Old computer as workstation

[technix]

I wonder among all your surviving workstations, what is your oldest? By surviving, I mean the machine being able to handle some day to day work: run your development tools, build your projects in reasonable time, and stream YouTube with at least 1080p resolution (don't count this anymore.) I remember a few members complaining about slow computers, let's just compare them and maybe figure out a way to get it smooth again.

My oldest system is a recently restored, maxed out Dell Latitude D620 laptop. Specs:
* CPU: Intel Core 2 Duo T7600, 2.33GHz 2C/2T (maxed out)
* RAM: DDR2-667 3GB (maxed out)
* Chipset: Intel 945PM + ICH7M
* Graphics: nVidia Quadro NVS 110M, 64MB VRAM, force installed GeForce Go 7300 drivers (same G72M chip)
* Storage: Kingston SSD 240GB (This makes all the difference)
* OS: Windows 10 Pro amd64 (yes it works perfectly, 64 bit version too.)

As long as Windows Defender is not scanning the downloads, this machine is actually fairly snappy. Eclipse and GCC have been smooth so far, although it is really not my main workstation. I haven't tested KiCad yet, but other than the 3D view I don't see anything potentially lagging.

I had this laptop for more than 10 years already - was it bought back in 2004 or 2005? During the years things have fell apart, but thanks to the used parts market I could fix it and upgrade it to the max without paying too much money. This is my only Windows machine now (since Ubuntu does not have the appropriate graphics driver for the old GPU any more.) My specific laptop have been maxed out on almost all its aspects - maximum RAM, top CPU the chipset would accept, 802.11ac wireless, HSDPA (it does have appropriate antennae and SIM card slot) and replaced the dead optical drive with a secondary hard disk drive.

[Nusa]

You're setting the bar pretty high, which probably means you're simply too young to remember. I've got plenty of working stuff in my pile that couldn't meet those specs brand new. Especially the 1080p resolution on 4:3 ratio monitors.

[technix]

You're setting the bar pretty high, which probably means you're simply too young to remember. I've got plenty of working stuff in my pile that couldn't meet those specs brand new. Especially the 1080p resolution on 4:3 ratio monitors.

I have removed that bar. Any chance?

[james_s]

Until just a few years ago I was using a 10 year old Pentium4 running WinXP as my main PC. I replaced it with a core i7 I built running Win7 which I expect to use for at least 10 years. I think the core i7 PC I have on my desk at work is about 7 years old, runs Linux, I'm not aware of any plans to upgrade. PCs really have hit a plateau when it comes to productivity stuff, I expect the vast majority of upgrades that take place will be replacing failed hardware. 

[technix]

Until just a few years ago I was using a 10 year old Pentium4 running WinXP as my main PC. I replaced it with a core i7 I built running Win7 which I expect to use for at least 10 years. I think the core i7 PC I have on my desk at work is about 7 years old, runs Linux, I'm not aware of any plans to upgrade. PCs really have hit a plateau when it comes to productivity stuff, I expect the vast majority of upgrades that take place will be replacing failed hardware.

Do expect to replace processor, motherboard and RAM in one go of any of them fails though. Those all have been revised recently. Or search through the second hand market. Also you may want to bite the bullet and upgrade to Windows 10, for Windows 7 will not be receiving security patches in time like Spectre and Meltdown. Just use something like O&O ShutUp10 and/or SpyBot Anti-Beacon to snuff out the telemetry.

For me my main work is either on my Xeon E3 Haswell Hackintosh workstation (I do like how Apple dealt with mixed SSD/HDD systems as well as high pixel density displays,) or my dual Xeon E5 Sandy Bridge HPC workstation (pretty much for big parallel jobs only like bulk compiling - the Haswell E3 have better IPC and higher clock speed for single-threaded job but only 1/4 the core count.)

[technix]

My oldest system is a recently restored, maxed out Dell Latitude D620 laptop. Specs:

* RAM: DDR2-667 3GB (maxed out)

This system supports 4GB RAM.

Dell never released a BIOS update to properly support the extra RAM (or SATA AHCI mode) even for 64-bit OS, despite the chipset support. That machine is only qualified for Windows XP and only Windows XP, so all feature Windows XP does not support out of the box is left out - 4GB RAM, AHCI and potentially more. I had it on 4GB before as ARK said but it always only supported 3.25G, so no point keeping one of my 2GB sticks tied up while one of my 1GB sticks is sleeping in the parts bin.

[Nusa]

Well, the oldest I actually use occasionally is probably my 800 Mhz Slot-A Athlon, on a motherboard with bios dated 1998. Updated to Win-98se, and is occasionally useful for retro games, accessing floppy disks, and anything DOS-based. Real hardware is still better than DOS emulations.

