You’d think the only people interested in making old computer hardware useful again are older folks, but you’d be wrong because there’s a ton of teens that like to do the same thing. The reason they do it however is different from the older crowd. Older folks refresh older hardware mainly for the nostalgia factor while the younger crowd does it because it’s cheap. If you think about it, you can get an old PC or laptop for well under 50 bucks and in many instances even for free. On a quick scan of my local Craigslist for “Dell” with an under-$50 price tag, there’s actually a lot to choose from. Granted, you have to spend some time looking but periodically you’ll find some great stuff in there on the super-cheap.

If going the cheap retro route, these are my tips on getting the best possible working (keyword there) setup.

1. Search for Dell first.

Dell PCs and laptops are everywhere, so you search for this brand first to give you the widest selection.

2. Don’t buy a custom build built by someone else.

It’s a common truth the primary reason why anyone sells a custom build is because something is drastically wrong with the computer box. Could be bad RAM, bad hard drive, wonky fans, overclocked-and-overcooked CPU and so on.

3. Avoid “slim” cases.

When shopping around for Dell boxes in particular, you’ll see a lot of “slim” version cases. You avoid these because they’re difficult to work on and upgrade options are extremely limited. In many you can’t even upgrade the video card and are forced to take on-board video only. Stick to the full-size cases and you’ll be in good shape.

4. The bare minimum in the “usable” dept. is Intel Pentium 4 or AMD Athlon XP with 512MB RAM and a 64MB video card.

The slowest Pentium 4 or AMD Athlon XP is 1.3GHz. Both of them started at that GHz speed so you can’t go any slower. Outfitted with 512MB and a 64MB video card, this will run Windows XP with no problems at all and can run just about any program you throw at it. It’s even decent as a low-end gaming box as it will play titles like Half-Life, Counter-Strike, Starcraft and Diablo II easily.

You can easily bump most 512MB RAM computer boxes to 2GB, which for a 32-bit XP installation is fine.

Many of the older boxes come equipped with AGP video cards instead of PCIe. This is fine because AGP cards are still sold new and can be had for as little as 30 bucks. Note: If you’re in the under-2.4GHz CPU territory with whatever box you get, 128MB video memory is the maximum you should upgrade to, because anything more than that won’t make much of a difference, performance-wise.

Concerning the RAM, you should be able to bump to 2GB easily on the cheap – however it’s important to check that the box can actually support it (some boxes of that era cut corners and only support 1GB maximum).

Concerning the CPU, the biggest difference between these particular AMD and Intel CPUs is that the AMD will run hotter. A lot hotter. That’s just the way they were back then. If you get a box with an AMD Athlon XP CPU and when running the side of the case feels a bit warm, that’s normal.

5. A Dell with the original XP CD reinstallation disc is a huge score.

The great thing about XP discs from Dell (obviously for Dell boxes) is that you can simply pop in the disc, install the entire OS and it never asks you for a product key. Why? Because it’s built-in to the SIF file. Yes, you can install XP from scratch, it will validate on WGA check and you’re good to go. It was designed that way from the OEM directly, so if you come across a Dell box with the Dell-branded XP OS reinstallation disc be it Home or Professional – that’s a very cool thing because it saves a ton of hassle with the XP OS itself.

What this means is that even if the XP sticker on the Dell box is completely scratched off, it doesn’t matter. As long as you have an original Dell-branded XP OS reinstallation disc, that’s all you need.

6. 17-inch LCD monitors are easy to come by and are basically indestructible.

In the under-$50 search on Craigslist you’ll see a lot of 17-inch LCD monitors. The vast majority of them are standard 4:3 aspect with a resolution of 1280×1024. This is fine. Most of them still have strong backlights and if it busts for whatever reason there are always more out there.

These are the drawbacks with an older 17-inch LCD monitor – and they’re darned few:

• You may see “ghosting” effects when playing some video games.
• The monitor cannot produce a true black and at best you’ll see a dark gray.
• Color representation will be a bit “off”, requiring you to sit down with it and tweak it a bit.

Other than the above, the 17-inch 1280×1024 LCD monitor gets the job done just fine.

Also remember that since they’re so cheap, if you replace your video card with a dual-head, you can go dual-monitor easily.

Things you may have to replace with new

This list is fortunately short.

Hard drive

If the hard drive is loud or making any sort of odd noises, junk it immediately and buy a new one. Get a cheap new 7200 RPM standard 3.5-inch HDD (they start at around $35) and you’ll be glad you did.

Fans

If any fan anywhere in the box doesn’t work correctly or is threatening not to work correctly even after a cleaning, replace them.

What about wireless?

Most desktop boxes don’t have any wi-fi options in them at all. Fortunately it can be added in easily as all Pent-4/Athlon-XP boxes have at least one PCI slot available. Wi-fi PCI cards are cheap and widely available, so if you can’t string a network cable to the box for whatever reason, wireless is a very do-able thing.

Final notes

All boxes in the Pent-4/Athlon-XP era have USB 2.0

You can plug in printers, cell phones, keyboards, mice and more or less everything you use now into one of these older boxes and it will work just fine. USB 2.0 be it new or old always works the same. Even though USB 3.0 is right around the corner in 2011, USB 2.0 isn’t going to vanish overnight and will still be around a long, long time.

Don’t buy a box that has missing covers

I’m referring to the plastic covers that are in place of where a floppy or optical drive would be. On many of the older boxes these things are gone. It doesn’t affect the way the box works, but it will annoy you every time you have to look at it. And if you think you can locate the covers from somewhere else after you buy the box, you won’t. These plastic covers no matter the box are never available when you actually need them.

If you have an existing XP Home or Pro Dell-branded OS CD, it will work in any Dell box of the era

This is another beautiful thing about Dell boxes. If you have in your possession a Dell XP OS recovery disc, you can pop that into any Dell box and ta-da, the OS will install and validate normally.

“What about the XP product key?”

Doesn’t matter – it will work and validate.

And if you’re wondering, no it will not work on anything but Dell-specific PCs.

“Does this mean I could buy two old Dell boxes and that single Dell-branded XP OS recovery CD would work on both of them?”

Yes. You could buy 10 Dell boxes – or laptops – and it will work.

“WOW! Will this work with Windows Vista or 7 too?”

No. Just XP.

There is absolutely nothing illegal about reloading XP on any Dell box like this, because they did all ship with fully licensed XP originally. Where the product key is acquired from is on the disc itself in a file called winnt.sif.

I know the next question you have.

“Can I take that product key from winnt.sif and use on another non-Dell PC?”

No, you XP thief. Dell-branded XP OS discs only work with Dell-branded PCs, period. The XP installation reads the OEM manufacturer right from the motherboard itself, so taking the product key information from winnt.sif won’t help you.

(I sense a large amount of people who read this will be suddenly interested in older Dell boxes…)

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