Some months ago , i found a similiar deal and turned out to be a really good computer . I just upgraded the RAM (from 8 to 16GB) ,CPU and GPU. Then replaced the old HDD with a SSD And as for the GPU i upgraded to an RTX 2080 TI.
Don't just rely upon yard sales, check rummage sales, thrift stores (salvation army and goodwill). Don't be afraid to try lesser brands on the cheap or used (just learn to look for signs of damage or wear n tear). Can also dumpster dive apartment complexes or schools, or businesses (just keep it quiet and quick and should bring a bud to watch out for trouble) Also if you're in a city go around on trash days (just after people put stuff out, look in boxes for electronics/cables as those can come in handy (can get rid of those that are damaged and later those that don't work or work well) That day or early the next morning, just put it in the car and move onto the next interesting pile (don't bother tearing open the bags of trash though unless you can see odd shapes indicating something of value). You may find pcs (complete or not it can prove to be worth messing with or for parts, can always try to train yourself to repair and troubleshoot). Even if its a laptop (as long as the bottom half is there you may well be able to get a hdd, ram, cpu), and you can always use another monitor/hdtv for a display as they'll often have hdmi/vga for output) Can always make videos showing off and testing your hauls. And as far as sorting cables, get a spool of wire (something with some thickness that has some tension to it when its bent like the ties that come with garbage bags or better). That and a wire cutter can make it a LOT easier and cheaper to sort out cables so they don't get tangled up in each other (still have to undo them the first time though lol) I've even picked up fully working 1080p hdtvs out of trash, have about 3 spare and a 720p and a couple lesser (probably 480p). Granted they are older and some are like 3 inches thick or so (so probably came out close to when the ps3 and 360 were new lol). Easy enough to test (just use some rabbit ears, or at least a friend holding onto the coax jack while you have it search for channels (it won't make for a good antenna long term but it can work to get a few channels depending upon area lol) Works due to the water and metal in the body (everyone has it) to act as a antenna) If it doesn't work or has serious damage or flaws (not always visible) just put it back out on the curbside for the garbage truck) And to be fair probably 2 out of the 3 1080ps are not energy efficient (one is rated that way but might not be by modern standards lol). But i keep them unplugged (rather on a power strip to deny power unless its being used) And my tip of a air compressor or shop vac (anything like that, preferably something less clunky though) will work and save money (won't have to buy compressed air cans that way)
I did the same thing this spring and summer of 2024, I picked up two retro custom FX gaming pcs that the owner bought from Frye's Electronics back in the day, and I picked up one older Acer oem pc with decent specs had an i7 6700 with 16gb ddr4 and a 1050ti. The Acer motherboard is normal size ITX and most of the plugs are standard surprisingly so I bough a custom case for it and im going to transplant it. I started rebuilding them this month whenever I have free time. That pc is second gen LGA 1155 so if you want to do some tinkering with it the install Windows 7 or newer, use cpu thats already installed and update the bios to the last revision, you will need that to update the cpu, and then go purchase either an i5 something or an i7 something or a compatible Xeon chip. Then upgrade the ram to 16GB (4gb*4) hopefully the ram isnt picky but safest options are usually ram that is labelled HP or Samsung or Hynix or Crucial. Beside the cpu upgrade and the ram upgrade all you need then is to install your 750ti. Reboot, if it posts then boot into windows and install the graphics card then Heaven and some pc games and msi afterburner and run some benchmarks. Whenever you get the chance purchase an AC Watt Meter so you can monitor the Watts of the power supply when the computer is under a game load. Happy Halloween.
Not really an office pc but just a crappy home grade computer. PCs that are meant for office are actually better quality and have more i/o,just like you said the Optiplex has more,which is actually an office/business grade computer. This computer mostly competes with Dell Vostro which is another consumer grade junk
Glad to see someone going straight for linux. I'd like to see more improv-style videos like the old druaga1 videos where he just films himself while exploring/testing the hardware
Piece by piece, you could probably get that purchase price per stick of RAM, maybe sell the CPU for 10, power supply for 15/20 could give you some float cash to buy something tiny bit better of of FB Marketplace like an older Optiplex - But where's the fun in that! It's time to ask your friends and keep an eye out for old business machines being thrown out and playing the salvage game! Even some old office machines have low profile graphics cards in which means you wont have to use the CPU one (Even if the cards are only 1GB), with enough time and scavenging you could absolutely have something specc'd up enough to run a media/file server or even at a push play Minecraft at a reasonable framerate! - (I'm not a tech hoarder I swear) but this is something I have done, found for cheap or free pieces and smashed together an alright working machine!
