Building a new computer... (Help Please.)

[Jitsu]

Long and alot of questons, please bear with me.

I currently have a dell from '00. I'm going to try and salvage as much as I can from this system to save money. I know that dell has rigged alot of their stuff so it's not compatible with other companies products.

I'm asking for assisntace in the selection of parts for my new computer.
The only parts that I know I am going to keep are the imput and output devices that came with my dell. I would also like to keep my cd-rw drive and my ram sticks. I don't know if this is possible.

The only part of my computer that is aftermarket is my graphics card which is not currently installed. A geforce fx 5700 Ultra. Acutally I tried to install it but I was getting an error message that it was not recieving enough power and it lowered its quality to prevent damage. I removed it after a day or two and put my old one back in (a lower end geforce - not dell).

What parts can I keep and what parts must I upgrade?

Here are the parts that I was planning on purchasing...

»Case/PS (350w usually enough or upgrade to 400w?)
»Motherboard
»CPU
»New CD Drive... I currently have a CD drive, which is my primary CD (one hooked to mobo) and a cd/rw drive. I'm wondering if I can just use my current dell cd/rw drive as my primary drive for my new computer. Do I need two CD drives? Does the primary need to be just a cd drive, or can it be a burner?
»New ram sticks? Will my old ones work?
»New Hard Drive?

I think thats all. I know this is long but I need some questions answered. Any response will be greatly appricated.

 

[RyanOldw83]

For the small monetary difference i would go with 400 watts. The burner most likely acts as a cdrom as well and you can buy them that way as well. Ram depends on the motherboard you get. The harddrive will work as long as you format and reinstall. It cannot act as master if it has a different computers hardware prtofile on it, but otherwise its useable. Hope this helps.

 

[Jitsu]

I was thinking about purchasing a new HD and use this for my primary HD for my new machine. Can I put my current HD on my new machine as a secondary HD, even with the OS still installed?
I'll probably just copy what I want from my old HD onto my new one and then format my old HD to free up space.

 

[RyanOldw83]

Yes you can setup your old hd as a slave on the ide cable and copy whatever you want from it onto the new hard drive.