- Use a computer to control your home appliances.
- Use a computer to keep track of your finances.
- Use a computer to research information.
- Use a computer to communicate with people online.
- Use a computer to take care of your personal business ..
Help Mankind
There are also a number of programs out there that are looking for people to help with scientific research. If you want to be a part of one of these programs, there are several options available from universities around the world. One option is to use your computer’s power and resources along with millions of other computers to create a super computer.
The BOINC Project
The University of Berkeley is offering a project where you can volunteer your computer resources to help cure diseases, study global warming, find objects in space, etc. They have over 172K volunteers with over 850K computers in the network. This gives them a whopping 27 petaflops of computing power. Just download the software and choose the projects you want to support.
Folding@home
Volunteering your computer power to help scientists find cures for diseases is a big project at Stanford University. Folding@home uses volunteers’ computers to study protein folding, which can lead to new drugs. If you’re interested in helping out, go to the website and sign up! ..
Automatically Backup Your PC
If you don’t have a proper backup plan in place, you could lose all of your data if your computer crashes. even if you don’t have any important data on it, you can still save yourself hours by restoring your computer.
Windows is a time-consuming process. Why not have your computer backup when it’s idle? You can create your own backup images manually, but you’re way more likely to create the backups if they are done automatically.
Cloud backup services are a great way to keep your computer safe and backed up. BackBlaze and Carbonite are two of the best cloud backup services I have used. They are both super easy to use and give you the freedom to not worry about manually backing up your computer.
Update Your PC
If you’re one of those people who hates having to restart their computer in the middle of a work day, there’s a way to adjust your Windows settings so that updates only happen when you’re not using your computer. ..
In Windows 10, you can set the time that you work on your PC by clicking on Start, then Settings and then Update & Security. Click on Change active hours and set the time that you work on your PC. Windows will only do updates outside of this time range.
In the right-hand pane, click on Windows Update and then on Check for updates. If there are any updates available, you will see a list of them in the left-hand pane and they will be listed in order of importance. You can choose to install them or not, but it is recommended that you install them all. If there are no updates available, you can click on the blue check mark next to Windows Update and then close the Control Panel.
You can choose to install new updates every day, or you can pick one day of the week. You can also choose the specific time when you’re not using the computer. ..
Setup an FTP or Game Server
If you want to share a lot of content with others, you might consider setting up your computer as a file sharing or game server. One way to do this is to use a third-party software called FileZilla. FileZilla is a great program that can be used to create a home file server. This way, you can store all of your files on one place and share them with others easily.
You can also install IIS in Windows Pro and higher versions to create your own FTP server or web server. Finally, if you enjoy gaming with friends, you can setup your own game server to play games like Minecraft, Counter-Strike, Quake, etc.
This is a bit more complicated to set up, but your friends will definitely think you are cool if you have one of these running from home.
Become a Tor Relay
If you have a powerful machine, an unlimited Internet connection and one hell of a router, you might consider becoming a Tor relay. Tor, if you didn’t know it, is a project that aims to help users browse the Internet without being tracked. It’s not full-proof, but it works well for a lot of people.
The network is made up of volunteers who act as relays. When you visit a website, your request goes through several relays before reaching the final destination. This helps mask your true identity.
There are a few requirements for becoming a Tor relay, depending on where you live. If you can get your ISP to support it, it’s a great way to make the web more private. There are also some legal implications if you become a relay, depending on where you live. However, if you can do your part and make sure that your network is compliant with Tor’s rules, it’s an excellent way to keep the internet more private.
Other Extra Uses
- Use the extra processing power to create more detailed graphics or videos.
- Use the extra processing power to speed up your internet connection.
- Use the extra processing power to improve your reading experience.
- Use the extra processing power to create more accurate weather reports.
- Use the extra processing power to improve your work efficiency
There are a lot of other things you can do with an idle PC, but these were just a few that came to my mind. If you have another cool way to utilize an idle PC, let us know in the comments. Enjoy!