Whatz your oldest system/gear you still use on a daily or regular basis?

I'm in the process of bringing my Q9550 rig online (in a Lian Li knock-off, natch). Taking longer than expected due to cleaning out the water-cooling, and a dead PSU....

Intent is to turn it into a NAS for myself & family. Plenty of HDD space & ports.

-bZj
 
Oldest peripherals are a tossup between my Monsoon MH-502 speaker setup (of which I have yet to find any other computer speakers that can touch these for sheer clarity and detail) and my Thrustmaster HOTAS Cougar + FSSB R2 mod + Simped/vario pedals, whose drivers still work on Windows 11 64-bit somehow despite not being updated since the Vista days (and requiring Vista compatibility mode to install properly on later OSes).

Oldest computer... well, I can't say that I use my Pentium 4 EE box all that regularly, or the SGI Octane, or the Power Macintosh 9600, or the Amiga 4000/40. Those are more like retrocomputing hobby machines for when I want to fire up some old games/software and use something different than a typical modern OS, or more likely in the Power Mac's case, figure out exactly what combinations of PCI cards I can get away with in it and not have it abruptly freeze during use more often than not.

Once you get past the Windows XP era, backwards compatibility becomes much less of a problem to the point that I could still run the vast majority of what I want on my 12700K/RTX 4080 build, and virtualize/emulate the remainder. Only Windows 98 SE with full 3D acceleration + EAX/A3D, Mac OS 9, and SGI IRIX really require dedicated, period-appropriate hardware for me to maintain because current VM and emulator software kinda suck for those at best, and are unusable at worst.

So when I rule those out, it's more of a tossup between a Threadripper 1950X setup I got on the relative cheap for workstation/server experimentation that demands lots of CPU cores and PCIe lanes, and the hand-me-down i7-7700K box that now serves the rest of the family. All in all, not very old.
 
Not that old but I have a Phenom 9500, M3A78-EHM HDMI, 4GB DDR2, GTX 460 for Windows XP and retro gaming...
 
I've got an old Lenovo laptop with an Ivy Bridge 2c/4t @ 2.4Ghz (albeit utilizing a custom power plan to maintain that max frequency), 8GB DDR3, and a 250GB SSD....

- It's REALLY WELL BUILT but it's was relegated to the role of "coffee table" PC some time ago (web browsing/Chromecasting/Civilization 4 while watching a movie etc.)
 
FiveDollarBill said:
I had some sattelite speakers with the same dipole dome tweeters made by Optimus. They lasted me from 98-2022! I really like the wide area of effect they had, great for surround rear channels. Yours look brand new!
Click to expand...
i really like, got em for a steal when i used to work at radio shack. ive been tempted to grab some used surrounds if/when they pop up on the used market. those arent actually mine, just an example pic i stole. mine are actually in better shape, ive tried to take good care of them.
 
I7 870 build is still in use in my bedroom as a Plex machine and iTunes machine.

I7 4770k build is my main computer these days.

One of these days I will finally find the motivation to build a new PC.
 
NamelessPFG said:
Oldest peripherals are a tossup between my Monsoon MH-502 speaker setup (of which I have yet to find any other computer speakers that can touch these for sheer clarity and detail) and my Thrustmaster HOTAS Cougar + FSSB R2 mod + Simped/vario pedals, whose drivers still work on Windows 11 64-bit somehow despite not being updated since the Vista days (and requiring Vista compatibility mode to install properly on later OSes).

Oldest computer... well, I can't say that I use my Pentium 4 EE box all that regularly, or the SGI Octane, or the Power Macintosh 9600, or the Amiga 4000/40. Those are more like retrocomputing hobby machines for when I want to fire up some old games/software and use something different than a typical modern OS, or more likely in the Power Mac's case, figure out exactly what combinations of PCI cards I can get away with in it and not have it abruptly freeze during use more often than not.

Once you get past the Windows XP era, backwards compatibility becomes much less of a problem to the point that I could still run the vast majority of what I want on my 12700K/RTX 4080 build, and virtualize/emulate the remainder. Only Windows 98 SE with full 3D acceleration + EAX/A3D, Mac OS 9, and SGI IRIX really require dedicated, period-appropriate hardware for me to maintain because current VM and emulator software kinda suck for those at best, and are unusable at worst.

So when I rule those out, it's more of a tossup between a Threadripper 1950X setup I got on the relative cheap for workstation/server experimentation that demands lots of CPU cores and PCIe lanes, and the hand-me-down i7-7700K box that now serves the rest of the family. All in all, not very old.
Click to expand...
You have a great back catalog so to speak :cool:
 
horrorshow said:
I've got an old Lenovo laptop with an Ivy Bridge 2c/4t @ 2.4Ghz (albeit utilizing a custom power plan to maintain that max frequency), 8GB DDR3, and a 250GB SSD....

- It's REALLY WELL BUILT but it's was relegated to the role of "coffee table" PC some time ago (web browsing/Chromecasting/Civilization 4 while watching a movie etc.)
Click to expand...

