Motherboard /processor upgrade ?

[robgraham]

be in the order of 7 or 8 years

Many thanks guys - I think by the time Dell got to this design of machine, they had moved away from their dedicated components philosophy - it is a standard board for the period in this machine, with standard RAM and PSU. And again there's no BIOS/OS interlink here and the HD is SATA.

However the points that you are making are all very valid and I thank you all for going through the 'Disadvantages'.

So

Low Cost Possibly retain all applications Retain XP (for the moment)

MB form factor RAM incompatability PSU ditto (chickened out of typing that twice!) Hassle factor getting it all to work

and so on for the other ones I can't remember, but that's enough to convince me, though I will lose the fun of doing an Ebay search, bid, etc., and I'll need to set aside some more pennies.

Again many thanks

Rob

[Huge]

Apropos of nothing very much, this kind of stuff regularly reminds me why I like Linux. And why when people tell me that Windows is "intuitive", my response is hollow laughter.

[John Rumm]

It varies.... they have got less restrictive with time. Older machines (and certainly Win2K machines) frequently looked for a Dell BIOS. More recent stuff has got less fussy.

[John Rumm]

Problem is, even the big "reputable" players do it... download flash or Reader from adobe - get McAfee bundled with it etc, and don't get me started on sodding browser "toolbars"!

Its not really an OS specific issue though - just a marketing one. If they same players were promoting the same apps on Linux, you can bet the same dodgy cross promotion deals would get done.

Apple are as bad... "Oh there is a new version of quicktime - shall I install it for you?" (with the gimmy iTunes, and safari boxes also ready ticked!)

[Huge]

Sorry, I was referring to the CCCleaner stuff. And the pain of migrating to knew hardware.

[Huge]

"Knew"??? Fuckwit.

[Steve Firth]

[snip]

IAWTP!

[David WE Roberts]

I am trying to fit a reasonably new PSU to an old Dell and I will have to take tinsnips to the case to get the new PSU in. Screw holes are in the same place but the hole for the power cable is in the wrong place.

[The Other Mike]

'kin hell what a depressing thought

[Andy Champ]

Dell build good solid machines for a good price - but they tend to use non-standard components. You may find the PSU has an odd connector, for example.

In any case at that age _everything_ in the system will be past its sell-by date.

Scrap, and buy new.

No. Buy new, copy all your data off, then put the old one in a cupboard for at least a year :)

Andy

[Bob Eager]

Just ensure that the PSU plug wiring matches the motherboard.

[Stephen H]

yes you can tailor it to ones requirements and you pay more for the privilege of doing so

[Stephen H]

you were lucky.....

[Stephen H]

I've discovered Ninite (google it)

Its so flipping handy and a real time saver when building a up a new PC.

It presents a list of applications such as Java, Shockwave, Adobe Acrobat, Flashplayer, Thunderbird, Firefox, GIMP, AVG etc etc. You simply tick the items you want and Ninite website will build a custom executable installer and you download it.

Simply click on the downloaded file and it will download and install all your wanted software without all the extra rubbish like ask toolbar, Google Chrome, Ask Jeeves etc. It "knows" where to get all the required files from.

Its a real time saver and you can use it across several machines.

Its now the third thing I run after installing a new OS. (the second being an AV and firewall product).

Seriously, its one of the best utilities I have seen..... :-)

Stephen.

[geoff]

Lets see now

£250 for something that does what I want £200 for something that doesn't

hard call ...

[Jules Richardson]

Yes, many moons ago when I lived in Cambridge there was a time where I could get hold of stuff that was only a couple of years old - and just a year in some cases - quite easily. Things seemed to change around 2005 and suddenly everything seemed to be going off to specialist "recyclers" where it would be crushed.

I'm not quite sure what had changed, although I think it was perhaps around that time that there were a few high profile cases in the media about data being recovered from junk systems.

cheers

Jules

[The Natural Philosopher]

That's pretty much it.

picking up a load of email addies of a 'deleted' hard drive aint hard if deletion was the last thing done before it was shoved out the door.

Also the accountancy procedure was to write off the whole PC after 4 years: embarrassing to account for the cash value of 'resold' machines. Hours more work for the bean counters.

Simple solution. Pay a man to take em waway on te extress cindition they are all crushed.

Mind you there is a shop here that sells S/H Pcs and suchlike

[John Rumm]

The reality is that the margin on PC components is tiny - so the cost difference between a self built PC and a bought one *of the same spec* will often be under 5%. The way the prebuilt systems manage to look cheaper is usually by cutting corners on some of the components. You also have to contend with the fact that you may spend as long uninstalling the unwanted shovelware preloaded on a boxed system, as you would installing the OS yourself from scratch.

[John Rumm]

Thanks for that, it looks like it could be handy.

In a similar way, have a look at nlite - its a very handy tool for integrating service packs, hot fixes and tailoring windows components and reducing them all down to a single bootable image. If you need to rebuild a bunch of machines, it can get them from nothing to fully patched and ready to go in practically one hit.

[The Natural Philosopher]

well I just costed up a case, PSU MB (2GHz dual core celeron) 4GB ram DVD RW and 500GB drive Nvidia graphics at £266 all in. Thats pretty much the same as I have here, and its plenty fast enough for all but weird gaming shit.

add another £80 for windoze, which I personally wouldn't..Linux!

You could shave a bit off that for less RAM & hard drive, and use the rather ordinary onboard graffix.

The problem with buying an 'all in' system is you tend to get an LCD monitor and keyboard and mouse that you probably don't need.

*shrug* its whatever turns you on...