What hardware ya using??

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exploder
Level 15
Level 15
Posts: 5623
Joined: Tue Feb 13, 2007 10:50 am
Location: HartfordCity, Indiana USA

Re: What hardware ya using??

Post by exploder »

My main computer quit a few weeks ago now. I have been tinkering with some odds and ends machines seeing what I can get running.

Foxconn AM2+ (not sure on the exact model anymore)
AMD Athlon(tm) 64 X2 Dual Core Processor 5200+ × 2 @ 2.7 GHz
Realtec on-board Network Card
Intel on-board sound
Western Digital 500 GB Green Drive
3 GB DDR 2 RAM
HP power supply salvaged from what used to be my main computer.
LG Combo Drive
NVidea GT 220 graphics

This machine never worked right from day 1. Had to flash the BIOS 3 times before it wold quit destroying hard drives. Also, every few boots the sound would mess up and keep repeating until the system was rebooted.Now this machine is running Mint 14 x64 Cinnamon edition and it works great!

Biostar AM2+ ( I would have to look up the model)
AMD Athlon X2 @ 2.9 GHz
Realtec on-board Network Card
Realtec on-board sound
Western Digital 2 TB Green Hard Drive
4 GB DDR 2 RAM
Generic power supply salvaged from a dead machine.
LG Combo Drive
NVidea 6150 on-board graphics

HP DV6 laptop
AMD Quad Core Processor @ 2.2 GHz (If I remember correct.)
8 GB DDR 2 RAM
on-board sound, Wifi, and NIC
AMD A2 Graphics.

It took a lot of updates to get Mint 14 running on the laptop but it was worth the wait and it runs pretty nice now.

I bought new parts to re-build my main computer but I believe I got a defective motherboard. The new build will have an MSI military grade motherboard, i5 processor and 8 GB of DDR 3.

I have been having a good time putting together the older computers and seeing how cool I can get them to run with whatever parts I happen to have lying around. I have another computer that I started to clean up but I still have to find a couple of parts for it. I have been having my 4 year old son help me to restore these older computers. I let my son blow out the dust with the compressor and help clean the components.

The Foxconn system really surprised me. This system has never worked right, when I received the computer the front bezel was smashed to pieces! The Foxconn system would destroy an SATA hard drive after about 3 times of booting up! The sound problem was extremely annoying and it happened in Windows as well as Linux. Three BIOS flashes later and this system finally runs real nice! This thing has a real feature rich BIOS and I can even see the core temperatures using the default tools in Mint 14. I had fun messing around with fan placement in this computer to keep the temperatures down. I have been using this system for about a week now with no problems of any kind and it was fun getting it going again.

I have more fun putting salvaged stuff together and seeing what I can do with it. The new system will help me be able to test new releases once I get it up and running. I took the system to my step dad's house yesterday so he could look it over in case I made any mistakes. My step dad is fighting cancer and he wanted us to do something together like in the old days when he had a computer shop. It did not matter to me if we got it working or not, I just wanted to spend some time with him. We both determined that the motherboard must be defective because the fans and lights come on but there is no video signal.

My wife complains about me saving old computers for parts but me and my son got a lot of enjoyment out of putting some systems together. Mint 14 seems to run just as well on older hardware as is does on state of the art stuff. All the computers at my house are running Mint 14 with the exception of my wife's gaming laptop. We cleaned up an old Compaq system for my son so him and his older brother are enjoying Mint 14 too.
JWJones

Re: What hardware ya using??

Post by JWJones »

Thinkpad T61 (2007)
4GB RAM
100GB HDD
LMDE Cinnamon
Locked

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