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Nightmare "upgrade"

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DaOld Man:

--- Quote from: Malenko on January 12, 2009, 07:58:32 pm ---got a "good" PCI video card? lol I pieced together a PC for my mame cab but all I have is PCI-e and AGP vid cards; but the PC was "free"

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SavannahLion:

--- Quote from: DaOld Man on January 12, 2009, 07:55:10 pm ---
--- Quote from: Malenko on January 12, 2009, 06:42:54 pm ---
sounds like you should have just built a new one from the ground up from the start. good news is you'd have a buncha old parts to add to your collection.

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I have a whole closet full of parts that have been in my collection since the 90's. I wonder if it is really worth even saving computer parts when you do an upgrade.

--- End quote ---

I've been wondering the same thing myself. When I moved out of my cottage a few years back, I had a huge box of Compaq parts that I just tossed out. The kind of stuff that's standard in every respect except for one connector or one screw hole or a notch that's in the wrong place or whatever. The kind of stuff no one can figure out for years, so they sit in the supply box in the hopes someone can eventually figure out how to use them.

About a month ago, Hfe was selling a box of random memory modules for something like 50 cents or a dollar a piece. I half expected to see EDO or something similar in the box, turns out to be mostly DIMM modules. I spotted a few decent brands like Corsair, Crucial, and Kingston (Oddly, I didn't see any Mushkins). The first stick I picked up was 128MB. Talk about depressing, I've got half a dozen 128MB modules that I paid something like $40 or more a piece for and here's a 128MB stick selling for a few quarters. I couldn't even sell the crap I have on Craigs. :(

So I decided to thin out my hardware "collection". I tossed out all of the Compaq crap and all the CPU's older than a PII. I kept a few of each type of component for testing and recovery purposes. I'm trying to decide if I should toss the motherboards or strip them for usable components. It's all surface mount components so I don't know if there's any worth in that. I can't decide if I should keep the optical drives or scrap them for components. The hard drives I've started removing their data and moving it to DVD. I'll move them into a TB drive if I ever want to pull something off. Strangely enough, I couldn't find any of my old Graphic cards.... I know I didn't get rid of them, but I have no idea where they are. ??? In any case, I'm happier for getting my closet space back. I'm bummed at seeing so much money gone.

DaOld Man:
Yeah it sucks.
My first PC was a POS packard bell. It came with 2 megs of ram, no cd or sound card.
I spent 100 bucks for a soundblaster card, nearly that for a cd drive (I think it was a 4X), and a whopping 200 bucks for 4 megs of ram! (Thats right, 200 bucks for 4 megs!)
Now the whole thing is in a box collecting dust, well, the monitor has been long gone, I think i gave it to someone whose monitor had crashed. The case is gone too, not sure what i used that for.
I need to just throw the whole lot of junk away, but it sure is hard to do, knowing how much money i have tied up in it.

RayB:
I walked into a store a couple weeks ago, looking for a power supply and walked out with an "off lease" computer that's 80% faster than my current computer (3.2ghz, 512mb, 80gig, U-ATA and SATA support, etc, etc) for the equivalent of $150 us.  Even came with a valid Windows XP key.

Beats going the upgrade path, and I can still pop in a few parts from my old computer (ram sticks, video card and sound card). Then the old computer becomes the family computer that I originally needed the power supply for! :-)

SavannahLion:

--- Quote from: DaOld Man on January 12, 2009, 08:30:48 pm ---I spent 100 bucks for a soundblaster card, nearly that for a cd drive (I think it was a 4X), and a whopping 200 bucks for 4 megs of ram! (Thats right, 200 bucks for 4 megs!)
--- End quote ---

Heh, that's the same way I feel about my Voodoo2 cards. I never had the heart to chuck them. I don't even know where the drivers are, much less if anybody still even has drivers to download.

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