[technix]

Well, the oldest I actually use occasionally is probably my 800 Mhz Slot-A Athlon, on a motherboard with bios dated 1998. Updated to Win-98se, and is occasionally useful for retro games, accessing floppy disks, and anything DOS-based. Real hardware is still better than DOS emulations.

Have you considered virtual machines on modern hardware? Not DOS emulators like DOSBox, but virtual machines like VMware, Virtualbox or Hyper-V.

[Zero999]

I wonder among all your surviving workstations, what is your oldest? By surviving, I mean the machine being able to handle some day to day work: run your development tools, build your projects in reasonable time, and stream YouTube with at least 1080p resolution (don't count this anymore.) I remember a few members complaining about slow computers, let's just compare them and maybe figure out a way to get it smooth again.

My oldest system is a recently restored, maxed out Dell Latitude D620 laptop. Specs:
* CPU: Intel Core 2 Duo T7600, 2.33GHz 2C/2T (maxed out)
* RAM: DDR2-667 3GB (maxed out)
* Chipset: Intel 945PM + ICH7M
* Graphics: nVidia Quadro NVS 110M, 64MB VRAM, force installed GeForce Go 7300 drivers (same G72M chip)
* Storage: Kingston SSD 240GB (This makes all the difference)
* OS: Windows 10 Pro amd64 (yes it works perfectly, 64 bit version too.)

As long as Windows Defender is not scanning the downloads, this machine is actually fairly snappy. Eclipse and GCC have been smooth so far, although it is really not my main workstation. I haven't tested KiCad yet, but other than the 3D view I don't see anything potentially lagging.

I had this laptop for more than 10 years already - was it bought back in 2004 or 2005? During the years things have fell apart, but thanks to the used parts market I could fix it and upgrade it to the max without paying too much money. This is my only Windows machine now (since Ubuntu does not have the appropriate graphics driver for the old GPU any more.) My specific laptop have been maxed out on almost all its aspects - maximum RAM, top CPU the chipset would accept, 802.11ac wireless, HSDPA (it does have appropriate antennae and SIM card slot) and replaced the dead optical drive with a secondary hard disk drive.

I use an old computer, with a similar spec' at home. I ditched Windows awhile ago and just run PC Linux now. I agree about the SSD. I do have a 1TB mechanical drive, but it's still in its box, as I still have >75% space left on the SSD.

The days of having to upgrade the PC every couple of years, just to run the latest basic productivity software and use the Internet are gone.

[Nusa]

Well, the oldest I actually use occasionally is probably my 800 Mhz Slot-A Athlon, on a motherboard with bios dated 1998. Updated to Win-98se, and is occasionally useful for retro games, accessing floppy disks, and anything DOS-based. Real hardware is still better than DOS emulations.

Have you considered virtual machines on modern hardware? Not DOS emulators like DOSBox, but virtual machines like VMware, Virtualbox or Hyper-V.

Why would I do that? Old DOS games are quirky enough without me having to decide whether something is a bug in the game or a poorly implemented or missing feature in the virtual 8086 mode or the emulation of peripherals. Plus I don't have to go find a game-port to usb adapter.

I spend plenty of time on modern hardware and I don't feel the need to try to do everything on one machine.

[james_s]

I never had much luck playing older games in VMs. DosBox is great but that's the only one that seems to work well. Nothing quite beats original vintage hardware if you have it.

[Ampera]

In theory the oldest machine I have that meets my current workload is a 1993-1995 Am486-DX4-100 machine (120Mhz overclocked). I am practicing my C programming skills on it, and ability to figure out complicated programming methods with it. However, I have recently transferred it's practical workload to an early Prescott-era Celeron Toshiba Satellite. (2.6 ghz, so we're talking a blazing inferno here)
It is currently running Windows 98SE as it fits my workload better than XP or Win2K.

[technix]

Don't you throw modern workloads at your old machines? I have the latest Windows 10, Eclipse Oxygen on Java 9, as well as GCC 7 on there... Except Windows 10 it runs the same workloads and some as my main workstations.

[Ampera]

Don't you throw modern workloads at your old machines? I have the latest Windows 10, Eclipse Oxygen on Java 9, as well as GCC 7 on there... Except Windows 10 it runs the same workloads and some as my main workstations.

The oldest machine I use for strictly modern workloads is my dual Opteron single core IBM EServer XSeries 325 from 2004.
I also have a 2011 Phenom II X4 945 machine I use as a HTPC with a GTX 580 Classified.

Besides that most of my machines I have built in the last 2 years have been designed for legacy workloads like games.

[technix]

Don't you throw modern workloads at your old machines? I have the latest Windows 10, Eclipse Oxygen on Java 9, as well as GCC 7 on there... Except Windows 10 it runs the same workloads and some as my main workstations.

The oldest machine I use for strictly modern workloads is my dual Opteron single core IBM EServer XSeries 325 from 2004.
I also have a 2011 Phenom II X4 945 machine I use as a HTPC with a GTX 580 Classified.

