drosse1meyer wrote on 2023-05-15, 12:17:

brian105 wrote on 2023-05-15, 07:35:

swaaye wrote on 2023-05-14, 03:43:

Really though, aside from the fun in playing with something, it's not worth spending more than a few $ on this hardware. Much faster, much newer hardware is cheap as well. Like Skylake-based corp hardware for example.

I agree; many Haswell prebuilts are getting retired and thus getting thrown out at dirt cheap prices. An i5-4570 will absolutely smash up the Core 2 Quad while also having newer standards like SATA 3. Even if not buying a full prebuilt, the boards from them are dirt cheap (HP Prodesk 400 G1 boards are like $12 and the CPU is maybe $15.)

Do you have a link to one of these?

https://www.ebay.com/itm/234629838197

Here's a board.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/334866878462
i5-4570

brian105 wrote on 2023-05-15, 17:31:

https://www.ebay.com/itm/234629838197 […]
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drosse1meyer wrote on 2023-05-15, 12:17:

brian105 wrote on 2023-05-15, 07:35:

I agree; many Haswell prebuilts are getting retired and thus getting thrown out at dirt cheap prices. An i5-4570 will absolutely smash up the Core 2 Quad while also having newer standards like SATA 3. Even if not buying a full prebuilt, the boards from them are dirt cheap (HP Prodesk 400 G1 boards are like $12 and the CPU is maybe $15.)

Do you have a link to one of these?

https://www.ebay.com/itm/234629838197

Here's a board.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/334866878462
i5-4570

thank you... wasnt seeing the mobo before, maybe i didnt have enoguh coffee yet 😁

drosse1meyer wrote on 2023-05-13, 02:12:

Hello All […]
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Hello All

I have an old PC here that is in its twilight years... an HP corporate SFF with a C2D e6550

Win 10 runs ok but I was curious if a Q9300 would help breath a bit more life into it. They're fairly cheap on eBay.

Thoughts?

I have an amd e300 dual core, 4 times slower than that c2d, and im ok, just make shure you are using 10240 build, forget 22h2 build , of any build after 2018.

i have also a dell precision, i got it for cheap 150 dlrs. its socket 2011, so, alot of rom for upgrades, just forget c2d, go for xeons socket 2011.

Gumur.gurl wrote on 2023-05-16, 03:05:

drosse1meyer wrote on 2023-05-13, 02:12:

Hello All […]
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Hello All

I have an old PC here that is in its twilight years... an HP corporate SFF with a C2D e6550

Win 10 runs ok but I was curious if a Q9300 would help breath a bit more life into it. They're fairly cheap on eBay.

Thoughts?

I have an amd e300 dual core, 4 times slower than that c2d, and im ok, just make shure you are using 10240 build, forget 22h2 build , of any build after 2018.

i have also a dell precision, i got it for cheap 150 dlrs. its socket 2011, so, alot of rom for upgrades, just forget c2d, go for xeons socket 2011.

thanks. i have to see what they want to do.

keyword = cheep 🐣

i consider it a challenge

ssd = $20, CPU = $10-20

if i can get away with $30 in upgrades to keep this going another few years. not sure i want to drop $150 on a used SFF right now. but that was the other idea (8th gen+ / Win11 route) as posted earlier.

If you get bored.....

I have Windows 11 working fine on my Q9650 since WIndows 11 was released, just needs at least 8gb of ram and a SSD.

I put the following in a bypass.cmd on the root of the Windows 11 ISO an on bootup I press Shift+F10, go to the drive (may be a different letter), run the batch and proceed with setup. No issues with security updates. Tested on latest 22H2.

1@ECHO OFF
2REM 1. Place batch file in root of ISO using AnyBurn
3REM 2. At install screen press shift+F10
4REM 3. Type in "D:\bypass.cmd"
5reg add HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\Setup\LabConfig /v ByPassTPMCheck /t REG_DWORD /d 1 /f
6reg add HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\Setup\LabConfig /v BypassSecureBootCheck /t REG_DWORD /d 1 /f
7reg add HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\Setup\LabConfig /v BypassRAMCheck /t REG_DWORD /d 1 /f
8reg add HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\Setup\LabConfig /v BypassStorageCheck /t REG_DWORD /d 1 /f
9reg add HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\Setup\LabConfig /v BypassCPUCheck /t REG_DWORD /d 1 /f
10setup

Tiny11 has just been released, only need 2gb of ram and will run on pretty much a toaster, its really just a continuation of Tiny10.

Cheap and already modded (pad adapter + spaces for the socket notches) - https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005005019029 … id=XUdh02YHyidZ . All you have to do is research if your motherboard supports it.

Hi Everyone

Just to follow up on this. I did end up buying a C2Q 9300 for like a dollar. However while waiting for it to arrive I found something else on ebay from a corporate recycler - an HP G3 600 SFF for $25.

Specs are pretty nice - i5 6500, 16 GB RAM, 256 NVME. Even has wifi/BT, USBC port and TPM 2 chip. HP was kind enough to oinclude a pair of pigtails for SATA power - standard and mini - so I repurposed an old slim line DVDRW drive from a junked laptop and installed that as well.