Just doubled the RAM to 16GB for $12 and replaced the aging battery for $30, last week..

Worth it.
 
funkydmunky said:
One of these days I will finally find the motivation to build a new PC? As far as a bedroom PC, why upgrade ever until forced to do so?
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It seems to max out at 2 streams on Plex not surprisingly which sometimes is an issue. I ended up installing Plex on the second PC just as a backup for myself since I have siblings who end up streaming from me. The second PC was my gaming PC so didn't want them streaming from it when I was gaming or getting random texts telling me Plex is down. I also wonder if power efficiency wouldn't be better with a newer build in there since it is on 24/7 and other than the occasional browsing it is primary Plex.

The new build would be a gaming PC and maybe some Stable Diffusion to play with, but my main PC has issues sometimes so not sure it will last as long as the bedroom PC has already.
 
The oldest piece of gear I still actively use are my Logitech Z-5500 speakers, bought at the end of 2006.
 
applegrcoug said:
Interesting question...

My office PC is I7-6700 with a mechanical HD. I have a new machine ryzen 3600x, but haven't migrated..
About the same vintage is my home media server which was an I7-9800x, but the mobo died and is now sporting a 5820k and soon to be E5-2696 V3...

Tied to said home media server, I have a 19in CRT monitor from about 20 years ago. But I don't use that part daily......
Click to expand...
Well, I finally ditched the mechanical HD machine for the new Ryzen desktop.
My media server is in fact the 2696 running Truenas AND I got emby figured out with the keylase nvidia patch for my 1080ti...still has the old CRT.

Then I've taken an old fx-8350 system as a sort of test truenas to try new apps and get it figured out before I roll it out. I've really fund this approach helpful. It is how I figured out photoprism, emby and syncthing. Now I'm working on mineOS.
 
brennok said:
It seems to max out at 2 streams on Plex not surprisingly which sometimes is an issue. I ended up installing Plex on the second PC just as a backup for myself since I have siblings who end up streaming from me. The second PC was my gaming PC so didn't want them streaming from it when I was gaming or getting random texts telling me Plex is down. I also wonder if power efficiency wouldn't be better with a newer build in there since it is on 24/7 and other than the occasional browsing it is primary Plex.

The new build would be a gaming PC and maybe some Stable Diffusion to play with, but my main PC has issues sometimes so not sure it will last as long as the bedroom PC has already.
Click to expand...
Are you using GPU acceleration with Plex? If so, which GPU?
 
applegrcoug said:
Are you using GPU acceleration with Plex? If so, which GPU?
Click to expand...

I would have to check, but the GPU is an old Nvidea GPU probably from the time of the build. I can't remember if I upgraded that one ever.

Edit: It looks like it is actually the i7-860 and a GTX 460. It looks like I might have disabled hardware acceleration guessing due to some issue.
 
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All of approximately the same vintage are: the HPZR30W as my office/work monitor, which used to be my home monitor until switching over to a C2 42; a pair of Crucial C300 SSDs; a Cooler Master Storm Sniper midtower case; a generic blu-ray burner; and a Thermaltake (toughpower?) 750 watt psu.

Of slightly newer vintage is a 3770K with associated DDR3 RAM and motherboard running Windows 7.

Slightly newer than that are: a CaseLabs TH10 case; first run Noctua F-120 fans; Nidec Scythe Gentle Typhoon fans (mix of AP-14 and AP-15); Alphacool NeXxXos Monsta 480x80mm radiatiors; early Swiftech Lok-Seal fittings (the o-rings still seal); a Cyberpower PR1500LCDRTX2U rackmount UPS (with original batteries that somehow continues to work as of at least last week's power failure); and some things I am probably forgetting.

But the oldest computer related hardware of mine kept in regular use is an HP LaserJet 4250 printer, for which I only have one more 42X toner cartridge left.
 
Corsair 780T case has to be the oldest gear I currently use at the moment.
 
Hello Mr. computer, what do they call you up there, in that shiny new box, on that shelf, all by yourself ?

They call me "LISA", and don't you forget it neither :D
 
On the daily? My Acculine A1's are pretty old, as well as my OG ATH-AD700's before they cheapened them. My daughter's PC is a 4770 with a 980 Ti. Made me think, I only have one more spinner in use, as a backup drive.
 
Optiplex 3060 which is 8th gen, but it has a WX 4100 graphics card that is build dated 2017. Currently the only PC I use. I still have yet to set up my Ryzen 5800X system after moving
 
I still use this Sennheiser PC135 headset I bought in 2004 or 2005.

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That dirty thing sitting on my 4090 is a Creative Labs Sound Blaster X-Fi Titanium HD. Invoice date from Newegg, 2/15/2011. Coincidentally the same day I joined this forum. I upgrade my main rig all the time, but one immutable constant has been this card. She still gets hit with air but I'm done with any iso scrubbing. That dust has fossilized; a protective layer if you will. Whatever I'm doing (or not doing) has worked, because this card still provides excellent CMSS-3D surround sound!


20231111_123803_HDR.jpg
 
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