Is my aging HP worth it?

[elliott]

I could probably spend hours doing research and get answers to all my questions, but who has the time? So......

I need some guidance. I have an HP 9870 desktop that I purchased new in '02. It's a P4, 1.3gig. running ME; big tower with a couple free drive bays and pci slots. I only used it for a year or so because I bought an XP laptop late '03, and the HP has been in moth balls since. With my interest in a desktop renewed, is it worth putting money into the HP?

I'd like to run Vista. not a big gamer. probably no big applications. basically web brousing, email, a little imaging. This machine has 128mb RDRAM, but is expandable to a gig. Maybe upgrade old USB to 2.0? new sound and graphics? What else?

Please go to the HP link below for full specs and thanks in advance for your repies.

 

[elliott]

Re: sorry,here is the link

HP Pavilion 9870 Desktop PC -  Product Specifications and What Ships in the Box 

 

[hercules_upw]

It is my opinion that that rig needs to hit the goodwill pile. I think you would see a lot of problems trying to get Vista to work with 5-year old components. Plus upgrading an old junker is (in my opinion) going to cost the same as a Dell. I hate to recomend Dell, but you can get a decent machine for $300 - $400. Plus you get a warranty.

- Hercules -

 

[NayNay1991x]

Hmm i think you might need a New PC.. Thats quite old.. i thought my HP Pavilion a608 was old lol considering i bought that in 2002

You can get some Cheap Budget PC's Now though, which ive seen in the UK for under.. £300, if your not looking for the Gaming side

 

[Brinson]

Vista on 1gb will be slow as all ****. Plus, older ram will cost you more. Also, 1.3ghz is going to show its age in Vista.

Windows ME SUCKS...majorly...

I had it on my laptop a few years ago...so terrible

My advice is to build a new budget system. You could build a low-end brisbane or pentium D system for $300 ($100 mb/cpu combo, $35 for 2gbs of Ram, specials like this sometimes, $40 PSU, $30 DVD-RW, $50 HD, really cheap case), and then keep your current PC as a backup PC. If you wanted to toy around with a linux distribution it would be a good place to do it.

 

[NightSurge]

You can build a system yourself. Just use some of your existing parts (case, hard drive (possible), monitor, keyboard, mouse) and upgrade the rest.

Find a good motherboard that will fit your case and work from there. You can usually find all those parts, and make a good enough system for running Vista with all the features that you require and it will only cost around $300 or less. Vista would be your main expense in this venture, but if you seek out an OEM version that will save you some money there as well. If you aren't comfortable building a new system yourself, there are always others out there to build it for you =)

 

[Brinson]

If you used hard drive, cd drive, psu, and case, all you'd have to buy is the motherboard/cpu/ram, which can be gotten all for $150-$200, then vista.

That said. I strongly, strongly advise buying a new case for a new build. Reusing an OEM case is annoying.

 

[mikee]

vista lite with 1 gig of ram will probably run smooth enough on that rig and maybe get a gf6200 there pretty cheap now

 

[Puddle Jumper]

I would also not advise reusing the original case and would defiantly not use the old power supply. You might also have problems reusing the old Cd drive because vista is only available on DVD.

 

[mikee]

oh that thing uses rd ram, can you even get that kind anymore?