Whom is still rocking an Athlon / Phenom II (even X6), or a Core2Duo/Quad? X58 users too.

[palladium]

Just upgraded from i7 920 to i9 7920x in October 2017 ( TR 1950x was out of stock at that time). Might donate it to some missionary or rural hospital in Africa the next time I go there. They were still using P4s a few years ago. Its power consumption is a problem, though (power is scarce in most parts of Africa).

 

[scannall]

Just upgraded from i7 920 to i9 7920x in October 2017 ( TR 1950x was out of stock at that time). Might donate it to some missionary or rural hospital in Africa the next time I go there. They were still using P4s a few years ago. Its power consumption is a problem, though (power is scarce in most parts of Africa).

Pop a $20 Xeon in it. Say a x5660. Draws less power. 95 watts vs 130.

 

[mopardude87]

Hoping i can fix this Dell desktop with a E8500 C2D and 2gb.Went from running like a dog on W7 to now not posting. Buddy of mine wants a simple pc in his room to watch youtube and other various media.If i manage to get it to post and work again,perhaps Lubuntu may be in its future?

Anyone run Lubuntu on such a old machine and if so is it pretty user friendly?I haven't ran a linux type os since the early vista days.I remember ubuntu took forever and a day to get things set up.Got no idea how usable that C2D will be,haven't ran one since 2012 and it was fine back then.A cheap Q6600 with a tape mod certainly would wake it up too.

 

[SPBHM]

Hoping i can fix this Dell desktop with a E8500 C2D and 2gb.Went from running like a dog on W7 to now not posting. Buddy of mine wants a simple pc in his room to watch youtube and other various media.If i manage to get it to post and work again,perhaps Lubuntu may be in its future?

Anyone run Lubuntu on such a old machine and if so is it pretty user friendly?I haven't ran a linux type os since the early vista days.I remember ubuntu took forever and a day to get things set up.Got no idea how usable that C2D will be,haven't ran one since 2012 and it was fine back then.A cheap Q6600 with a tape mod certainly would wake it up too.

with that kind of PC the GPU/IGP is fairly important, if you are running with GMA 3100/GMA 950 avoid Windows 10/8 and Aero on 7, also some of the fancier linux interfaces,

I was playing around with Linux Mint on my t7200/GMA 950 laptop recently, and it looked like I got the best performance of the UI with XFCE with compositing disabled, also 7 with Aero tuned off was also fast, both could play 720P30 on the web browser OK, maybe the load was slightly lower on windows 7 still, but for other things Mint xfce was a lot better (like Steam in house streaming at 720p30), but I also was only running with 1.5GB of ram!

if the e8500 can't run windows 7 smoothly there is something wrong, probably there was a lot of unnecessary software running with that installation

 

[mopardude87]

with that kind of PC the GPU/IGP is fairly important, if you are running with GMA 3100/GMA 950 avoid Windows 10/8 and Aero on 7, also some of the fancier linux interfaces,

I was playing around with Linux Mint on my t7200/GMA 950 laptop recently, and it looked like I got the best performance of the UI with XFCE with compositing disabled, also 7 with Aero tuned off was also fast, both could play 720P30 on the web browser OK, maybe the load was slightly lower on windows 7 still, but for other things Mint xfce was a lot better (like Steam in house streaming at 720p30), but I also was only running with 1.5GB of ram!

if the e8500 can't run windows 7 smoothly there is something wrong, probably there was a lot of unnecessary software running with that installation

Are you running on a ssd? I have aero shut off even on my gaming desktop.Yup its running the onboard.The hard drive in this C2D pc is nearly as old as the chip so i wouldn't be surprised if that is half the problem .I have essentially every service i can shut off with nothing really set up to start on the boot.The hard drive is defragged and like if i open up chrome and do a simple search and close it off the entire pc dang nearly freezes while the hard drive thrashes away for what seems like a minute before i could get it to respond to anything else i click or want to open up or do.

My money is prob on the hard drive crapping out,if i remember correctly enough bad sectors usually would make a hard drive crawl right?I don't remember if it did cause it was 2007 when my last mechanical failed being a Maxtor brand new and its replacement did the same thing lol.Haven''t messed around with mechanical drives since 2010.Been pretty much ssds so memory is a bit foggy on the glorious spinner drives.My newest spinner is a 2008 2.5'' 5,400rpm lap top lol.

 

[VirtualLarry]

My money is prob on the hard drive crapping out,i

Sounds like it. Worth spending $19.99 (+tax, if applicable) on that old kit, for a lower-end 120GB SATA SSD @ Newegg? Crucial BX500 120GB, was/is $22.99. I bought a few of them, used one in a PC the other day, I can vouch for them, they are definitely decent performers, at least in a SATA6G port.

