How much is my old workstation worth?

ajr2764

Im in the process of buying my parts for my new updated workstation and would like to know what some people think the old one is worth. I built this cpu almost 10 years ago and its still running great by obviously too outdated to do the kind of work we do here. Specs:

-Intel p4 3.2ghz single core
-3 gb ddr 400mhz
-nvidia geforce 5200 256 mb ram agp 8x
-intel motherboard with 2 sata 1 connectors
-320 gb ide hdd
-dvd burners x2
-floppy drive(im so embaressed to even put this)
-350 watt psu
-mid tower atx case w/clear side panel
-win xp pro 32

leilei

Sadly, these days, most of the worth is in that hard drive, even if it's on the old IDE interface.

It could do with a new video card though, the 5200 is notorious for being a slow piece of crap, it's a wonder why you didn't put something better in there sooner (i.e. anything not a 5200 - a great AGP card would be the Geforce6800 or X850GT). I'm not saying you should upgrade it now, but it's your biggest performance bottleneck. The 5200 maxes out its potential on some of the late Pentium IIIs...

ajr2764

yea way back last year I bought a ati card forgot which one but was suppose to be the best agp card still out. sadly the bad reviews because of drivers turned out to be true and I had to return it after a few days of trying to get it to work. I was trying to squeeze a little more out of it but that's old news very soon I'll be on my i7 workstation...so excited.

Xoliul

25-50 dollars or something? It's seriously ancient...

Kwramm

check ebay for similar systems.
Or just donate it, shoot it to the moon, work on it with a sledgehammer, use it as render slave...

passerby

not going to be worth much money, just donate it, or keep it and load it up with harddrives for netwrokd storage, or a local server.

easterislandnick

http://www.computers4africa.org/

... or similar!

Saman

I always keep my hard drives, call me paranoid but since files are recoverable I would rather have it in my own hands than donate it to someone else.

Andreas

Especially Nigerian Princes.

Bibendum

Goraaz wrote: »

I always keep my hard drives, call me paranoid but since files are recoverable I would rather have it in my own hands than donate it to someone else.

There are applications out there that will securely wipe a hard drive and make all of its contents unrecoverable.

You should also consider using some encryption solution (even a strong password protected rar is better than nothing) to store your important data, especially if you do freelance work that is under NDA. Cause you can certainly safely delete data, but that doesn't help you if it gets stolen. It does NOT look professional having to go to your employer and tell them their work files are out there in the open because you didn't bother to take security measures.

Just a thought.

Edit: If you use Win7 Pro/Ult edition you can use BitLocker at no additional cost to encrypt the entire system btw. It adds (according to their FAQ) a single digit overhead performance drop though. Whether or not thats worth it is I guess your call.

Isaiah Sherman

A single core proc with a video card like that? That's what I owned when I like... 10 years ago.

You'd be lucky to get $50 for that.

leilei

ajr2764 wrote: »

yea way back last year I bought a ati card forgot which one but was suppose to be the best agp card still out. sadly the bad reviews because of drivers turned out to be true and I had to return it after a few days of trying to get it to work.

Yeah I know exactly what card you're referring to (HD4650 AGP), you'll want to stay far far away from any PCIe->AGP bridged cards of any kind.

Lamont

Best tools for wiping hard drives are hammers and gums. If you have space turn it into the most powerful router/firewall you'll ever own. But I'd donate it. There is someone out there who can use it. Wipe the HDD.

Racer445

it's not worth much so i'd just gut it and reuse the case for your new build to save some money. you could spend a little of that saved money on an external ide enclosure, then use the 320gb drive for storing crap.

Two Listen

I had a very, very similar desktop up until very recently. Most stats were the same except I had a Radeon x850xt pe and a 450W psu in it. Nobody seemed to really care to buy it, I didn't really care about getting anything for it since I didn't consider it worth a ton. Wound up giving it to a coworker who's PC at home was even older.

Part of me wishes I'd kept the hard drive or the video card lying around (since it was a pretty nice agp card), but meh, I had it sitting in a closet ever since I built my wife her new PC.