Refurbished computers are they interesting?

Old computer can be used for office works and internet use. The main limitation of old computer are the memory et the hard disk capacity, older computer can be limited by the microprocessor and the lack of usb and ethernet port too.

Computer of 4-6 years old can be pretty easily upgraded, generaly the memory was 128/256 MB, and it's easy to upgrade at 512MB/1GB, the hard drive was probably 20/30 GB and can be upgraded to 80/100 GB. The microprocessor AMD K7 or Celeron 1.5 GHz will provides enough power to run usual office applications comfortably. The cost of this upgrade will be around $150-$200 and worth the expense if we consider the computer will still be able to run correctly for 2 or 3 years, and considering  the initial purchase was around $1000-$1500.

Computer of 10 years old or more are fare less interesting to upgrade, the microprocessor pentium I, the bus 50MHz and the graphic card will be too slow to run smoothly any modern graphic desktops, of course the memory; and the hard disk capacity will be to tiny too. The old solders of the motherboard, the oxidized connectors and the tired power unit may fail at any time; so this kind of computer can be used only in text mode by hobbyst.

The table below gives a rough idea of the configuration required to be comfortable with each window or desktop manager and some common applications.

Processor                        Frequency     Bus         Memory        Video
Hard  Disk (*)     Kernel  Window/Desktop Manager       Applications

Pentium I, K5                      100 MHz   50 MHz    32 Mbyte          any            1-2Gbytes         2.4       Text mode only                      vim, nano, python...

Pentium II, K6                     300 MHz    66 MHz    64 Mbyte    800x600x16      >5Gbytes      2.4       Fluxbox, Icewm                      leafpad, Dillo, rox

Pentium 3, Athlon              800 Mhz  133 MHz  128 Mbyte   800x600x24      20Gbytes     >2.6      Fluxbox, Icewm                     Abiword, Gnumeric, Firefox

Pentium 3, Athlon              1.2 GHz   133 MHz  256 Mbyte   1024x768x24    40Gbytes     >2.6       Xfce                                       Open Office, Mplayer, Gimp

Pentium 3, Athlon              1.2 GHz   133 MHz  512 Mbyte   1024x768x24    40Gbytes     >2.6       Gnome, Kde                                    same above

Pentium 4, Athlon 64        1.8 GHz   800 MHz     1 Gbytes    geForce4 (1)   160Gbytes   >2.6       Gnome, Kde                        Elisa MCE, MythTV, xawtv, Nvrec, Dvr, Kino

Pentium 4, Athlon 64        1.8 GHz   800 MHz     1 Gbytes   geForce6 (1)    160Gbytes    >2.6      Compiz-fusion                                  same above

Core 2 Duo, Athlon64x2  2.2 GHz   800 MTS    2 Gbytes   geForce8 (1)    300Gbytes    >2.6                  ''                                        same above (2)

(*) Linux core takes less than 1Gbytes, desktop manager about 500Mbytes, usual gui applications around 1Gbytes, so 3Gbytes is normaly enough to store the os and the programs.  Depending of what kind of data to store, it's reasonable to add 1Gbytes for the text and numeric files, at least 10 Gbytes for the picture files (one jpeg file of 4Mpixels weights 1.4 to 1.6Mbytes),  and  100 Gbytes for video files (2hrs movie takes 1 to 4Gbytes).

(1) NVidia supplies drivers for Linux, check on nvidia.com for drivers available before to buy any video card.
(2) For real time compression, recording and viewing requires a dual core to minimize frames lost.

Comments

[peter parker]

"Refurbished laptops and computers usually give a good deal. If you want to save your money you should buy a refurbished computer. I myself bought a refurb from ""Electro Computer Warehouse"" a few years back, it's still going strong. Needed

it for reading emails and using word at uni and thought getting a refurbished laptop would be my cheapest option. You can also check here: www.electrocomputerwarehouse.com"