recoveryone
11-21-2010, 03:18 PM
My wife has been on me about getting a computer for my daughters, so she can stop hearing me complain about them messing mine up. I have a collection of old parts and just needed to get a HD with a MS key code, so I can reinstall off my master disk.
My neighbor called me the other day and ask me about some computer question and then told me that they brought a new one cause the service tech at Staples said that their HD was dead. I asked if I could have the old system, thinking that it was one more step in completing my task. Once I picked up the system (Dell Dimension 8300) I did a quick bios boot and saw that the specs where:
CPU 3.0 gighz
Ram 1 gig
I cracked open the case and saw this 120 gig Sata drive, but the power cord was not attached. I took the drive down to a local shop and had it tested and told them what was said at Staples. They were able to see the drive and open some files, so the drive still was good. I figured the problem had to be with the OS and not the drive and the Staple guy just didn't want to put in the work to fix it. I brought new cables for the drive just in case that was an issue and headed back home. booted it up and saw the dreaded blue screen error. I change the bios to boot off the CD and did a low level format (3 hours) then proceeded to do a step by step fresh install of XP (7 hours). At around 3am this morning I was done with the basic install (SP1) and spent the next 3 hours doing the updates to SP3.
It has an old Nvidia video card 5200 series w/64 mb ram, so that will be upgrade quickly with something around a 6600 or 7600 series with at least 128-256 mb of ram (still has the AGP slot) I was thinking about getting a blue-ray drive since this system will go in the new upstairs media room and save me cash on looking for a used PS3. The main thing I really like about this system is that its makes no noise, unlike my gaming rig. I feel it will work well, If not I would love to use it to upgrade my music server in the garage:
CPU 950 MHz
Ram 512mb
and a old on its last leg 30 gig HD
My neighbor called me the other day and ask me about some computer question and then told me that they brought a new one cause the service tech at Staples said that their HD was dead. I asked if I could have the old system, thinking that it was one more step in completing my task. Once I picked up the system (Dell Dimension 8300) I did a quick bios boot and saw that the specs where:
CPU 3.0 gighz
Ram 1 gig
I cracked open the case and saw this 120 gig Sata drive, but the power cord was not attached. I took the drive down to a local shop and had it tested and told them what was said at Staples. They were able to see the drive and open some files, so the drive still was good. I figured the problem had to be with the OS and not the drive and the Staple guy just didn't want to put in the work to fix it. I brought new cables for the drive just in case that was an issue and headed back home. booted it up and saw the dreaded blue screen error. I change the bios to boot off the CD and did a low level format (3 hours) then proceeded to do a step by step fresh install of XP (7 hours). At around 3am this morning I was done with the basic install (SP1) and spent the next 3 hours doing the updates to SP3.
It has an old Nvidia video card 5200 series w/64 mb ram, so that will be upgrade quickly with something around a 6600 or 7600 series with at least 128-256 mb of ram (still has the AGP slot) I was thinking about getting a blue-ray drive since this system will go in the new upstairs media room and save me cash on looking for a used PS3. The main thing I really like about this system is that its makes no noise, unlike my gaming rig. I feel it will work well, If not I would love to use it to upgrade my music server in the garage:
CPU 950 MHz
Ram 512mb
and a old on its last leg 30 gig HD