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Salvaging Stuff For A New Budget PC

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  • 14-03-2010 9:19pm
    #1
    sh1tin-a-brick
    Registered Users Posts: 190 ✭✭


    I hate to be the poor person coming in, spoiling the fun everyone is having talking about expensive stuff.... :p
    BUT
    I need some help. I recently salvaged my dad's old desktop which he bought in either 03 or 04 (sounds good already). Even better again, it's from Aldi (Medion MS-7408). Everything in it is old, the ram is DDR1 (two256mb, huge I know, lol), the graphics card is crap, not to mention everything is caked in dust. I want to know, if I do get the money to build something decent (again, poor person here, the budget is tight), will I be able to recycle any of the parts?

    CD-ROM drive F: IDE DVD-ROM 16x
    CD-ROM drive G: PIONEER DVD RW DVR 107D
    Sound Device: C-MEDIA AC97AUDIO DEVICE
    Display: MEDION RADEON 9800 XXL
    Disk Drive: (standard disk drives) ST3200021A
    IDE: (I dont know what this is) INTEL 82801EB ULTRA ATA Storage Controller

    The current RAM is two 256MB PC3200 DDR 400 Memory 184 pin.
    The processor speed is 2.99GHZ and I think it's Pentium 4.
    As for everything else inside, I dont know. It's hard to find info on a machine this old. It has a tv tuner anyway!

    Can I salvage any of this, keeping in mind I want to be able to play recent games such as The Sims 3 and CSI Deadly Intent? Or would it be best for me to start from scratch?

    Thanks!


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    #2
    Solitaire
    Moderators, Technology & Internet Moderators Posts: 18,377 Mod ✭✭✭✭Solitaire


    Why on earth would you thread-jack a high-end build thread to put this in when you could have just made a new thread for it? :rolleyes:

    In any case, I'd be more interested in seeing the state of the case and PSU, but that would neccessitate opening it up, which I assume you haven't done. As for the stuff you posted, one of them sounds like some old Seagate HDD. Do you know what capacity it is? Unless its over the 120GB mark and it gets a clean bill of health from a SMART check I wouldn't bother salvaging it. You could salvage the optical drives but I'm not sure if you'd really need the DVD reader. The burner could come in handy though, even if its an old IDE model.

    The core build is a write-off; its all very obsolete at this point. You can run basic stuff on it as it is but if you have an issue with the CPU you'd have to bin and replace the motherboard and RAM as well. Same way the graphics card is ancient and shouldn't be used if upgrading as if you're gaming it'll have to be replaced and if you're not gaming... well... an integrated GPU on a newer motherboard woiuld be better than using that thing :o


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    #3
    sh1tin-a-brick
    Registered Users Posts: 190 ✭✭sh1tin-a-brick


    I have opened the computer but to be honest I don't have much experience. Apart from being covered in dust everything seems to be in full working order. The harddrive is 200gb but that's all I know. I'm happy with that amount of space so hopefully I can reuse it. Well, the CPU runs at roughly 3ghz, I think that's acceptable for what I would be running.

    I'll definitely be getting rid of the RAM and graphics card. Hopefully I can find a way to reuse most of the other parts.
    Thanks for the help :)


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    #4
    Solitaire
    Moderators, Technology & Internet Moderators Posts: 18,377 Mod ✭✭✭✭Solitaire


    A 3GHz Pentium 4 isn't really anything to write home about... even a slow low-cache C2D like the E2180 would fly past it with one of its cores tied behind its back! Almost any cheap modern CPU would smack it into next week! :o

    Do you intend on playing any recent live-action games? Poor performance in CSI or The Sims wouldn't really break the game, it'd just be ugly.


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    #5
    sh1tin-a-brick
    Registered Users Posts: 190 ✭✭sh1tin-a-brick


    True, the single core is crap. But CSI runs fine on it. I tried running the sims 3 on this, I think its the ram thats preventing it from working. I checked the specs and sims 3 works with p4, so I'm happy enough with it for now. As I said, I have a low budget so until the some funds come, I'll have to make use of it. :cool:


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    #6
    Solitaire
    Moderators, Technology & Internet Moderators Posts: 18,377 Mod ✭✭✭✭Solitaire


    I'm amazed CSI is actually running on 512MB DDR1 :o Even my sister's laptop was upgraded to 1GB DDR2 long ago... :D

    You're right about the RAM and graphics are likely also an issue, with that old Radeon simply being too old to run anything on. Again, how on earth is CSI running on that rig?! :eek: You're dead on the money; only problem is that the rig is so old any upgrades you buy for it will be obsolete when it comes to new build time :o


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