This post is a continuation of yesterday's post, The eWaste problem.
Today I adopted one machine. It was the cleanest one in the stack, at least judging by the dirtiness of the white label on the top.
Just because it was the cleanest doesn't mean that it was clean. This is what I found after taking off the front panel...
Before even touching that thing I quickly wiped off the exterior of the power supply, which wasn't much better.
Needless to say, air dusting the power supply released visible plumes of dust. Maybe I should be doing this outside.
Anyway, at this point I had the case open, when I noticed that there was RAM! I was told that the machine had the RAM removed, but I guess not. Single stick, but hey that's room for expansion.
Removing the RAM, I was surprised to see that it was 8GB, which is the maximum that the computer can handle in a single slot. This lets me upgrade it to 16GB later without throwing out the existing stick.
I then disassembled the machine entirely, removing every piece and cleaning each individually. I didn't take photos of every step, but the thermal paste was old and had bad coverage, so here's a photo of that.
One thermal paste application, cleaning, drive install, and reassembly later, the PC looked clean.
Software Time
Docker I love you
So I went to download Ubuntu Server, and uhhh DuckDuckGo are you okay?
One torrent later, I had my Ubuntu .iso file.
I flashed with Etcher and I'm ready for install.
On boot, the computer failed to POST. One memory reseat and we're in business!
One (read "two" - gfy Ubuntu) Docker installs later, we're online and ready to go! A Second environment on Portainer makes me feel so productive as a sysadmin, even when it has no actual containers or anything.
I assigned it a local static IP, and now all that's left is to actually do things with it. This can make a great homelab for sure. And of course, as is custom, a neofetch.
Compared to my main server (Core 2 Quad Q9450: 4@2.67, 4x4GB RAM), it's certainly better in CPU, especially with IPC improvements, but with half the RAM and in single channel only, I'll be sticking with my main server, at least for the time being. My current server is constrained far more by memory than by CPU.
$13 on Amazon would certainly push the Optiplex a lot further, though I don't think I am aiming to switch everything over regardless. This machine has less expandability than my main homelab, so I won't be moving even if I were to upgrade. I have a friend who is interested in one of these, and so I'll probably end up giving them this or another one I refurbish.
Anyway, that's one device saved from the kill shelter that is the eWaste pile. Maybe I need one of those ASPCA commercials with the sad dogs dusty computers and a phone number to call and donate.
