PC and Mac

So I have an old Dell PC from around 2005 at a guess, its a 3Ghz Pentium 4, with 2Gb of DDR2 and an 80Gb hard drive. I've just installed a fresh version of XP and am now wondering what the hell i could use this thing for? I have two laptops and my phone witch take care of my daily computing so I'm not completely sure what to do with it. Anybody have any ideas for me?

@brianmcdon: I use an older laptop as an alarm clock. You could use your PC for a similar feat.  
 
You could also use it for traditional purposes, like hosting a file server/music server, or a folding@Home server. 
 
Not sure what funds you have available/what you'd want to build with it, but I've always wanted to put PC-controlled switches in my walls and then have my computer control them. After acheiving that, I'd locate the comptuer near the front door, and have it launch a profile when I logged in. Final touch? A fingerprint reader.

@MAGZine said:

" @brianmcdon: I use an older laptop as an alarm clock. You could use your PC for a similar feat.   You could also use it for traditional purposes, like hosting a file server/music server, or a folding@Home server.  Not sure what funds you have available/what you'd want to build with it, but I've always wanted to put PC-controlled switches in my walls and then have my computer control them. After acheiving that, I'd locate the comptuer near the front door, and have it launch a profile when I logged in. Final touch? A fingerprint reader.  

I think a Media Server will be my best bet, try to keep the load off the laptops. 

@brianmcdon: If it's a rig, you could take it to the top of the highest building around, and just, drop it... so you could see how deep into the concrete it will go ... maybe a couple inch. 
Or just install WHS, or any Linux (ubuntu is great) and run a file/media server, but that's a little too common to get my approval ;-)

 If I were you I'd turn it into a media server.
 
I also have a question not worth another thread, so I figure I'll just ask here. 
 
What do I do with an old Pentium III Windows 98 PC with an 80gb harddrive, one USB 1.0 port, and 256mb of RAM? It plays some old games, but what else could I do with it? It's a little too old for a Media Server probably, what do you guys think?

A media server is a pretty good idea, if you think you'd use it. My old PC is holding down the carpet right now. No real use for it and don't wanna pay for the electricity to keep it on 24 hours a day.

You could also use it to play around with things that may be annoying to play around with on your main PC. Things like different operating systems and stuff.

I like to have computers in other rooms, other than where the main computer is, its always nice to have a lesser computer to run during thunderstorms and stuff, it's nice to have another computer to experiment with linux and such on too.

I used to keep my old PCs around, but it started getting ridiculous. Now, everything goes to the friendly neighborhood electronics recycler.

I used to keep all my old PCs but as time went by, I realized the amount of space it occupied so I would give them away to charity. However, if you're a gamer, you might wanna keep 'em to play old PC games.

I'll surely keep this one, it's the only desktop I own at the moment. Laptops are all I need for work and for gaming.

@brianmcdon:  
 
(1)  you can turn it into a data / mp3 container.  basically, the desktop becomes a back-up for all your favorite and essential music files and personal data.   i guess, if there is room, add a second hard drive or just a larger capacity one if space only allows for one HDD 
 
(2) turn it into a Linux Mint or Ubuntu OS machine for secure web-surfing and doing basic things like word documents, emails, etc.   use it to experiment with linux os if you wanted.  you said the machine is not essential, so you can freely install, format , and redo anything.  but that's only if you are a computer geek.
 
(3) turn the machine into a classic game emulator.   basically, your desktop, can have all the Atari, NES, Super Nintendo, Nintendo 64, Sega Genesis, Playstation 1, and Sega Dreamcast games that you find on web-blogs and torrent sites.   your desktop becomes a mega-arcade console of sorts.  literally 100s of old retro games are easily gotten and played this way.   your desktop specs should be able to handle everything listed.  i'm assuming you have a decent video card either on your motherboard or as an expansion card.  
 
(4)  donate it to charity.   I suggest Goodwill if nearby.  In my area, the Salvation Army overcharges all their donation items anyway.  I think they're shady.  At least at Goodwill they sell old computers most of the time cheaply.   But its your choice.  Any  charity is good, I guess.
 
(5)  try selling it on eBay.   but remember, there's always the chance of selling it to some scumbag buyer who lies and cheats you out of money.  but if you sell it to a decent and legit buyer, you could get somewhere between 40 to 100 dollars.  there's a lot of what ifs there. 
 
(6)  recycle it.   but that could cost money for you to have it done properly.  i don't know if Best Buy still freely recycles old computers.