Brothers computer fried. Fix, replace, or new build?

BurningSkyline

BurningSkyline

New Member
Last night while I was gone apparently my brothers computer started shooting smoke, and completely stopped working. I opened it up and the ram dimms are discolored and smell burnt.
http://i40.tinypic.com/103igeg.jpg
http://i40.tinypic.com/m8eidj.jpg

It is a relatively old (I think roughly 2009?) 775 Pentium E5200, 4GB ram, dell machine.

Would it be better to fix it, replace it with a prebuilt, or build him one? His Budget would be around $450 it seems and He would need an entire system, no hard drive, no peripherals, and a copy of Windows.
 
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Easier to just get something new if he's prepared to spend the money. Does he require a lot from his computer?
 
But what do you guys figure would be more cost effective? Buying a prebuilt for $450 or building one for roughly $350 (I need to test his old HDD still) + a $100 copy of windows?
 
considering it will cost about 100 bucks for the same amount of ddr2, yea a new build would be cheaper and more efficient. i3 id recommend for a little more graphics performance, and 4 or 8 gig ram, with a cheap motherboard. also get a psu to go along with it
 
If he doesn't require a lot from his PC, it'd be easier to just get something off the shelf I think.
 
I was thinking the same thing. He is currently looking at this: Inspiron 660

Could I build better for cheaper considering I can reuse his old HDD?

also, how can I find which of his old pc parts are reusable?
 
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Most likely his drive has an IDE interface which had been phased out. We now have SATA interface but you can get an adapter to put an IDE drive to SATA port.

As to the parts from the old PC, not worth it. Consider the life of the drive already, it can quit anytime.
 
Twiki said:
Most likely his drive has an IDE interface which had been phased out. We now have SATA interface but you can get an adapter to put an IDE drive to SATA port.

As to the parts from the old PC, not worth it. Consider the life of the drive already, it can quit anytime.
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Its not that old... Its a LGA 775 based and most certainly uses SATA... I replaced the drive in August 2011 with a 500GB Seagate drive. I kind of want to see what is able to be salvaged so I can build a NAS box.
 
if you use it as anything, just temporary storage when the standard drive is not adequate. also looks like it has 1 stick of ram, might want to add a second for dual channel.
 
I noticed that it will equal in price to the inspiron 660 he was looking at after another ram stick, a case, and windows. If I can build him something equal to or better than the inspiron that would be cool. suggestions?
 
BurningSkyline said:
Its not that old... Its a LGA 775 based and most certainly uses SATA... I replaced the drive in August 2011 with a 500GB Seagate drive. I kind of want to see what is able to be salvaged so I can build a NAS box.
Click to expand...

Ah ok. My bad, good to know. :)

(withdrawn - sorry)
 
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Build it man!

The new AMD APU's are awesome for the money. The new Richland series is coming out and if he can hold off I would defiantly get one of those for him.
 
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Oh do not get me wrong I would prefer to build one over buy, but I just want to get my brother the best value possible. I'm curious if I could get a Haswell i5 system within my budget.
 
Haswell is going to be more expensive. The AMD APU's give great graphics performance for what they are and can always have a gpu added later. Whatever you get will be a huge upgrade though from what he has now.
 
$190 for the cheapest of haswell i5's at the moment... and the graphics shouldn't really matter too much for someone who will just be watching youtube videos, browsing the web, and doing school work. I think I might just buy the supercombo along with an identical stick of ram and a Fractal Design. Core 1000 and be done with it though.
 
For that money you could get the best FM2 available. The AMD board will also have more features for less money. AMD is the best to go with unless you are looking for an ultimate system.
 
Budget: $400 + $100 Windows 7
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Fractal Design Core 1000: $40
A8-6600K Supercombo: $300
Kingston HyperX Blu (Identical to combo): $32
Samsung Burner: $21
Sub: $393
​
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

FX-4130 Supercombo: $385
Samsung Optical Drive (From above): $21
Sub: $406
​
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I think the A8-6600k system would be better personally, yet I still think it would be slower than the i5 dell. Also, how good are the rosewill PSU's included in these supercombos?
 
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