now to upgrade a pc

[nickleinonen]

how to upgrade a pc?

well, i've got my old pc collecting dust now, and i would like to get some use out of it [just for surfing the web basically... ]



it is a P3-500mhz pc, and all i think i need is to up the ram [sitting at 384mb now] and stick a larger HD [12gb now full of spyware & virus infected] in it and switch to win XP [it has 98 in it now]



i know there must be someone here who has a clue when it comes to computers. i would like to stick like a ±120gb HD in it, and add another 512 ram to it; those are mechanical things i know i could do on a budgit of less than $100.



now how do i go about installing the operating system on a fresh HD??? [will buy, borrow or download xp full]. i have never really understood how to do this, and i do want to learn [then i will also know how to fix it after something messes up by reformatting everything i guess]



any suggestions???



[i am looking to do this on a small budgit, as i can get a refurbished PC that is same/better than my current pc for like $400cdn for amd, $500 for P4]

 

[E7mack96]

Win XP will cost you around 100 for upgrade, pro will cost you 199 upgrade. A hard drive will cost you about 129. 00 for a decent brand.



You need to create a boot/startup disk with CD rom support, (a floppy) from a Win XP machine.



it will give you the basics to boot up the machine and format the hard drive. You format it, then create partitions (a second virtual hard drive) if you like. On XP, you'll want to use NTFS, not FAT 32.



Once the new drive is ready, then install XP on it.



You may find that you need win XP compiant video card, NIC card or modem card, ect...



Several of mine have Win ME on them just for that reason. I still had to upgrade NIC cards on all of those.



In all reality, You may be better off getting a basic Dell for $399. 00 It'll run circles around the old 500 mhz machine. You'll end up with several hundred in that old one anyways.

 

[sarj]

E7 is steering you in the right direction

 

[ACoyle]

Ditto what the others said. Add in time and frustration and it dosen't make sense.



AC

 

[nickleinonen]

well, i still have the old beast that i have doing nothing...

i think i might wipe and install xp on the old 12gb drive and leave the ram as is [good enough for web surfing when the other pc is in use]



i managed to "aquire" a copy of xp home [complete version, not upgrade] so that is no money. . i think i can get a 40gb drive for free [used one] and i might be able to get 128mb ram for free too [canablizing another old pc]



i have xp home media edition on my current pc, but that doesn't do me any good for making a boot disc, but i did some searching, and i found from microsoft a program you can download for free to make the install disc for the xp home...



i am just going to play around with this. i want to do it for dirt cheap [as any money into it will make it not worth it]

 

[rbattelle]

No need to make a boot disk with XP. Your computer BIOS should be capable of booting from the CD drive. There should be a setting in the BIOS setup screen where you can tell it to boot from CD.



With the XP CD in the drive, it will boot up and you can simply go from there. Since it's loaded with viruses and what-not you'll want to format the entire disk. That will delete everything from it.



Standard practice is to partition the hard disk as Mack mentions. Personally, I don't bother (I use multiple hard disks instead of partitioning one disk into smaller parts). The choice is yours.



-Ryan

 

[klenger]

Yep, buy a Dell.

 

[jwilliams3]

Dells on Ebay are cheaper than from dell direct.

 

[JApol]

Get your old machine running with the least amount of cost and use it as your firewall. Esentially make it a cheap but effective router. Let all the bugs out there attack that and leave the rest of your comptuers alone as that one will be the only one "visible" on the net. If some one crashes it, you havn't lost anything except the time to reload the OS

 

[nickleinonen]

No need to make a boot disk with XP. Your computer BIOS should be capable of booting from the CD drive.

should is the key word... it needs the diskette to boot from [my old pc was from 99 and it doesn't support boot from cd]... well that copy of xp i got seemed to be no good [i tried installing it but it was missing some files?] so i guessed it was an upgrade copy and not a clean install copy oh well. i found my old win 98 disc and installed it, then with it installed, i couldn't get my videocard working properly [and i don't have a clue where the drivers for it are] so well, i got out the xp disc again and from it, i selected the clean/complete install option and it did run ok... then all the bs with bypassing the windows activation so i don't have to deal with that, and then playing around with my router and updating the firmware to work with the old beast [didn't work before, but now does] and now i have that old POS running on xp and working enough to browse the internet [and yep, it can get slow]



now, before you bash about running a cracked copy of xp, i do have a legit copy of xp on my main pc. this was just playing around, and it will be retired later when i get a new PC later this year or early next year. .

 

[MKinner]

www.newegg.com

 

[nickleinonen]

newegg is great if you are in the usa, but up in canada, that is no good...



tigerdirect in canada is pretty good to deal with. [their retail store is like 10min from my house] and there are some other places i get get parts too...



and this post is off the old beast

 

[WDixon27]

i built my fast pc with stuff from these guys

i figured i saved $300-400 over what the "cheep" place in town was selling the components for

http://www.mwave.com/mwave/index.hmx?

 

[KBennett]

I have an old Win98 500MHz machine that I have have been considering upgrading but I think I am going to go the Dell route and give Linux a try on the old one.