What would you do with this old PC if you had €0 to invest in it?
What would you do with this old PC if you had €0 to invest in it?
I have an older desktop sitting around with:
- AMD FX-6100, 6 cores at 3.3 GHz
- NVIDIA GeForce GT 730
- 24 GB RAM
- ASRock 970 Extreme R2.0 motherboard
- One SSD and one HDD
It still works, but I currently have no money to upgrade it or turn it into an ambitious homelab project.
I am trying to decide what would be the most useful and least wasteful thing to do with it.
A few possibilities I have considered:
- Install a lightweight Linux distribution and use it for experiments
- Turn it into a local server, NAS, self-hosting box, or automation playground
- Use it to learn more about local AI, although I assume the GT 730 is far too limited for most modern models
- Keep it until I have money for a few upgrades
- Sell it cheaply and put the money towards a newer, more energy-efficient machine
My main concern with using it as a server is electricity consumption. Keeping an older FX-based desktop running all day might cost more, both financially and environmentally, than the practical value it provides.
What would you do in my situation?
Are there any genuinely useful €0 experiments this hardware is still suitable for? Is it worth keeping, or would selling it or reusing the parts elsewhere be the more sensible choice?
20 replies
Thanks everyone, the replies have helped me clarify what I actually want from this machine.
I should have mentioned that it is also my fallback PC in case something happens to my laptop. I used to play older games on it, and I still have some games on physical CDs and DVDs, so keeping the optical drive is useful. Emulation also sounds like a good additional use.
The idea I am leaning towards now is keeping it as an on-demand multipurpose machine rather than trying to make it a 24/7 server.
I would like to use it for:
At first I can experiment with CPU-based local models, even if they are slow. Later, when I can afford it, I may add a second-hand NVIDIA GPU with enough VRAM for local AI. I would probably keep the current CPU initially and replace the motherboard, CPU and RAM as a separate platform upgrade much later, rather than investing heavily in another FX processor.
For the server side, I do not think it makes sense to leave this old FX system running constantly. My current thought is to let it start file synchronisation and backups automatically whenever I turn it on, run any AI or self-hosting experiments I need, and then shut it down again. Maybe I could experiment with sleep and Wake-on-LAN eventually, but I want to keep the first setup simple.
I will also check the exact PSU, motherboard model, temperatures and drive health before buying or relying on anything.
Does this sound like a sensible compromise? I would especially appreciate suggestions for a beginner-friendly Linux and Docker setup that would still let me use the computer as a normal fallback desktop.
Glad we could be of help :)
Using it as an on-demand machine sounds like the perfect middle-ground! My jellyfin-server is also not running 24/7. Sometimes I think I could as well host jellyfin on the same machine that I'm watching/listening stuff on, as I'm the only one using it. But I started similar as you - I had a machine laying around, and wanted to do something with it.
When it comes to upgrading your machine, which I guess is still years in the future, as you asked for 0$ tips, I'd suggest first seeing how much "compute power" you actually need. People tend to oversize their machines (that also is a problem in data centers [or at least used to be, not sure about AI data centers]), so before you upgrade your machine, check how high its utilization is.
The hill I'm willing to die on is saying that people have too much RAM, and underestimate swap.
As for beginner-friendly Linux distributions, I'm not sure if I can help there, I feel like I'm still somewhat winging it. But there seem to be articles and wikis for everything, or someone somewhere had the same problem and others with more knowledge helped out.
In general, and I'm not sure if that's blasphemy, I'd say that most Linux distributions are interchangeable. They mostly only differ in the packaging system, the default desktop environment, and the preinstalled software. At most you get a different init system. (Please someone correct me if I'm wrong :D)
I sporadically tried Ubuntu ages ago, then "seriously" started with Manjaro (should have gone for Arch, in the long run Manjaro seems to be just causing problems), and then switched to Void Linux. Arch has a nice wiki that is useful independent of what distro you run. Void Linux also has a nice handbook.
I like the minimalistic approach of Void Linux, and I think it was recommended for old computers somewhere (any distro coming with xfce by default probably is recommended for that, but Void Linux really comes with basically no bloat). It requires some tinkering, as the base install is, well, pretty basic, but it's doable. I can play games on my desktop PC and have jellyfin running on it in a docker container on my old (now headless 💀) laptop. My recommendation for it would depend on how well you are versed in using Linux in general.