Besides that most of my machines I have built in the last 2 years have been designed for legacy workloads like games.

Oof I don't really have a "legacy workload machine" actually. I just spin up virtual machines if I need legacy software, especially since I have that HPC workstation. I have a set of common legacy base software set in the form of ready to use virtual machine images in my storage server, and it takes literally seconds to copy over to either my HPC or my main workstation and boot up. Actually that HPC machine was for once my virtualized main home server, and it still have its VM-rated big storage array and 128GB of RAM. (Have you thought of spinning up 40 instances Windows 98SE and see CIH take them down one by one?)

I have 5 computers in my room: the oldest is the Windows laptop above, then my quad-core storage server/router, then my MacBook Pro which is my main travel machine, and then the massive dual Xeon E5 workstation and finally my Xeon E3 Hackintosh workstation.

[PA4TIM]

My most modern one is a compaq 610 laptop with a intel duo core. Running Linux (and a small partition with W7 (that came with it)
My schematic viewer, eprom programmer, LA etc laptop is a beautiful Toshiba Tecra with a Pentium M and somewhere around 800MB memory. And with RS232 ! Running Linux and XP. I love the keyboard and display shape. Ideal for pdf reading. Also the potentiometer to set the volume.

[Bicurico]

Couldn't resist... the topic mentions old workstation!

I have one Silicon Graphics Indy and two O2. Full with all accessories like QIC150 tape, DAT tape, etc.

I used to have two SGi Iris when I was single. I literally used to turn them on to heat my work room in the winter! Then I met my wife and the two Iris had to go.

I keep one O2 under my desk and turn it on regularly. It is is a great OS and the fact that there is no Irix emulator makes them exotic machines.

We used them with our CAD/CAM software and I still have the licenses. Looking at the software now, after 20 years, is a laugh. It really sucks now and one wonders how cars were developed and produced on such limited systems, which never the less were the best and most expensive machines around.

The O2 even has  SoftWindows installed, a Win95 emulator!

Cheers,
Vitor

[jmelson]

Well, I have a system that was in use until last year, when I replaced it with a Beagle Bone.  It ran my laser photoplotter, through an ISA-bus DMA card.  That's why it didn't get updated.
It has a 100 MHz IBM/Cyrix CPU, essentially an 80486 replacement, and ran Win95 (or is it 3.1?)

Anyway, I was getting real antsy that it would break, so I got the Beagle's PRU to emulate the DMA card, and it works great.

So, anyway, that old system still works, and has the only working copy of some really old electronic CAD packages that we used back in the 1990's.

Jon

[Halcyon]

I wonder among all your surviving workstations, what is your oldest? By surviving, I mean the machine being able to handle some day to day work

I actually have two, one is in a cupboard, but if I pulled it out and plugged it in, it would still work no problems. That one is a Pentium III 450 MHz machine running Windows XP. It has a  Supermicro P6SBA motherboard (with the good old Intel 440BX chipset) and I think 384 MB RAM and a Voodoo II 3D accelerator card.

My "main" old machine is a HP 6710b laptop that I use almost every day. It has an Intel Core2 Duo 2.1 GHz CPU, 2GB RAM and runs Windows XP. The only thing I've upgraded is the hard disk to an SSD drive. The battery is long gone and no longer holds a charge for anything more than a minute or two, but otherwise it runs surprisingly well despite being banged around for the last 11-12 years or so.

[Ampera]

Don't you throw modern workloads at your old machines? I have the latest Windows 10, Eclipse Oxygen on Java 9, as well as GCC 7 on there... Except Windows 10 it runs the same workloads and some as my main workstations.

The oldest machine I use for strictly modern workloads is my dual Opteron single core IBM EServer XSeries 325 from 2004.
I also have a 2011 Phenom II X4 945 machine I use as a HTPC with a GTX 580 Classified.

Besides that most of my machines I have built in the last 2 years have been designed for legacy workloads like games.

Oof I don't really have a "legacy workload machine" actually. I just spin up virtual machines if I need legacy software, especially since I have that HPC workstation. I have a set of common legacy base software set in the form of ready to use virtual machine images in my storage server, and it takes literally seconds to copy over to either my HPC or my main workstation and boot up. Actually that HPC machine was for once my virtualized main home server, and it still have its VM-rated big storage array and 128GB of RAM. (Have you thought of spinning up 40 instances Windows 98SE and see CIH take them down one by one?)

I have 5 computers in my room: the oldest is the Windows laptop above, then my quad-core storage server/router, then my MacBook Pro which is my main travel machine, and then the massive dual Xeon E5 workstation and finally my Xeon E3 Hackintosh workstation.

It's a bit of a curse of a need to have everything be period accurate to a degree. It's more of a hobby for me to build these old computers, as it's a way for me to be a high-powered enthusiast, but not have to spend grands on high-power hardware by today's standards.