This is the way. My main pc was an optiplex for years. I slowly upgraded it over time. I think by the end I had an i5 4590 and a gtx 1050 ti. It did the job and I did alot of gaming on it. This year I used it to host some minecraft servers for some friends of mine
@NomadByte built a Mrs an Optiplex with the same CPU, swapped out the PSU got an adapter for it, running a 4GB Nvidia card I had to cram in there, little SSD and a couple HDDs, she's happy, she can play Minecraft and the sims 4 on it, and best of all, it is "technically" VR ready, (wouldn't want to test that theory though). I think there's an i7 which the mobo would support if I find one for cheap I'll chuck one in, but seriously, older hardware doesn't take much to bring up to a 'usable' state for basic things these days since the introduction of quad cores
Games to try (I imagine most of these would work and run well): - Falcon 4 Allied Force (find it on myabandonware) - Arma Cold War Assault (Steam/GOG) - Battlefield 2 (find it on "lost soldiers" forum) - Tom Clancy Ghost Recon 1 (GOG) - Rainbow Six 3 Gold Edition (Steam) - Call Of Duty Warchest (Steam) - Flatout 1 & 2 (Steam/GOG) - Older Valve Games (Portal/Portal 2, Half Life/Half Life 2, CS 1.6, Left 4 Dead 2, etc.) - DOOM 1 & 2 (DOOM 3 might work or might be too demanding, but all are available on Steam) - Quake 1,2, and 3 (Also on Steam) - Combat Master (This runs even on an old Late 2008 13" MacBook, I imagine it could probably run here also) - SWAT 3 & 4 (GOG) Try running these in Linux. Most of these are old classics that are easy to run. You can use Heroic Games Launcher for GOG games. Lutris, Bottles, etc. may be able to be used with other games using installers (.ISO, .EXE, .MSI, etc.).
@@NomadByte No problem! :) MyAbandonware BTW has a huge treasure trove of old, abandoned games that you can't buy anymore... many of them being classics.
bro while i watched this video i thought you were some random youtuber with 1k subs but only roufly 40 for this content? you deserve more like wwwaaayyy more subs
@@NomadByte check the motherboard supported and which is best before you buy though. Also may want to get its ATX to its proprietary connector for a better psu and better gpu. You can probably also get more out of it withy tweaking the os (custom build tryouts?) and better fps in the same games. That and researching its drivers for the chipsets for the best results, updating bios too (may solve the issue with usb keyboards too) There's plenty of project ideas you can do (modern, retro and other) with this or other old machines, with requirements disabled for win 11 it could even run that too. You'll also find the ram support there on the motherboard page and can figure out how big of modules it can handle. Probably 16 to 32 gb (which means 4 or 8 gb ddr3 modules) at best. Should also sort out what you have. You also had a case (BTX i think?) even if nothing works. Don't discount a empty and/or dirty machine, they can suprise you with what can still function as this (and probably others proved) And there's worse than i3s for that socket, Celerons and Pentium G series (budget and extreme budget cpus) not just the low (i3), mid (i5), high (i7) and extra high (xeon, starts in the pentium 2 era machines for the ancient ones) I'd call i9 very high (which isn't relevant until you're dealing with 9th gen or newer machines) Even machines with those i wouldn't discount, you can and should keep those lower end processors just for testing machines with unknown reliability and safety (why risk the best you have for a socket first?) Then in the rare cases it fries a processor (it is very rare but can be a thing) at least you've only lost a low end one. Can also document problems on it cheaply with masking tape or a notepad and some tape to know what it needs, its status and any known problems to address later) could also use things like food storage bags for cheap replacements for anti static bags that you don't have the sizes for to store parts for messing with at a later date
@@NomadByte don't toss it though, can always use it for testing or for another board. Could look at it under a microscope or with a friend that does tech work to see if you can get that small motherboard revived and working again)
Nah I love hard drives. I have quite a few hard drives that I use day to day and they are great and I also like the sounds that they produce. I just don't like to install modern operating systems on them due to the slow loading times.
