Re-build a Computer?

[Scrounger]

I bought my newest computer in December of 2002, I don't remember the processor speed but it's somewhere just under 2 GH, fast ebough for my uses. The memory is 512, the hard drive is 60, and it has CD and DVD burners. By todays standards it's probably horse and buggy. My first computer was purchased in February of 1999 and it was the best I could find: Compacq, the processor was 400 MH, memory 128 MB, hard drive was all of 9 GBs! The hard drive crashed in December 2002 which led me to buy the new one. But I had the old one fixed, new hard drive (40 GB), doubled the memory, put in CD burner. Since then it has just set, used very little. Thought going through my head is that my 'new' computer is due for a collapse. The question before the board is whether you think it possible I can take my old one and rebuild it into an upgrade, better than my new one? A newer, faster processor, bigger memory, I'm happy with that size hard drive, but open to suggestions of other gadgets. Will it cost more than to simply buy a new one? What tools are required? Does a klutz like me with no training have the ability to do it? Appreciate all the advice i can get from Joe and the other cyber-gifted guys here.

[StarMetal]

Art,

No, you can certainly upgrade it some, but near that 2 giga something byte one. The reason is the board has a socket designed for just a certain range of processors to plug into. You can't plug a Pentium 4 processor in say an old 486 computor board socket. There's more to it the that also. There are other variables that play an important part for an example again a powersupply from 486 won't run a Pentium 4 and alot of accessories. For another thing the plug is different on the older power supplies. They changed voltages along the road too. Diffterent boards take different processors which in themselves take different sockets.

Just use it as it is or scrap it.

Joe

[felix]

Cheap is better if components can be had for the older machine. Build the machine for your internet use, meaning UNIX, and not MS, to cut down drastically the cookie and/or virus arrangements. I use a UNIX "server" for the DSL I/O, but everything else is MS. Have Joe set you up up this way for the server idea, but include a browser. Keep your MS stuff on your newer machine, and link it to the older machine having the UNIX. My UNIX box is a first generation IBM intel machine. ... felix

[Scrounger]

Guess I can donate it to the Salvation Army and take a $1500 tax writeoff for it like the big boys do....

[jballs918]

scrounger,

you may not need a new one, from what it sound like unless you are a serious gamer, your computer should be ok. a 2gb machine is more then enough for a good emachine. if you live close to vegas i can give you a hand building one i have built several of them.

[Scrounger]

scrounger,

you may not need a new one, from what it sound like unless you are a serious gamer, your computer should be ok. a 2gb machine is more then enough for a good emachine. if you live close to vegas i can give you a hand building one i have built several of them.

The plan was to rebuild the old one and give it to my nephew's kids. Their main use would be music, video, and games, so the old one, even rebuilt, sounds like it wouldn't be a good choice for them. Probably smarter to sell a gun and buy them a new Dell. But thanks for your offer of help. I live in Pahrump, which is about $15 worth of gas from Vegas.

[StarMetal]

Art,

All that stuff you mentioned the kid will be playing sucks the living daylights out of a pc. What he's going to need is the biggest set out with not one but two of the best video cards out. That's the craze now, dual video cards.

Joe

[Gunload Master]

There's always plenty of variables when it comes to a question like this and honestly the best answer to your question cannot be answered over a phone or internet. Reason being is there are so many types of computer makes and models, many can be integrated. Reason I say this is, the old tower might still be used, CD-rom drives, floppy drives, monitor, mouse, keyboard. In theory you could buy "motherboard (on-board sound), processor, RAM, Hard Drive, Video card, 300+ watt power supply and your good to go (as long as you can work around how the power supply fits). But with this, you do need to have some skill in computer assembly to make it work. But if you can use old parts, hell go for it. A new case is 50+ bucks.. Like I say though.. Lots of variables.

Like i've said before. Computers come in all types of flavors and assemblies so you can get lots of opionions on how they work and fit togeather as well. But if I can use some pieces and parts to save money on my personal stuff.. I do.

