Recession Upgrade

corazon

Folks, I am looking to upgrade an old PC put funds are very limited. I have an old AMD Hammer 1.6 from about 2002. It has a 110GB HD and runs very slow. I am running XP Professional on it. I am thinking of upgrading with a new motherboard and processor and maybe a SSD. We do not do any heavy gaming or graphics work. Is it worth holding on to the case, power supply, etc. to save a few euro? Monitor, speakers, mouse and keyboard are all fine. Any thoughts, suggestions? My wife has just started school and will have a student ID so will use that to get Win 7 and MS Office.

thenightrider

Get win 7 from here http://www.software4students.ie/Microsoft_Windows_7_Professional_64_bit_Upgrade_Edition-details.aspx
Or you could use linix its free

Dont bother with office download open office its free and just as good.

I would not use an old psu on a new pc on less it was a very good psu last thing you want is for the psu to blow your new parts.

If you give a budget as to how much you want to spend the guys in here will be able to pick out the parts for you.

corazon

Thanks for the link, good deals on there. Will open office handle all MS docs? Hoping to keep the budget under E250.

Solitaire

What brand is it? And what shape/size is the case? (slim, desktop, mini-tower, midi-tower etc.)

Looking at the front of the machine: is the case panel you remove to get into it on the right or left side? It might help to upload a photo of it opened up for us to gawk at

Also, we'd either need a pic of the PSU showing the specification label taking up its side,or if not possible a detailed description of said label and the rail assignments on it. Although if its a very common PC the model number might suffice

I prefer MS Office but OpenOffice does most of the things Office does. Just remember if you need compatibility with other machines change the file format to an MS Office type before saving a document!

corazon

Not sure what brand it is. I think it may be Prestigio. The case is large and has a lot of empty bays with plenty of spare room. I took a few pictures of the PSU and the mainboard. Hope they attach ok. Thanks for the quick responses.

Solitaire

130 + 192 + 9.6 + 10 = 341.6W

Codegen, whoever they are, are not very good at maths :P The PSU is too old to be of much use - even if the 12V rail was just large enough for our needs its an old unit missing modern SATA/ATX2.0 (4/24) cables needed to power modern mobos. Your budget just shrank some

The case is old and might not be the best for ventilation but it still seems serviceable - at least its not that BTX rubbish Dell loves to push on people

Really it depends on what you want to do with the upgraded rig - you might be better off with a weaker, less thirsty CPU, or a large modern SATA HDD rather than a small, expensive SSD. Depends on the intended usage other than office apps. Will you be using it as a media PC or a HTPC to watch stuff? Or heavier apps than just OpenOffice? I know its not going to be used for gaming use

deconduo

Slightly over budget but a huge boost in performance. Not the biggest fan of the PSU, but much better than the one you currently have.

Total build cost: €226.26 + €30 shipping
4GB Corsair Valueselect DDR3-1333 CL9 €16.90
Samsung SpinPoint F3 500GB, SATA II (HD502HJ) €33.59
Intel Core i3-2100 Box, LGA1155 €93.27
MSI H61M-E33 (B3), Intel H61, mATX, DDR3 €53.03
Antec Basiq 350W €29.47

Cheaper option:

Total build cost: €186.39 + €30 shipping
4GB Corsair Valueselect DDR3-1333 CL9 €16.90
Samsung SpinPoint F3 500GB, SATA II (HD502HJ) €33.59
Antec Basiq 350W €29.47
MSI 870-C45, Sockel AM3, ATX, PCIe €46.56
AMD Athlon II X3 450 "Boxed" 95W, Sockel AM3 €59.87

Solitaire

^ No SSD, although I doubt its really needed (just slap in an F3, it'll be five times faster than some ancient EIDE HDD!). I don't know if the €250 has to cover the student Windows license though

corazon

Deconduo, Solitaire, thanks for the detailed responses, much appreciated. I am not hung up on getting an SSD but might stretch the budget if it would make a big difference. It seems my computer is so old that any changes at all will bring dramatic improvements. Will I be able to upgrade in the future with this build? If I have a few bucks at Christmas can I just go ahead with a graphics card? I was thinking about our usage and it is mainly web browsing, Youtube and my wife's school stuff and a little bit of photo editing. The current PC can do it but is just too slow. We got faster internet recently and the PC is now the bottlneck.

Solitaire

Graphics card would be a waste given the lack of gaming. Most modern onboard solutions should be more than enough.

Oh and can I point out a part mismatch on that AMD build dec? That mobo is a good model for gamers but neither it nor its predecessor have any onboard graphics

deconduo

Solitaire wrote: »

Graphics card would be a waste given the lack of gaming. Most modern onboard solutions should be more than enough.

Oh and can I point out a part mismatch on that AMD build dec? That mobo is a good model for gamers but neither it nor its predecessor have any onboard graphics

Oh yeah, I totally forgot about needing onboard :P The intel build is far superior then, I would definitely recommend going with it.

Jonny7

Just a suggestion, you could pick up a refurbished pc from ebay perhaps

http://cgi.ebay.ie/Lenovo-ThinkCentre-M55-Core-2-Duo-3GB-Tower-PC-Computer-/300593914137?pt=UK_Computing_DesktopPCs&hash=item45fccb2119#ht_3142wt_990

Or you can "build" one on this site www.hardwareversand.de - pc configurator

The cheapest I can get one is 180 euros (without operating system) but would blow your current system out of the water

Cheap dual core AMD chip, 4 gigs ram, 1 tb harddisk, etc, would be perfect for everyday use. Including student OS and shipping should be possible for 250 euros.

Solitaire

Yup! My only issue with it is that its stacks more expensive