Older desktop hardware

[bones]

I know enough about older laptops to know to keep my eyes open for good used ThinkPads (my preference, I'm sure there's other nice older laptops out there).

But I don't really know jack about older desktop hardware. What's decent kit to keep an eye out for? Any standout brands and models from certain years and configurations?

I have my eye on a Lenovo A61 ThinkCentre AMD Athlon 64 x2, 2.3 GHz, 4GB RAM, 250GB HDD, DVD Burner. Were/are the ThinkCentres regarded for the same qualities as the ThinkPads?

How about Dell PowerEdge and HP Proliant servers?

[wuxmedia]

HP Proliant servers?

Good enough for our beloved Grill :)
Lovely internal design, depending how old they should have SATA drives, make sure you don't get a bare bones one, CPU's are available and RAM too. bloody heavy though. and being rackmount, a bit weird to fit on/under a desktop.
They should generally be OK if they are OK, normally have pretty pampered lives, being fed pure UPS calmed current and nice humidity and temperature controlled air gently wafted in their intakes.
Not sure if they'd last out of a DC rack.
Servers can run X I suppose, they have video out,

[pidsley]

I really like the HP Enterprise machines. I prefer the all-Intel versions, but the AMD machines are OK too. The manuals are still available from the HP web site. Avoid the ultra-small form factor machines; these need an external power brick, and most sellers don't include them. I have not been happy with Compaq consumer machines.

I also have a couple of Dell Optiplex machines I am fairly happy with.

[ivanovnegro]

I also have a couple of Dell Optiplex machines I am fairly happy with.

^ That.

[bones]

Thanks guys, have a few more things on my radar based on your recommendations.

[pidsley]

A couple more random thoughts. If you are looking on ebay, check out this seller: http://ebay.to/1EmQhpT

I have purchased several machines from them and I think their prices are reasonable. Don't worry about the "for parts only" disclaimer. The machines don't usually have hard drives, but drives are cheap on ebay and can often be found with free shipping. They usually have some HP Enterprise machines (DC5700, 5750, 5800, etc) and some Optiplex, and they refresh their stock pretty often, so if you don't see what you want today chack again in a few days. I like to watch a few machines I am interested in to see how much they go for, then bid on a similar machine later. (Sorry if I am telling you something you already know.)

If you buy from someone else, try to make sure you can see pictures of the back and inside the machine (so you can see the connectors and how much dust is inside), and one showing the machine booted into the bios config screen. One thing I like about greencitizen is that they always show plenty of pictures of the actual machine you are bidding on.

Suprisingly (at least to me) Pentium machines usually sell for more than Core2Duo or Athlon X2 machines. Core2Duo machines seem to be regularly selling for less than $50 these days.

I'm not a hoarder, I'm a collector.

[bones]

Pidsley, thanks for the specific seller recommendation. As it turns out, I am watching an item of theirs! As you say, drives (and RAM, for that matter) are cheap, so definitely no worries there.

Yeah, I like to see plenty of actual item pics, to know what I am bidding on, BIOS screen included. I don't like when they just put up a single stock photo (of the new machine!).

[bones]

Ended up getting one of these from Green Citizen on eBay, winning bid of $13.50, total of $32 with shipping. Core2 Duo, 2GB of RAM, no hard drive, but I've got plenty of those. Showed up today, nice condition. I'll probably max out the RAM to 4GB. Gotta pick up a monitor, too.

[wuxmedia]

Damn, that's cheap. <jealous>
I don't get it, although I accept that nobody wants these that much. As we all know a perfectly valid machine, I reckon it'd even run Xubuntu or something.

[stark]

Wow that's so cheaper and more powerful than a Rpi.

Also Core2's are monsters. As wux said .. jealous ..

[ivanovnegro]

Wow that's so cheaper and more powerful than a Rpi.

That's the thing. I do not get this Pi hype.

[bones]

I was quite shocked that I got it so cheap. When I happened upon it, there were a couple of days left and no bids yet. I put a max bid of $20 on it (started at $9.99), and only two others bid, on the last day.

Interesting thing: when I unpacked it, plugged it in, and booted it, it went straight for PXE booting, trying to grab DHCP at work (we have static IP addresses only). Went into the BIOS to change that. Today I'll get to play some more. :)

[pidsley]

Congratulations bones.

You can see why I buy all my test machines from greencitizen ;) I think their prices are so low because the machines don't have hard drives and they list them "for parts only." Some people just want a machine that works out of the box without configuring, just as some people don't want to configure their Linux after installation.

You can also see why I was unhappy with the person on IRC (an American) who said he could not afford a test machine. Seriously?

[Dr_Chroot]

Fantastic catch, bones! I am monitoring greencitizen's products and look forward to picking up a Dell Optiplex or HP Compaq when I have room for a desktop...

[bones]

You can see why I buy all my test machines from greencitizen ;) I think their prices are so low because the machines don't have hard drives and they list them "for parts only." Some people just want a machine that works out of the box without configuring, just as some people don't want to configure their Linux after installation.

Yes, thanks for the tip on Green Citizen. Very happy with my purchase. And I found a 250GB drive to put in it already, too.

Funny thing, after changing the BIOS to boot from CD/DVD, tried to do so without luck. Drive light was flashing, but no action. "What the hell?" Check the obvious, simple things first: the power for the drive was plugged in, but the SATA cable was not. Good to go, now. Running the Gentoo LiveDVD at the moment, with Gnome fallback mode - full bloat! :D