Advice for choosing a compatible PC

Dear friends i am new here and need an advice.

1. I do have two cnc machines (one profesional machining center and one small 4 axis chinese 3040.
2. In this second hobby machine (Chinese) the controller burn out 2 years ago.
3. It was an opportunity for me, to build a new electronic's box and check if i can make it work with LinuxCNC.
4. I went with a compatible to LCNC controller (a cheap one because it was a test),  new wiring, new stepper drivers, a new 5V paraller card  on PC, Debian installation e.t.c..
5. Was trying too many days to make it work with no result, I gave up and did order a windows USB controller card for mach3. Like it (me) or not, it worked this way and still does.

6. By being unable then, to make my Chinese 3040 to move by LCNC, some months ago i did order a 4 axis USB CNC controller (180€) for the new machine i am preparing (DIY).
7. I am sure it was my mistake buying this controller because it needs a PC. I could give some extra money for a standalone one, but i didn't.

So I need your advice.

I have some old PC's and 3 old motherboards to use, by installing win7 or winXP.
But before that, i want to check them for Latency to choose one of them (or none.....).

There is a win application called LatencyMon at  www.resplendence.com/downloads .

Its the closest (to Latency Test), application for windows, i could find.
But i believe it is way better to test these PC's and motherboards,  by the real Latency Test, booting from a USB on a LINUX version with LinuxCNC and run Latency Test.

a. If you agree with that, please inform me for a Linux Version with Linux CNC to use?
b. Is it ok to make a bootable USB  to avoid instalation or LatencyTest's results may differ from actual measurements?
c. Does Linux version has something to do with the hardware of these PCs, specifically for this test (hardware drivers, e,t,c,) ?

Thanks in front
Evangelos

P.S.1   I know the difference between LCNC and everything else but i am doing the best i can for now, having in mind to find a way to switch to LCNC when someone can do it for me. The hobby Chinese is there for more tests on this.

P.S.2   My PCs and motherboards if needed are.
1. MSI P45 NEO3    MS-7514 Ver:1.1   Intel® P45+ICH10R
2. Prescott 800    P4i65G (ASRock)   Socket 478 for Intel Pentium4 Celeron 865G  E8000 Series Chipset
3. MSI  K7T Turbo Ver:3 MS-6330    Chipset:VIA VT82C686B - K7 Athlon Duron
4. Dell Dimensions OptiPlex GX270    Foxconn LS-36   Intel 865G   
5. HP compact DC7600 Intel® Pentium® 4 
 

Download the official ISO from the downloads page, the 2.8.4 ISO
Burn it to USB, boot from it, do some latency tests (see below) while copying random stuff and watching youtube while maximizing/minimizing yutube window.
Latency tests to run:
For PC with parallel port "latency-histogram --sbinsize 1000 --show
For PC with no parallel port "latency-histogram --nobase --sbinsize 1000 --show
It would be nice to download the 2.7 version of the Wheezy ISO, also, if you have parallel ports you want to use, and from your list probably all have parallel ports, use the first test line.
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BTW, $180 is Mesa territory, with bells and whistles, and no need for cracked software to run it.
And you deserve respect for still forging ahead to switch to LinuxCNC.

I would ignore any old 32 bit PC's you have. I originally wanted to use one when I started 7-8 years ago but found I had to buy a new PC. My recomendation is to use a 4 core 64 bit Celeron or above. Eg J1900 and later.

No eBay APP ID and/or Cert ID defined in Kunena configurationController card is this :
Thanks for your help.

First, if you want to work with LinuxCNC, you have the wrong controller. This is a mach3 controller. If the controller works well, it will not be affected by the latency of the computer.

You could have bought a 7i96S controller.

Yes it is a Mach3 controller, it is the only software i can install so far.
It has also good recommendations from people using it.
And no one has mentioned anything about selecting a specific PC for this controller.

So your comment "If the controller works well it will not be affected by the latency of the computer" may be correct.

I prefer to do a Latency Test either way while i dont trust windows to handle my machine.

In my mind is not a black or white matter a windows based CNC.
I prefer to eliminate the risk until i am able to switch to LinuxCNC.
Thank you
Your comment was useful.