Rebuilding an old PC
Posted: Fri Jun 01, 2007 4:37 am
I just replaced on old PC with a new C2D I built on an E6600/P5B-E and Vista/64. I'm pretty happy with the new box thus far.
I planned to wipe the disk and install Vista Home Premium on the old PC and let the kids use it for games, etc. It is a P4/1.8 Northwood on an Asus P4S533 (which would be an upgrade to their old PII/400Mhz box). The old PC has a Fortron 450w PSU and a couple of optical drives (one is DVD/RW) and 1.5 Gigs of PC2700 ram as well as an eVGA 6600GT (AGP) card.
The old PC had been generating random BSODs for various reasons and I thought it had driver issues. But after pulling all the pci cards out and formatting and installing with the Vista/32 disk (bought an extra VHP license with the family deal), I am still getting random BSODs with different error msgs. Sometimes it says memory_management and sometimes I see IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL.
I've run Memtest86 (v1.65), Drive Fitness test, tested memory sticks one by one, etc. to no avail. Except that late in the testing, the most recently purchased ram began showing errors.
Edit: even with one stick of ram, the old PC would BSOD. So I don't think the ram was really a problem.
I gave up on it and took it to a local shop and they could not duplicate the ram faults. They were not able to isolate the problem and we agreed that the most likely culprit is the mobo.
At this point, my simple rebuild is now a mobo/cpu replacement project.. but with cost being more of a factor this time around.
I've come up with a couple of scenarios to replace the mobo and cpu and want to know what you think. One caveat, I want to keep my eVGA 6600GT video card (AGP) which limits my mobo choices. I'm willing to give up the DDR ram (man, I can't believe how much DDR2 ram has come down in price since I bought in January).
The options below differ by about $60. Is there any reason to prefer one over the other? Any other obvious solutions I've missed?
Yes, I know I'm restricting my choices by keeping the 6600GT/AGP card. But ya gotta draw the line somewhere.
Intel solution:
AMD solution:
I planned to wipe the disk and install Vista Home Premium on the old PC and let the kids use it for games, etc. It is a P4/1.8 Northwood on an Asus P4S533 (which would be an upgrade to their old PII/400Mhz box). The old PC has a Fortron 450w PSU and a couple of optical drives (one is DVD/RW) and 1.5 Gigs of PC2700 ram as well as an eVGA 6600GT (AGP) card.
The old PC had been generating random BSODs for various reasons and I thought it had driver issues. But after pulling all the pci cards out and formatting and installing with the Vista/32 disk (bought an extra VHP license with the family deal), I am still getting random BSODs with different error msgs. Sometimes it says memory_management and sometimes I see IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL.
I've run Memtest86 (v1.65), Drive Fitness test, tested memory sticks one by one, etc. to no avail. Except that late in the testing, the most recently purchased ram began showing errors.
Edit: even with one stick of ram, the old PC would BSOD. So I don't think the ram was really a problem.
I gave up on it and took it to a local shop and they could not duplicate the ram faults. They were not able to isolate the problem and we agreed that the most likely culprit is the mobo.
At this point, my simple rebuild is now a mobo/cpu replacement project.. but with cost being more of a factor this time around.
I've come up with a couple of scenarios to replace the mobo and cpu and want to know what you think. One caveat, I want to keep my eVGA 6600GT video card (AGP) which limits my mobo choices. I'm willing to give up the DDR ram (man, I can't believe how much DDR2 ram has come down in price since I bought in January).
The options below differ by about $60. Is there any reason to prefer one over the other? Any other obvious solutions I've missed?
Yes, I know I'm restricting my choices by keeping the 6600GT/AGP card. But ya gotta draw the line somewhere.
Intel solution:
AMD solution: