Help! Need a new tower!

[heiowge]

My tower has had it. I need to replace the tower with something simple to tide me over while I save up for something better.

If anyone local to me ( Ellesmere Port, Chester, Wirral area) has an old tower they were planning on putting out to pasture (or putting in a skip) that they think I can use, and have for free (yes I can just about scrape up some petrol money to come and get it) it would be appreciated.

Cheers.

[Ram]

Are you talking case or PC.

If PC what's wrong with yours?

[heiowge]

Pretty sure the motherboard is dead.

I need a new motherboard and case with processor, heatsink and power supply all appropriate to the needs.

I can supply the RAM, drives, cards and leads needed to get it working.

[Ram]

This the Phenom ?

Surely you only need a motherboard, maybe a new cpu if not suitable for the new board and reuse your existing case etc..

[heiowge]

That's what I'm hoping. I want to reuse most of the parts I can.

The problem is that if I buy a motherboard to fit and can't reuse the processor, I can't afford one of the more expensive processors to fit the motherboard I bought to try it out.

[Nuke]

I gather you mean you need to replace the whole PC rather than the tower case. The case is the last thing that needs replacing, it's just a lump of tin. Mine is at least 10 years old and has seen three motherboards, two power supplies, three DC/DVD drives and about a dozen HDDs (I fit four at a time).

Trouble with a new motherboard (as I found last time) is that you can't usually find one to fit your old memory, processor or graphics card. I am guessing that many/most new MB's do not even provide IDE connectors.

I would say that eBay is your best bet. Currently, most people (Joe Public that is) are dumping their desktops in favour of tablets.

[Ram]

Are you willing to sell / swap the x6 CPU ?.

I have AMD FX-4130 3.8GHz Socket AM3+ 8MB Cache Retail Boxed Processor, bought for my sons PC in error.

I misread the manual though why it was listed on the revision of the board he has ( albeit it says 'not support' which I missed) is beyond me. Only found out after the build failed to boot on re-reading the manual.


@ Nuke, that case is just a young pup, had mine since the mid 90s, still going strong

[Dutch_Master]

You're really unlucky, I had a number of (no longer) used mainboards with proc and memory spare last year, but it went to family instead. Sorry!

[heiowge]

I'd love to swap the processor. Except it's spot-welded to the heat sink! That was the start of my problems.

ebay isn't an option as I have zero funds. Maybe $1 in paypal...

[Ram]

I'd love to swap the processor. Except it's spot-welded to the heat sink! That was the start of my problems.

ebay isn't an option as I have zero funds. Maybe $1 in paypal...

Hasn't it just got a good cpu / h-sink seal from the thermal compound.

2nd hand Phenoms are going for silly prices on ebay.

[heiowge]

I've got some dental floss to see if I can try and separate it from the heatsink. Maybe I'll find time this weekend. But that's still not fixing the board. And I still have no idea whether the chip works anymore.

[purplepenguin]

Pretty sure the motherboard is dead.

And I still have no idea whether the chip works anymore.

The first thing I'd do is find out whether it's the Mobo or Proccessor that has died. All this talk of swapping boards and CPUs seems pointless until you know which part is at fault for certain.

Did you get any codes (beeps/flashes) during the POST?

[Ram]

PP is right, what are the symptoms.

It could be a faulty PSU, memory stopping it booting event a video card with or without the additional power.

Option 1,
I think I have enough old bits to build a tide me over PC, lowish spec.

Option 2,
My thinking is if his MB is the fault - I am willing to purchase a new MB albeit a cheap one to test the surplus FX chip just to make sure I haven't damaged it and all being well parcel them off to heiowge in exchange for a working x6 CPU.

Then I can upgraded my PC and move my x4 into my sons to complete his upgrade.

[heiowge]

Hi again. I've acquired an old Dell desktop to tide me over for a while. I need to do a tidy up around the house before I can spare the time, but once I have it, I'll see if I can get the processor off the heatsink with dental floss. i hear it's wonderful for it. If I manage to do that, I'll discuss options. Remember, I still need a new PC...


Ok....

The one I've got given today is running on 2x256MB DDR1 RAM. The machine is good up to 2x1GB. Has anyone got a pair of unwanted DDR1 RAM sticks they are prepared to donate to a good cause, please?

I have a few sticks of 256 and a single 512, but not a matched pair. If anyone wants, I can trade for some laptop RAM. I think I've got a few 1GB sticks floating around, but not sure if DDR1, 2 or 3. If there's interest I can dig them out.

Cheers guys.

[heiowge]

An old friend of mine from my student days just sent me about 10 sticks of DDR1 RAM. 4 were a matched set of 1GB each. The other 6 were matched 512s.

So the machine now has 2GB DDR1 RAM. A vast improvement from where it was. I've also managed to shoehorn in an old 256MB nVidia graphics card.

On the downside, I'm dropping back to an 80GB hard drive. The 160 is having issues.