Found an old computer. What to do?

[Arcsecant]

I recently got an old sony vaio desktop from a friend. The following information is what I received from him, I have yet to see the thing but I'm going to pick it up tomorrow. This thing must be 5-7 years old but it was just stacked. It cost him over $3000 dollars when he bought it back then and has liquid coolant. I want to get some new parts and upgrade it but I'm wondering what I should be checking for when I do get it tomorrow? I'm currently playing on a cruddy laptop and have very basic computer knowledge. Do I want to be checking motherboard slots? wattage? When I say very basic computer knowledge I mean I know how to put in a CD. :-\

[Nixia]

You Want to check CPU socker, graphics Card and power supply. All this is easy to check With software like 'sandra'.

[op3l]

Let me start off by saying this... if you're really not familiar with computer and your experience with putting things in a computer is inserting a cd/dvd rom... then you're better off not touching it. It's not hard, but you can get stuff wrong. Plus liquid cooling is messy if not done right and again have no experience with it. With that said..

You Want to check CPU socker, graphics Card and power supply. All this is easy to check With software like 'sandra'.

CPU Socket = what type of chip it has. Is it an Intel or AMD? Was it... say.. a Pentium 4, or dual core, core 2 duo, athlon? such and such.

Graphics card is graphics card... but since it's 5-7 years old, it'll probably be AGP therefore seriously limiting your options of upgrades and even if there is an upgrade, it really wouldn't be worth it...

Power supply would be the voltage and such... basically right now for a mediocre system you'd need about 500-650 watts to power all the various things and such.

Another thing you might want to check is the RAM, how much it's got and what kind in terms of DDR-333 or whatever speed it will run.

I don't think you really should bother messing with the insides... if anything just use the case and buy new components to put in the case.

[Enola]

And the case format is probably crap, not sure on sony's though.
Well theres probably nothing you can salvage on it for personal use, maybe the cooling system.

[Arcsecant]

Okay I have the the computer now.

ATI (AMD) Radeon X600XT

Intel Pentium 4 CPU 3.20GHz

socket/slot - CPU 1

Mainboard - Asus PTGD2-VX

Memory Module - Elpida 512 MB DDR-200 (This is listed twice so I'm to assume there's 2?)

Total Memory - 1GB DIMM DDR

All of the above I got with sandra but the wattage I opened it up and the sticker on the power supply says:
Total power cannot exceed 291.6W

[Aalamar]

Well, after some research on the Mobo it appears that it is socket 775, which means you can upgrade it. But I dont believe its really worth it because of the RAM socket type. Only DDR socket, which sucks. The PSU is old so it will need replaced. The Graphics card is old. Imo that system isnt better for anything than browsing tbh. Also I dont know how he paid that much money for that thing. Even 5-6 years ago that would have been worth $1,000 at most.

[Cilraaz]

Sadly, I'd relegate that to a special purpose system (linux server for Vent/TS3 for example) or consider it a large paper weight. It's hardly upgradeable.

[op3l]

Sadly, I'd relegate that to a special purpose system (linux server for Vent/TS3 for example) or consider it a large paper weight. It's hardly upgradeable.

Yep, don't bother upgrading that. Just use it as a vent server or something, maybe give it to your grand parents for light web browsing...