This 10-Year-Old Mini PC SURPRISED Me!
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- Опубліковано 15 тра 2024
- Thanks to MANSCAPED for sponsoring today’s video! Get 20% OFF + Free International Shipping with my promo code “HARDWAREHAVEN” at manscaped.com/hardwarehaven
Check out my video on m.2 E Key adapters:
• Don't Overlook This Slot
Some of the adapters I used in the video:
► MiniPCIe to PCIe: amzn.to/3RzY5DJ
► MiniPCIe to m.2 E Key: amzn.to/3ZtzKBx
► m.2 SATA SSD: amzn.to/3PRfFlC
► mSATA SSD: amzn.to/46j5Zpc
► m.2 to Gigabit NIC: amzn.to/3t5GCZP
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Music (in order):
"Hardware Haven Theme" -Me ( • Hardware Haven Theme M... )
"CRENSHAW VIBES" - GARRISON ( / garrison-brown )
"If You Want To" - Me
"Sunshower" - LATASHÁ( / best-music-pro.. )
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Gear I Use: (affiliate links)
Recording Gear
► Camera - LUMIX G7 amzn.to/3LmfGdk
► SD Cards - SanDisk Extreme PRO amzn.to/3BPXrd1
► Capture Card - EVGA XR1 amzn.to/3Bn8qt7
► Studio Lights amzn.to/3BnYrUd
► Microphone - Shure SM7b amzn.to/3BP0TEB
► Interface - Presonus Quantum amzn.to/3QVeX3T
► Teleprompter amzn.to/3BxcN50
Servers and Networking
► My Remote Editing PC - amzn.to/3J1hN5g
► DriveStor 4 NAS - amzn.to/40R5LDz
► 2.5 GbE Switch - amzn.to/43unwub
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Timestamps:
0:00 The story of a 10-year-old thin client
0:41 The HP t620
2:16 Manscaped (Sponsor)
3:14 Opening it up / internal IO
5:02 Cleaning it up
6:30 Power button issues
7:06 SSD issues and installing Windows
8:26 Cinebench R15
8:52 Running Linux (Lubuntu)
9:34 Remote streaming with Parsec
9:58 Running docker containers
10:33 Retro emulation with Batocera
11:03 Testing mPCIe and m.2
12:35 Using mPCIe NIC with PFSense
13:22 Is this worth it? - Наука та технологія
I remember reading an old reddit post about somebody soldering the pci-e connector to that unpopulated slot and getting it working, so if you feel adventurous enough here's a challenge for you
@@skyde72 +2 😎
@@e1woqf +3
Proprietary connector and raiser.
You'd better buy a FUJITSU FUTRO S920 instead
that was me lol
You remind me a lot of old youtube where tech enthusiasts would use their imagination to innovate and inspire future techies. Now working in the tech field videos like this are a rare find. It's people like you that ignite the sparks of creativity in people and bring out their inner child. Great editing and video if I'm lucky enough to have a child we will watch videos like this together and build cool projects. Thank you so much.
I've lately bought a thin client and a mini PC, both second hand and former business machines, and found tinkering with them is a lot of fun. They are different from the usual consumer hardware and very well built. There is still plenty of documentation available for about 10 year old machines and both of them have some potential. Well spent money.
That is awesome!
The editing == perfection.
Love the pacing, inclusion of mistakes, etc.
Thanks! That means a lot honestly. This one took a lot of effort haha.
Also the amateur developer in me appreciates the == lol
My biggest problem, one that shows that the passage of time is often cruel, is I couldn't for the life of me figure out how 2005-2007-era hardware had USB 3.0 slots on the front, because it completely threw me for a loop 😂. Loved the video, regardless of the fact I am essentially an irrelevant old man at this point (even though I'm 30).
Well, I guess we can be irrelevant old men together lol
Get off my lawn... -Irrelevant, 37 lol
Mine was fake
I have children your age. I am 60
Hardware Haven's video quality never surprises me. Because its always top notch!
Thanks! I’m tryin’ haha
@@HardwareHaven I think this machine would be a bangin VPN server.
Yea I agree. It’s different from others. I really enjoy the flow of it
I wonder how well it would work as a Kodi front-end for Emby/Jellyfin/Plex with a stripped down distro like LibreELEC. Kind of closer to the thin-client role the machine was built for.
Discovered your content during the LTT shutdown, I've really been enjoying the videos!