[thermistor-guy]

I use a Dell Inspiron 6400 laptop, bought in 2007, daily for sysadmin tasks and occasional netflix viewing.

I've upgraded the processor to a T7600, replaced the keyboard; HDD; and optical drive once each, installed 4 GB memory, and run 64-bit Linux on it. I've added an external VGA monitor, an old NEC LCD1550V, which I found in the street.

Considering the use and the travel it has endured, it's proven to be a reliable machine.

[dryjoints]

You class Core 2 Duo as "old"? Wow...  you must be VERY young.

[Ampera]

I am noticing some newish people here. Welcome!

[NiHaoMike]

If the laptop has an Expresscard slot, add a (cheap) GPU and 1080p will be no problem, since video playback is almost all GPU nowadays. Of course, if watching videos is all you need 1080p for, a Raspberry Pi will be a far cheaper solution.

I still have a Core 2 Duo laptop that I got for college and it will play 1080p no problem. It has an 8600 GPU in it, so one generation newer. And that's literally the generation that added VDPAU. Not using it for anything right now, but I'm thinking of adding a dual gigabit NIC where the second hard drive would go and turning it into a dedicated packet sniffer.

Now I wonder if a Pi Zero could possibly be programmed to work similar to those USB to HDMI adapters but with more "smarts" inside. Could be a real boon not only for retro computers but also for adding video output to routers and other embedded systems that have USB.

The oldest working PC I still have is some really old Celeron M laptop. It has built in Gigabit along with a Gigabit PCMCIA card, so I could use it as a backup router.

[GreyWoolfe]

The oldest I have are 2 no name surplus XP era workstations with Intel motherboards that are Pentium D 3.4 Ghz, 4 Gb ram, add on dual DVI 256 Mb video card-1 running Win10 Pro 32 bit and Linux Mint 18.3 Cinnamon 64 bit on the other because my curiosity is piqued enough to finally look at Linux.  My daily driver is a 2010 vintage HP Z210 SFF workstation running a Pentium G850 2.6 Ghz, 8 Gb ram running Win10 Pro 64 bit.

EDIT: forgot to mention my $47.50 HP Elitebook 8530p laptop with a Core 2 Duo T9550 @ 2.7 Ghz and 4 Gb ram that I picked up from the surplus store.  Added a hard drive and Win10 pro 32 bit.  A volume license has its uses

[dryjoints]

I am noticing some newish people here. Welcome!

Some newish, some Jewish... some both. 

[GreyWoolfe]

I am noticing some newish people here. Welcome!

Some newish, some Jewish... some both. 

How about some Druish?

[Ampera]

I am noticing some newish people here. Welcome!

Some newish, some Jewish... some both. 

Always like new people for me to annoy, er I mean talk to!

[David Hess]

My oldest?  There are a couple that I still use:

Slot 1 Pentium 2 450MHz 384M ECC BX chipset operating as a FreeBSD router.
Slot 2 Dual Pentium 3 Xeon 900MHz 2G ECC GX chipset operating as a server.
Slot 1 Dual Pentium 3 600MHz 840 chipset not currently being used.
Slot 1 Pentium 3 1.2GHz 1G ECC BX chipset operating as my legacy and backup XP machine.
Pentium4 2.4C 2G ECC 875P chipset not currently being used.

My nVidia chipset systems which were more recent than all of the above are all dead.  So are all of the nVidia video cards.  I don't buy nVidia anything anymore.

[technix]

You class Core 2 Duo as "old"? Wow...  you must be VERY young.

Do you count 24 as very young?

That laptop came with Core Duo T2300E and I eventually upgraded it to a Core 2 Duo T7600. I have two even earlier machine but neither of them is with me or in working order: an AMD K6 166MHz with 64MB RAM and a Creative Labs Sound Blaster 16 which is long gone, and a Socket 478 Pentium with DDR SDRAM (I think I upgraded it to 512MB?) that is not in working order although I still had the motherboard and the processor.

[Nusa]

You class Core 2 Duo as "old"? Wow...  you must be VERY young.

Do you count 24 as very young?

Comparatively, yes. I've been playing with computers for about 55 years now and predate personal workstations entirely. My father is still alive, and he started using computers in the 1950's for his research.

[Ampera]

You class Core 2 Duo as "old"? Wow...  you must be VERY young.

Do you count 24 as very young?

Comparatively, yes. I've been playing with computers for about 55 years now and predate personal workstations entirely. My father is still alive, and he started using computers in the 1950's for his research.

ask the wrong questions to the wrong people and get the right answers

[james_s]

Do you count 24 as very young?

I wish I could say no, but time keeps slipping by and 24 was quite a while back now. I was a teenager and built my first Pentium (60Mhz) about the time you were born.

[Gribo]

The oldest working machine I have is a Dual slot 1 1GHz P3. It had Windows 7 and SCSI RAID. Had to unplug it, as it consumed way too much power for its purpose.

