RECOMMENDATIONS WANTED FOR REBUILDING MY COMPUTER

The problem with “upgrade” and “use legacy devices” is one of these will have to give. Might as well go upgrade.

I second the Dual core motion, and new DDR2 memory is cheap. A fast dual-core is more work/money than going quad-core, and there’s no point in staying with a single core anymore. But I’ve been grappling with this same scenario myself for nearly a year. The old machine still works, so I am still holding out for better and better for cheaper and cheaper.

I do Microsoft Flight Simulator, so I need serious hardware. Linux is really coming along these days. Papasmurf mentions Linux Mint, and I use PCLinuxOS 2007, but upgraded with the latest kernel and updates. Both are excellent.

What Tyan are you looking for? I have several used, one in use now, an S2462UNG Thunderbird K-7 (dial proc).

I was thinking that if his power supply was strong enough [and if the connectors were the right form factor, which they might not be], and if his case was large enough, then RebelTex could pop a dual Athlon MP board in there and not have to spend any more money than that.

WOW - I didn't expect so many replies.

Thanks to all of you for the great suggestions. I will study these and post some replies to each of you (over several days - don't have much time to surf these days, LOL).

As for the laptop recommendations, thanks - but my current laptop is doing fine. (My other desktops, though old, keep right on truckin', too.)

I think I shorted the Soyo motherboard when trying to install the new video card - got in a hurry and didn't use a grounding wrist strap (which I usually do).

I thought I built this system in '01, but it might have been '02. It was cutting edge at the time.

Here's a look at my old motherboard, (if anyone's interested, LOL). Click on the "tech specs" link on that page if you want to see more.

SY-KT333 DRAGON Ultra Platinum

I'll post results (and maybe pics) when I've finished the upgrade.

Don’t go AGP please, you’re locking yourself into a dead tech that way. ATI or Nvidia’s mobo integrated video should be almost as fast as the card you have, certainly more than adequate if you aren’t gaming. Use newegg.com’s motherboard power search and check 1xPATA, some of the onboard video options, PCI-Express, and look through the results. Find one with some reviews and a good average rating.

Also, don’t listen to the people who are urging you to overbuy. It’s always better economic sense to buy tech 6 months to a year behind the bleeding edge, and upgrade more frequently (assuming you enjoy fiddling with your hardware and it’s not cutting into billable hours, but I’m making that assumption, because you are looking into building a machine instead of buying a ready made model).

It is hard to get 2 PATA channels on a motherboard that isn’t end of life or refurb though, so you might have to ditch the CDRW/DVD drives depending on how many HDDs you have. Better yet might be to buy a SATA HDD, move all your data over, then hook the CDRW/DVD up to the PATA channel and throw out the old PATA HDD before the sucker crashes.

A 450W power supply may be ok for the kind of system you’d build, but it’s probably 20 pin, and new motherboards may require 24 pin.

Also, if you aren’t used to linux already, you may want to start by installing the XP software from your old system and using wubi to run ubuntu linux from within XP. I use open office instead of MS office, and some people use MS office within WINE or crossover office. However, if you’ve already bought XP, why throw it out? It’s not like it’s obsolete.

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