Cleaned up, repasted, updated BIOS, ran it through its paces, switched to UEFI, then slapped Win 11 on it.

It's working quite nicely and will do my parents well for another decade.

After I set it up for them I'll reclaim the old machine and turn it into a retro XP rig. Alas, thats a thread for another day 😉

drosse1meyer wrote on 2023-09-14, 00:32:

Cleaned up, repasted, updated BIOS, ran it through its paces, switched to UEFI, then slapped Win 11 on it.

It's working quite nicely and will do my parents well for another decade.

Assuming, of course, that Microsoft doesn't break Win11 on "unsupported" processors...

The whole thing is, in my view, BS (I have Win11 running fine on a C2Q with no UEFI, no TPM 2.0, no secure boot, etc., so you're nowhere exactly near that far away from the official specs), but officially, they reserve the right to basically brick any pre-8th-gen Intel CPU in any monthly or feature update.

(And, as you can perhaps tell from my grumpiness, I have an i7-7700 as my main modern Windows desktop box and that's officially on the wrong side of the cutoff while lousy chips in one-year-newer laptops are in. In 27 years of using Windows, I have never been treated with such disrespect by Microsoft... not to mention, it's seriously scared me off buying newer nice Windows hardware because, well, how am I supposed to predict what hardware Windows 12 will artificially turn into e-waste?)

Also, I don't understand why Microsoft thinks it's a good idea to try and throw seniors with C2Qs or other older desktops out of the Windows platform. There are a lot of people whose computing needs could be served almost entirely by a smartphone; if you tell those folks they need to throw out a C2Q or sandy bridge desktop, they might just go smartphone only and... that's not good for the longer-term health of the Windows platform.

When you have a C2D, 16GB memory and hard drive, running windows 10, what really sped up the PC on web browsing is buy a Intel pro/1000 PT x1 PCIe network card. This offloads the ip processing from CPU onto network card's. Seriously. This what I had using Dell Optiplex 780!

Cheers,

Yes VivienM , MS does not care except their bottom $ line but would think allow older systems to use newer OS so would gain them more $ thru OS sales but they believe in planned obsolescence. BTW Bill Gates (the man) is a thug, he bought up lots of farm land in middle America so he could control the farmers and food supply (true story) and believes in a "one world" government where the Elites control everything, probably one of the many reasons his wife left him....

Horun wrote on 2023-09-14, 02:11:

Yes VivienM , MS does not care except their bottom $ line but would think allow older systems to use newer OS so would gain them more $ thru OS sales but they believe in planned obsolescence.

The problem is that they stopped charging for upgrades.

Back in the day, they made way more money selling you an upgrade copy than selling an OEM copy for your next system, so if anything, they had an additional incentive to make the new OS run well on existing hardware. But ever since they made upgrades free... lots of C2Ds/C2Qs who haven't paid since 2009 are still in use...

I wish they had said 'okay, systems newer than X get free upgrades; older systems can buy a licence for $x' or something.

I love retro tech, for retro use cases and I'm all for extending aging hardware's lifespan for modern use, when it makes sense, practically and financially.

IMHO, getting something like this [1] or something a bit less powerful but cheaper like [2] makes a lot of sense for many use cases . These are not endorsements, just examples .

Granted, there are no GPU, RAM or CPU upgrade options, but one of these is a lot of PC for not much money, IMHO .

If one already has the older hardware and upgrades for it are easy and cheap, great, but IMHO, spending more than 100$ (for example) on an SFF socket 775 system to use it more effectively under Windows 10 or newer is not money well spent nowadays. GPU options are limited anyway, fastest theoretical compatible CPU is a Q9650 or thereabouts (depending on board/chipset) which is long in the tooth (slow) and has a rather high TDP . Add to that the fact that 16GB DDR3 is pretty much the max one can put in one of those and some don't do more than 8GB .

[1]
https://www.amazon.com/Beelink-Pro%EF%BC%8CAM … t/dp/B0963SGJH3

[2]
https://www.amazon.com/Beelink-SER5-Processor … n/dp/B0BS6HTPKG

drosse1meyer wrote on 2023-09-14, 00:32:

Hi Everyone […]
Show full quote

Hi Everyone

Just to follow up on this. I did end up buying a C2Q 9300 for like a dollar. However while waiting for it to arrive I found something else on ebay from a corporate recycler - an HP G3 600 SFF for $25.

Specs are pretty nice - i5 6500, 16 GB RAM, 256 NVME. Even has wifi/BT, USBC port and TPM 2 chip. HP was kind enough to oinclude a pair of pigtails for SATA power - standard and mini - so I repurposed an old slim line DVDRW drive from a junked laptop and installed that as well.

Cleaned up, repasted, updated BIOS, ran it through its paces, switched to UEFI, then slapped Win 11 on it.

It's working quite nicely and will do my parents well for another decade.

After I set it up for them I'll reclaim the old machine and turn it into a retro XP rig. Alas, thats a thread for another day 😉

When ya turn it into a retro rig check out the S Q9550 and other chips.