[ajb]

At one point a few months ago I grabbed an old PC off a shelf at work because I needed to us a PCI interface card it had in it*.  It booted to XP.  I turned it off and found another solution. 

*actually it was one of few computers in the building that even had PCI sockets and could fit a full-height card.

I only keep one desktop at home, it's a Phenom something-or-other that does a reasonable job with most things, but is noticeably sluggish compared to the i7 system I have at work (or maybe not once patches for meltdown roll out ).  I keep thinking about upgrading, but it's going to need a full replacement at this point, except maybe the SSD.  With the SSD it's substantially faster at compiling software than my i7 laptop.  I should probably but an SSD in the laptop before I upgrade my desktop.

[james_s]

Nothing wrong with XP, I still have it on an old laptop that gets used occasionally for specific needs, still works fine. It's getting old enough now that I'm not too concerned with someone hacking it, there are many juicier targets out there.

[ajb]

No, XP isn't that bad, I was mainly being facetious (although I did actually find another solution because I didn't want to dig through old software versions to find something that would work on XP).  XP was great until 7 came out, then the biggest problem with XP was that it wasn't 7.  These days the biggest problem with XP is that it isn't 10 

[David Hess]

No, XP isn't that bad, I was mainly being facetious (although I did actually find another solution because I didn't want to dig through old software versions to find something that would work on XP).  XP was great until 7 came out, then the biggest problem with XP was that it wasn't 7.  These days the biggest problem with XP is that it isn't 10 

I am still trying to get Windows 7 or 10 to support what XP does.

[james_s]

I retired XP as my daily driver when I needed 64 bit. If the day comes that I have to retire Win7 then I'm done with Windows, unless Microsoft makes a radical departure from their current trajectory. At work I've been using Linux on my primary PC for over a year and I could just about use it at home. It's only the "legacy" Windows software that keeps me loyal to Windows, the same legacy platform that MS is hell bent on killing off.

[Halcyon]

I retired XP as my daily driver when I needed 64 bit.

I run Windows XP x64 Edition. I'm not willing to let go just yet :-)

[jmelson]

The oldest working machine I have is a Dual slot 1 1GHz P3. It had Windows 7 and SCSI RAID. Had to unplug it, as it consumed way too much power for its purpose.

OK, I have a Honeywell Alert computer, built in 1966 for the X-15 project.  Mine most likely never saw an X-15, but is probably not too much newer.  24-bit CPU, built into a 1/2 ATR rack, weighs about 30 Lbs, takes 5 V at 25 A.  As far as I can tell, it works, too, by jamming various instruction codes into the memory input bus, and observing the address in lights.
(I have the memory that went with it, but no docs, and it appears to be wrecked.)
It was built with custom ICs generally like DTL, made by TI.  Not sure how many, but several hundred ICs, for sure.

Jon

[james_s]

Well that certainly gets the award for the most unique computer mentioned here. I'm not sure it would count as a "workstation" though.

Any idea what the original purpose was specifically?

[jmelson]

Yes, the Honeywell Alert was used to provide energy management info to the X-15 pilot, so he could arrange to be at the right altitude to make a power-off landing at Edwards AFB after going mach <crazy> at a couple hundred thousand feet over the California desert.

They had some kind of range navigation system so they could figure out how many miles they were from the strip, and add in altitude and you have all the info you need to inform the pilot.
If too high, he can circle around, but if just a little too high, he needs to burn off energy with S-turns and such so he doesn't overshoot the runway.

Unlike most systems, I was able to get an incredible 2-volume document on the history of the project.  This was a contemporary of the Apollo Guidance Computer project, which started just a bit earlier than the Alert, but finished later.  That was most likely due to the large amount of software needed for Apollo.

The Computer History Museum has already expressed interest in this relic.  I just don't want to let it go just yes, as it is a bit too neat.

Jon

[David Hess]

The oldest working machine I have is a Dual slot 1 1GHz P3. It had Windows 7 and SCSI RAID. Had to unplug it, as it consumed way too much power for its purpose.

I replaced the hard drive in the Slot 1 Pentium 2 450MHz mentioned above with a compact flash card.  With the CPU operating at a fraction of its maximum load and power management enabled, power consumption is acceptable.  But I also pulled the SCSI drives from my larger server for the reason you gave.

[Dr. Photon]

My oldest computer is normal usage is a Socket-A Athlon running Windows 98 (using a CF card for the "disk"). It's quite snappy considering the winXP era hardware is running win98 (and very reliable!). I don't network it, but sneakernet files back and forth over USB sticks. It is used to run an Audio Precision System One audio analyzer (hence the need for win98 and a parallel port). the Computer has also become very handy for other things such as using my old EEPROM burner, reading/writing the occasional floppy, and (when booted into pure DOS, with a slowdown utility such as THROTTLE) programming old Motorola radios.

