My Christmas Contribution

[Rich-M]

Every so often I stop and think what things are like for the less fortunate and I was setting up a new client pc for a very unfortunate client's brother at his home when he asked me if I could update his old Windows XP Desktop for his sister. I have done some work for her before and she is in her mid fifties with about every conceivable medical issue. Wheel chair bound with Aids and all kinds of spine and back maladies she has a great spirit and I have always done what I can for her for very little money and even nothing at times so I was open to trying to get either her Vista Dell laptop or Dell Optiplex GX620 updated to at least Windows Vista. She has about every known toolbar and Malware enabler known to the computing world as she has little else to do but spend her life on social media and at this point neither pc is usable.

 

The IBM Desktop unit her brother was using is about 11 years old and for me unsavable whereas the Optiplex though it is a slimline model, I think has some potential. I checked and it can take 4 gb ram so I picked it up at his request from her and upgraded to Ddr2 800 4 gb ram. I found a low profile Ati X600 Radeon card in decent shape in my "graveyard". The unit has a P IV Prescott 2.8 GHZ which is OK but I thought I had some Presler dual core Pentium cpus lying around and I did. I found a 925 3.0 Ghz Cpu with 3 meg cache, double what the P4 has, and several 915 Preslers and as luck would have it all worked so I installed the 925 with a new fresh layer of Arctic Silver V and what a difference. Then it took time to find Windows 7 drivers for the Ati X600 video card that would be accepted and also the Sound Max audio driver but the whole thing came together rather nicely. I copied off her files and installed them to the updated system and I am impressed with how this unit runs. Of course we are dependent on a junk Psu that is proprietary but with a new WD 80 Sata II Gb hard drive pulled out of a refurbished unit I upgraded for someone else to replace the 11 year old 40 gb hard drive and upgraded Cpu and double memory with upgraded speeds, this will make a great Christmas present for his sister and because all parts are basically used out of a vast bastion of uncharted stuff that should have been tossed years ago, I can come in at a good price for him as well probably about $150, double just buying Windows 7 and she can get 4-5 years out of it.

[mikehende]

Very admirable Rich, I too try to do the same on my end, take an old pc from someone and refurb to give to another.

[Rich-M]

Yeah and it enables me to have fun also getting something to rise from nothing as well. Quite often people offer me things that really aren't worth anything but might make some good use for some unfortunate ones and I had some such printers where they just needed an ink cartridge maybe or something simple and I can throw them in with something like this if they need a printer, but it has to be something I wouldn't dare try to sell.

[AWS]

It amazing what can be salvaged and if it goes to a needy person it's all that much better.

[IceMan37]

Awesome Rich! We often take tech for granted but it's much more of a gift to someone in need.

[Rich-M]

Exactly William and its funny often when we think about a solution for a client, money tends to dominate what you do and in a case like this, money really wasn't an issue....there also are times when I wonder about all the space devoted to "old hardware" that I wonder about when I believe I will never have use for it and then something like this happens when all that old stuff cause a happy ending for someone.