Old Core2 duo, could it?

edward78

Limp Gawd
Joined
Aug 21, 2011
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Just wondering if I ever wanted to could I build a streaming machine? Android would be nice, but google doesn't do android pc (kind of wonder why, I bet it would be used). Win10 will have to do, can you get a Windows 10 S key? Well I would need to find a mITX MB & ram for it. Be awesome to build it in a element Q of ebay, a streaming box & play a blue ray on it.
 
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If all you have is the CPU, it isn't really worth messing with. As robijito123 pointed out you can get much faster components for not much more than an old mobo and ram would cost you.

Regarding OS you could always try Chromium OS or a variety of lightweight Linux distros. If you are willing to jump down that rabbit hole, then it may be worth just looking into a Raspberry Pi.
 
Streaming what? Which C2D CPU? C2D ran for a few years and there's everything from cache strapped 1.5GHz laptop crap to top of the line 3.5GHz 45nm Desktop parts.
I had a C2D T9550 rig with some nVidia chipset for my parents up until I upgraded few months ago. It ran 1080p YouTube without skipping a beat.
 
Well, if you search "new Asus socket 775" in eBay you can come up with various boards that are still new reasonable prices. Linux Mint seems OK. :) (There's an Asus P5Q-EM DO on there.)
 
Well, if you search "new Asus socket 775" in eBay you can come up with various boards that are still new reasonable prices. Linux Mint seems OK. :) (There's an Asus P5Q-EM DO on there.)
dont advise people to buy that old crap...

op, if you have everything already give it a shot. you can use cloudready os to turn it into a lightweight chromebox and it will work fine. even w10 on a CD2 with 4GB+ will work ok.
 
I am not knocking ewaste resuse, but from a hassle of finding a older functional board (rememder capacitor issues plaged this time period) and the total parts might be a challenge and more costly than above linked board. Heck if you are wiling to abandon x86 maybe a raspberry pie 4 or other soc would be even better depending on goals beyond streaming.
 
As soon as I can get my hands on a 5900x (or maybe have to settle for a 5800x) I'll be moving my 2600x guts to my server and finally retire the last Q6600 system I still have running. If you're talking about basic video watching such as x264 1080p stuff it shouldn't be a problem to do. I was doing that for years and the Q6600 doesn't even notice it.

But as others said, if you don't already have a motherboard and RAM to go with it it's not going to be worth messing with. I doubt faulty capacitor issues will stop you from getting a motherboard as those issues should have been taken care of a good bit before decent socket 775 boards started appearing. I have three of them and none of them have capacitor issues. One of the boards is dead but it had to do with the auxiliary power for the CPU going bad or something got into the plug and melted it. If I was any good at soldering I could probably replace the plug and it would be good. Another board I thought was dead which made me replace it with the 2600x setup but the exact same problem ended up happening with the new gear and actually seems to be related to my mouse of all things. The third and oldest board is still running a [email protected] in my server.
 
FWIW, I still have 2 active LGA775 systems... one is my old Q6600 G0 (at 3.6Ghz) and a Q9450 (at 3.4Ghz). The Q6600 is my "steaming" PC hooked up to my media center for Streaming Sites, Youtube, music, etc... and it still works great after all these years. I have that system paired with a GTX 1080. The Q9450 does not get used nearly as much; mostly just a storage server now for files and backups, but also still working great. I'll let that PC (has a GTX1080 in it as well) run GPU Core based F@H a lot of the time.

But yeah, as others have said, I would not waste a dime on buying parts to make any LGA775 system operational anymore (unless your building old rigs for fun). These were my gaming PC's a long time ago and I had all the parts laying around. :)
 
Just wondering if I ever wanted to could I build a streaming machine? Android would be nice, but google doesn't do android pc (kind of wonder why, I bet it would be used). Win10 will have to do, can you get a Windows 10 S key? Well I would need to find a mITX MB & ram for it. Be awesome to build it in a element Q of ebay, a streaming box & play a blue ray on it.
They basically do, its called chromebook.
They cant compete with linux is the issue. Its not better, its just "easier"
 
I was using this old 775 system with an old GTX 1050 for surfing and watching HD media. Has a Xeon which is equivalent to a Q9650.
replaced it with my old 4790k system when I finally got a 5800X cpu.

IMG_0893.JPEG
 
Another vote for a Pi 4 - and this might be interesting to the tinkerers among us https://www.worproject.ml/ "Windows on Raspberry; Get the full desktop experience on your Raspberry Pi"

Second choice, if you're just talking about a media consumption device, would be any of the Roku or Amazon Fire products.
 
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