Cheap PC upgrade

Jpat

Limp Gawd
Joined
Jan 28, 2020
Messages
139
So its corona time. Iam bored as hell and i dont have a modern pc, i have a pc i played on in 2008

its just a plain old black box with an old Asus motherboard with an intell core duo and windows xp. it played Return to castle wolfenstien on the highest setting and i was happy!


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I have almost no money, so i want to make a usable internet browsing PC. In the eye of cheapness i picked out an i3 9th gen 3.8ghz, an Asus MSI pro series motherboard, Windows 10, Sata DVD drive and 8gb of ram. The board has VGA and hdmi, which is what i use now so i will rely on the cpu graphics for now

iam going to reuse the windows XP hard drive and my PSU

I can always upgrade it all later!

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Does anyone see any issues? i have never used a PC beyond windows XP :(

Thank you!!
 
Actualy i spotted an issue

This power connector on the Msi has more pins than my psu. The psu now only has 4 pins
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With such a low power CPU, I don't think you necessarily "need" all 8 pins. You are paying a lot for Windows 10 retail. You can often get keys in places like the forums here for $10 if you make your own media (USB stick). With that savings, you could pick up a ~240-256GB 2.5" SSD and you'd have a much better experience than with that ancient spinner HDD.
 
With such a low power CPU, I don't think you necessarily "need" all 8 pins. You are paying a lot for Windows 10 retail. You can often get keys in places like the forums here for $10 if you make your own media (USB stick). With that savings, you could pick up a ~240-256GB 2.5" SSD and you'd have a much better experience than with that ancient spinner HDD.
Thanks for the reply! good point on the power supply, i can still plug the 4 pin into the 8 pin and have plenty of power i thinkk

I dont have a pc to make the usb stick :( i was willing to pay 100$ for the convenience
 
Iam going to borrow a buddys PC to create the usb
 
i switched the next mobo they sell, so i add another 2 ram sticks later
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I would definitely look at something at least in the 240 GB range. 64 GB is very small for an operating system drive.
 
Definitly very small, But itll be fine for web browsing

Do you think a 250w psu would do it?
 
That's a smoker's PC. Throw it away. That said, I'd replace the power supply anyway. It's extremely old and it has very low power output. Due to capacitor aging, I don't think it's capable of its full power output. You may not need it all, but your tempting fate. Also, some motherboards can be fickle with power supplies. Essentially, it may not work even if everything is in order. It's so old and cheap that I wouldn't want to chance it.
 
Not a smoker, Just 16 years of basement dwelling

Iam going to use a different case now anyway, instead of taking apart a working pc

Thanks for the reply!

Do all micro atx mobos screw in the same?
 
Iam going to run a seperate laptop power supply to power the case fans. That will save a little wattage
 
Unless that's corrosion due to abnormal humidity in your basement, I'll go with: "sure it is."

Yes, all mATX form factor motherboards have the same mounting holes.

Iam going to run a seperate laptop power supply to power the case fans. That will save a little wattage

First of all, I doubt it. Secondly, that's completely unnecessary.
 
A brand new 120mm fan i tested with my multimeter was drawing 1.5~ amps at 12v which is near 2 watts, so 3 old case fans at 12 volts could draw 6 watts. Not realy substantial i suppose
 
Iam going to run a seperate laptop power supply to power the case fans. That will save a little wattage

The fans will draw the same amount of power regardless of what that power comes from. There is literally nothing to gain by doing what you propose.
 
The fans will draw the same amount of power regardless of what that power comes from. There is literally nothing to gain by doing what you propose.
Using a seperate power supply for just the fans would take the fans draw off the pc power supply
 
Using a seperate power supply for just the fans would take the fans draw off the pc power supply

Which is a worthless endeavor. There is literally no reason for doing so.
 
I seid that up there^ ide only save like 6w

It wouldn't matter if it pulled three or four times as much power. If you size your power supply correctly, it's a non-issue. It doesn't matter where you get the power, it's still going to hit your electric bill the same. And I can't see any situation where you would be that borderline on your PC's power supply that saving 18 watts or whatever was enough to matter in terms of being able to power the system or not.
 
It wouldn't matter if it pulled three or four times as much power. If you size your power supply correctly, it's a non-issue. It doesn't matter where you get the power, it's still going to hit your electric bill the same. And I can't see any situation where you would be that borderline on your PC's power supply that saving 18 watts or whatever was enough to matter in terms of being able to power the system or not.
You are one painfull guy to deal with
 
Are you using the IGP or your old video card? I'm assuming the IGP...
 
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Are you using the IGP or your old video card? I'm assuming the IGP...
Yep i ordered the 9100 cpu it has integraded graphics, when i get back to work iam going to order upgrades

i have the case cleaned and ready. The lights make me laugh haha
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Surprised no one has recommended going AMD for an APU, a 3200g or 3400g would serve you much better if you wanted to do any sort of gaming and will run a bit cheaper than the i3. You could actually play some recent games at 720p and even 1080p with low settings. Also if you get a decent AM4 motherboard you will have room to move up to a much better processor in the future.
https://www.amazon.ca/AMD-Ryzen-320...9Y2xpY2tSZWRpcmVjdCZkb05vdExvZ0NsaWNrPXRydWU=

The 3200g is also a bit cheaper than the i3 you selected.
 
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i have never used amd, its always been intell, it was just my first choice out of habbit but thanks for the seggestion! i already ordered everything

i can upgrade to an i7 in time
 
Hahaha this PC makes me laugh! its a hideous monster, And theres no cable management whatso ever, But it works great
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