Otherwise, as I said, Linux distros are pretty interchangeable. Point at one that looks nice and shoot. If you don't like it, just try another one, reinstalling (at least when you don't have a lot of data stored on it yet) is not really a big deal.
Most BIOSes have a wake on alarm setting so you can very easilu set it to start every day at a specific time, run your jobs on boot, then your last job could be a shutdown command. No need for fancy wake on lan configuration.
in this economy?
this is a prime machine. better than most of mine
For us here, my advice right now is to not sell any computers. Shortages will end, but we have no idea of when that will happen. For now, you never know when you'll need spare parts or a spare machine.
That being said (selfishly) if you're an ebay seller please keep selling :D
A quick Google says it supports amd-V so install proxmox and use it as a VM and container host or install Debian and use it as a container host.
That'll run a ton of great games and emulators as-is.
If you end up not finding a use for it for yourself, perhaps you could give it to a niece or nephew who doesn't have a gaming PC? While the GPU isn't the fastest, it's still enough to access a tremendous amount of older titles from Steam or GOG. It also could be a good way to introduce them to Linux :)
If you use it as a server, definitely take out the GPU first. It will just waste electricity.
But yeah, I have two similar machines that due to the high power use are not in use, but if I had nothing else I guess it would have to do somehow.
Depending. Jellyfin/Immich could probably still use it, they really don't take a lot of GPU power.
Use it as my gaming rig
Only somewhat kidding. I don't use that machine to browse the internet as it uses too much electricity for idling 90% of the time, but I do actively use it for games that require a "beefier" GPU than the iGPU of my laptop (which usually just means needing more VRAM. Damn modern games).
Pre-post edit: Sorry for the long text, this definitely got out of hand and might not even be very useful 😅
I'd be curious what kind of experiments require additional PCs. Networking stuff and self-hosting comes to mind, but that doesn't necessarily require additional PCs, and desktop-PCs tend to have too high power consumption for letting it idle >90% of the time. NAS servers or even something like jellyfin also don't need a lot of compute power. My jellyfin server is running on a 15 year old shitty but very trusty 18 Watt E-350 APU. Then again, don't listen to my negativity - if you have a use case for that PC, use it!
I'm not familiar with local AI, but I wouldn't expect to get far with that GPU if you mean LLMs. Maybe if you have the 2 GB version, but even then, it will be slow. It has, even for its time, very slow memory and seems like it was never designed for any intensive workloads. That GPU only has compute capability 2.1, no Vulkan support and only OpenCL 1.1. That's good enough to start getting into GPGPU programming if you wanna play around, but LLMs sound like a stretch, not just performance-wise, but also software-support wise. But I have never tried running local LLMs myself, so maybe software-support isn't that much of a problem.
Also, and this is definitely just opinion from my side, but I would say running AI, even locally, might be somewhat against the idea of permacomputing glancing at the side bar
Thing about this is, that if you sell it so that you yourself will get a more energy-efficient machine, that PC will still be out there being used by someone else, so not much gained efficiency-wise. However, and I am contemplating writing a post about this topic here at some point, the production of a PC is responsible for the majority of the energy required in a PCs whole life-cycle. Selling (or trashing) this PC to get a more energy-efficient one might not save energy overall at all, at most it would reduce your power bill, but even then the question is whether it would be worth it compared to what a new PC costs (electricity really is cheap, you really have to run it 24/7 to be worth it). Efficiency is kind of a scam when it comes to reducing overall power consumption, but that's a topic for me rambling another time. You have to use a computer very long to make up for the energy required for its production with the efficiency gains.
What I want to say: if you want to do the environmentally friendly thing, use this PC as long as you can, instead of replacing it with a newer one (assuming you have a use-case for it).
If you already have a new PC (which I somewhat expect), then... errr... I don't know. I have a similar problem - just last week I have been cleaning three PCs that a friend of mine wanted to throw away. I'm even considering using one of those as my new gaming PC, but I'm not sure yet if I can separate from my PC after all those years. I'm probably just going to fix them up and bring them into good shape for the next LAN party, but otherwise I also have no real use for them. Kind of sucks letting all that hardware go to waste, I can't use four PCs at the same time, and other people usually want the latest hardware.
For real though, probably a mixture of salvaging parts and still keeping the remains, if it's a PC that is not in active use. SSDs and HDDs are the easiest to reuse, and SSDs also tend to require a lot energy to produce, so reusing it makes sense from that point of view. 24 GB of RAM is a very good amount, some new PCs don't have that much. RAM speed is not as important as the amount, so it being DDR3 is not really a problem in my opinion, it just limits how modern the next mainboard/CPU can be.
