I'm getting a new comp and want to use the old hardware to

Mortamer · n00b Joined: 27 Nov 2003 Posts: 16

Hey, I'm sure this is an easy question but like I've mentioned before, I'm terrible with hardware. My question is, if I get a nice new dell (this computer is dell to) could I stack things like the hard drive, ram, vid cards, cpu, etc? Do you think this would be relatively simple with a guide or something? Or should I just sell this old computer?

jfb3 · Apprentice Joined: 01 Feb 2003 Posts: 242

If by "stack" you mean re-use then the answer is maybe.

You can almost always use a hard drive in any other machine. The other parts are where any problem arises.
RAM: Will the new box use a different speed of ram?
Video card: What kind of slot does old one use? Is there an open slot for it in the new box?
CPU: Uhh, only if you're going to buy an SMP box with an open slot that matches your old box. (Probably not.)

Now just becuause you might not use the old parts in the new machine doesn't mean you need to sell the old one. You can still keep the old one and use it for something: music server, web server, home control system, a place to test new/beta versions of software, etc.

Mortamer · n00b Joined: 27 Nov 2003 Posts: 16

By stack I did mean re-use, I'd like to buy a new dell in the 1,000 - 1,500k range (I'm thinking but that could change) and this new one was 1,500 4.5 years ago. Would it be logical to assume everything but the hard drive won't be reusable? And, space is a big issue so I don't think I'll be able to use the old computer in addition to the new one.

jfb3 · Apprentice Joined: 01 Feb 2003 Posts: 242

Yeah, I'd assume that most of the parts wouldn't be that usable in the new box. Even the hard drive might not be worth it. 4.5 years of use. What's the MTBF on that drive, and maybe most importantly, will this drive be on the good side or the bad side of that mean??? Bigger faster drives are cheap compared to loosing a drive full of data and then dealing with replacing it and reloading.

inklein · n00b Joined: 31 May 2006 Posts: 6

What might be useful is keeping the CD-ROM or CD-RW drives. If its a DVD-RW, even more useful. Having multiple cdrom drives can be very handy, and most likely it wont be very slow. I can't see why it wouldn't be compatible, and if it fails, no data should be lost..... unlike the hdd which is probably not very useful.

Kde has an adopt a geek project that you could use to get rid of the rest of the hardware and feel good about it, instead of throwing it out and wrecking the environment.