In my business sense though.. You shouldn't upgrade anything and just buy a whole new setup! Then buy network equipment to join them all togeather :)

[StarMetal]

Willy's got some points, but Willy by today's standards a 300 watt power supply is puny. If you're going to be powering the mother board, the processor, all the cooling fans, the DVD player , floppy, all the various cards you put in, etc, you need more. As for the tower if it's an older smaller and I mean that in processor size like a Pentium compared to say 486 or even a Pentium I compared to the a Pentium IV, the new board may be too large to fit inside the case. If you know where to buy this stuff for almost wholesale you can get a good deal on a case. Example, my last pc I built I got has a gaming case, with a 450 watt power supply, clear panel side that opens very easy to access the inside and this included 80mm neon lighted cooling fans, and all the hardware to mount the board...all for about $60. But you're right about just buying or building a whole new set up. One other thing too I've seen is older floppy disks not working on newer sets, not because of power (that's the same) but because of the language it copies and writed in not being compadible. Doesn't happen alot. New CD or DVD, even the write and rewrites ones are very cheap today. Alot of newer pc's don't come with floppy disks anymore too. They are going to be history soon.

Joe

[Gunload Master]

I'll just explain my personal computer. This was actually how it was setup about 2 years ago (i've had fan's die and I just havent replaced them).
I got a 300 watt power supply and this is what it powers:
Gigabyte Nforce 2 MOBO with an AMD 3000 processor
1 CD-RW
1 8x DVD player
1 "coolstar" dual fan fitting a drive bay
3 80MM fans
1 Floppy drive
1 Geforce 5500 graphic card
1 HD dual cooling fan
1 Internal PCI slot cooling fan
That's about it I think....

Not trying to be sarcastic or anything, just specifing what I have.. I'll take a picture tonight and show you my tower.

[StarMetal]

A power supply rating specification is take the total wattage of all the componants and accessories, as though they would be all running at the same time, and get a power supply with that wattage number and alittle bit more for a margin.

Back to my car analogy again. Just because a car may have say a 300 hp engine in it, you don't use 300 hp all the time.

Joe

[Gunload Master]

Back to my car analogy again. Just because a car may have say a 300 hp engine in it, you don't use 300 hp all the time.


Then why would you want to fuel a 300 HP car if your not going to use it?

One of the main things I see when I talk with people about computers is they want the biggest best thing there is!.... My question to them is always.. Why? If you buy the biggest best thing there is, you will always pay an incredible amount of money and never reach it's full potiential. By the time you would need something that powerful, that system you bought is half the price you paid for it. There is no sense in buying the biggest best thing on the market, because you get screwed, plain and simple.

Reason I bring this up is, why would you want to run a 500 watt power supply when a 300 watt power supply works fine? It's overkill.. http://forum.gunloads.com/images/smilies/huntin/fighting72.gif

[StarMetal]

Dinosaur PC's had power supplies as small as 65 watts. Modern machines have as much as 400 watts or more in typical configurations.

The biggest power draw for a PC is almost always the monitor: a typical 17 or 19 inch screen draws about 100 to 150 watts. Within the PC itself, a typical CPU demand as much as 45 to 50 watts, depending on it's speed and design. A typical high speed CD-ROM uses 10 to 25 watts when it is in full operation. Other plug-in devices, like internal modems and adapters, may ask for 5 to 10 watts apiece. A large bank of RAM may need about that much power as well. Depending on it's components, a typical modern machine may draw a total of 150 to 200 watts: high end machines with fast processors, 256 MB of memory (and that's not alot anymore), several drives, and other devices may draw as much as 400 watts. Here are some wattage uses: Motherboard without CPU or Ram..20 to 30 watts, CPU..10 to 70 watts and 7 to 10 watts per MB of RAM, Typical PCI adapter card..5, High wattage AGP graphics card..20 to 50, SCSI controller PCI card with cache..20to 25, Ethernet..4, 7200 rpm IDE hard drive..5 to 15, 7200 rpm Ultra2 SCSI hard drive..24, 10,000 rpm SCSI hard drive..10 to 40.

I think I'll stay safe and run a bigger powersupply rather then suffer a low voltage burn out of components and a fried powersupply.