Please use an AI caption to text device in future, the way you talk is absolutely unsettling. The only way to describe how you approach sentences is like a sideways S. sent shivers down my spine
huh, that's interesting that you feel that way. I have never gotten a comment like that on any youtube channel that I run. I will absolutely not be using an ai voice. Just don't watch my videos if you feel that way.
I have a nostalgia for these older computers that ran Windows XP/Vista/7 that I just can't explain. Nice video btw.
Me too. I used them when I was younger so they are quite nostalgic. Also I think that older windows versions were more fun to use anyway.
For 5 dollars any day of the week! Also i like your editing style. Keep it up ☺
Weeb 🚨
@lamson1990 ty :)
Some months ago , i found a similiar deal and turned out to be a really good computer .
I just upgraded the RAM (from 8 to 16GB) ,CPU and GPU.
Then replaced the old HDD with a SSD And as for the GPU i upgraded to an RTX 2080 TI.
Don't just rely upon yard sales, check rummage sales, thrift stores (salvation army and goodwill). Don't be afraid to try lesser brands on the cheap or used (just learn to look for signs of damage or wear n tear). Can also dumpster dive apartment complexes or schools, or businesses (just keep it quiet and quick and should bring a bud to watch out for trouble) Also if you're in a city go around on trash days (just after people put stuff out, look in boxes for electronics/cables as those can come in handy (can get rid of those that are damaged and later those that don't work or work well) That day or early the next morning, just put it in the car and move onto the next interesting pile (don't bother tearing open the bags of trash though unless you can see odd shapes indicating something of value).
You may find pcs (complete or not it can prove to be worth messing with or for parts, can always try to train yourself to repair and troubleshoot). Even if its a laptop (as long as the bottom half is there you may well be able to get a hdd, ram, cpu), and you can always use another monitor/hdtv for a display as they'll often have hdmi/vga for output)
Can always make videos showing off and testing your hauls.
And as far as sorting cables, get a spool of wire (something with some thickness that has some tension to it when its bent like the ties that come with garbage bags or better). That and a wire cutter can make it a LOT easier and cheaper to sort out cables so they don't get tangled up in each other (still have to undo them the first time though lol)
I've even picked up fully working 1080p hdtvs out of trash, have about 3 spare and a 720p and a couple lesser (probably 480p). Granted they are older and some are like 3 inches thick or so (so probably came out close to when the ps3 and 360 were new lol). Easy enough to test (just use some rabbit ears, or at least a friend holding onto the coax jack while you have it search for channels (it won't make for a good antenna long term but it can work to get a few channels depending upon area lol) Works due to the water and metal in the body (everyone has it) to act as a antenna)
If it doesn't work or has serious damage or flaws (not always visible) just put it back out on the curbside for the garbage truck)
And to be fair probably 2 out of the 3 1080ps are not energy efficient (one is rated that way but might not be by modern standards lol). But i keep them unplugged (rather on a power strip to deny power unless its being used)
And my tip of a air compressor or shop vac (anything like that, preferably something less clunky though) will work and save money (won't have to buy compressed air cans that way)
I got a free laptop from trash once. It worked
@@WeatherMan2005 nice, try for more computers regardless of type or completeness.
@patg108 if i can find anything i plan to take it. Only things i wont take are things like broken tvs. I dont have space to keep any tvs
Yeah I'd like to get more into finding some and repairing them and stuff. That might be something I would make some videos on
I did the same thing this spring and summer of 2024, I picked up two retro custom FX gaming pcs that the owner bought from Frye's Electronics back in the day, and I picked up one older Acer oem pc with decent specs had an i7 6700 with 16gb ddr4 and a 1050ti. The Acer motherboard is normal size ITX and most of the plugs are standard surprisingly so I bough a custom case for it and im going to transplant it. I started rebuilding them this month whenever I have free time. That pc is second gen LGA 1155 so if you want to do some tinkering with it the install Windows 7 or newer, use cpu thats already installed and update the bios to the last revision, you will need that to update the cpu, and then go purchase either an i5 something or an i7 something or a compatible Xeon chip. Then upgrade the ram to 16GB (4gb*4) hopefully the ram isnt picky but safest options are usually ram that is labelled HP or Samsung or Hynix or Crucial. Beside the cpu upgrade and the ram upgrade all you need then is to install your 750ti. Reboot, if it posts then boot into windows and install the graphics card then Heaven and some pc games and msi afterburner and run some benchmarks. Whenever you get the chance purchase an AC Watt Meter so you can monitor the Watts of the power supply when the computer is under a game load. Happy Halloween.
