Refurbishing an Old PC

[aeria.]

Oh man you're a Canadian.

I still recommend to max out the RAM. NCIX is a great Canadian retailer for computer parts.

And I recommend getting Windows 7/8. They have much better built-in hardware compatibility.

[Gold Man]

Well, I've hit a roadblock in my refurbishing.

Apparently it's incredibly hard to find Network drivers for the old tower. I've hunted down the Realtek LAN driver that it needs (from both HP and Lenovo), and all 3 drivers don't seem to work on the tower.

Any chance you guys could help me out? I'm looking for network, graphics, audio, and multimedia drivers for an MSI Amethyst GL6E 5188-4307 motherboard. I've tried the HP site, and only one thread had the similar question, and was redirected to a model with the same motherboard. I tried the drivers, but none of them seemed to work.

[aeria.]

Windows 7 is less of a pain when it comes to drivers. See if you can get Windows 7.

[Gold Man]

Windows 7 is less of a pain when it comes to drivers. See if you can get Windows 7.

I would, but I still don't have 4GB of RAM. I only have 1GB of RAM in the machine, which basically means if I want Windows 7 on it, I can't use any programs once it's installed. 2GB potentially might work, but it'll still be somewhat slow. I'm literally out of options at this point, and the 400MHz DDR SDRAM in 4x1GB packs is becoming harder to find. I know of a friend who may install Windows 7 for me for free, but again, at this point I have no other option left but to find the drivers.

[aeria.]

Good luck on the driver hunt!

[Gold Man]

After much driver-hunting (and much thanks to oldsnake for helping me), I have finally got all my drivers installed!

Now comes the final question: In it's current state (with WinXP MCE and 1GB of RAM), will it be able to run SWBFII and/or Guns of Icarus Online?

[aeria.]

You might want to hunt for a low profile GPU if you don't have the money for a new PC build. I doubt SWBF2 will run well but you'd might as well try.

[Gold Man]

You might want to hunt for a low profile GPU if you don't have the money for a new PC build. I doubt SWBF2 will run well but you'd might as well try.

Ok, I still have some space for that, anything you'd recommend for an MSI-7184 Motherboard with an ATI Xpress 200 Chipset?

[Norwood]

Hey Good Luck with the computer!

I was looking at your post and when I clicked on your spoiler I couldn't believe my eyes, we have a computer just like it at home! My younger brothers are using right know for some older games. 

[Gold Man]

Hey Good Luck with the computer!

I was looking at your post and when I clicked on your spoiler I couldn't believe my eyes, we have a computer just like it at home! My younger brothers are using right know for some older games. 

Whoa, small world then.

But yeah, I have it all said in done, just need to know if it'll run those games. By the way, does your model have everything as it was, or did you do some upgrades to it as well?

[Norwood]

If I remember correctly, the only thing we have done to it (other than wiping it clean ) is added some RAM memory. I don't remember the exact details off the top of my head.

[Gold Man]

Ok, I'm resurrecting this old thread, because I intend to actually overhaul this junker this year.

Last we left off, the machine has 2GB of RAM in it, and the components are still the same from the last time.

I intend to replace:

• Motherboard
• RAM
• CPU
• Power Supply (if I really have to)
• OS (for obvious reasons, it runs XP)

I intend to salvage:

• Hard Drive
• Optical Drives (if possible)
• Power Supply (if possible)
• Case

In essence, I'm carrying a tighman's budget again (planning to splurge around $200-$300 for the parts this time though, once I have the money for it), and would like to actually fix this machine up so it can run the new SWBF. If it comes down to it, I might end up blowing $500 all in all just to overhaul the rig. Again, it'll most likely depend on my wage and what I can actually afford, even planning to sell off the old parts to make a quick buck to help out on this, actually. Current components are listed in the first post if you guys need an idea as to what it is I'm salvaging and replacing.

EDIT: Funny, I don't remember my name being blue.

[Gold Man]

Ok, so after doing some more hunting around, I've found that thanks to the terrible currency exchange between USD/CND, it's nigh impossible for me to really beef up the junker for anything below $500 to run something like the new SWBF.

I'm heavily considering about just going out there and buying a whole new rig at this point. Unless you guys know how I could even salvage parts of the current rig and slab them with some newer parts.

This seems like a half-decent deal. Running it alongside Battlefield 4's old specs off GameDebate, this thing can run it on Medium to High settings, meaning I should be able to at least achieve Medium settings on the new SWBF with this machine:

http://pc.ncix.com/ncixpc_new/ncixpc.cfm?uuid=F10341F0-BC2C-4A80-B38BDE56DEC5503B-6383610

Tell me what ya think.

[{PLA} Van STING]

If your PSU has the correct connectors, has enough power output, and if it is working perfectly fine, you could probably just reuse it. Your hard drive and optical drive of course work with your power supply, they need to connect to the motherboard with a sata cable (I think its called sata). If they do connect to the motherboard with sata you should be able to reuse them (I don't know, they could use some older connector). I would just reuse the case if it supports your new motherboard's size.

If you reuse that stuff you could get a tad faster AMD APU or a faster hard drive like an sshd (solid state drive and hard drive hybrid). SSHD are slower than a SSD and faster than a HDD, your most accessed files would be faster to acces.

[Gold Man]

If your PSU has the correct connectors, has enough power output, and if it is working perfectly fine, you could probably just reuse it. Your hard drive and optical drive of course work with your power supply, they need to connect to the motherboard with a sata cable (I think its called sata). If they do connect to the motherboard with sata you should be able to reuse them (I don't know, they could use some older connector). I would just reuse the case if it supports your new motherboard's size.

If you reuse that stuff you could get a tad faster AMD APU or a faster hard drive like an sshd (solid state drive and hard drive hybrid). SSHD are slower than a SSD and faster than a HDD, your most accessed files would be faster to acces.

I believe the components work with SATA cables (the hard drive does I know that). The PSU might use some rather unique connectors, and I don't know what cable the optical drives use (might be SATAs). In any case, I plan to reuse the case (saves me a couple buck there as well, since it already has some fans in it too).

I might get an SSD, budget pending, and I've been debating if I should go for an APU or not. Are the able to run such high-demand games?