Just starting out

PhantomSambo New user 2 posts Posted: 02/09/2010 8:09 PM

Hello, and welcome to my first thread about my first time taking apart a *really* old computer. Enjoy. So, recently I asked my mum to bring home a desktop from her workplace. My guess is that it's 10+ years old (4 years younger than myself). I tried to take it apart and found a lot less cables and cords than I thought I would. Took me 2 hours and it's sitting on the floor in my room with both ...er... 'wall' thingies (those ones on the side? what do you call them?) off. Things I noticed that were already inside: 1 x floppy drive 2 x disk drives 2 x fans (but no video/graphics card?) 1 x speaker 1 x mobo 1 x RAM-card-thing (unspecified how much) 1 x brown thing connected to mobo (video/graphics card maybe?) 1 x unbranded processor (unless a tick with N268 is a brand) 8 x slots for different cards 1 x tonne of dust Things that weren't inside: 1 x scanner (unsure if it works) 1 x Microsoft optical mouse ( :D ) 1 x 56k router (I laughed too) 1 x card with a flat but thick grey-white cord coming out 2 x dusty speakers 1 x Canon printer 30 x random cables 1 x Microsoft keyboard 1 x (extra?) disk drive ^all for free^ I felt like you all needed to read this. But still unsure whether I should bother upgrading (NVIDIA 9600 GT = $110). Any thoughts?

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rogue316 There is nothing wrong with AMD. Advanced member 282 posts Posted: 02/09/2010 8:09 PM	The "wall thingys" are called side panels. lol, and I'm not sure weather your asking about the upgrading of, or for, a 9600GT?
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PhantomSambo New user 2 posts Posted: 02/09/2010 9:09 PM	On a computer that old? definitely upgrading to a 9600 GT.
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rogue316 There is nothing wrong with AMD. Advanced member 282 posts Posted: 03/09/2010 10:09 AM

The Nvidia 9600GT is a fine GPU, but don't expect too much life from it as it's get quite old now and wont be able to play future up and coming games for too much longer, maybe a year or two you can expect. My biggest concern is the fact that your PC is so old. At best it's a Pentium 3 which means, it's only DDR and it isn't worth the time or money to upgrade... unless you just want the practice?, but still, it's going to be super slow, (Says the guy who runs an i7 920 with win7 pro on an SSD. lol).

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comfreak101 AMD Is Awesome New user 49 posts Posted: 10/09/2010 4:09 PM

your mobo wont have a PCI x16 slot which is required by the Nvidia 9600GT, at best it would have a AGP slot, looks like this... look at the red port here is an AGP card Its a bit of a gamble though, through past experience newer cards wont work in old boards as they aren't recognized by the bios (computer start up program). If I were you I would consider putting Linux on it. just Google Linux mint and download the 32 bit version. Its really fast, clean, effective and good looking, plus it works fine on ancient computers.

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Slatts User 130 posts Posted: 10/09/2010 9:09 PM

If you have a look at the motherboard you should be able to find the manufacturer and model number. With that in hand you can wonder over to a functional computer with internet connection, visit the manufacturers web site and get a copy of the manual, any drivers and the latest (Last) BIOS for you new, free machine. It'll also tell you which video card (AGP X8 or x4)and what type of RAM the card supports. Gives you a starting point for your endeavours.. If yopu can't find the manual, post the make and model here and I'll have a look. Hint, once you have the manufacturers name, they'll tell you on their site where to look for the model number and revision number.

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