Thanks for all the info. Also yeah I wanna get one of those ac watt meters you're talking about
Not really an office pc but just a crappy home grade computer. PCs that are meant for office are actually better quality and have more i/o,just like you said the Optiplex has more,which is actually an office/business grade computer. This computer mostly competes with Dell Vostro which is another consumer grade junk
Yeah that makes more sense honestly
It's a low end Pavillion. I own a similar model from 2010 and it uses the same chassis but with AM3 CPUs.
Glad to see someone going straight for linux. I'd like to see more improv-style videos like the old druaga1 videos where he just films himself while exploring/testing the hardware
5 dollars can get you access to the sum total of all human knowledge, pretty crazy.
Piece by piece, you could probably get that purchase price per stick of RAM, maybe sell the CPU for 10, power supply for 15/20 could give you some float cash to buy something tiny bit better of of FB Marketplace like an older Optiplex - But where's the fun in that! It's time to ask your friends and keep an eye out for old business machines being thrown out and playing the salvage game! Even some old office machines have low profile graphics cards in which means you wont have to use the CPU one (Even if the cards are only 1GB), with enough time and scavenging you could absolutely have something specc'd up enough to run a media/file server or even at a push play Minecraft at a reasonable framerate! - (I'm not a tech hoarder I swear) but this is something I have done, found for cheap or free pieces and smashed together an alright working machine!
This is the way. My main pc was an optiplex for years. I slowly upgraded it over time. I think by the end I had an i5 4590 and a gtx 1050 ti. It did the job and I did alot of gaming on it. This year I used it to host some minecraft servers for some friends of mine
@NomadByte built a Mrs an Optiplex with the same CPU, swapped out the PSU got an adapter for it, running a 4GB Nvidia card I had to cram in there, little SSD and a couple HDDs, she's happy, she can play Minecraft and the sims 4 on it, and best of all, it is "technically" VR ready, (wouldn't want to test that theory though). I think there's an i7 which the mobo would support if I find one for cheap I'll chuck one in, but seriously, older hardware doesn't take much to bring up to a 'usable' state for basic things these days since the introduction of quad cores
Games to try (I imagine most of these would work and run well):
- Falcon 4 Allied Force (find it on myabandonware)
- Arma Cold War Assault (Steam/GOG)
- Battlefield 2 (find it on "lost soldiers" forum)
- Tom Clancy Ghost Recon 1 (GOG)
- Rainbow Six 3 Gold Edition (Steam)
- Call Of Duty Warchest (Steam)
- Flatout 1 & 2 (Steam/GOG)
- Older Valve Games (Portal/Portal 2, Half Life/Half Life 2, CS 1.6, Left 4 Dead 2, etc.)
- DOOM 1 & 2 (DOOM 3 might work or might be too demanding, but all are available on Steam)
- Quake 1,2, and 3 (Also on Steam)
- Combat Master (This runs even on an old Late 2008 13" MacBook, I imagine it could probably run here also)
- SWAT 3 & 4 (GOG)
Try running these in Linux. Most of these are old classics that are easy to run. You can use Heroic Games Launcher for GOG games.
Lutris, Bottles, etc. may be able to be used with other games using installers (.ISO, .EXE, .MSI, etc.).
Thanks for the list!
@@NomadByte No problem! :)
MyAbandonware BTW has a huge treasure trove of old, abandoned games that you can't buy anymore... many of them being classics.
