5 Excellent Things To Do With Your Old PC

Mrinmay Bhattacharjee | December 25, 2008 More

So are you gonna sell your old PC? Do you know you can use your Old PC for various other tasks that you never thought before? Well read the following article and think thrice before selling it to anyone:

1. Music/Video Player

Your old computer be the best audio/video player ever you can have. Any PC with old operating system and decent amount of RAM (say 64 MB), can easily easily play audio file formats like MP3,WMA etc. and video files such as MPEG, AVI and so on. All you need is a computer equipped with Soundcard, Windows 98, Winamp (or any other compatible software available free on the internet), a set of speakers and, of course, a good collection of MP3s and videos!

Download and install the latest version of Winamp or VLC player for your PC to play all audio and video files smoothly and without any hitch.

You may also need some codecs. For this install K-Lite Mega Codec Pack.

Now if you gotta big amplifier than connect your PC with this and you gonna rock your surrounding…!!!

2. Television

You can convert your old PC to a Television itself and utilise it at best in your office, home, kitchen, bedroom or shop instead of investing for a new TV. If your old PC have processor ranging from Pentium 233 MHz MMX to a Pentium 4, and has a TV tuner installed, you can watch TV on your computer with the comfort of remore as well. If you don’t have a TV Tuner card than invest some decent bucks in buying one compatible with your PC configuration.

You can also connect DVD, VCR, Playstations with this TV Tuner. Grab a media centre software like MediaPortal and convert your PC to a personal video recorder (PVR) where you can view slideshow of your photos, record your favorite TV shows and automate your computer record them for you when you are away from your sweet home…!!!

3. Word Processor

The best way to convert your PC to a Data Entry Machine. If your PC is slower, than this is the best way to convert it into a data entry machine. Scriptwriters, Journalists and lawyers can use this computer at best. Moreover install free application suite Open Office or just use the Microsoft bundled softwares like wordpad, notepad etc.

Schools can also use old PCs in order to teach and demonstrate the capabilities of old operating systems and applications.

4. Data/Fax/Voice Answering Machine

Just Install a fax/voice/data modem, accompanying softwares like Bitware or Supervoice, and a phone line to convert into an answering machine. By connecting basic flatbed scanner, you can also use this as a fax machine.

The best part of this is that you never ever have to switch on your monitor for a longer duration. Only the PC needs to be switched ON in order to receive fax/data/voice calls throughout the day. By this technique small offices and firms need not to invest in fax machines at all. Moreover this technique of using old PC’s also saves a lot of thermal papers and photocopies which in turn needs to be preserved also.

5. Data Server

The advantage of having an additional spare computer is to store your data centrally to be accessed by all the computers connected in a network. You can use Multi-User accounting programs like Tally or E.X and make the old PC as a data server.

Moreover, the PC will be fast as it’s just used for accessing purpose. Additionally you can install free Backup softwares to backup all your data. If you gotta CD/DVD burner in the old PC than you can burn all your data in these removable disk media.

15 More Uses to come..