Decision on an old P4 System

A few months ago I bought the Coolermaster HAF 922 case for a new computer build. Now I have an existing full-tower P4 (3.4 HT) system that I built back in early 2004 that I had originally built for video production/editing and ran a dual-monitor setup. It has ran very well and was my powerhouse system at that time.

Its been sitting idle for awhile now until I get a new studio worked on and built and have had trouble deciding what to do with the P4 system. I was thinking of either turning it into a media server, or perhaps look into transforming it into the new DAW system. However, while the P4 motherboard and components are still solid (Intel 865PE chipset) the system is pretty much at its limit as far as future expandability. It isn't capable of 64-bit operation so it may be somewhat costly to replace the MB, RAM and processor. I could keep the system to do audio analog/digital transfers and keep it as a separate workstation from my future DAW and video editing workstation.

So for those who may still have P4 systems....have you found a different use for it or did you finally retire it? 

what gustabo  said, many folk use high end pc's for... word processing as thats REALLY cpu intensive..

other things, turn it into a hardware firewall.. you might wanna use it with XBMC http://xbmc.org/ if you want to use it as a media machine. use it for surfing , and that way your DAW is offline a LOT more.

put a lite version of linux on and you may find it zips along faster

or give it to someone to learn on..

p4 ? i'm still using 8 bit machines like this >




64k 5.25 drive... and 3 yes 3 sound channels (ok.. 1 for digi also)