Cannibalising old machine

corblimey

I'm about to take the plunge into the "joys" of self-building, but I'm wondering about my current games machine. It's a 2 year old hp pavilion machine bought from pc world. I suspect that apart from the hard drive, there's absolutely nothing in there that could and/or should be taken for my self build. Is it worth investigating further, or will it be less trouble, etc just to get stuff that's better and easier to attach to a mb?

Mr. Presentable

Your optical drive/s and floppy can also be transferred, but these parts, even the HDD, are cheap enough that you could just buy new ones and keep the Pavillion intact for other uses/persons.

the_syco

Post the mobo (not the PC) spec's and model.

I'd say Keep the HDD, DVD drive, and maybe the case. Keep the mobo only if you don't have a spare "legit" copy of Windows in your house. By spare, I mean a spare full one, not the OEM copy of Windows that you got with your HP, as that won't install on anyting but a HP mobo.

If you have a spare copy of Windows , look at Komplett's upgrade kits, where you get a mobo, RAM, and CPU.

Apart from the above, you'll need a PSU, and a graphics card. The PSU in your machine proberly a 300W PSU, so you may need one with more connections and juice to run anything new.

corblimey

the_syco wrote:

Post the mobo (not the PC) spec's and model.

How would I go about getting that sort of information?

I thought that I could just take the hdd out of this machine and set it up as the primary hdd (with a larger one as the slave) then I don't need to faff about installing Win XP, etc?

the_syco

corblimey wrote:

How would I go about getting that sort of information?

I thought that I could just take the hdd out of this machine and set it up as the primary hdd (with a larger one as the slave) then I don't need to faff about installing Win XP, etc?

XP can be fickle if you transfer it to another machine. Should work, but you'll find out soon enough.

As for model, etc, get cpuz @ http://www.cpuid.com/cpuz.php and it'll tell you the memory and mobo, etc, or look for a biggish number on the actual motherboard (usually placed near the CPU).

Mr. Presentable

corblimey wrote:

How would I go about getting that sort of information?

I thought that I could just take the hdd out of this machine and set it up as the primary hdd (with a larger one as the slave) then I don't need to faff about installing Win XP, etc?

If you replace the motherboard you will almost certainy have to install XP clean as there will be different drivers and settings.

corblimey

This means nothing to me (oh Vienna!)