Advice on buying used server for playing around

Hey

I would like to buy an old server. I want to have something to play around with. I would like to run linux and a few vms. Something like an old Dell Poweredge server might be good. I would like to spend 200$ or less. Energy consumption and noise don't really matter. I live in Switzerland, so it should be available here or in Germany/UK. Do you guys have any suggestions for a good system?

Regards
Florian

Bump it to $350 and you can buy the same parts as me. Dual opteron and 32GB of RAM. It's an actual server not just consumer parts.

What parts exactly did you use?

Thanks for the suggestions!

Wow, looks really nice!
I just looked on ebay for SuperMicro CSE815TQ but everything I can find is 700+ EUR... :( That's way too much.

Well damn... I can get them for $35 here. I'll send you one if you pay shipping.

That's very kind!
As you can imagine, if the case is so expensive, what will the components cost...
The setup you have would be nearly perfect for me (expect the glass fiber stuff, don't need that (yet ;))). Can you tell me where you got this system?

The CPUs were $40-45 each, the case included the PSU, the RAM was about $50. Mobo was about $80 I think. I needed a new IO panel for mine and a new drive backplane because the mobo and drives weren't SCSI. That added about $50
Ended up needing a new PSU because mine went bad and I got 3 of them for about $30.
eBay. All parts. Put it together myself.

I found some parts with reasonable shipping:
CPU: http://www.ebay.de/itm/161779237960
RAM: http://www.ebay.com/itm/Lot-of-32GB-8X-4GB-2Rx4-10600R-1333-Mh-DDR3-ECC-REG-Samsung-M393B5170FHD-CH9-/302020390001?hash=item4651d16c71:g:PSIAAOSw6kxXH9ol
but case, Mobo etc. are either insanely expensive here, or the shipping from the US is very expensive...

Sadly $14 is about the cheapest you could manage from the US. That's the lowest I could find when I mailed an SFP card to @KodApa85 over in the UK.

14$ shipping once would be ok, but if I have to pay 5 times 14$ it becomes a "little" bit expensive...

That's why I said I would mail it to you.

Yeah, but I understood it like you can send me a case, not all the parts. That would be an insane amount of work for you, wouldn't it? (packing all the components etc.)

I'd just put it together and send it in the box the case came in.

That would be very nice! I have to think a little bit about it. And I have to get up in 4 hours. Can I come back to you tomorrow?

Sure. I'm looking at the shipping though and it looks like it would be pretty expensive. Not sure what your import would be like either so it might not be worth it. I'll look at some more shipping options.