable internal gpu before using extra gpu in them.

@ThatPaulGuy

21 күн бұрын

And that's if there is setting in the bios to do it. I ran into an issue recently that wouldn't let me disable the integrated graphics.

@waize

21 күн бұрын

@@ThatPaulGuy Make sure its running on latest bios. My dad had an 380 which i had to disable integrated to use a quadro k420.

I throw everything before AM4 away. Haswell (4th gen) and up are so fast/cheap (and vs FM1/2 and AM1-3, much more power efficient as well) anything else is a waste of DDR3. First gen Core i series is neat, but only because you can get a Xeon quad core for peanuts and raise the FSB. It runs HOT, but I got one going at 3.7ghz and the ram was tuned down, and the FSB raised it to 1600mt/s. Basically they are good for wires, PSUs. Unfortunately cases are BTX so very difficult to swap a newer board in. The ventilation is good through the front panel and cooler, thank Pentium 4 for that.

At least you got the great Intel ones and not the crappy AMD ones. The Intel ones can be upgraded to a quad core as you probably already know but the AMD ones are stuck with those horrible Athlon chips that can barely do anything.

@ThatPaulGuy

21 күн бұрын

I was also lucky that all of them except one seem to have the intel chipset series that will allow upgrades. There is a single one that is on an ATI chipset that will be pretty much useless.

😮I'm running Windows 11 on a 2011 dell

@ThatPaulGuy

19 күн бұрын

I'm resisting trying Win11 on any of them. I would expect it to be painful at best.

They should all take a C2D E8600, but they're way overpriced and not worth it. The C2D E8400 on the other hand is almost the same speed, and about a dollar a pop on eBay if you buy a few at a time.

all e waste basically it's hard to c a world market resale all hand me down or recycle the materials. mb

do u have any older cpu*processors you do not want any brand any speed they will not be used in any way they will not be cashed in for the gold inside they will will become part of a display to show the technologies has changed throughout the years i will refund all your shipping fees can you help me out do you need my address

can i have that?

responsible recycler you say?... hmm, sounds like an oximoron to me. If that guy is also a hobbyist, maybe believable. If its his main job, highly unlikely there is anything "responsible" in that. That expression was most probably invented for taxpayers to feel good and not guilty, when they hand over their e-waste. Which eventually will show up on the coasts of an african country anyway. Just my 5 cent about responsible recyclers.

@ThatPaulGuy

16 күн бұрын

This is actually a local e-recycler for my area, they service schools, businesses and individuals with a no landfill policy. It may not be a solution that keeps the hardware from ending up in a strange place somewhere, but its better than me taking them to the dump.

can i have one pls