Well This model seems to have only VGA and DP output, so unless one is hooking up a 3.5mm audio jack to it I'm not sure how it would make a viable kodibox, but I DO like where your head is at, bcz I think along those lines as well.
@@drakkon_sol DP to HDMI cables will carry audio. I believe up to 5.1 surround.
@@Kaleb-lf8kfDP does carry audio.
LibreElec works fine on my quad core 8 GB T620 model using DP -> DP to HDMI. No framedrops in Kodi using mainly h.264 1080p content (main profile). And yes, there's audio coming from that DP port.
DisplayPort can deliver Audio.
I have a T630 with a slightly newer CPU (AMD GX-420GI) and was using it as my main PC for accessing VMs located around the house. It is amazing what these thin clients can do.
Great video, I have several of these things due to RPi's being expensive with the chip shortage and they're really cool. Fun fact actually, if you do some digging you can find mini PCI-E NIC's that can occupy the screwholes where the VGA or serial connector normally screws in.
Extra stick of ram would have made this a different video.
A bit more expensive, but look at the HP T730 thin client. Comes with a x8 PCIE slot - I have 1 running Kodi using a GT1030, another as a backup pfsense with a 4 port nic and another as a NAS using a 4 port NGFF Sata SSD PCIE x1 card
I have a gotten quite a few of these from an e-waste bin and I love these things. They run windows 10 just fine (as in okay) and I even have one running pi-hole! I have two which I installed wifi cards in and ran the antennas to be outside the case. Great video so far! I'm a quarter of the way through and just wanted to share this quick. I've spent quite some time tinkering with these so it's good to see others do so as well!
eclipsemn....the eWaste supplier i get mine from is everyones eBay...i paid a similar price to Hardware Haven for the t620 i'm using for this UA-cam and surfing at the moment...it's a bit laggy and unresponsive but it runs Win10 if you're patient...i previously bought and tinkered with the t520...but that is hopelessly slow...scrapped it...that thin client case will come in useful though...i have a plan for an ITX motherboard in it...
I can’t believe you had the patience to install windows 10 on it haha love your stuff. You’re a down to earth tinkerer like me, thanks for sharing your experience and inspiring/teaching others. You never know what kind of impact you really have until someone tells you.
Well you don’t have any idea how much kind words like that mean to me ❤️
Thanks!
there's a stripped down version of windows for thin clients. Windows 10 IoT or Windows Embedded Standard 7
Windows 10 1511? How to restore the windows store on that one
@@nadca2 can that be used on 4gb ram hybrid tab & support full browsing experience
Excellent video, I have the same computer at home, running a few proxmox lxc containers and a kvm vm. Works like a charm, better than I expected for 5 dollars.
These are great as a file server and a media server (with minidlna). Also useful as a dedicated torrenting box. I have a t620 running minidlna, with a WD Easystore 14GB drive for the media files. Crazy, $200 for the disk and $35 for theT620.
I bought a t620 back in 2020 for just $39 and it's running flawlessly with Win 10 LTSC 2021 (on the original 16Gb msata) working as file server and video player with a couple of disk enclosures, docks and external hard disk's (about 40Tb total). I'm thinking about switching to OMV but I have a bunch of more capable tinypcs or spare notebooks to do that. It handles very well a hundred or more Microsoft edge tabs and 200+ torrents in background, nice video.
You can always use it as a backup if you switch. And thanks!
I'm running a Voron 2.4 off one of these, running minimized ubuntu server off a slightly larger ssd. It's powerful enough to push gcode to 4 printers simultaneously as well, so for my print cluster at least, they're certainly an adequate solution. Way cheaper and more available than a pi too. As long as you don't need GPIO or a front end, it makes a pretty fair pi replacement.
These used machines tend to be grubby, so it's worth cleaning all the accessible external surfaces.
This little mini pc is just so beautiful
Excellent video, as always. I can afford newer and more expensive hardware yet I always gravitate back to old hardware to see if it can do the job on the cheap. Hence, Hardware Haven. Always interesting and I enjoy the old hardware finding a second life.
It also keeps the old stuff from ending up in a landfill
There’s another thin client from HP called the T820 Flexible Thin Client, which fun fact, is actually just a rebadged HP EliteDesk 800 G1 USDT
Oh interesting… I’ll have to look into that
You sure did a lot with that old TC. We've used them at my company (HPs TCs) for about 15 years or so. In fact, I believe we still have one or two of the originals running to this day. They basically just connect to the network and run a Remote desktop so the user can experience decent speeds. Low Heat, not fans means they don't get dirty in the flour filled plant, can't be hacked or modified, and relatively cheap compared to the workstation PCs we still buy.
