Do you use a Floppy drive.,...newer MoBo are leaving that attachment out.
Also, you didn’t metion XP Home or Pro. If it’s Home you’ll have to do a new install to the RAID drives at first boot -don’t forget F6 and RAID floppy disk. Then you can do a backup and restore from old system to the new system. Don’t worry about Re-activation. Wait until the new system is up then call the 1-800 number and tell them you upgraded your hard drives and system. They should give you a new Activation code at that point.
AGP is almost over. I would replace everything, especially if it really is 7 years old.
I’m not going into hardware specs and such, as I’ve found most people wind up going with what they wanted in the first place. And, that’s a good thing. :)
What I will say is, I’ve switched to Linux over a year ago, and I couldn’t be happier!
It was difficult, at first. But, as I slogged through day to day, I found more and more free and open source software that would, indeed, replace the windows equivalent.
Being that I use my systems for business, you can imagine, I had some windows based software that were proprietary and had no windows counterparts. That is true.
So, I ventured into the world of “Virtualization”. There are 4 or 5 offerings in the Linux world, all free and open source. I tried 3 of them, and came away with VirtualBox. VB runs any windows software I’ve thrown at it, and does so with grace, no hacking required. It just works “as advertised”, and is simple to install, again, no hacking required.
So, don’t be wary of trying a Linux distribution, there are plenty to choose from. After I tried Mandriva, Linspire, Lycoris, Red Hat, and Novell Suse, I settled on Ubuntu, which is a Debian based distribution.
Just this last week, I switched from Ubuntu, to an Ubuntu derivative called Linux Mint. I find it to be much more user friendly, and it’s a bit quicker, as in snappier, than the standard Ubuntu. As well, it works flawlessly with my virtualization application, VirtualBox.
Back to your original post. LOL As far as hardware goes, I will say, since you seem to be the kind who will hang on to your PC for awhile, you might plan for the future in building one.
That would mean, to me, that you would want (at least) a Dual Core cpu (either Intel or AMD) that includes virtualization support/extensions, a full featured BIOS, and a minimum of two graphics adapters (video cards). I would build a system around these components.
Virtual Machines are big, and getting bigger. I’m seeing applications being written for virtualized environments and much more widespread use of Virtual Machines in the business community.
BTW, FYI, I still have one brand new-in the box, Soyo SY-71WA-F (socket 370) in inventory. LOL
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.
I'll post results (and maybe pics) when I've finished the upgrade.