 

[Fanatical Meat]

Does it power-down while you're using it? Or just fail to power-up, once powered-down? It could need a CMOS battery replacement (try the dollar store, for a CR2032, or a pharmacy, or Walmart), or possibly, that replacement used PSU isn't in such great shape either. (Try a new one? I'll send you one for shipping, I've got excess stock of PSUs right now.) Barring that, look at the mobo, for bent / bruised / swollen / leaking caps, or burn / scorch marks near the VRMs. (Might need to take off VRM heatsinks, which may not be desireable at this time.)

I mean, it could just be getting on in years, but a new CMOS battery and PSU wouldn't cost all that much. (Especially if I just mail you one.)

You Sir appear to be the winner as of now
Black screen came back even worse yesterday. No amount of fiddling with the machine had any results.
I said f-it I’ll change the cmos battery.

I’m currently 5 for 5 trouble free start ups.

 

[VirtualLarry]

I’m currently 5 for 5 trouble free start ups.

I hope it continues to work. Keep us posted~!

 

[Pacfanweb]

I've just stepped up from a Q6600 to a 2700X.

The Q6600 was perfectly usable for me 90% of the time!

Old post I'm quoting here, but I'm posting from a Q6600 machine right now. Built it in November of 2007.
It still works, running Windows 7, but it's SLOW. I have to run World of Warships on the lowest settings and it still chugs between 25-35 fps.

My son had a similar vintage machine and I just built him a new one for Christmas. I5 9600k, GTX 1070 TI, etc. It SMOKES compared to the old one. (and mine) I am jealous.
Max settings on World of Warships and never lower than the 60's FPS.

Mine's getting an overhaul before long.

 

[Fanatical Meat]

I hope it continues to work. Keep us posted~!

I still need to replace it but I’d love to keep it working until memory gets cheaper & new Ryzen plus motherboards come along.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Old post I'm quoting here, but I'm posting from a Q6600 machine right now. Built it in November of 2007.
It still works, running Windows 7, but it's SLOW. I have to run World of Warships on the lowest settings and it still chugs between 25-35 fps.

My son had a similar vintage machine and I just built him a new one for Christmas. I5 9600k, GTX 1070 TI, etc. It SMOKES compared to the old one. (and mine) I am jealous.
Max settings on World of Warships and never lower than the 60's FPS.

Mine's getting an overhaul before long.

A decent, but not TOO high-end GPU, can make a world of difference on those Core2-era machines. Something like a GTX 950, Radeon R7 260X, GT 730 (for non-gaming tasks), etc.

But then again, for similar money, you can throw together an AMD APU rig, with better CPU performance, and almost as good GPU performance, that has all-around better performance, due to platform improvements (NVMe, etc.).

And of course, heatsink and PSU permitting, mobo too, if you can overclock the Q6600 to 3.2Ghz, it really springs to life at that speed, much moreso than at stock 2.4Ghz. (And CPUs back then lacked any sort of "Turbo" feature. They had SpeedStep, throttling due to temps or performance, but those only lowered the multi. Ok, there were some laptop CPUs with working Turbo in the Core2 era, I forgot.)

Edit: Then again, you might not want to over-do it with the overclocking, as you might just kill the rig, seeing as how it's so old. Caps and VRMs age, and lose capacity. The era to overclock, is when parts are "young". Old PCs just want to retire in peace.

 

[Fanatical Meat]

A decent, but not TOO high-end GPU, can make a world of difference on those Core2-era machines. Something like a GTX 950, Radeon R7 260X, GT 730 (for non-gaming tasks), etc.

But then again, for similar money, you can throw together an AMD APU rig, with better CPU performance, and almost as good GPU performance, that has all-around better performance, due to platform improvements (NVMe, etc.).

And of course, heatsink and PSU permitting, mobo too, if you can overclock the Q6600 to 3.2Ghz, it really springs to life at that speed, much moreso than at stock 2.4Ghz. (And CPUs back then lacked any sort of "Turbo" feature. They had SpeedStep, throttling due to temps or performance, but those only lowered the multi. Ok, there were some laptop CPUs with working Turbo in the Core2 era, I forgot.)

Edit: Then again, you might not want to over-do it with the overclocking, as you might just kill the rig, seeing as how it's so old. Caps and VRMs age, and lose capacity. The era to overclock, is when parts are "young". Old PCs just want to retire in peace.

