Need advice on uber-cheap upgrades

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Pylon

[H]ard|Gawd
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Dec 28, 2008
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I have an old mATX HP Pavillion 7966 that's in desperate need of an upgrade. Currently it has:

Pentium 4 1.7GHz(Willamette)
120W or so micro-ATX PSU
Asus Nvidia TNT2 32MB
512MB PC133
80GB IDE hard drive

I'm planning on upgrading on a very low budget, and as cheap as possible(<$140 w/shipping) It's going to be used for mainly internet use and some folding@home.

Since it has a 120W PSU I'm looking at AMD's 45W Athlon X2s. Most likely I'm going to select the 4850e.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819103255

1GB Corsair DDR2-800 RAM in single channel
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820145153

Gigabyte GA-MA74GM-S2 740G mobo
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128342

Comes out at $121 before shipping.

I'm also going to reinstall Windows XP Home. Can I legally use the OEM product code with a generic XP Home CD?(my friend has a few).

Any thoughts or advice?
 
yes you can legally use the oem key as long as its for the same version.. you own the key.. you can do what ever you want with it..

system should run on 120w.. though id say your next upgrade should be a psu.. theres no telling what the actual rating on the psu is.. it may say it supports 120w.. but it might only support a constant 100w with a peak of 120w.. but as long as it has the 4 pin cpu connector it should work with that board.
 
And the questions:

1) What will you be doing with this PC? Gaming? Photoshop? Web browsing? etc
Web browsing, folding@home, some amateur 3D work(Blender)

2) What's your budget? Are tax and shipping included?
<$140, with shipping and tax.

3) Where do you live?
Boston, Mass. I'm within 8 miles of a Micro Center.

4) What exact parts do you need for that budget? CPU, RAM, case, etc. Please be very specific.
CPU, RAM, and Motherboard. I already listed out what I'm planning to get.

5) If reusing any parts, what parts will you be reusing? Please be especially specific about the power supply. List make and model.
Everything except for the mobo, CPU, and RAM.

PSU specs:
124-149W
4A on the +12V(very worried about this....)
25A on +5V
16A on +3.3V

It oughta have a P4 power connector, though I haven't checked.

6) Will you be overclocking?
No, due to power consumption (PSU the culprit)

7) What size monitor do you have and/or plan to have?
19" 4:3(1280 x 1024)

8) When do you plan on building/buying the PC?
Within 2 weeks or so.

9) What features do you need in a motherboard? RAID? Firewire? Crossfire or SLI support? etc.
Just integrated graphics and support for IDE devices.

10) Do you already have a legit and reusable/transferable OS key/license?
Yep.
 
Pylon said:
PSU specs:
124-149W
4A on the +12V(very worried about this....)
25A on +5V
16A on +3.3V

It oughta have a P4 power connector, though I haven't checked.
Click to expand...

Not enough power. 4A = 48W available on the +12V rail. The AMD CPU uses 45W of power by itself. Mobo, hard drive, etc haven't even been factored in yet.

So in other words, save your money until you can get a new PSU alongside the new parts. Or up your budget. As a minimum, I recommend this PSU:
$55 - Corsair 400CX 400W PSU
 
Oh and for $5 more than the Corsair RAM once you factor in shipping, you can get 2GB of RAM with free shipping:
$23 w/ Free shipping - Kingston 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory

In addition, since you are getting a new PSU, for just $4 more than the X2 4850e, you can get a significantly faster CPU:
$60 - AMD Athlon 64 X2 7750 CPU

The EA380 380W is also a good choice. Just remember: Get a new PSU first or along side those new parts or don't bother upgrading at all.
 
It only takes mATX PSUs. SFX is the same as mATX right? Since I'm looking at this Seasnoic 350W SFX PSU:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817151063

Unfortunately this really raises the cost of the upgrade...

I got the original PSU specs from an HP support e-mail. I haven't opened up the comp to check the actual specs yet.

It's running a Willy P4 fine for the last 7 years though, which is rated at 67W.
 
Go with the Seasonic 350W SFX PSU. Just because your current PSU can handle a P4 for seven years doesn't mean that it's designed to handle the newer technology that has been released recently.

However, even with XP Home, I believe that you're depriving yourself with anything less than 2GB of RAM.
 
Thanks for the advice everyone:
Revised specs:

Athlon 7750/Sparkle 9400 GT combo
http://www.newegg.com/Product/ComboDealDetails.aspx?ItemList=Combo.192635

Rosewill zip-ties(For strapping fans to above vid card and for ghetto mods when the need arises:D)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16899997049

Gigabyte GA-MA74GM-S2 740G motherboard.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128342

Kingston 2GB DDR2-800 (2 x 1GB) Dual-channel
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820134488

350W Seasonic 350W SFX12V power supply(the only decent mATX/SFX PSU on Newegg)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817151063

Also how is the stock cooler on the 7750? Might shell out another $10 for an AC Alpine 64 if it's worth it. I might decide to overclock the 7750, hopefully to at least 2.9GHz.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835186010&Tpk=Alpine 64

Any more advice or suggestions appreciated.
 
stock cooler on the 7750 is an aluminum piece of junk.. its actually worth more recycling it then it is to use it.. (yes i know because i recycled mine for 10 bucks) just make sure what ever heatsink you get is designed to support up to a 125w processor..

the ac alpine 64 is basically the same stock heatsink that comes with the 7750 but with a different fan on it.. if you want to overclock look for a heatsink that uses a heat pipe design..
 
The Alpine, IIRC, is similar to stock. Too bad the Freezer 64 Pro isn't $20 shipped anymore, but I'm not even sure it will fit in the case you have.

edit: monkey beat me to it. guess this tab was old, hehe.
 
One more thing: Is it worth it to wait about a month for the 45nm Athlon IIs to come out? Thanks!
 
Pylon said:
One more thing: Is it worth it to wait about a month for the 45nm Athlon IIs to come out? Thanks!
Click to expand...

Depends... can you wait? :p If so, do so. If not, now is as good a time as any. I'm not sure they'll offer anything worth waiting for, IMO, though.
 
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