I'm also fan of second hand boards.Thanks to point that one.
For boards with only one Ethernet port, you can use the concept lollipop router by creating Vlan interfaces and then to route between these VLan interfaces. Unfortunately, you mandatory need a switch that supports VLAN that will carry the real native Ethernet ports of your lollipop router.
Switches with VLan support are not so expensive and sometimes really useful, even for small config.
I have Fujitsu 920 on AMD 415 - very similar system (closer to T620plus model though due to Pcie slot)
Until recently it was my main Pfsense router handling two gigabit WANs and a network with 6 VLANs and about 40 clients. And it didn't break any sweat.
HP has made some pretty weird and awesome devices, there was an 12" eliteboot that not only used full power CPUs (I cant even name any other 12" device that did back then) it was also sloted (that would only be a thing in the big and heavy laptops!) allowing you to replace it with i7, it also had SSD slot, HDD bay, DVD bay (yet another unusual feature in such a small and light device!) and for some unexplainable reason there was a PC style SATA header in the middle of the motherboard (like what were you supposed to plug in there?!) making this tiny and light 12" netbook able to run high end i7 with 4 SSD drives at the same time!
I too had a few of these T620 thin clients (the quad core AMD GX-415GA variants) and they're absolutely fun to tinker with! Bought each for €25 three years ago. I upgraded mine with an 1TB 2.5" SSD for storage, 256GB 2280 M.2 SATA SSD for boot, extra 4GB DDR3L 1600 stick for 8GB total, and an Intel AC 8260 mPCIe WiFi adapter. Just a couple of notes.
The PCIe slot always seems to be unpopulated on the non plus model. However, some T620 models also don't have a populated mSATA slot. The M.2 and mPCIe where present on all my systems.
There's dedicated mounting space for 2.5" drives. However, you need to make the mounting brackets yourself. My 2.5" HDD for storage is mounted here, and connected with the mSATA port using an mSATA to SATA board. I also noticed there was an unpopulated fan header right below the HSENSE header (your hole :) ). Front view of the PCB, top to bottom: (HSENSE port) - Fan GND - Fan 5V - (Fan Sense) - (Fan Control). I soldered a screw terminal block (2.54 mm pitch) to feed 5V and ground to my mechanical 2.5" HDD from this unpopulated header. There should be enough juice left with the standard HP 65W power brick. This mod can be done non-janky professional looking if done right.
Like you said, the M.2 port only works with SATA interface storage devices. Mine came originally with 16 GB of storage in the mSATA port, so the M.2 port was unused. The port does support regular 2280 sized SSD's, but the M.2 standoff to mount the SSD was missing. The screw holes for the M.2 standoff are not your regular M.2 standoff screw size. I had to use a tap to widen the screw hole for a third party M.2 standoff. Can't remember the tap size. The T620 is able to boot from this M.2 slot.
I stole the exact same 4GB SODIMM DDR3L 1600 memory module from another T620 to upgrade my T620 to 8GBs of RAM. I also had some Kingston 4GB SODIMM DDR3 1200 modules lying around for the now RAMless T620. The manual said the T620 only supports DDR3L low voltage, but my normal Kingston DDR3 modules worked absolutely fine (verified with memtest).
I ran the above upgrades on an headless installation of Ubuntu 20.04 LTS server with the latest available BIOS (L40 v02.19). With powertop --auto-tune it used 5.7W when idle on a clean installation.
Later I added an Intel AC 8260 mPCIe WiFi adapter to my T620 using the mPCIe slot, and converted the system from a headless server to a media system running LibreElec / KODI. The system was responsive with no framedrops whatsoever for 1080p content. Regarding the WiFi adapter, the T620 also has dedicated space for wiring 2 WiFi antenna's between the metal cage and outer plastic shell. I did not measure the power consumption when I did the WiFi upgrade and switched from headless to LibreElec.