I have the win98 machine connected to a KVM switch with an old Core2 Duo Dell laptop (win7) that is used as a general purpose web browsing/KiCAD/datasheet viewer lab machine. Since the old laptop worked so well (and they are super cheap on eBay), I bought a second one and use it as a car ECU tuning computer, for datalogging, and as a general garage computer. These are my oldest computers that are fully networked and used like a "normal" computer.

The oldest machine that is connected and operational (but not really "used" for anything other than the occasional game) is a TI99/4A home computer with all the trimmings.

[cowasaki]

I have a Mac Pro 1,1 2x Dual Xeon 2.66GHz which cost me £1699+ additional hard drives, an additional 2x512Mb,4x1Gb and a better graphics card in 2008ish......

I upgraded the graphics to 5770 a year or so ago then a few months ago I spent around £180 to upgrade the memory to 8x4Gb so 32Gb, 512Gb SSD, USB3 and 2x Quad 3GHz Xeons with El Capitan.

It is back behaving like a modern workstation and running modern software again.  Well worth the time and energy.

[technix]

I have a Mac Pro 1,1 2x Dual Xeon 2.66GHz which cost me £1699+ additional hard drives, an additional 2x512Mb,4x1Gb and a better graphics card in 2008ish......

I upgraded the graphics to 5770 a year or so ago then a few months ago I spent around £180 to upgrade the memory to 8x4Gb so 32Gb, 512Gb SSD, USB3 and 2x Quad 3GHz Xeons with El Capitan.

It is back behaving like a modern workstation and running modern software again.  Well worth the time and energy.

With a little bit of command line magic you can get it up to High Sierra with Fusion Drive. Very snappy and even beats the new iMac Pro.

[cowasaki]

I have a Mac Pro 1,1 2x Dual Xeon 2.66GHz which cost me £1699+ additional hard drives, an additional 2x512Mb,4x1Gb and a better graphics card in 2008ish......

I upgraded the graphics to 5770 a year or so ago then a few months ago I spent around £180 to upgrade the memory to 8x4Gb so 32Gb, 512Gb SSD, USB3 and 2x Quad 3GHz Xeons with El Capitan.

It is back behaving like a modern workstation and running modern software again.  Well worth the time and energy.

With a little bit of command line magic you can get it up to High Sierra with Fusion Drive. Very snappy and even beats the new iMac Pro.

I may well do that when I've got time but the MacPro is my workshop computer for playing music, email, web, arduino programming etc so it would be nice but not really essential then I bought a Windows laptop for there too.  My main machine is a 15" MacBook pro running the latest OS.

[technix]

I have a Mac Pro 1,1 2x Dual Xeon 2.66GHz which cost me £1699+ additional hard drives, an additional 2x512Mb,4x1Gb and a better graphics card in 2008ish......

I upgraded the graphics to 5770 a year or so ago then a few months ago I spent around £180 to upgrade the memory to 8x4Gb so 32Gb, 512Gb SSD, USB3 and 2x Quad 3GHz Xeons with El Capitan.

It is back behaving like a modern workstation and running modern software again.  Well worth the time and energy.

With a little bit of command line magic you can get it up to High Sierra with Fusion Drive. Very snappy and even beats the new iMac Pro.

I may well do that when I've got time but the MacPro is my workshop computer for playing music, email, web, arduino programming etc so it would be nice but not really essential then I bought a Windows laptop for there too.  My main machine is a 15" MacBook pro running the latest OS.

Well AFAIK to upgrade this machine you need to force flash MacPro2,1 firmware into the machine and sacrifice system integrity protection (since a few system files have to be modified.) After the MacPro2,1 firmware upgrade the machine will also accept some faster processors and more RAM. Throw in a modern AMD GPU like a RX 580 and you get a fairly powerful modern system.

[james_s]

This illustrates perfectly why PC sales are declining. We are not in a post-PC era, the PC is not dead, rather the market is saturated and few people need to upgrade regularly anymore. 10-20 years ago contemplating using a 10 year old PC do do actual work was pretty much unheard of. A system that old would have been hopelessly obsolete in the era where computers were outdated pretty much as soon as you took them out of the box.

[technix]

This illustrates perfectly why PC sales are declining. We are not in a post-PC era, the PC is not dead, rather the market is saturated and few people need to upgrade regularly anymore. 10-20 years ago contemplating using a 10 year old PC do do actual work was pretty much unheard of. A system that old would have been hopelessly obsolete in the era where computers were outdated pretty much as soon as you took them out of the box.

Also people are now more used to trickle-upgrade their PC than buying new every time due to the rising prices. Apple is forcing the old behavior back by soldering components down but it is catching a lot of backlash for it.

