Is it worth building a PC?

[MindBender77]

Hello All,
I figure you all can help me with this. I currently do not have a PC at home and my father has decided to give me his old Dell desktop. I belive this PC is about 4 years old.

I thought about rebuilding it, though I've never attempt such a feat but, thought it would be a nice challenge. I don't plan on using it for anything other than web surfing, pix and music. You know, the average computing. It is a bit slow so I figured on beefing it up.

Any tips, advice or warnings will be appreciated,
Bender

[Stang02GT]

Building a pc isn't really hard at all you just have to take your time and be care that you don't bust something, or kill a piece of hardware from electric discharge.

I think for what you are using the computer for just beefing up what you have will be good.

But at the same time you could buy/build a new one for pretty cheap. All in what you want to do.

[MindBender77]

Keeping on the same subject. I hear that Dell's, in particular, pose some problems when a trying to build them up? Is this true?

Bender

[Stang02GT]

The only thing that I know about Dells are that how they place things in the cases ( like the positioning of things) makes it hard

[Nepomuk]

Just a suggestion, if you post the specs of the Dell, we could help you decide, what could or should be upgraded. I agree, it's not difficult to upgrade a PC. I've done it tons of times myself. ^^

As you say, it's a bit slow, I'd guess some new RAM might be a good idea (it's getting cheaper all the time!), maybe even a new CPU (and if you do that, probably a mainboard/motherboard). The drives, the power supply and most (or even all) of the built in cards should be fine, as you only want it for "office" type work. Only card that might be a problem if you update the mainboard is the graphics card - the standard connection was AGP for ages, now you often get PCI-Express. Well, that or on-board graphics. (Which should be fine for you.)
Oh, and of course, after rebuilding it, you'll have to reinstall your OS - you might want to think about not using Windows... ^^

Greetings,
Nepomuk

[MindBender77]

Thanks for all the suggestions. I haven't posted the specs on the PC yet because I haven't actually receive it yet. I do plan on posting them shortly. I also have to admit that thought of attempting this is a bit intimidating. Hope you all are ready when I get stuck. :)

Bender

[Nepomuk]

Thanks for all the suggestions. I haven't posted the specs on the PC yet because I haven't actually receive it yet. I do plan on posting them shortly. I also have to admit that thought of attempting this is a bit intimidating. Hope you all are ready when I get stuck. :)

Bender

Sure, we'll be here to help! And believe me, most things you replace can be done really easily.
Of course, you could post the name of that system (it's the "Dell xxxxx", while xxxxx is probably a number or something similar). That way, we could maybe find the specs, even before you have the system.
But of course, that's your choice.

Greetings,
Nepomuk