as excited as we can get over shiny new computer parts the vast majority of them
inevitably get to a point where they're woefully out of date but before you
Chuck your old parts or even your entire old rig into an e-w pile we want to give
you some surprisingly useful ways to keep using that old Hardware if you're
having issues with your off-the-shelf router you can actually turn your old PC
into a router instead you see dropped connections and other router problems
are often caused by the underpowered hardware inside getting overwhelmed but
the good news is that you even a relatively slow PC from a decade ago can
run circles around the typical store-bought router in terms of
performance we actually have a whole video that goes into more detail on how
to do this but it's mostly a matter of installing a network card and one of
several free operating systems that handle traffic routing and firewall
duties it does take a little bit more work to configure properly than a
consumer grid router but once you do you'll have a powerful customizable
setup that is far less likely to crash at in opportune times another good idea
is to just breathe some life into that older system so that it can still
accomplish basic tasks the culprits behind the slow performance of older
systems say from the last 15 years or so tend to be either a Reliance on Old
mechanical hard drives or insufficient RAM the good news is that ssds with
modest capacities are quite cheap and it's still also possible to get older
kinds of RAM such as DDR3 for not a whole lot of money either meaning it
might be preferable to just upgrade your old PC instead of shelling out for a
whole new one if you just need need something responsive enough for web
browsing productivity and video calls and even though there's been some
consternation over Windows 11 system requirements some of them are easy
enough to bypass if you want a current OS on older hardware and failing that
you could always try Chrome OS Flex which is free and designed to run easily
on older computers but what if you have an old graphics card laying around we'll
tell you what to do with that right after we thank I fix it they offer
comprehensive guides replacement parts and highquality tools all the help you
fix your broken electronics and for 48 hours after the release of this video
you can save $10 on orders of $50 or more this might be a great time to pick
up a highquality driver kit like the 64-bit moo kit or the comprehensive 112
bit Manta driver kit so act quick head to our Link in the description and use
code TQ fix to get your discount today
if your graphics card is old enough it could be a great addition to a retro PC
build there are a good number of older titles that simply do not run well on
newer Hardware even with Community mods meaning a GPU that's old enough could
allow you to run these games without the messy compatibility issues as long as
you have core components from a similar era but what if you have a newer card
that's no longer supported say something like a GTX 580 if you have a rig to
stick it in you could always do some good for the world and contribute to a distributed computing project like
folding at home which conducts disease research by utilizing unused Cycles on
your PC and while it can run on CPUs gpus generally provide significantly
more processing power when it comes to simulating protein folding finally
here's a good idea for those of you who are really into music TV or films you
can always set up a dedicated home Nast or network attached storage where all of
your media can live and be accessible from anywhere on your home network while
it's obviously true that just streaming media from a paid service is more common
these days owning your media is still quite popular among home theater
enthusiasts and not only does a Nas not need tons of processing power but it's
also a good way to reuse any mechanical hard drives you've got laying around
NASA of course can put all that storage to use in other cool ways too such as
running a surveillance server locally hosting smart home functionality if you
don't want to rely on Commercial cloud service or deg Googling your life if
you'd rather have your Cloud photos live at your house rather than in a Google
server Farm where who knows who's looking at them have you ever repurposed
your old equipment for a cool project we didn't mention let us know down in the
comments and if you're interested in knowing more about selling your old gear
go watch this video next