Joe

[454PB]

Just a point of interest: I have an old spare HP computer running Win. 98 set up in my loading room. Got bored one day and hooked up my clamp on ammeter to see what this setup actually uses during different processes. You should see what happens to power demand when you defragment your computer, I was surprised how hard things are working during that maintenance.

[StarMetal]

Ever notice the room your pc is in or the area, is warm?

Joe

[Oldfeller]

When considering your next PC main box purchase, look at a 17" laptop instead. You get a full sized keyboard, number keypad and functionally a larger screen (as laptop screens do more with their 14" standard size than a 17" CRT box monitor does in its bigger energy sucking cathode ray tube).

A 17" laptop screen is HUGE when you consider what it shows functionally.

Cost isn't that far apart. Last 17" laptop I bought was an HP with a 3.2 gighz 64 bit processor, one gig of systems memory and a 100 gig hard drive -- all for $899 on sale. It had all sorts of multimedia slots & plugs that I will never use and two USB ports on each of the sides and two in the back.

(you expand a laptop using external USB devices if you ever do expand it)

Same class of rig in a less handy box configuration could be bought for $499 on sale. If you don't count power usage, the box is a better deal. If you did count power consumption and cost of power over the life of the machine they are about a wash cost-wise. The laptop is more convienent and takes up a whole lot less desk space.

Mind you, you don't "upgrade" laptops -- you buy them with everything you need and you run them until they get dropped (damaged) or get obsolete. This happens at about the same rate as box computers -- IF you do gaming on your PC. If you use a game box for gaming you don't really need to upgrade your PC anymore (you spend the same money on upgrading your game box instead).

Now, to the "killer ap" reason to own a laptop now instead of a PC, the cellular phone companies have figured out how to put a cell phone radio inside an internal laptop expansion slot port. On sale they will set you up for "anywhere" laptop internet for the cost of another cell phone line (and the cell phone to go with it).

Real good for them wandering life styles .....

Apart from getting a laptop, consider replacing your old monitor with a 19" to 21" flatscreen LED monitor. It will cost more, but you will get it back in energy savings over a year or three AND your eyes won't get that grainy achy feeling after a long PC session like they do now.

So the rule of thumb is buy a decent machine and run it into the ground -- this can take like 4-6 years now as hardware requirements (apart from gaming) simply aren't progressing like they used to.

Speaking about gaming and how far gaming has really pushed the PC development, I have a real old PC game that I play occasionally called Serious Sam -- a real balls to the walls shooter if ever there was one. The game is about 8 years old now and I finally recently bought a "standard equipment" box PC that it will not bog down on either the sound or the video. The box was really bought so I could play Far Cry (a much more recent very demanding PC game).

The 17" screen laptop I just bought will play both of these games just fine -- and it actually cost LESS than the box style PC I had bought earlier so I could play them.

Go figure ....

PC Magazine reports that laptop sales are exceeding PC box sales now and that game box sales exceed either one now, so I guess it all makes sense when you put it all together.

Oldfeller

[Underclocked]

http://www.gotapex.com :)

It is very hard to beat Dell's pricing on pc packages if you check the deal boards. I also happen to think they are pretty good computers for the money. I've built a good many computers and worked on a whole lot more. The 5150/510, 9150, and any of the XPS series should be worthy of upgrading if needed to be a gamer.

Do not overlook Dell Outlet. http://outlet.us.dell.com/ARBOnlineSales/topics/global.aspx/arb/online/en/InventorySearch?c=us&cs=22&l=en&s=dfh I've bought a number of computers from the outlet and have found them to be the equal of any there in every way. They are also usually cleaner ? ? Just don't buy the "Scratch & Dent" stuff because that could mean anything. I'm running an outlet computer right now and you wouldn't believe the price I paid for the unit. Heckuva deal!! Sometimes, in the wee hours and usually about 5 or 35 after the hour (there's a reason for that), I'll sit and submit search multiple times to see what comes up. Sort by price. :)

http://www.gottadeal.com/dell.php

http://www.edealinfo.com/Misc/dell.shtml

Potential Dell buyers should bookmark those sites.