So this guy owed my boss money, and eventually got a judgment against him and executed on all of the guy's office equipment. (I work for a lawyer and just took the bar so insert lawyer joke here). I'm sitting in my office and one day my boss comes in and asks me if I want any stuff from the other guy's office. I took a computer that looked a little old but in decent shape. I took it home and now I am trying to figure out what I should do with it.
Here is the board: http://www.gigabyte.com/products/product-page.aspx?pid=1801#
Here is a list of all of the other components that came with it:
2x 512MB DDR ram
1x 200 GB SATA HDD
1x 250 GB SATA HDD
1x what appears to be an IDE DVD drive
1x floppy drive (that's right, a floppy drive)
350W power supply
The sticker on the side says it has XP installed
Apparently there are no onboard graphics and there is no graphics card so while the machine powers on, I cannot see any of the display because there is nothing to hook a monitor into. This becomes a problem because I can't tell what kind of CPU is in the machine. Is there a way to tell without powering up or taking the fan off?
Now that you have the basics, here are some uses I would want from the machine:
1. HTPC (using a USB tuner card and outputting to a 42" flatscreen via HDMI)
2. Light gaming rig. I love playing League of Legends, perhaps SCII on low settings?
3. Surfing the internet, word processing, etc.
So my question to the world is: can I get any of the above uses from what I have, and if so would it be worth it? From looking at the motherboard page, they have a CPU list showing compatible CPUs, and there are actually some pretty decent processors on the list. Core™ 2 Extreme QX9770 for example. It also appears that I could add 2x 2GB DDR2, and 4 gigs would probably be more than enough memory for any of my desired uses. I had a hard time finding information on compatible graphics cards. I'm not sure how to find a list of compatible cards for a board this old or if I could even find a card that had HDMI out. This board is similar to the one I have http://www.gigabyte.com/products/product-page.aspx?pid=1814#sp would I be able just to use the graphics card compatibility list from this board?
Anyway, if you couldn't already tell I'm a nerd with moderate computer knowledge. Please point out anything I got wrong or if you have any thoughts or suggestions. My interest in computers started about 3 years ago so a lot of this stuff is new to me.
Here is the board: http://www.gigabyte.com/products/product-page.aspx?pid=1801#
Here is a list of all of the other components that came with it:
2x 512MB DDR ram
1x 200 GB SATA HDD
1x 250 GB SATA HDD
1x what appears to be an IDE DVD drive
1x floppy drive (that's right, a floppy drive)
350W power supply
The sticker on the side says it has XP installed
Apparently there are no onboard graphics and there is no graphics card so while the machine powers on, I cannot see any of the display because there is nothing to hook a monitor into. This becomes a problem because I can't tell what kind of CPU is in the machine. Is there a way to tell without powering up or taking the fan off?
Now that you have the basics, here are some uses I would want from the machine:
1. HTPC (using a USB tuner card and outputting to a 42" flatscreen via HDMI)
2. Light gaming rig. I love playing League of Legends, perhaps SCII on low settings?
3. Surfing the internet, word processing, etc.
So my question to the world is: can I get any of the above uses from what I have, and if so would it be worth it? From looking at the motherboard page, they have a CPU list showing compatible CPUs, and there are actually some pretty decent processors on the list. Core™ 2 Extreme QX9770 for example. It also appears that I could add 2x 2GB DDR2, and 4 gigs would probably be more than enough memory for any of my desired uses. I had a hard time finding information on compatible graphics cards. I'm not sure how to find a list of compatible cards for a board this old or if I could even find a card that had HDMI out. This board is similar to the one I have http://www.gigabyte.com/products/product-page.aspx?pid=1814#sp would I be able just to use the graphics card compatibility list from this board?
Anyway, if you couldn't already tell I'm a nerd with moderate computer knowledge. Please point out anything I got wrong or if you have any thoughts or suggestions. My interest in computers started about 3 years ago so a lot of this stuff is new to me.
Facebook
Twitter
Instagram