All Linux Things

A family member gave me one of these and Ive been cleaning it up an rehabbing it. Came with a i5 8400 cpu, 8gb ddr4 ram, 1tb hard drive and integrated gpu. The power supply is anemic at 290w and has no 6pin or 8pin connection for a video card. It uses a 8pin connector for motherboard power and the usual 4 pin for the cpu. It has a connector to the board with the sata power connectors for the drives and one m.2 nvme ssd slot thats gen 3. Im going to add a 365w Dell psu that has the video card connections, 16gb of ram, and a gtx 1660 super video card. Ive got a 2tb sata ssd so Ill probably use that for the system. Its got a fairly new Win10 installation so Ill clean it up and probably use that for now. This system was designed for office use but can probably be turned into a good gaming system. Ill post back once I get further into the project as I have to wait for some parts to arrive. The system is capable of using either 8th gen or 9th gen cpus so I have a lot of options. It unfortunately has only two dimm slots but can support both 3.5 and 2.5 sata drives. Its in a small micro atx case that has enough space and you can mount 2 fans at the back. Air flow from the front of the case is limited but it does have two side vents, one to the cpu shroud and one near the gpu for air flow.

Parts should be here tomorrow, so Ill post back once Ive been able to finish the rehab.

Parts came in and I added 16gb of ddr4 ram, 2tb sata ssd I already had, gtx 1660 super for now and a new power supply. It came with a 290w psu with no connections for a video card, so I added a 365w Dell psu with connections, which will work for now as it was cheap. No fan headers other than the cpu ,so will have to use an adapter and connect to the sata connectors to get an additional fan installed. Case overall has good ventilation but ended up getting a better cpu cooler, thats also quieter. The length of the case is disappointing as many of my video cards wont fit, so for now I used the 1660 super. I may be able to get a RX6600 in it but Ill have to play with it. For the average person this is a really nice, compact system for daily use, but can still be tweaked for multimedia or gaming. Performance in my favorite games was much better than my Ryzen 5 2700X system.

My Asus Ryzen 5600x system died and after the experience Ill never buy another Asus system even if its dirt cheap. Another one of my vendors on Ebay who screwed up one of my orders, offered me a Dell Inspiron 3670 less than dirt cheap, so I took it and will rehab it as well.

I've got an ASUS-X550CA laptop from 2014. Intel Core i5-3337U; 12Gb; 1Tb SSD; 1Tb HDD; Windows 10 64-bit Home single language
Never had a scrap of trouble.

Issues with recent Asus products are well known, particularly motherboards. Knowing this I bought an Asus system for gaming and it had issues after the warranty period that I was never able to fix. I used Asus extensively in the old days and rarely had issues but thats no longer the case, particularly with performance hardware.

Second system has been rehabbed with 16gb of ram, gtx 1660 super video card, new psu with pcie 8 pin and a new heatsink and i5 cpu. Running very well and a much cooler running system than my last one and a lot quieter.

With a RX6600 or RTX 3060video card, the difference between the i5 8400 and newer similar cpus is quite small, including productivity apps. Many need to realize that the constant buzz about newer cpus being hugely better is frankly not entirely true. Older mid range systems can and will perform very well for gaming and productivity.