Using An Older Computer

[Steveruger45]

I just recently re-purposed an old  (10 years old) 8 gig ram ASUS win7 laptop that has win 10 “upgrade” on it.  Only because I got fed up with the constant reminders from Microsoft a few years back.  It was slow on just about everything even with a Samsung  SSD HD upgrade I put in a few years ago.
Anyway, As all I want this machine to do and as it was only collecting dust otherwise, is run JMRI and an old router so I can use WiThrottle in my garage, its not connected to the interweb.
I really cleaned out all programs I don’t need on it and paired down others as far as I could and deleted all stored stuff I don’t need on it etc etc etc,  ran CCleaner a few times, defender, malware bites etc, cleaned up the registry and duplicate files and .dll files etc etc. 
And now it boots quick, runs JMRI and the router with no problems.
As I do all my JMRI roster updates on my newer computer as well as ESU lokprogrammer stuff, I transfer those to this dedicated train room computer by usb stick to keep that current.

To think I was going to just throw that laptop and router out for recycling it has become useful again.  One benefit from the lockdown time I’ve had I guess as it cost nothing but time.

[jdcolombo]

Hi Steve.

Yes, for what you're doing, that old computer is just fine.  But you're not trying to do any programming via Decoder Pro on it - it's just running WiThrottle as a server.  My R-Pi works great for this, as well, and I just leave it running.

But the original poster mentioned Decoder Pro.  If one wants to use Decoder Pro to do programming, particularly with sound decoders that have hundreds or thousands of CV's, the R-Pi just wasn't practical - and your resurrected ASUS probably wouldn't be, either. 

Old computers CAN be re-purposed for tasks within their capabilities.  I have an ancient Mac Mini that is my music end point to interface with a DAC connected to my stereo system.  Works great as nothing more than a digital music file front-end and I leave it on 24/7, because booting it takes about 10 minutes (honestly).

John C.

[Steveruger45]

Hi John, 
Yes, I agree absolutely, I wouldn’t run decoder pro fully on it at all, I wouldn’t live long enough. 😀
I have done a bit of single sheet reads and writes though ok and it’s still pretty quick at that level.
 But I hardly ever do that anymore.  I have got into the habit of doing all that cv stuff on the newer computer and lokprogrammer and then export the cv list to a file in my good newer computer and  on a usb stick and import the cv list file to decoder pro on both computers.  That’s a very quick way of updating decoder pro.

[peteski]

Guys, JMRI or Decoder Pro are not very memory or processor intensive apps. It is not like some video game which  renders 3D graphic animation.  Our DCC tools could easily run on an old Pentium PC with 512MB RAM and a 40GB hard drive in windows XP.

People get so hung up on thinking that they need lots of horsepower to just program some decoders (remember that even DCC itself is an ancient computer technology).

Now if you were using PanelPro do display bunch of control panels that is a different story (due to more intensive graphics needs).

[MK]

If you are going to use an old laptop be aware that the memory expansion maybe limited.  Some have limited slots and/or only accept older memory  modules which can limit you in how much more memory you can add.

[reinhardtjh]

I'm thinking the slowness of the RasPi might be the read/write speed of the SD card used for storage.  You can speed up a Pi up greatly by using a small (64G or 120G) USB SSD. Especially a Pi 4 with it's two USB 3.0 ports.  A Pi 3 and under you can replace the SD card totally and have it boot form the USB disk.  Currently the Pi4 still needs to boot from the SD but you can move the root file system to the USB disk for speed.