Hey, I'd love to see you dive into the world of mini PCs powered by the Intel Alder lake N100 processor, especially from brands like Gmktec and Beelink. Your tech reviews are always on point, and it would be awesome to get your take on these compact yet powerful devices. Keep up the great work. 👍
Love the style and pace of all your videos
I have found that when there is an M2 slot; older&simpler PCs will be SATA SSD compatible. That is a limitation imposed by the chipset. Some vendors will have jumpers that can change from SATA to PCIE modes in the M2 slot. Also simple/older PCs will be M2 SATA SSD by default with AHCI support for system booting.
I have a HP T630, with the next gen of AMD GX processor, quad core, hardware x265 decoding, DDR4, dual channel, 2x m.2 SATA slots, pretty nice actually for, I think, about 50€ I paid for it.
But when it comes to those cheap, older, easy to find GX thin-clients my favorite is the Fujitsu Futro S920, a bit larger in size but: AMD GX 415-GA (same gen as the T620), 1x mSATA, 1x SATA port and a PCI-E x16 (x4) slot. I like them so much I have 3 of them, at 30 euros each (shipping included) I couldn't pass them up (they usually sell closer to 60€).
I’ve had the same machine for a whole year now, using it as my go-to Home Assistant server, and it’s been great.
The thin clients are really nice for limited space mobile applications.
For an RV where you want to have a PC in addition to a laptop and you don't have much space and you want to use the existing TV instead of needing another screen in the RV.
Cool video, it sums up my experiences with such boards. Lot's of fun!
Just bought myself this one, thanks for the idea! In my location it costed me $33 with a PSU which I fried accidentally (touched metal case with my metal table). I had to buy another PSU (original HP 65W) for just $5 + 4Gb RAM for just $3. Now it has 8Gb RAM, and that totals $42 including shipment. I installed the mini-PCI wifi and sticked two antennas outside of the case with a sticky tape. Convenienty, wires can be passed through the case holes. I plan using the OPNSense and make it a TOR wifi access point: connect to it and your traffic is torred :). I guess it's also going to be a nice web-server on the tor network, maybe I'll have to run the bhyve VM for hosting on opnsense..
pfsense is using an old (relatively speaking) FreeBSD base so they don't include the newer drivers. It's not that they hate Realtek they also have issues with newer Intel NICs too because they don't have the newer drivers. The realtek NIC in this device is ancient so of course they have the drivers included.
OpnSense is using a up-to-date FreeBSD base so they get drivers much sooner than pfsense. If something does not work in pfsense it will probably work in opnsense
Pfsense 2.7 use FreeBSD v14 ;-)
@@virusbcn6472 yeah and in a month it will not have the same drivers as Opnsense. That's what happens when you do only one release per year
It would be ideal headless for a single task workload. I use an older mini PC for streaming a police scanner, RDPing is great for admining these when used headless.
I've one running 24/7 under tumbleweed as my media nas with usb drives, it also runs my monitoring stack with prometheus, loki and a light Elk stack for Sensei plugin, it works flawless, I could migrate to any other devices I have running but it does the job so well and I know it's on my prod section for years without missing a beat so until then let it work, power is low enough
I have one of these just sitting waiting to be tinkered with again. It was my main Linux machine for ages to copy images and format drives. Definitely cool. Would like to have the T620 Plus to tinker on too.
Edit: Wow! the T620 Plus has really gone up in price over the past 3 or 4 years since I last looked at buying one.
I almost picked up a few Dell Wyze Thin Clients, but then got a good deal on some z2 mini g3s, hoping to setup proxmox with high availability before I start trying to learn k8s.
Thanks for the content it's inspiring!
I have the T610 Plus -- having that real PCIe slot is really convenient - although there's no SSD slots on it (unless you want to include the IDE plug for a flash module), it does have SATA connectors for a 2.5 inch drive (sadly, mine didn't have the carrier, so I had to jerry rig something with popsicle sticks). The CPU's Passmark score is the slowest of any of the pcs or laptops currently in my collection (including the old Mac Mini) - but with an R5 240 in the PCIe slot, the overall score puts it ahead of the Core2Duo based machines.
I have one of these as my homeserver. It is more than up to the job.
Same here, except mine is the quad core version
For better graphics performance, you made need to use the kernel parameter
radeon.cik_support=0 amdgpu.cik_support=1
to use the amdgpu driver with GCN2.0 support.
I'm running Home Assistant home automation software on my t620. On another t620 I'm running as a home media server. Hosting 4tb of music and movies that has the power to stream to all my home devices. It's Powerful AMD quad core CPU typically draws only 9 Watts. So perfect for a system that runs 24/7.