Agreed, my 280x greatly improved what my Q9650 could run

 

[VirtualLarry]

Glad that the CMOS battery helped. I know it sometimes sounds like voodoo, but ... I've seen things, go really "funny", especially with booting, on older rigs, once the CMOS battery starts to wear down enough that it should be replaced. I know, I know, "experts" say that the CMOS should be powered by the +5VSB power, as long as the PSU is plugged into a wall outlet, and therefore, the battery shouldn't even come into play, but... my experiences doing tech-support and repair, suggest otherwise. Some boards are fine, and will even boot up (with default settings), if you boot without a CMOS battery present. Then again, some boards NEED a CMOS battery to function properly. It's just how it is. And it's hard to tell which type of board that you have, so it's safest just to replace the CMOS battery if / when things start to get flaky with booting, if the CMOS battery is like 5+ years old.


Granted, the PSU is generally more suspect than the CMOS battery, but a replacement CMOS battery (CR2032 lithium 3V coin cell) battery can be had at a dollar store, at least in the US, and it's a cheap fix. If it doesn't work, move on to something else, like replacing the PSU.

Edit: Other obvious signs that the CMOS battery may need replacing, is if, when you POST, it gives an error about settings being corrupted, or your Date/Time is off. (Which will cause HTTPS sites not to connect properly!) Another possibility, is only booting immediately after a CLR_CMOS procedure, but then not again if you power-down.

 

[Fanatical Meat]

Glad that the CMOS battery helped. I know it sometimes sounds like voodoo, but ... I've seen things, go really "funny", especially with booting, on older rigs, once the CMOS battery starts to wear down enough that it should be replaced. I know, I know, "experts" say that the CMOS should be powered by the +5VSB power, as long as the PSU is plugged into a wall outlet, and therefore, the battery shouldn't even come into play, but... my experiences doing tech-support and repair, suggest otherwise. Some boards are fine, and will even boot up (with default settings), if you boot without a CMOS battery present. Then again, some boards NEED a CMOS battery to function properly. It's just how it is. And it's hard to tell which type of board that you have, so it's safest just to replace the CMOS battery if / when things start to get flaky with booting, if the CMOS battery is like 5+ years old.


Granted, the PSU is generally more suspect than the CMOS battery, but a replacement CMOS battery (CR2032 lithium 3V coin cell) battery can be had at a dollar store, at least in the US, and it's a cheap fix. If it doesn't work, move on to something else, like replacing the PSU.

Edit: Other obvious signs that the CMOS battery may need replacing, is if, when you POST, it gives an error about settings being corrupted, or your Date/Time is off. (Which will cause HTTPS sites not to connect properly!) Another possibility, is only booting immediately after a CLR_CMOS procedure, but then not again if you power-down.

Weird thing was it would get in this loop, no post, no beeps just a black screen but it would power off in a second. Almost like anything other than a PC. Push power button & it’s off.
No holding power button or any of the usual stuff
**only does that when it’s in the black screen loop**

Edit: to be clear it’s not in a power on /power off loop. Machine powers on, no splash screen goes to black screen and it will stay there.
The machine powers off quickly when power button is touched.

 

[Pacfanweb]

A decent, but not TOO high-end GPU, can make a world of difference on those Core2-era machines. Something like a GTX 950, Radeon R7 260X, GT 730 (for non-gaming tasks), etc.

But then again, for similar money, you can throw together an AMD APU rig, with better CPU performance, and almost as good GPU performance, that has all-around better performance, due to platform improvements (NVMe, etc.).

And of course, heatsink and PSU permitting, mobo too, if you can overclock the Q6600 to 3.2Ghz, it really springs to life at that speed, much moreso than at stock 2.4Ghz. (And CPUs back then lacked any sort of "Turbo" feature. They had SpeedStep, throttling due to temps or performance, but those only lowered the multi. Ok, there were some laptop CPUs with working Turbo in the Core2 era, I forgot.)

Edit: Then again, you might not want to over-do it with the overclocking, as you might just kill the rig, seeing as how it's so old. Caps and VRMs age, and lose capacity. The era to overclock, is when parts are "young". Old PCs just want to retire in peace.

I didn't mention it, but I had it overclocked at 3.15 for years and years. It started occasionally blue screening, and eventually I clocked it back to stock and it went away, so I left it there. So unfortunately I think this one's overclocking days are gone.

 

[mopardude87]

Sounds like it. Worth spending $19.99 (+tax, if applicable) on that old kit, for a lower-end 120GB SATA SSD @ Newegg? Crucial BX500 120GB, was/is $22.99. I bought a few of them, used one in a PC the other day, I can vouch for them, they are definitely decent performers, at least in a SATA6G port.

