Any ideas?

Greetings again all.

Got the little mini PC pictured below from work (it was hooked up to a plasma TV for digital signage and is no longer needed).

Had to clean it up, looks good as new now (sorry for the picture, my entry-level Android phone is not known for its camera).

As far as I can tell based on a search of its model number, it’s probably got a Celeron or Core Duo in it, maybe 1 or 2 GB of RAM, probably a very small hard drive. There was a Windows XP sticker on it. (It actually has a FireWire port if you can believe that.)

I brought it home but haven’t hooked it up yet.

Any suggestions on what I could do with it? I want to see if I can give it life. I have spare peripherals. I’m thinking of putting Puppy Linux on it. I’m sure some of you will suggest media server or something like that.

(I have an old copy of Vista around … dare I? Hmm…)

Conversation 15 comments

  • jimchamplin

    Premium Member
    26 June, 2018 - 9:27 pm

    <p>You could use it as a thin client or a test machine for Insider builds, too!</p><p><br></p><p>That vintage of hardware can still run everyday software pretty well with some pretty minor upgrades. SSD and some RAM and it's pretty nice.</p>

    • ErichK

      Premium Member
      27 June, 2018 - 12:27 pm

      <blockquote><a href="#286523"><em>In reply to jimchamplin:</em></a></blockquote><p>Heh, when you add up all the computers I have now, tablets, consoles, phone, etc., I have more crap than I know what to do with.</p>

      • jimchamplin

        Premium Member
        29 June, 2018 - 1:00 pm

        <blockquote><a href="#286607"><em>In reply to ErichK:</em></a></blockquote><p>Dude, I know how that goes. Most of mine is a vintage Mac collection that I need to unload. Want a well-loved Macintosh LC? :D</p>

  • pderosa

    26 June, 2018 - 9:41 pm

    <p>Use it to serve DNS and block ads.</p>

  • infloop

    Premium Member
    26 June, 2018 - 11:44 pm

    <p>Linux should work fine on it.</p><p><br></p><p>I recommend against Vista as not only is it out of support since April 2017, but ever since Microsoft made changes to Windows Update, getting the client that's built in to properly grab all of the updates would be a hassle. On a clean install, it would hang in an endless loop trying to find updates, so you would need to search online for a list and manually download and install specific updates before it would work.</p>

    • wright_is

      Premium Member
      27 June, 2018 - 7:37 am

      <blockquote><a href="#286536"><em>In reply to infloop:</em></a></blockquote><p>Agreed, I'd put Linux on it and use it as a media server or similar.</p>

    • ErichK

      Premium Member
      27 June, 2018 - 12:12 pm

      <blockquote><a href="#286536"><em>In reply to infloop:</em></a></blockquote><p>Yeah I definitely decided not to go the Vista route, although I had Windows 8 lying around, and when I tried it, it actually said "You need 1 GB of RAM." So it wouldn't even begin the setup process. But the device does have about 1 GB. Not sure what happened there.</p>

      • infloop

        Premium Member
        27 June, 2018 - 5:58 pm

        <blockquote><a href="#286601"><em>In reply to ErichK:</em></a></blockquote><p><br></p><p>Hmm, interesting. I'm assuming that was with 32-bit? Maybe because some of the RAM is reserved for a graphics chip, Windows felt like there wasn't enough leftover to run setup?</p>

        • ErichK

          Premium Member
          28 June, 2018 - 11:32 am

          <blockquote><a href="#286700"><em>In reply to infloop:</em></a></blockquote><p>Correct, I was attempting to use the 32-bit version.</p><p><br></p><p>Your theory makes sense though.</p>

  • PeterC

    27 June, 2018 - 7:55 am

    <p>looks like my old Asrock ION 330. Thats got XFCE on it, a lightweight Linux/debian/ubuntu derivative. Runs great – just doesn't run anything I need at the moment. Its funny but the advent of tablets, in particular the nexus 7 when I got it, was the cause for my secondary old PC devices demise, taking over general household calendar/email/music/movie stuff. </p><p><br></p><p>Stick XFCE on it…. it runs fast.</p><p>edit: Xubuntu thats the version I quite like</p>

    • ErichK

      Premium Member
      27 June, 2018 - 12:10 pm

      <blockquote><a href="#286574"><em>In reply to PeterC:</em></a></blockquote><p>That Asrock looks interesting … I'll have to watch some YouTube videos on that thing.</p>

  • ErichK

    Premium Member
    27 June, 2018 - 12:16 pm

    <p>Ended up installing Linux Lite on it, and for the most part, considering the age of the machine, it runs decently. Tried Puppy, but ran into browser issues.</p><p><br></p><p>Turns out it has a 1.73 GHz Celeron 530 M in it, 1 GB of RAM, 60 GB hard drive.</p><p><br></p><p>You can watch YouTube videos on this thing … but one at a time. I wouldn't push this thing with multiple tabs open or anything.</p><p><br></p><p>As a matter of fact, when I signed into my YouTube account and loaded up my "Watch Later" list and started scrolling through it, that's when the machine started to bog down quite a bit.</p><p><br></p><p>Will be interesting to try some old shooters, like Quake. I hooked it up to the same TV my Xbox One is hooked up to.</p>

    • Paul Thurrott

      Premium Member
      27 June, 2018 - 1:29 pm

      <blockquote><a href="#286604"><em>In reply to ErichK:</em></a></blockquote><p>Nice!</p>

  • Oasis

    Premium Member
    27 June, 2018 - 12:56 pm

    <p> I was going to suggest some form of Linux, I use Lubuntu. I was using Puppy as a light weight option but as you noted it has browser issues. I use Firefox with that and Pulse Audio breaks often and fixing that is an adventure. Linux lite is a good choice… Is that a CD slot?</p>

    • ErichK

      Premium Member
      27 June, 2018 - 1:19 pm

      <blockquote><a href="#286618"><em>In reply to Oasis:</em></a></blockquote><p>Yep, it has a DVD player.</p>

Windows Intelligence In Your Inbox

Sign up for our new free newsletter to get three time-saving tips each Friday

"*" indicates required fields

This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.

Thurrott © 2024 Thurrott LLC