I have a HP T610 that I use for a NAS server running drives off USB3 and with the 2 internal SATA connections, and must say it's actually amazing
I deployed a bunch of these in a mill about 8 years ago. They came with Win7RE, which is probably what windows 10 IoT is now. It worked incredibly well.
Same, 8 years too oddly. Set up one of them with Windows Embedded 8/8.1 Industry as a label printing PC to label them all. Performed very well at that function
On the AMD G series (as well as those E series too) it's best to use not the current X86 version, but the one built for Intel Atoms & other very old CPUs (the one that has not seen a update in ages). That build is a 32-bit version that'll do well for that processor but it is limited on what you can emulate.
Yeah, it actually came with a license for Win7 embedded that I was tempted to try. Only so much I can squeeze into a video though lol
@@HardwareHavenI ran mine on Win7 for a hot minute, it actually didn't run that bad compared to contemporary hardware. Currently I have a debloated Windows 10 install running GIS imagery processing server (mosaic and processing aerial and Lidar imagery). It ain't the fastest, but definitely gets the job done.
is there a place to get atom win7 OS?
I have an aspireOne, and installed win7 on it, and it keeps crashing when viewing some pictures.
Have one of these running with a wifi card as a hotspot and an old laptop HDD as a bit of a NAS for years. Being passively cooled I forget its there, even in the lounge room! Probably last power cycled it 9 months ago on a holiday. Solid as
Great video!!!
Your quality of content is increasing significantly btw!!
I have just picked up a t620 plus to run as a 10gbps 4 port switch and an add in for a wifi module. It's a bargain way to run a high end router which is a dream to me.
I have the same one. 8gb ram, OG 16gb ssd. I used Tinywin to make a win 10 install in order to fit it all. Then I used the 2 internal usb for PC Storage and it works like magic. Despite windows taking up the whole of the m.2 card, it actually runs buttery smooth and feels like a joy. I don't know why yours is lagging, I suspect you were using windows drivers for the GPU part of the APU. Once I installed the right Radeon drivers it can even game in dolphin at locked 60fps. I also to do some light wieght coding, steam streaming, home vpn, and recording surveillance, Was a fun tinker project with many great uses!! Best of all ! No Noise!!
loved this. Perfect for older emulation boxes.
I'm in love with that hardware fun, thanks for sharing this video.
I'm thinking with that expandibily, it might make a really good RV router/nas - with a wifi card, LTE card, and storage, with limited power draw.
When it comes to emulation on those old thin client's make sure you disable the borders, they're surprisingly heavy for basically a jpg image
I have a 2009 eeePC 1005HA that's also similarly CPU bound (Intel Atom N280, 32-bit). It's kind of funny to see a system that doesn't get any performance boost in Windows by swapping in an SSD. It can run a lightweight Linux distro OK-ish (getting harder and harder to find current 32-bit distros of Linux, even!). For modern usage, it's basically only good as an IOT-type device.
I love all the “older” pc projects. It’s actually attainable for the average joe
This was a really interesting and fun video to watch. I love to see people tinker with stuff. Congrats on the channel!😅
Thanks!
The sticky outside is likely the rubberized "soft touch" finish that is applied to the plastic shell breaking down after being 10 years old. My elitebook had this and was so sticky I could slap it and pick it up like a glue board.
I have a couple of T520 versions I got a year or so ago as an alternative to unobtainable Raspberry Pis. I run Home Assistant, Pi Hole, etc. For $10 a piece and sub 10 watts, what's not to love?
I love these machines. I got a stack of the quad-core version for €20 each a few years back. One is now running Home Assistant and I tinkered another into a four bay NAS (currently using both USB3.0 and a dual SATA miniPCIe card, but a quad SATA card is on the way). Mine came without the mSATA port, but I might try to solder one on to get a mirrored boot SSD on the NAS. I'd love to get the unpopulated PCIe slot working as well, but my AliExpress fu hasn't been sufficient yet to find a PCIe x4 header for that. At the price I got them, these are just perfect for such tinkering, which I'd not dare to do on any new or purpose-bought hardware.
very cool video. I like taking old hardware and putting it to use.
