Is it possible to refurbish an ancient PC from 1996 to meet today’s technological needs?
I just got handed down an old Compaq Persario from the olden PC days. I need to know what would be more practical and cost efficient– fixing this one up, or just buying a new machine.
The compaq has 64 MB of RAM (laughable, I know)
AMD 64 processor.
12 GB HD.
Windows 98 OS
If fixing it up would be more cost efficient, how would I go about doing it?
Thanks in advance for your help.
You wont be able to fix that up that much. If your lucky you might be able to find a faster processor. But even so your going to be so far out of date.
Motherboards change the socket for the cpu’s, so with new technology comes new sockets etc.
As far as upgrading memory, you can still purchase memory that will work in the machine, but its a matter of finding out what the maximum speed/size the motherboard will take.
It all depends on what you use your cpu for, lately you can find really cheap used P4′s. I suggest that if you dont need anything too spectacular.
no
it wouldn’t be possible…you would need to swap out the Memory, CPU, Motherboard, CD-ROM, Video Card…possibly even sound card
it’s a waste of time…trash it and buy a new one!! lol
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You’d have to rebuild it from the ground up- It’d be just the same buying and building a new system from parts from newegg
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No chance, It cant take today’s ram, processors, and you will have trouble finding drivers for the new OS.
It would cost more to upgrade that to a mediocre PC buying outdated expensive parts then it would to just build a new PC from scratch.
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You wont be able to fix that up that much. If your lucky you might be able to find a faster processor. But even so your going to be so far out of date.
Motherboards change the socket for the cpu’s, so with new technology comes new sockets etc.
As far as upgrading memory, you can still purchase memory that will work in the machine, but its a matter of finding out what the maximum speed/size the motherboard will take.
It all depends on what you use your cpu for, lately you can find really cheap used P4′s. I suggest that if you dont need anything too spectacular.
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its not possible…..
buy new ones…..it will surely costs less rather than repairing or upgrading the old ones…..
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no bud compaq has custom PSUs i had to pay double for one cause i had to buy it from them you can build a PC for pretty cheap check out http://www.newegg.com or http://www.tigerdirect.com but just to upgrade the RAM is that motherboard would cost a pretty penny cause its so out dated and hell they make flash drives that hold more then that HDD
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no you would have to overhaul everyhting but the case n taht would problay need to be replaced to so it would be caheper to get a new one
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There’s no point in upgrading it, but it’s probably a perfectly fine office computer if you use the right software.
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lol.
Is that a 64 bit processor? If so you want to keep that. What kind of motherboard is it?
It doesn’t really matter. You can probably upgrade it enough to be usefull, but it won’t come anywhere near todays standards.
Still, you can keep the case and just build your own computer. If you don’t mind spending the time, you can find good deals on top quality parts and it won’t cost you as much as buying a new one.
Here’s a hint. Don’t buy the part that came out yesterday, but the one that came out last year. They are like cars. Ususally they are just as good, or almost as good, but they cost 1/3 the price.
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I’d say it would be an ok machine for browsing the web and checking email, but alot of newer web browsers offer alot of high end content like video, flash animation etc… so it would really bog down.
On the other hand, any $500 PC these days is actually halfway decent at doing everything, unless your doing really high end gaming, graphics design, etc….
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Simply no, cause once you replace everything in it including the motherboard it’s a new PC. Not to mention that the new motherboard wouldn’t even fit in the case possibly……even then you would have to change out the under powered power supply with the incorect hook-ups for the new motherboard!
I hope this helps! Trying to upgrade this old machine would not be worth the $$.
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12 years IT
The only thing you could possibly salvage out of it is the tower, but since you’ll have to replace everything else: motherboard, processor, fan/heatsink, ram, hard drive, power supply, video card, CD-Rom (to DVD-RW), etc etc etc. and a BRAND NEW empty tower with a 500watt power supply only costs $39, it’s a waste of time.
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just buy a new computer, the old computer will not stand out to the modern needs
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by the time you find components that might work you could spend another $300 and get an updated system..
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It wouldn’t be worthwhile trying to upgrade this computer to run Windows XP, let’s say. It will run Windows XP, but it will be a really painful experience with just 64MB of RAM.
You could however, augment some of the components on it if you can find cheap parts for it on eBay, let’s say, and run a Linux distro for less powerful computers, such as VectorLinux Light on it. You could buy another stick of 64MB of RAM (if possible, I’m not sure how many DIMMs you’ve got right now). And go up to 128MB.
VectorLinux Light is a Linux distro for less powerful computers and will run on your 64MB RAM Presario, but I still recommend getting another 64MB if you can.
Of course you cannot expect it to offer everything a modern day OS / PC can, but you will be able to do basic things such as navigate the Web.
But other than that you really shouldn’t be spending much money on this PC, you’d be better off just building another one with modern components.
You can get VectorLinux Light from here:
http://vectorlinux.com/products
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Put that sucker in the time capsule and get a new PC.. the cost & hassle of upgrading far exceeds the cost of a new machine.
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No…..I have a compaq presario from yore as well. It can have only 256mb ram and only pc64 at that. Mine has a celeron processor 333mghz. HP made them as thier cheapy. With a 8 gig hd. and Win Me. It doesn’t have enough memory for win xp. I know, i tried. Compaq require specials parts like a "Dell" You’re better off getting a different computer more in of date one. I bought a barebones kit plus a couple of extras for only $243.77 w/shipping, at http://tigerdirect.com And its fast and nice.
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It will cost less to just buy a new one.
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You’ve obviously got your answer by a landslide; about the only things that might be useful is to keep it as a spare and diagnostic tool if your main machine dies, then you can at least get to the internet in a pinch.
If you have broadband and a router, get a network card for it if you don’t have one already (about $10), so you can get online at a reasonable speed.
I’d stick with Win 98, with those components, no use upgrading the OS (but do a Windows Update; M/S doesn’t support ’98 anymore, but the accumulated ’98 updates will still load).
Memory is an interesting issue – because of its age, the older memory (probably PC 66/100) can be pricey depending on where you look, but I recently found PC133 memory for an older machine via an eBay seller for a good price; memory is almost always a worthy upgrade.
No matter what you decide, it probably still plays Solitare pretty well!
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Old age
box it, might be worth something in years to come, certainly more than it is now lol, get down to pc world
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