PC only for downloading purpose...

D

Ok... Here is what i plan to do...
I want to leave my PC on overnight without making a hole in my wallet...

I want to assemble a PC which uses the most minimum electricity...

I can buy parts..
Have some parts from my older PCs
Pentium I - Laptop (Dead... I guess the RAM dosn't work anymore)
Pentium II - Messed up the jumpers and RAM dosn't work
Pentium 4 - 1.8 GHz - 512 mb ram.
Pentium Dual Core 3.2 GHz - 2 GB RAM

D

Nothing will work from the old PC's except the hard disk, optical drive and RAM from the last PC (if it is DDR2 RAM).
Since you basically want minimum power usage get a Atom based platform like the Zotac IONITX which has an Atom CPU integrated on the mobo along with nVidia Ion integrated GPU.

P

I like tinkering with old stuff and get some useful service out of it.

I'm in the process of assembling a machine from old parts for my wife so that she will be able to play music in the kitchen. It's based on a 32-bit Athlon XP 2000+ on a motherboard using an nForce chipset with GeForce 2 MX IGP (the first motherboard chipset by NVidia), and 512MB DDR1.

I still have the parts of an even older rig using a 450 MHz PIII with 128MB SDRAM. For some time, I've been having an idea in the back of my head of setting it up as a download machine. This thread makes me want to actually do it as soon as I have time.

@pimpom. why do you need to put entire PC for media player in kitchen.

Just get a 4GB Creative Zen for some 4k bucks and connect to a good speaker set. Lot better than putting a full size PC.

If 4k is heavy, look for Sansa clip or Transcend/Philips players.

@Dextor, if you are in Bangalore, I can sell you my old Athlon 64 3000+,gigabyte 6100 mobo+2GB RAM (512MBx4).

@DeXt0R, u want ur PC to consume minimum electricity, right? Then u should go for ATOM only. Assemble a PC based on ATOM processor.

P

desiibond said:
@pimpom. why do you need to put entire PC for media player in kitchen.

Just get a 4GB Creative Zen for some 4k bucks and connect to a good speaker set. Lot better than putting a full size PC.

If 4k is heavy, look for Sansa clip or Transcend/Philips players.

Why?
1. It's fun
2. I already have the parts including a spare monitor
3. Even a discarded 40GB HDD can hold a helluva lot more than a 4GB flash drive
4. It's more versatile and can be put to use for other purposes at times - movies and TV programs, internet (I've had my whole house wired for LAN for several years), occasional word processing, simple games like Zuma which the ladies love, etc.

just a related question, how much power does an average laptop consume when on AC power?