I'm using two t520 in my home. One for home assistant and other for frigate. These systems are not meant for Windows but for my usage it's more than enough. And I bought them for only 40 usd. Considering rpi prices I think it is a bargain.
love these videos, they may be pointless but are insightful. sure a decade old PC cant do many things but it still has uses other than ewaste
relatively modern thin clients make fantastic OctoPrint servers, or for running klipper firmware on your 3D Printer.
just bought one today around 20. searched and found your video. Thank you for the ideas and the video. Could not yet figure out whether to use as a remote desktop or retro emulator... Which OS do you advise on this? Thanks.
Sounds like you're not using accelerated graphics, could you be using the fallback VESA drivers?
This is the quality content I came to enjoy.
Reminds me of when you started this channel.
Keep doing what you do, bcz it is engaging and entertaining content.
Believe it or not, this is the stuff that takes the longest time to make lol. Hopefully now I’ll have more time to do videos like these
Interesting, I have a 8 year old zotac zbox mini barebone pc with a dual core mobile haswell celeron and it absolutely makes sense in 2023 because it handles windows 10, browsers and standard software just fine although I have no use for it anymore and it sits on my shelf as a spare pc.
I have an older version of this! I believe it's the t510.
I tried running a minecraft server on it and it surprisingly worked without problems.
I did not expect that at all, especially considering the CPU is not from Intel or AMD, but from Via, a company I have never before heard of.
Wow, that's shocking
That is interesting, I am very curious into this. Could you go into details about how you got it to work so well? Did you do any configurations? Just a pure vanilla setup? etc?
@@HardwareHaven It's really is, Minecraft demands ridiculous single threading, even if assumed earlier versions or such.
I have a few HP thin clients. Am currently using a T520 as a router running OpenWRT. Am using a USB 3 gigabit ethernet card plugged in front. It's been a great temporary solution. I also have one running TV Headend.
Solder in a PCI-e 4x slot and give it a try! I did andit worked though not enough space for an nvme adapter ... and the UEFI firmware would need the nvme driver. still, I too had a lotta fun with a T620!
That thermal paste application was perfect!
Thanks :)
The 4 core 420 cpu isnt horrible with Debian, I have a T630 that I use for Xen Orchestra with my XCP-NG system. Still not a wonderful user experience when connected locally and user web to look something up. The T730 might be better, but prices are getting up into the range of Amazon miniPC with N100 or N5105 processors.
I am also into longevity of PC components, but also for resuse of old consoles for more than stock use.
My Broadwell PC is still running (see my Chanel).
I used to mod og Xboxs with larger sata hdds or even better, IDE compact flash drives.
Put a ton if emulators on it. Used it as a streaming device way before amazon fire TV.
The subject of maxing something out is thrilling
Console modding is something I'd like to try out. I still have a PS2 and XBox 360
@HardwareHaven need a challenge? m2ps2 is the mother of all modding. Though these days you can burn games and Apps on DVDs with Autoboot. A flaw in the PS2 DVD player software allows you to just run a copied DISK .
... it just took 20 years to figure out . Oh boy
Well I have some stuff to look into.. lol
i think you might want to take a look at the dell wyse 3040, it always got me curious, as it has a quad core atom inside. is also pretty cheap, and runs on 5v
Yeah I’ve been meaning to get one. I’m surprised I haven’t with how many I see being sold locally for stupid cheap
Nice coverage man
i think you should be able to get a lot more performance if you weren't skipped the ram upgrade, or just switch to 2 sticks to get the dual channel going.
Yeah hindsight is 20/20... appreciate the input!
That CPU only supports single channel memory though (in fact all AMD "wild cat" APUs do).
Still more RAM doesn't hurt, 4GB RAM just doesn't cut it for general computing in 2023.
Gave a similar geode based unit to my local organisation with monitor and input equipment for staff use to pull up docs.
Cost next to nothing and is ok to use.
W10, wifi, and actually capable with office 2010 starter
"this 10 year old PC"
me: looks at my 10 year old main pc...
I bet it still runs like a champ too!
my daily runner is actually 14 years old and still running (over the years I have replaced the core 2 duo processor with a core 2 quad, replaced the hdd with an ssd, quadrupled the memory and added a slightly better graphics card. But the rest is still original..)
i also had a 8 year old I been using till a year ago, some old acer aspire with an intel pentium. i just gave it to my mom since all she does on a PC is browse the web
I would love to see you turning a laptop that is either barely functional as a laptop or useless as a laptop into a server. Thats what i did and its a great way to save money on making a server out of basically e-waste.