Will prob look into a option like this. I can't stress enough how just about any pc with a sata port should have a ssd.Its just kind of up to the rest of the machine to hold up to the required tasks at hand.

I about pulled out and ate my own hair working on a buddies acer lap top the other day,the thing had 3gb of ram and a athlon tf-20 which is a single core sitting at 1.6ghz.Of course it had no ssd.What my pc did in a few seconds took this lap top minutes sometimes.Not sure what cruel person over there at Acer insisted that in 2009 a 1.6Ghz single core single threaded chip was remotely a viable option.

 

[Fanatical Meat]

Will prob look into a option like this. I can't stress enough how just about any pc with a sata port should have a ssd.Its just kind of up to the rest of the machine to hold up to the required tasks at hand.

I about pulled out and ate my own hair working on a buddies acer lap top the other day,the thing had 3gb of ram and a athlon tf-20 which is a single core sitting at 1.6ghz.Of course it had no ssd.What my pc did in a few seconds took this lap top minutes sometimes.Not sure what cruel person over there at Acer insisted that in 2009 a 1.6Ghz single core single threaded chip was remotely a viable option.

Yes, ssd’s really breath new life into these older machines.

 

[PandaBear]

Running a PhenomII X4 555T (something like that) black edition with MSI E880-G45 and 8GB of DDR3, not overclocking.

That thing must have been 7.5 year old now and was a $110 combo from MicroCenter.

 

[heymrdj]

Yes, ssd’s really breath new life into these older machines.

Best update I ever had in my X6 rig. My system actually started with 4 500GB Western Digital black drives in RAID 0 through an LSI RAID card with BBU cache. Then I replaced all of that stuff with a single Samsung 830 256GB SSD when their prices fell to 299$. That single SSD wiped the floor with my RAID 0 array.

 

[Aikouka]

Do I still get credit if I have a PC with these components but don't actually use said PC?

Although, I think my oldest setup that I still have lying around would be an Athlon 64 X2 4400 in a DFI LanParty NF4 motherboard. I feel like that setup is a real fun blast from the past given it's the first consumer dual-core CPU in a board from the now-defunct DFI using the last nForce chipset that anyone probably really cared about?

EDIT:

Oh, and I believe it even has OCZ RAM in it!

 

[Insert_Nickname]

I about pulled out and ate my own hair working on a buddies acer lap top the other day,the thing had 3gb of ram and a athlon tf-20 which is a single core sitting at 1.6ghz.Of course it had no ssd.What my pc did in a few seconds took this lap top minutes sometimes.Not sure what cruel person over there at Acer insisted that in 2009 a 1.6Ghz single core single threaded chip was remotely a viable option.

Happens a lot unfortunately. Lets face it, most people are completely clueless about PCs. Add cost, and a little too smart salesperson, and you end up there quickly.

Side note, most don't even know better performance is an option. I've been humorously surprised a few times at peoples reaction when they're using some of my gear.

 

[DrMrLordX]

Damn, I so wanted a LanParty back in the day. I had a Chaintech board instead. Hah.

edit: but I also had OCZ RAM! DDR2-800 woo

 

[Aikouka]

Damn, I so wanted a LanParty back in the day. I had a Chaintech board instead. Hah.

edit: but I also had OCZ RAM! DDR2-800 woo

I had some pretty cheap boards back in the day too. My most awkward was probably a Biostar board that came with a purple tote bag and numerous parts of the board were purple. Given the lack of case windows in the early 2000s, I don't think that really mattered much, but I don't know if that would've been nearly acceptable for most people today.

Oh, and I'm pretty sure one of my PSUs was arguably before its time as well. I believe it was a unit from Thermaltake, and what made it a bit different was that it had... RGB lighting. Now, it wasn't the fancier addressable stuff that we have these days, but it was this simplistic spinning set of colors that a friend referred to as "the disco circus".

I might need to dig into some of my old computers that I have lying around. I would normally pass parts down to my mom, and eventually, she just kind of... gave them back. I have a few older Lian Li cases -- the old PC-V series (e.g. PC-V2000), which would usually surprise people given they're made of thick aluminum and they're on wheels!

That tote bag kind of reminded me... does anyone remember the days of getting all that sometimes awkward Newegg-branded swag? I still have a Newegg beach towel lying around!

 

[DrMrLordX]

I had some pretty cheap boards back in the day too. My most awkward was probably a Biostar board that came with a purple tote bag and numerous parts of the board were purple. Given the lack of case windows in the early 2000s, I don't think that really mattered much, but I don't know if that would've been nearly acceptable for most people today.

