Talk about...

[toxic]

information overload!!  I have been reading this forum and have realized just how out of the loop I have been for the last 8 - 10 yr's. Pentium 3's and 4's were the newest things and AGP was just coming onto the market.

Bad news is my pc is a compac presario low end piece of junk I bought through a auction site. It runs AH II but sitting in the hanger with the engine running I get 10 fps....thats not good

Question... can I salvage anything?
I have a P4 2.7g celeron - 2 gig of DDR PC2100 mem
everything else is onboard...video etc. I have also found out that my windows xp is a oem version and won't install on anything other than my compaq? is that true?  I was kind of hoping to get up and runnning on something for 6-800$ I have a 21 sony trintron tube monitor that is still very good.
My hard drives are a IDE Samsung SV1203N and a WD 5000 ext USB HD
that I use for pix, music storage and backup

Any comments and/or help is very much appreciated

Toxic

[humble]

The XP license is a grey area but I believe that courts have held that the "limited license" product was illegal. You should have a sticker with the serial number on it and that should work with any XP. I'd call and tell them your PC finally died and ask them for fresh media (XP CD). You can buld out a decent system for $600 np.

[Fulmar]

Even $500 (including a new computer case, not including keyboard/mouse) can get you a nice rig.  DDR2 Ram is cheap.  $60/$70 gets you about a 250gb Hard Drive which I would recommend using isnce your current HD's will be IDE and not the new SATA standard.  Current motherboard do still offer IDE connections, but some are limited to only 2 devices that are IDE**.

Just remember when piecing together a new system, buy a good power supply.  Good rule of thumb is spend at least $100.  Don't be tempted by the $30 fellows.  You don't want to put 87 octane in your 93 octane sports car do you?

**You could be cheap and keep your CD Drive and Hard Drive and just use that in your computer but I would not recommend it.  Try keep keep your HD and CD Drives off the same IDE cable.

[Tigger29]

Originally posted by toxic
information overload!!  I have been reading this forum and have realized just how out of the loop I have been for the last 8 - 10 yr's. Pentium 3's and 4's were the newest things and AGP was just coming onto the market.

Bad news is my pc is a compac presario low end piece of junk I bought through a auction site. It runs AH II but sitting in the hanger with the engine running I get 10 fps....thats not good

Question... can I salvage anything?
I have a P4 2.7g celeron - 2 gig of DDR PC2100 mem
everything else is onboard...video etc. I have also found out that my windows xp is a oem version and won't install on anything other than my compaq? is that true?  I was kind of hoping to get up and runnning on something for 6-800$ I have a 21 sony trintron tube monitor that is still very good.
My hard drives are a IDE Samsung SV1203N and a WD 5000 ext USB HD
that I use for pix, music storage and backup

Any comments and/or help is very much appreciated

Toxic

Your biggest problem is your video.  Onboard video is very poor, at best.  If you were to buy a halfway decent video card, and leave everything else alone (assuming your power supply can handle it), you should easily see 40-50 fps, if not more!

It all depends on how much you want to spend, and what you plan on using your computer for.  I firmly believe that at least 90% of the people out there already have three times more computer than they really need!

And re-use your CD-drives... purchasing new ones are a waste of money (unless your current ones are already having problems)... you can always replace these later if need be.

[Getback]

Personally, I don't even think you can salvage the case. The good news is anything will be better but go duo core. I use amd but they tell me intel is better.

Good luck with the build.

[toxic]

Here is my situation:
My PC as it sits right now does everything I need .. except of course AHII

So I am thinking if I upgrade my P/S from a 250W to a 500W  ATX.
Upgrade the video from 64m shared on board to one of these below
( suggestions anyone?) I can at least get online, do some playing, make sure I still enjoy this online flight sim like I did 10 years ago. Then go with a newer pc in a few months.

Power Supply :
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817371007

Video Card :  
http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&DEPA=0&Description=PCI+Video+Card

thoughts?