Interesting...I saw a HP T620 PLUS with dual gig ethernet..but it was $140~
Either way pretty cool old hardware!
Keep em coming!!!!
its like Rat Rodding just with some choice vintage mini pcs.... My favorite hobby
I have two HP machines, a 260 G2 DM and a 260 G1 DM. Although the names are almost equal, they are not the same, not even close. But the nice thing is, they run Windows 10 flawless (well, after inserting more memory in the G1 (6 Gb). The G2 had already 8 Gb. The nice thing is that I recognize a lot in your video. The machines weren's that dirty when I got them, for instance. But networking etc. Nice was that the G2 already had an SSD, while the G1 had an HD, which I changed to an SSD. It really did speed it up!
So yeah, I agree on what you tell at the end is that playing around with those machines is just fun. I use them both for things I need to do outside my normal working environment. And that brings fun. Whenever it is testing an old piece of hardware (and get it working) or an old version of some software, to help other people.
i think the internal usbA is great. i use this on a game emulater i build for the ROMs becuase there are only be read and 20 to 40Mb/s are fast enough and therefor they will be last long even a cheap usb stick.
I use its little brother, T520 for my VAX and S/370 mainframe emulators. With Linux server, the thing is stil 16 times faster then the IBM S/370 mainframe. It uses 7 watts tops, and set it on its side to keep it cooler.
Never do I get the CPU hotter then 48 degrees.
Cool computer find! I got an old hp workstation and got a really fast computer now after upgrading it to the max specs according to the old manual, just cause it's a few years old don't mean it's slow if you make some effort to upgrade it that's for sure.
Love your contents, keep doing what you're doing
Thanks!
I had a HP t620+ myself. Good stuff
I cant wait to fully watch this video, hh always makes my day🎉❤
What happens if you solder a PCIe x4 connector and possibly together with the missing capacitors?
It could work
it looks like a nice box pc for prob old Retro Games in a living room or maybe at work.
ive got a old playnetwork Pollywell Pc that looks like a thick CD player and im prob going to try installing linux onto it once i replace its motherboard as it
was sold to me with a bios lock. tho my other one i got also had a motherboard issue from being in a damp wet starbucks in 2018
Great video. The nostalgic ending was a nice touch
Thanks! This video really was a ton of fun to make
I use a T620 for everyday tasks like browsing, reading, and watching videos. I've upgraded it with a 128GB SSD and 12GB of RAM, and the system runs smoothly for basic tasks. In fact, I'm writing this comment on my T620 right now, immediately after watching your video. I even have another one in my basement as part of my home lab. This system is highly recommended for simple tasks or for running lightweight server applications using Docker, MQTT, and even a Dockerized Asterisk PBX! The power consumption is indeed an average of 7 watts!
Love the power button, and the new slogan! :)
By the way, the big brother, GX-415GA, does a bit more in CineBench R15, mine did 122, in my Futro S920 build (2x4GB ram, 64GB mSATA, GT1030 2GB DDR4).
You should see the PC I just built, and my previous build, I have an old Second Gen i3 with an R9 370. That thing lasted me a full year, now I used an old retired school district Lenovo M720T paired with a 1660
Lenovo mini Thin Client PCs are also really good for this, I almost got one the same size as your HP, but I found something better
I have a similar one that runs my hobby laser out in the garage. Runs the software flawlessly and with it costing $20, if it craps out from being out in the garage, no big deal. $20 I would invest all over again.
I got an PC-Engine apu4c4 running as Firewall, that got the GX-412 TC in it. It is more or less the same as the hp t620 Performance wise. The case is the heatsink as well. Only it got 4 NIC's so it is perfect as FW. Little nice Machine over there, from the dark days of AMD when Puma and Jaguar Cores were the best AMD could offer. But you realy need the 4 Core for moving Stuff on BSD as every single core is very limited.
I got one for £10 with PSU. I had the same problems and gave up on it. I did put puppy OS on it but it is collecting dust bunnies on the floor. Better getting an USFF I5 and playing with that with proxmox
I have t630, good for retro gaming, Linux server or router. I bought it for kodi but it does not cut it for fhd and 4k. T540, T640 and t740 are ryzen based and would make nice media machine but are way to expensive, maybe in few years...
Since you went with Ubuntu, why not Pop_OS? That distro seems to work better for parsec in my experience.
Wonder on how it works with truenas and more ram. What’s the max ram that this machine takes?