MrWizard6600
Supreme [H]ardness
- Joined
- Jan 15, 2006
- Messages
- 5,791
I'm wondering what you guys usually do with old hardware.
Ever since I first replaced a computer I've hoped that one day I would stitch my old laptops and old desktops together with some high speed ethernet and run some Frankenstein linux hyper-V that could do a kind of cluster computing on which I could run _all the things_, but I've never done it partially because such a system doesnt address any specific need.
But now that I've built my new Ryzen 7800-X3D & Radeon 7800-XT (yes, the matching numbers do make me happy), I'm not sure what to do with my old Ryzen 3700X & Radeon 5700 XT gaming machine (more specs to follow), and simply throwing it out, or selling it, seems inappropriate.
Whats your guys go-to use-case for old machines? Any suggestions welcome.
Some wants:
Some problems:
- I'm in canada, I have access to american retailers, but ordering used parts from america will be difficult.
- its using a custom (CPU+GPU) liquid cooling loop with a cracked (and taped) resivour. In a shockingly stupid move I also threw out the stock cooler for the 5700XT. I was hoping to at least replace the pump (because its loud) and the reservoir.
- persuint to that, I'd like to switch to air cooling, which means either I need an aftermarket GPU air cooler --which seems like a mess--, or I need a new GPU.
- Its in a full tower acrylic case, which I'd like to replace with either a media-center format or even a 4U rack format. I've struggled to find something useful here. So far, the SIlverstone GD09 seems like my best option, and it requires me to move off my (triple 120 radiator) liquid cooling setup.
- I was hoping that prices for something like a Ryzen 39X0 would've crashed, but they're actually still moderately pricey on the used market.
any thoughts, or a story about what you did with an old machine after a recent upgrade, are appreciated.
Ever since I first replaced a computer I've hoped that one day I would stitch my old laptops and old desktops together with some high speed ethernet and run some Frankenstein linux hyper-V that could do a kind of cluster computing on which I could run _all the things_, but I've never done it partially because such a system doesnt address any specific need.
But now that I've built my new Ryzen 7800-X3D & Radeon 7800-XT (yes, the matching numbers do make me happy), I'm not sure what to do with my old Ryzen 3700X & Radeon 5700 XT gaming machine (more specs to follow), and simply throwing it out, or selling it, seems inappropriate.
Whats your guys go-to use-case for old machines? Any suggestions welcome.
Some wants:
- Game Console: I haven't had a serious console (oxymoron?) since the PS4, and with my now wife moving in with me I would like to get more into couch games, so something I can play on (or stream to?) would be nice.
- NAS: I really like a NAS, but my Synology (some realtek chip, 4 bay, 2x 1GbE) seems to be working just fine, still as I look into upgrade paths I'm a little unsettled. In hindsight I would've preferred an old machine with Unraid, but for my needs this synology is just fine.
- Media center: My only bluray capable drive is an old 5.25" blu-ray desktop drive, and I would like to be able to watch my fairly small bluray collection _somehow_, and I despise the VLC find-decoding driver files and hack them into VLC to get around HDCP.
- Hosting: I was previously hosting a valheim server on an IBM VM as a way to play around with IBM's vm and docker. It worked well enough, but it was expensive (though my company paid for it). Something that I can run docker containers on for such a use case would be nice. Similarly my work could benefit from an extra windows VM or two.
- Router: I'm using a TP-Link AC 1750 flashed with DDWRT with its 5-port switch maxed out in a condo with congested wifi. I often loose signal and my wifi speeds arent impressive.
Some problems:
- I'm in canada, I have access to american retailers, but ordering used parts from america will be difficult.
- its using a custom (CPU+GPU) liquid cooling loop with a cracked (and taped) resivour. In a shockingly stupid move I also threw out the stock cooler for the 5700XT. I was hoping to at least replace the pump (because its loud) and the reservoir.
- persuint to that, I'd like to switch to air cooling, which means either I need an aftermarket GPU air cooler --which seems like a mess--, or I need a new GPU.
- Its in a full tower acrylic case, which I'd like to replace with either a media-center format or even a 4U rack format. I've struggled to find something useful here. So far, the SIlverstone GD09 seems like my best option, and it requires me to move off my (triple 120 radiator) liquid cooling setup.
- I was hoping that prices for something like a Ryzen 39X0 would've crashed, but they're actually still moderately pricey on the used market.
any thoughts, or a story about what you did with an old machine after a recent upgrade, are appreciated.