If it is a PC that is in active use I'd upgrade the GPU and call it a day.
For further reading and motivation, see https://solar.lowtechmagazine.com/2020/12/how-and-why-i-stopped-buying-new-laptops/
Sorry for the rambling and that none of this is really answering your question
Thank you for the detailed reply. It was useful, not rambling.
The distinction you made between actively using an older computer and leaving it idling as a server helped me decide what direction makes sense. This is also my fallback PC, and I still use older games and physical discs, so I think keeping it is more valuable than selling it cheaply.
I am now considering using it as an on-demand AI and self-hosting lab. It could synchronise files and make backups whenever it is switched on, while also running Linux, containers, local models and automation experiments. I would then shut it down when I am finished rather than leaving it online continuously.
I also agree that replacing usable hardware purely for efficiency can be misleading once manufacturing impact is considered. My goal is now to extend its useful life without pretending that an old FX desktop is an efficient 24/7 NAS.
You could turn it into a jellyfish server and use the gpu to assist with streaming videos.
That’s what I did with my old gaming pc. It also does a bunch of other things.
I don't think that GPU is for modern PC gaming as one of my machines with close specs struggles with DOTA 2, but older games and emulation is going to be okay.
I'd look into BIOS in that thing and if you can reliably downvolt, dumb it down, so it doesn't have a lot of overhead over the tasks you give it.
I doubt you can use it for local LLMs, but I do think if you'd get a grip of server/vm tooling, it'd be a huge benefit outweighting it's energy consumption, that's you investing into your experience and knowledge. It's golden. Even if tasks you ran on it are not efficient or needed, you'd get an understanding of how to do a lot of things that can come up handy.
Your point about treating the electricity use as an investment in learning was probably the most useful perspective for me.
I am interested in automation, local AI and self-hosting, so even if this is not an efficient permanent server, it could still be a very useful experimental machine. I think I will keep it off most of the time and switch it on specifically for learning, backups, AI experiments or older games.
I will also look into undervolting once I have checked the exact motherboard and measured how stable the machine is. Thanks for pushing me to think about the value of the skills rather than only the efficiency of the hardware.
A stretch goal might be 24/7 running a pi zero or openwrt router next to it so you can turn the machine on remotely.
The benefit of doing your work or learning on that machine, even if your laptop is faster, is that you can offload heavy or long running things and save your laptop battery when mobile. Want to compile something? Run some local llm job? Build a new docker image? Start it, close your laptop and go about your day. Open it later to see the thing is done and your laptop still has 99% battery. (This will require, at minimum, learning about SSH, tmux, networking, wake on lan, and probably VPNs like wireguard or tailscale, or maybe dynamic DNS - lots of fun).
You do need something running all the time to do remote WOL because those packets don't work over the Internet, but there are lots of Linux computers that use less electricity than your typical bedside alarm clock. Even an old phone might work.
It's a decent machine. If you haven't already, a €0 upgrade would be dusting it. For a little money you could get a tube of thermal paste and reapply it to both the CPU and GPU. If the thermal paste has never been replaced on either, then I would say it is time.
Other than that, I vote for trying out Linux on it. The system is good enough that you don't even have to aim for lightweight distros, I'd say. Try out any distro you like.
It should be good enough for a daily driver Linux PC with some mild gaming thrown in as well.
Although, If the hard drives are as old as the rest of the system, you may want to avoid storing important data on them.
Edit to add: if you have need for a smart TV, using this as a HTPC (home theater PC) could also be a good idea. The only thing you'd need to buy for this would be a wireless keyboard with a touchpad. And that's optional. (Although, I would highly recommend it since I use one with my HTPC, and it's great.)
this is not a slow machine at all, but you probably want to check power usage and electricity prices in your area to see if it's much cheaper to get a new machine
The RAM makes it harder to say get a new PC though.
If you don't need the RAM then a mini PC of some form (latte panda?) might be a better choice, very low power consumption on some of them.
But another thing to consider is if the server isn't running 24/7 then power usage is lower too. Depends what you actually do with it. It has storage, backups? For that it only needs to turn on for a few minutes/hours a week and then shutdown again.
indeed, but there are ddr3 systems that use far less power and similar performance (like sky~kabylake intel)