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Upgrading/rebuilding on the supercheap $50 or less

Forum Homebuilt Systems : New System Build - Upgrading/rebuilding on the supercheap $50 or less

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CJCSum41   10-28-2009 at 12:09:10 AM

Don't laugh but here's my situation, looking to upgrade/build my dad a computer for Christmas for $50 or less(poor college student) out of used parts. He will only need it to do basic things such as email, internet and listen to music but he currently has a HP Pavilion 6835 with a socket 370 Intel Celeron 800mhz with Windows 98 but it is slow as molasses and has tons of problems.

Here's the question should I find more ram/faster cpu for the socket or buy a different mobo/cpu/ram combination. I will be reusing his case/HD/PSU/and diskdrives at least for the time being. And what sort of components should I use? Currently somewhat of a AMD fan so my knowledge of old intel parts are limited but I'm learning.

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Dewm   10-28-2009 at 12:19:00 AM
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haha dude I just pulled a old 6635 off the shelf to mess with (way bored at work)


probably one of the best things you can do is wipe it/ clean all the crap out, do virus scans defrag the drive delete old stuff he doesn't use anymore.


I dunno....there was somthing very weird about that model of HP, seemed like for no reson it just kept getting slower and slower... meh anyways yeah GL



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CJCSum41   10-28-2009 at 12:19:29 AM
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I should also include I will be reformating his HD and installing Windows XP

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CJCSum41   10-28-2009 at 12:22:10 AM
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Dewm wrote :

haha dude I just pulled a old 6635 off the shelf to mess with (way bored at work)


probably one of the best things you can do is wipe it/ clean all the crap out, do virus scans defrag the drive delete old stuff he doesn't use anymore.


I dunno....there was somthing very weird about that model of HP, seemed like for no reson it just kept getting slower and slower... meh anyways yeah GL



It needs a lot of work lol. I tried cleaning it up and doing a defrag and it would just eventually hang up and freeze so at the very least it needs the HD reformated

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Dewm   10-28-2009 at 12:25:14 AM
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Actually you know what I would do in your shoes.


This doesn't really fit your time frame. But at the end of the school year school get new PC's (at least up here where I am)

And you can pick up a $700 dell that is 2 years old for 50$.

(Last year our business picked up 4 of em) I dunno if they have that where you are, but probably the best bang for your buck.

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CJCSum41   10-28-2009 at 01:01:48 AM
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Ya I already asked him if thats what he'd like for Christmas so ya I kinda cant wait. Anyone have any suggestions as maybe moving him up to AMD socket A or a Intel P4?

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pepperman   10-28-2009 at 05:18:12 AM
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I'm sorry, but for $50, you're not going to find very much; you could try craigslist, but most of the time the computers there are rip-offs. Your best bet (if you want to get him a new system) would be to pay attention to people upgrading, and asking what they are doing with their old pcs. If you're quick, you might be able to buy it cheap off of someone before they recycle it. You could always go dumpster diving.

Just curious, how much ram does his system have? If it's less than 256 mb, you might not want to upgrade to XP, and instead just reinstall 98, as XP uses a lot more resources than 98.

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CJCSum41   10-28-2009 at 10:13:51 PM
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He has the oem stick and a 256 in there so he's got 300 w/e in there now. The max is 512mb.

I'm thinking I might just get him another 256mb stick of ram and get him a 1.1GHz p3 for $5 on ebay, reformat the HD and call it a day.

I was really considering getting him a p4,mobo, and ram all used as a package on ebay or something but I'd then have to worry about putting it all in another case and getting him another psu and who knows w/e else.

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pepperman   10-28-2009 at 11:05:01 PM
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Your motherboard won't support any of the newer tualatin cpus (those that are clocked at 1GHz and more), so you will have to pay attention to that. The fastest Pentium III on the coppermine core (ones your mobo will support) also runs at 1 GHz, so the best way to differentiate these (if its not listed in the description or title) is by looking at the picture (if there is one); if the cpu has a larger piece of metal (IHS) it's most likely a tualatin, and thus not compatible.

If it looks like this (tualatin) it won't work
http://www.cpu-world.com/CPUs/Pent [...] 3-1.45.jpg

If it looks like this (coppermine) is should work
http://www.kickassgear.com/Reviews [...] erTop1.jpg

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CJCSum41   10-29-2009 at 04:28:10 AM
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Ok thanks for the info, I suppose this is the best I can do for him lol.

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pepperman   10-29-2009 at 04:49:45 AM
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Good luck. I hope it works.

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