What to do with extra P4?

[njnagel]

Hi all,

well I done did it, I messed up my trusty laptop but good. Spilled windex in
the keyboard and now half the keys don't work. (oops.) Also the backlight for
the screen quit at almost exactly the same time although I think that is
coincidental as it has been flickering slightly for years. I found a similar
model laptop on eBay so I just bought that, I figure hopefully if I just swap
HDDs then I won't have to reinstall anything.

Question is, I'll have an extra P4 chip laying around. I would like to build
another desktop computer anyway, not looking for anything fancy, just something
to check email on and copy my files to so I have a redundant backup of
everything I consider important. I have a DVD-RW, network card, etc. laying
around, so I really just need a motherboard, case, and likely a HDD (since it
appears that everything has gone SATA while I wasn't paying attention.)

Does anyone have any specific recommendations as to what to consider? I believe
the P4 is something like 3.1 gig, although I obviously can't fire up
aforementioned laptop to check exactly.

nate

 

[njnagel]

Hi all,

well I done did it, I messed up my trusty laptop but good. Spilled windex in
the keyboard and now half the keys don't work. (oops.) Also the backlight for
the screen quit at almost exactly the same time although I think that is
coincidental as it has been flickering slightly for years. I found a similar
model laptop on eBay so I just bought that, I figure hopefully if I just swap
HDDs then I won't have to reinstall anything.

Question is, I'll have an extra P4 chip laying around. I would like to build
another desktop computer anyway, not looking for anything fancy, just something
to check email on and copy my files to so I have a redundant backup of
everything I consider important. I have a DVD-RW, network card, etc. laying
around, so I really just need a motherboard, case, and likely a HDD (since it
appears that everything has gone SATA while I wasn't paying attention.)

Does anyone have any specific recommendations as to what to consider? I believe
the P4 is something like 3.1 gig, although I obviously can't fire up
aforementioned laptop to check exactly.

nate

Forgot to mention, I would prefer something that plays nice with a reasonably
modern distro of Linux if at all possible. I have not picked one out but I
would like to just try and see if I can get it to work rather than have to find
an XP installer disk (I have a couple XP licenses that are currently unused, but
no installers)

nate