Building a computer

Did you reuse anything from that POS, or is my system completely new from the ground up?

And can you salvage anything from the old system for future use, such as that video card?

you said you were gaming tonight. Are you trying out the new setup? Is it really fast?
 
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  • #29
Your system is brand new. The only old stuff is the *data* that was saved for you. :/:

Everything except for the DVD Burner, power supply, and the motherboard(still usable though) are salvageable. It will be relegated to a good home for future use.

I've got a high CPU/GPU game that can be tried with no problems. It has been thoroughly tested otherwise with multiple speaker set-ups, heavy music(Jazz, Rock, Country, Bagpipes) playback and dvd playback, as well as a dual monitor.
 
Playing really complicated music while showing a hairy legged guy on the screen is obviously the supreme test for a computer.
 
Jay, I've got an old HP Pavillion CPU that's been sitting in my garage for a couple years. I think it was my daughter's at one time. It's got an Intel Pentium II processor and Windows 98. It even has a floppy drive. :O Do you think it's worth it to try and do an upgrade? I've got a few years of Electronics and Electrical Engineering experience, but I've never done anything more complicated than replacing a few boards and replacing fans and power supplies.
 
That unit is so old not much is salvageable. About all that is useful is the floppy drive. The power supply has the wrong type of plug for current motherboards. The hard drive may be usable but is probably very small. I bet less than 4 gigs. To put it in perspective a small drive by today's standards are around 100 gigs. The CD-Rom drive would still be usable but woefully slow. Hope this helps
 
Mmmm, I kinda figured that might be the case. Oh well, I guess I'll send it to Goodwill. Maybe someone will have a use for it.
 
Brett, the computer Jason built for me was about $550 worth of components (I think). And it is highly upgraded over just your basic setup. I'm guessing you could probably put together a new system better than the old one for $300 in parts.

I may be wrong, just a guess.
 
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  • #37
If you don't mind using the case over, and providing it's not proprietary like HP/Compaq stuff is/was, you should be able to rebuild with new stuff in the case.

However, at the cost of cases, if you rebuild, I'd just use a new case. New Egg has plenty with free shipping. Brian's ran for 39.99 at the time of purchase and had the free shipping.

If you need a cheap beater, I always tip my hat to Dell Outlet refurbs for a factory built. You don't have the overhead of a new system, and still get a warranty. Some will come without an Operating system, so it will have to be installed.
 
I've never built an entire unit but I've changed lot of components and added things .Fact is not so long ago I did have to replace the power supply on my wifes .I think it originally had a 350 watt which I replaced with a 650 from Tiger direct .

Both her machine and mine were custom built using the large cases so adding things are real easy to do plus they are loaded full of fans .If only one of them needs attention I just google the probable trouble shooting on the net and most times find the cause and cure .If not I work with a bunch of gurus and find the fix at work .


At work I dabble with them some as needed .At work we also have numerious operating systems .Xp pro,Vista,windows 2000 pro etc etc .Some times it gets damned confusing to try and remember the idosycracies of some of them .Good grief I have enough trouble stumbling through the XP pro I have on this 'puter I'm typing on .---I'm no guru on this stuff though by a long shot .
 
It sucks Brett, but they really are worthless after more than a year or so! Jay could build the most technologically advance machine Brian could ever dream of, in two months it will be outdated and slow by the "new standards"!
And to add to Jay on the hard drive, I am downloading "updates" for Vista in the 8-20 gig range monthly it seems! I Think? you need at least a 40 gig hard drive for Vista basic!
 
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  • #40
I look at what the hardware has done over the past 10 years. When I got started, if you had a PIII 900, you dropped some major coin for your system. Now, my graphics card has more processing power than my first computer, and 4 times the memory... and it's a year or so old.

Brian is sitting there with about 45 gigs loaded up already just from updates from Microsoft, as well as the operating system. By this time next year, it'll probably be out to 65 or so with updates, and maybe even a service pack.
 
My first computer had a 10 MB hard drive. I remember when I upgraded to a 40 MB, thinking, this is WAY more than I need, but what the heck. :roll:
 
My first computer a 386sx came with 256k of memory I upgraded it to 1 megabyte for 300 1988 dollars. It had a 5.25 inch floppy drive and a 30 Megabyte hard drive... Yes that is mega with an M not Giga with a G. By contrast my gaming rig has 8 Gigabytes of ram and 1 terabyte of Hard drive space.
 
ha, my first computer was an Apple II E, $100 a meg for RAM, 5 1/4 floppy drive. :) in the last 25 years I have been part of building maybe 15-20 computers. :) its sucks!!! MAKE the one that is best and be done with it, I hate going in and doing the buy a component and figure it out thing.

The computers I learned on were commodore vic 20's, tape drive if you were lucky. then commodore 64's and Amiga's. The Macs were a couple years behind my schoolyears, hence my independance from the Apple thing. :D
 
The technoligy moves so fast that unless you were a multimillionaire you could never afford to stay on the "leading edge" . Hardware changes,operating systems change .In a few years stuff becomes outdated ,in about 5-6 years you have a dinosaur and then the maker of the software no longer has tech support .

It not only happens on our private computers but also in major industry .It's tough to keep abreast of things I'll tell ya.
 
I just got home from work and the computer was sitting in the carport. I just got it pulled out of the box and heard something loose inside. Opened the case and it was just one of the fans that had come loose. I looked at it for a few minutes and figured out where it went and got it plugged in. I'll finish setting it up later, right now I'd rather stay online and relax on the forums for a little while.
 
I got the new system up and running, I'm using it now. It's very fast (instant response) and quiet, but I may be buying a new desk soon so I can position it differently. This thing is throwing off some heat and needs better air circulation than my current desk can provide. I have not figured out how to get the second monitor running yet, will worry about that later.

Here's a few pictures of Jason's handiwork. :) First one is a close up of the fan that came loose in shipping, it's now working fine.
 
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