When I bought a new computer it is almost always because either the old one broke or the trickle upgrades are being held back by some insufficiencies of the old base system. At that moment I spend $2k-5k on a high-end mainstream bare bones system as the base, move useable old components over if any, and trickle upgrade it for the upcoming 8-10 years until some core component broke again. My machines does receive routine upgrades so I can still keep up with the latest, but I just don't buy fresh PCs that frequently any more, and since I am moving towards using server-grade components in daily driver workstations their longer MTBF directly translates into a reduction in base system replacement frequency. (Although I have been experiencing two HDD failures in close succession for some reason...)

[james_s]

Also people are now more used to trickle-upgrade their PC than buying new every time due to the rising prices. Apple is forcing the old behavior back by soldering components down but it is catching a lot of backlash for it.

I'm not so sure about that. You and I trickle upgrade, I've always done that and I suspect so have you. Most people though use a computer until it breaks down or gets too slow and then they go out and buy a whole new one. A percentage of the slightly technical people might add a hard drive or upgrade the RAM, maybe swap out the video card if they play games but that's about the extent of it. A lot of those "broken" computers could be resurrected simply by formatting the hard drive and reinstalling the OS but a lot of non-tech people simply don't understand that, when something stops working they either pay someone to fix it or throw it out and buy a new one.

[technix]

Also people are now more used to trickle-upgrade their PC than buying new every time due to the rising prices. Apple is forcing the old behavior back by soldering components down but it is catching a lot of backlash for it.

I'm not so sure about that. You and I trickle upgrade, I've always done that and I suspect so have you. Most people though use a computer until it breaks down or gets too slow and then they go out and buy a whole new one. A percentage of the slightly technical people might add a hard drive or upgrade the RAM, maybe swap out the video card if they play games but that's about the extent of it. A lot of those "broken" computers could be resurrected simply by formatting the hard drive and reinstalling the OS but a lot of non-tech people simply don't understand that, when something stops working they either pay someone to fix it or throw it out and buy a new one.

My bad. Most people around me also trickle upgrade so my POV is biased.

OTOH the rise of mobile does bring about lighter websites and apps (since mobile devices are still very underpowered compared to desktops) that gives older computer a better chance of working under modern environment. For all major OSes there is a mobile counterpart (the now defunct Windows 10 Mobile for, well, Windows 10, iOS for macOS and Android for Linux kernel as well as the new graphics system replacing X11, Wayland) that forces the core system to become as lightweight as possible, and thanks to the shared code bases the desktop is benefitting.

Speaking of trickle upgrading, I have a good collection of old parts lying in my parts bin that I may build a machine out of - 4 sticks of 2GB DDR2 RAM, a GTX 650 Ti, and I don't really need any storage as long as PXE work for it (I can boot Ubuntu off PXE for that box from my NAS.) Is there any good used CPU/motherboard combo that you can recommend?

[Nusa]

This illustrates perfectly why PC sales are declining. We are not in a post-PC era, the PC is not dead, rather the market is saturated and few people need to upgrade regularly anymore. 10-20 years ago contemplating using a 10 year old PC do do actual work was pretty much unheard of. A system that old would have been hopelessly obsolete in the era where computers were outdated pretty much as soon as you took them out of the box.

Aye, my main desktop is mostly 8 years old. Phenom II with three 3.2 Ghz cores (purchased x2, unlocked to x4, one core wasn't stable so ended up with x3). It's only significant upgrades over the years have been an SSD system drive about 4 years ago, and a new graphics card and 4K monitor last year (replacing dual 1080p monitors). It does what I need it to do, well enough that I've never felt the need to overclock it.

[edavid]

Speaking of trickle upgrading, I have a good collection of old parts lying in my parts bin that I may build a machine out of - 4 sticks of 2GB DDR2 RAM, a GTX 650 Ti, and I don't really need any storage as long as PXE work for it (I can boot Ubuntu off PXE for that box from my NAS.) Is there any good used CPU/motherboard combo that you can recommend?

Intel: LGA775 CPU, preferably quad core 45nm such as Q9650, but 65nm Q6600 is not bad either.  If you want to overclock, Asus P5K series MB is nice, otherwise Dell motherboards are very cheap.

AMD: Phenom II quad core CPU such as 965 or 970.  AM3 motherboard such as Asus M4A785-M.

[cowasaki]

I have a Mac Pro 1,1 2x Dual Xeon 2.66GHz which cost me £1699+ additional hard drives, an additional 2x512Mb,4x1Gb and a better graphics card in 2008ish......

I upgraded the graphics to 5770 a year or so ago then a few months ago I spent around £180 to upgrade the memory to 8x4Gb so 32Gb, 512Gb SSD, USB3 and 2x Quad 3GHz Xeons with El Capitan.

It is back behaving like a modern workstation and running modern software again.  Well worth the time and energy.

With a little bit of command line magic you can get it up to High Sierra with Fusion Drive. Very snappy and even beats the new iMac Pro.

