James Mason said:
Minecraft is very Ram and CPU intensive, your computer is very insufficient to run a minecraft server.
You may not need all of these parts, but it's what is necesarry to have a working computer:
PCPartPicker part list /
Price breakdown by merchant
CPU: Intel Celeron G1820 2.7GHz Dual-Core Processor ($48.36 @ Newegg)
Motherboard: MSI H81M-E33 Micro ATX LGA1150 Motherboard ($44.99 @ Micro Center)
Memory: Corsair 4GB (2 x 2GB) DDR3-1333 Memory ($43.66 @ NCIX US)
Storage: Western Digital Caviar Blue 250GB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($33.18 @ Amazon)
Case: Apex SK-393-C ATX Mid Tower Case ($26.80 @ NCIX US)
Power Supply: SeaSonic 300W 80+ Bronze Certified ATX Power Supply ($39.99 @ Mwave)
Optical Drive: LG GH24NSB0 DVD/CD Writer ($14.99 @ NCIX US)
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium SP1 (OEM) (64-bit) ($84.99 @ NCIX US)
Total: $336.96
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
It should allow you to host the server for your small userbase.
You also shouldnt use Wireless to host a server, the server should have a dedicated cable, everyone else can use wireless if they want though.
Wireless G is fairly "bad" nowadays. N is what is current, but AC is going to replace N soon/already is.
The thing with ram is basically this:
DDR stands for double data rate, so "DDR Ram" is faster than well, ram that doesnt exist anymore.
DDR2 Ram is twice as fast as DDR ram.
DDR3 ram is twice as fast as DDR2 ram.
1GB of ram isn't enough for anything really, especially at DDR2.
4GBs should plenty for only 5 people, assuming they dont start running off in all different directions to purposefully make the world bigger and more memory intensive.
while I appreciate the effort you went through to pick parts for me it's not what I asked. I'm not buying parts to build a whole new machine for a minecraft only server (that will not be played on either). Max users will be 5 on rare occasions but usually just 2 to 3. Plus the OS is not needed as I am using gnu/Linux for this project. Setting up and running the minecraft server was the fairly easy part. Now that think about it I did read a suggestion to run minecraft server with less ram for older machines, I'll need to reread that.
I have it on wifi because of where it is located, I can move it close to the router so I can use an Ethernet cable but it will make it a little bit of a hassle should I need to troubleshoot anything. I will try that first to see if it helps. aside from those issues it work surprisingly smooth (LXLE doesn't use much system resources ... it's based on Lubuntu but supposed to lighter for older hardware).
I will have a spare Athlon II x3 455 (and mobo) to use probably in a month so I think I may just use that and buy 8gb ddr3 value ram if the Ethernet cable doesn't help. I may try a wireless N adapter if I can find one that works with Linux (that's why I'm using a G adapter now ... my Ns aren't Linux friendly)