My Chaintech vnf3-250 was . . . brown?

https://www.anandtech.com/show/1333/4

Yup. Beautiful. Hey it ran my Sempron 2800+ @ 2.32 GHz. Major OC from 1.6 GHz!

 

[VirtualLarry]

I wanted to address a topic today, which corresponds with this thread.

Adequacy.

I think now I finally realize, why my friend with the Athlon II X4 640 (3.0Ghz) rig, still uses it. It's completely adequate for his current needs. He does want to do some gaming, and some streaming, he claims, but for what he's using it for right now (web browsing and watching Twitch), combined with an entry-level Fermi GPU, Win7 64-bit, and most importantly, a 120GB MLC SSD (Crucial M500), it's completely usable. (I hooked him up with 4x4GB of cheap DDR2 RAM from a China vendor on ebay some time ago. We had to try two sets before we got one that worked, but his current set seems to be working well, and 16GB of RAM on an Athlon II X4 certainly doesn't hurt.)

I was pleasantly surprised at its performance using it the other day, when I went over to replace his chassis rear fan. He had called me a few days ago, very concerned, that his PC was making loud noises.

Of course, I figured, has to be mechanical, it's either the chassis fan, the CPU fan, or the HDD. So I told him to get a plastic ball-point pen or something, and to take off the side, while it was running, and stick the pen in the chassis fan, and the CPU fan, and see if the noise stopped.

Well, it turned out to the rear chassis fan right away. When I got there yesterday to replace it, he had actually cleaned it, and claimed that it no longer made noise, but when I picked the PC up and started it on my lap, the fan was rattling and making noise. So I figured that it should be replaced. It had like a thick, like 1/4-1/3in. layer of black dust, between the grate, and the fan. Most of the holes in the grate were plugged up. Thankfully, he runs his CPU at stock, so there wasn't really much of a thermal issue, but some airflow would probably help. Then again, there was a thick layer of dust on everything. Going to have to get a few Can'O'Air's and get rid of the dust. Maybe a small hand-held vacuum.

Anyways, I brought with me both an 80mm as well as a 120mm Rosewill case fan. Turned out his was an 80mm. Probably the original fan, from when I sold him the case with a PC, like 10 years ago (!). Pretty amazing that the fan lasted as long as it did, under the conditions that it did. Anyways, I replaced it, now it's running nice and quiet.

But I think that I'll talk to him about replacing the CPU cooler too, since that was getting caked on with dust and hairballs and stuff. Maybe just needs a good cleaning.

Edit: Or maybe even a CPU upgrade, to a Phenom II X6 1055T, with the L3 cache and 6C. I bought one, maybe 6 months ago, thinking of upgrading his rig (and keeping the 16GB of DDR2 installed), it was a little pricey sourcing a new one (ebay), around $100. (Yeah, I know, you can get a 6C/12T Ryzen R5 1600 for the same price in-store at Microcenter. But then he would have to drop $110 on 16GB of DDR4, to maintain his RAM amount with the new rig, and have to get a mobo too. I do want to do that for him eventually, but right now, I figure extending the life of his current system is not such a bad idea.) Yes, he would be paying me back for whatever parts I put in.

Edit: Oh, I forgot to mention, I was going to hook my friend up with an RX 560 2GB GDDR5 (Sapphire) card, to replace his GT610 card, as well as the upgrade to a Phenom II X6 1055T, then maybe he actually could game + stream on his PC, if he really wanted to. (Does ReLive work with an RX 560 2GB card?)

Edit: OTOH, I could give him the Sapphire 4GB RX 470 GDDR5 DVI-D card, which would most definitely allow for ReLive (unless they have a software lock-out on the "mining card" models, hmm). But I think that has an 8-pin PCI-E power socket, and his TR2-430 (new model, 5-year warranty), only has a 6-pin. Although, I did pick up some 6-pin to dual 6+2-pin power adapters. Would probably work OK.

Yeah, I think a Phenom II X6 1055T (3.0Ghz base clock, 6C), 16GB DDR2-800, RX 470 4GB (DVI-D, only good for 1080P, but his monitor is only 1080P right now), SSD, 500GB WD Black HDD, would make a decent lower-end gaming/streaming rig. Might try to talk him into a 500GB Crucial MX500 SSD too. Could clone his existing SSD.

Edit: Or maybe, I have a GT 1030 GDDR5 (refurb, pristine), and a GTX 1060 3GB GDDR5 (refurb, pristine) card that could go in his system. Neither of those require a PCI-E 8-pin power connector like the RX 470 4GB DVI-D card does. Would a GTX 1060 3GB be too much GPU for an Athlon II X4 640 (3.0Ghz)? What about a Phenom II X6 1055T (3.0Ghz base)?