I may well do that when I've got time but the MacPro is my workshop computer for playing music, email, web, arduino programming etc so it would be nice but not really essential then I bought a Windows laptop for there too.  My main machine is a 15" MacBook pro running the latest OS.

Well AFAIK to upgrade this machine you need to force flash MacPro2,1 firmware into the machine and sacrifice system integrity protection (since a few system files have to be modified.) After the MacPro2,1 firmware upgrade the machine will also accept some faster processors and more RAM. Throw in a modern AMD GPU like a RX 580 and you get a fairly powerful modern system.

I've already forced Mac Pro 2,1 onto it and I'm running the fastest Macpro 2,1 processor ie 3GHz 8 core xeon   With the 32Gb, SSD and upgraded graphics it really does run at modern speeds.

[technix]

Speaking of trickle upgrading, I have a good collection of old parts lying in my parts bin that I may build a machine out of - 4 sticks of 2GB DDR2 RAM, a GTX 650 Ti, and I don't really need any storage as long as PXE work for it (I can boot Ubuntu off PXE for that box from my NAS.) Is there any good used CPU/motherboard combo that you can recommend?

Intel: LGA775 CPU, preferably quad core 45nm such as Q9650, but 65nm Q6600 is not bad either.  If you want to overclock, Asus P5K series MB is nice, otherwise Dell motherboards are very cheap.

AMD: Phenom II quad core CPU such as 965 or 970.  AM3 motherboard such as Asus M4A785-M.

I have found some $30 dual LGA771 boards, and the matching LGA771 processors are also dirt cheap ($5 or so) so are they worth it? I can just throw my 8GB RAM and a graphics card in it and it hopefully would work, and I get effectively an 8-core system out of it. That board can also work with up to six 4GB sticks of registered ECC RAM (also fairly cheap used) so I can go up to 24GB RAM.

[edavid]

I have found some $30 dual LGA771 boards, and the matching LGA771 processors are also dirt cheap ($5 or so) so are they worth it? I can just throw my 8GB RAM and a graphics card in it and it hopefully would work, and I get effectively an 8-core system out of it. That board can also work with up to six 4GB sticks of registered ECC RAM (also fairly cheap used) so I can go up to 24GB RAM.

That does sound cheap, but server motherboards don't usually allow overclocking, so you end up with a system that has low single thread performance.  Registered ECC RAM is slow and makes the problem worse.

You could put one of those LGA771 CPUs + interposer in an LGA775 motherboard that overclocks, and get a more balanced system.

[technix]

I have found some $30 dual LGA771 boards, and the matching LGA771 processors are also dirt cheap ($5 or so) so are they worth it? I can just throw my 8GB RAM and a graphics card in it and it hopefully would work, and I get effectively an 8-core system out of it. That board can also work with up to six 4GB sticks of registered ECC RAM (also fairly cheap used) so I can go up to 24GB RAM.

That does sound cheap, but server motherboards don't usually allow overclocking, so you end up with a system that has low single thread performance.  Registered ECC RAM is slow and makes the problem worse.

You could put one of those LGA771 CPUs + interposer in an LGA775 motherboard that overclocks, and get a more balanced system.

Server grade stuff have longer rated MTBF though, and datacenter operators upgrade their servers routinely to keep their per-watt and per-cubic-meter performance up - they tend to have more life left in them even from the second hand market. Also AFAIK Xeons are binned for lower temperature and voltage than desktop chips at the same architecture and clock speed, so maybe they makes better overclocker.

[james_s]

The biggest issue with running older high end systems is power consumption. My i7 desktop draws about 140W from the wall, actual measured consumption. An older dual CPU system can easily draw several times that, making it uneconomical to run much even if the hardware is cheap and still capable.

[technix]

The biggest issue with running older high end systems is power consumption. My i7 desktop draws about 140W from the wall, actual measured consumption. An older dual CPU system can easily draw several times that, making it uneconomical to run much even if the hardware is cheap and still capable.

Indeed. But OTOH getting the latest hardware means putting up with the high prices for DRAM and the obscenely higher price of GPUs. It appeared that Apple bought out the world’s supply of DRAM, and crypto currency miners ate up every single GPU available.

[TiN]

Intel P67-based motherboard + some random CPU for it, 12GB of RAM, ZFS RAID1 on mechanical 1TB drives, running FreeBSD 24/7 as a public server .
It does not have graphic card, monitor or anything else, not even case . My workstations at home and work are newer than this and beast much more power  .

If not counting by "workstation" style, then oldest x86-PC I have that still in use is Pentium MMX266 (embedded version)-based computer running Windows 2000 in Tektronix TLA714 logic analyzer. Also have Tektronix scope, which running on Pentium III-T and i810 NLX motherboard, also Windows 2000 based . Non-x86 would be lots of Motorola 68000-based instruments (mostly Keithley, but some HP stuff too).