Hey Jim,
I'm still a Windoze XP guy. Yeah, it's 11 years old, but it's fast, does
everything I need, and I have a legit license for it on the dozen or so
machines I take care of. Don't know anyone that likes Vista. I've used 7
a little bit, and didn't see any reason to "upgrade". Mostly just frilly
graphics, and when I finally found what I was looking for, it was the
same identical friggin' dialogue box from XP. Just hidden much better.
Anyway [rant off] from what I know of windows, any hardware change like
a system board is gonna' make it refuse to boot. The Dell I recommended,
much as I like them, is getting old at this point and takes DDR2 memory,
which is a bunch more expensive & incompatible with DDR3. It sounds
like you have an OEM licensed version of windows, so yes -- it is tied
to the system, and you can't legally transfer it to another box. Even if
you wanted to, it will probably tell you it's not on the HP it was sold
for, and refuse to install.
If you're happy with what you had, I'd try to score an identical mobo'
or system on Ebay and drop it in. Otherwise, buy a case & board from
newegg.com and build one. I'd recommend ASUS, Gateway, or MSI in that
order for boards. ASUS is somewhat pricey, but they've been the OEM
supplier to HP, IBM, and Compaq for the last couple decades. Top notch.
Shoot - your HP probably has the video integrated on the board. There's
an NVidia 8400 series board you can get for about $35 that's my fave.
It's like the slowest chipset on the market today, but by being slow
it's low-power; you can get a nice quiet fan-less board that's fast
enough for any general use. Unless you're into video games or cad/cam,
no sense running up your electric bill and listening to a fan shriek.
-w
On 8/19/2012 11:41 PM, Jim Stone wrote:
> Well, based on what I have learned here and through my online research, I
> don't think it will be worth the expense and effort to replace my motherboard.
> However, I really don't want to spend much money on a new one right now, so I
> am thinking about getting a used or refurbished one. I'd like to keep it
> under $200. Ideally, I would like something at least as fast as what I
> currently have (HP Pavilion 5150T, Intel Dual Core processor E5300, 4GB DR3 -
> 1066MHZ SDRAM, 640GB SATA HD). Also ideally, I would like to be able to just
> move my current hard drive over to the new PC and have two internal hard
> drives. (I know I can get a SATA case, but I did say "ideally".) And, while
> I am wishing, it would be nice to be able to move my memory cards over to the
> new PC to increase it's power for free. I would also like it to run Windows
> 7, although I could probably be talked out of that if necessary. (I may be
> wrong about this, but I don't think I can transfer my current copy over. I
> bought my HP right before Win7 was released, and it came with an automatic
> upgrade once the system was out. As I recall, there was something in the
> license that said it couldn't be transferred to another machine. But, I could
> be wrong about that.)
>
> So, my first question is: does anyone have any recommendations for a good,
> reputable place to buy a refurbished PC? Beyond that, any recommendations on
> a specific PC? Following Wayne's advice, I have been looking at Dell
> Precision 390's. They seem to be at the upper end of my price range, but
> something like this might work:
> http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=110935816819&fromMakeTrack
> =true&ssPageName=VIP:watchlink:top:en
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