The freaking resellers in my country, Vietnam they will dissect this PC into components and sell each of them for more than 5 usd
i found a old Dell oem in a trash pile the other day and am currently trying to turn it into a Minecraft server
what? it was only 5buckoronies???? No way. Ppl there where i live would ask about 100-130euro for this...
yeah even if its pretty low end 5 dollars is a steal honestly
@@NomadByte yeaa
upgrade the CPU to the best one the mobo supports and add a 750Ti it makes for a great retro Windows XP or Windows 7 PC
bro while i watched this video i thought you were some random youtuber with 1k subs but only roufly 40 for this content? you deserve more like wwwaaayyy more subs
1:19 I use those monitors!!
Great find, great video! Should work well with a cheap CPU upgrade to quad core (of some kind) :) thanks for showing Linux Mint (and neofetch command)
Thanks!
Thanks for the video!
Wait THATS MY PC
underrated channel fr
Nice video man🤙🏻
just stumbled across you channel nice content you gained a subscriber
pavilion p6 only has 4 slots
Like one of those tattoos you get in prison bad.
i mean for five dollar? if it working it's bargain
dude, put that 750 Ti in there and install Recalbox on it
swap the Pentium for a Xeon
Yeah if I did that it would run a lot better. I might do that.
@NomadByte good also 2nd 3rd gen xeons are real cheap
@@thesmokecriminal5395 yeah they are quite cheap. I think I have an i5 2400 lying around I could put in there
@@NomadByte check the motherboard supported and which is best before you buy though. Also may want to get its ATX to its proprietary connector for a better psu and better gpu. You can probably also get more out of it withy tweaking the os (custom build tryouts?) and better fps in the same games. That and researching its drivers for the chipsets for the best results, updating bios too (may solve the issue with usb keyboards too)
There's plenty of project ideas you can do (modern, retro and other) with this or other old machines, with requirements disabled for win 11 it could even run that too.
You'll also find the ram support there on the motherboard page and can figure out how big of modules it can handle. Probably 16 to 32 gb (which means 4 or 8 gb ddr3 modules) at best. Should also sort out what you have.
You also had a case (BTX i think?) even if nothing works. Don't discount a empty and/or dirty machine, they can suprise you with what can still function as this (and probably others proved)
And there's worse than i3s for that socket, Celerons and Pentium G series (budget and extreme budget cpus) not just the low (i3), mid (i5), high (i7) and extra high (xeon, starts in the pentium 2 era machines for the ancient ones) I'd call i9 very high (which isn't relevant until you're dealing with 9th gen or newer machines)
Even machines with those i wouldn't discount, you can and should keep those lower end processors just for testing machines with unknown reliability and safety (why risk the best you have for a socket first?) Then in the rare cases it fries a processor (it is very rare but can be a thing) at least you've only lost a low end one.
Can also document problems on it cheaply with masking tape or a notepad and some tape to know what it needs, its status and any known problems to address later)
could also use things like food storage bags for cheap replacements for anti static bags that you don't have the sizes for to store parts for messing with at a later date
@@NomadByte don't toss it though, can always use it for testing or for another board. Could look at it under a microscope or with a friend that does tech work to see if you can get that small motherboard revived and working again)
Can't handle hard drives? Sad...
Nah I love hard drives. I have quite a few hard drives that I use day to day and they are great and I also like the sounds that they produce. I just don't like to install modern operating systems on them due to the slow loading times.
hai you want a shout out?
I'm good thanks though
Thats NOT A HDD TAHTS A SSD which is better ily make more ily a lot
In that clip he was showing the ssd that he bought not that hdd that was in the pc originally
@@PikeletTech OOPS! sorry!
Please use an AI caption to text device in future, the way you talk is absolutely unsettling. The only way to describe how you approach sentences is like a sideways S. sent shivers down my spine
huh, that's interesting that you feel that way. I have never gotten a comment like that on any youtube channel that I run. I will absolutely not be using an ai voice. Just don't watch my videos if you feel that way.
Calm down
@@NomadByte I'm with you, AI narration sucks and I immediately bail on any video using it
stop with the bs title...who would go into the trouble of selling a pc with 5 dollars? come on..next
lol someone at a yardsale I went to?
@@NomadByte riiiighttt yaaardsaaleee
@@fliporflop7119 jeez take a Midol, would ya
@@jeffb.6642 got one ?
Pin me pls