Cheap computers!!

[seoirse2002]

Hi Guys,
Just spotted these on ebay...not sure if they will be any use to anyone,but seem like they may be a good cheap starting point...item no.170871129454
Hope it may help someone

[Tim]

Link for those using mobiles and tablets etc. £44.98 all in.

Cheap Dell Gx280 computer pc desktop with windows XP

Could quite possibly make a very respectable music server, if you could stand the bug ugly case and it worked. I suspect it would be noisy though.
Intel P4 HT 2.8GHZ - 1024 MB (1GB) RAM - 40GB Hard Drive - DVDROM - Windows XP

[ZebuTheOxen]

The Dell GX270s and GX280s had dodgy motherboards. Cheap capacitors on the boards resulted in a hefty recall.

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2373069,00.asp

They are pretty ancient now, they'll cost you a fair amount in power consumption.

[seoirse2002]

Sorry Guys...dont know much about this stuff...thought it might help someone

[WOStantonCS100]

Sorry Guys...dont know much about this stuff...thought it might help someone

No harm. As long as they're running, they're passable in a pinch. Be warned though, some of the SFF's (small form factors) used non-standard PSU's (like HP and some others; not the micro-ATX). In those cases, if the PSU goes, you're up a creek without a paddle. If you can get one, it's most likely going to cost more than the machine is worth. Some of these units had bad air flow and were prone to overheating. Sometimes this overheating would dry out the plastic retainer that the CPU cooler latched on to and break the clips leading to frequent shutdowns or a cooked processor. Oh, and, the slim optical drives were a pain, too. It's much nicer to be able to run down to the "corner store" and get replacement parts. Then again, corner stores are disappearing fast; so, that may not matter. As replacement parts go, these old machines may be setup primarily for IDE/PATA drives. Even if they have SATA on the motherboard, sometimes there isn't (or aren't enough) SATA power plugs coming off the PSU... which takes us back to the PSU issue I mentioned first. Machines like this are pretty much a roll of the dice; well used machines pulled from service. If one goes for it, I'd suggest buying two or three for spare parts in case something goes wrong; but, that's hardly worth it, really. But, for chump change, in a pinch...............

And, a 40GB hard drive these days is... ...itty-bitty.

[StanleyB]

The Dell GX270s and GX280s had dodgy motherboards. Cheap capacitors on the boards resulted in a hefty recall.

It's actually a lot more intriguing and complicated than that, and a lesson in why it is so difficult to pass one's design on to Chinese companies.

[RichB]

Never again would I have a small form factor PC or mini atx . Very prone to overheating and shutdown in my experience. Quite noisy too I found. My old dell laptop kicks the mini towers ass for speed, reliability and quiet. Its at least eight years old. My mini tower was toast within two years.

[AlfaGTV]

And i would like to add that Intels P4 HT series is NOT their proudest moment imo. Slow, hot, powerconsuming, loud and in demand of a minimum of 2Gb for decent funcionality on Win XP.

But as a server for UPnP or Squeeze they would work ok, if you can stand the electric bills and store them away somewhere where you can't hear the physical PC.

Regards
/Mike