Computer refurbishment question.
 

Last year I took an old, (8 years) computer base unit to France, taking with it a new fs monitor, keyboard and mouse.

It performed well enough, considering the hopeless state of French internet, but last time there, after being OK for three days, it refused to boot up.

Home it came and the local guys say that all the capacitors have swollen and it's had it?:wonder:

It has an 80GB hard drive, and 500MB RAM, and is running an AMD Athlon processor, NOT a dual or quad core. It uses XP.

Is it worth me asking them to refurb it, or should I just start again?

Refurb price is around £130-150, a new one, (with FAR better specs), can be had from Currys, Comet or PC World for around £230-280 just as a base unit.
TIA

Start again. For that money you can pick up another base unit easily and possibly with a better spec inside.
As a suggestion have a look around for a Shuttle system, these are small and very good systems. It's what I buy now. Or either that for the money why not pick up a second-hand laptop, again you'll get a better spec than the base unit.
Plus less to cart around with you :)

Laptops, I've used but I don't like the lack of mouse.

Both our laptops at home have wireless mice :D and we have a USB mouse in the shape of a car LOL

Shaun

If you are handy with a soldering iron, you can solder on new capacitors. I would probably just buy a new motherboard with the same socket for your processor and swap it all around, probably only cost you £40

Bin it, get something new.

Hold on a min chaps, if the man only uses it for email and the odd letter, why waste more money?

A new motherboard is probably pennies for such an old machine, easy fix.

If the capacitors have gone on the rectifying circuit ( they tend to go after a few years) it could be a case of replacing the psu which is fairly cheap.

It has already had one new psu, about three years ago.

Jeff have a look at CCL computers, a dual core cpu, memory & mobo combination can be as little as £114, and I could pick it up, and deliver/build for a coffee and a biscuit.... I have a 500W PSU spare ( later boards have up-graded psu requirements).

dunx

Start again; I just purchased a new Dell base station at work for under £250, including OS (win7), mouse and keyboard. (Dell Vostro 230MT D042306: £199+vat + free delivery coupon)

Or as mentioned above, if you like to fiddle about. Just buy the bits;

Hard drive (160gb SATA2 ) £27,
RAM (1gb DDR2) £20,
PSU £20,
Motherboard (Gigabyte, mATX, onboard VGA and sound) £35
CPU (intel celeron e3300 dual core) £40.

Add the salvageble parts; DVD drive, keyboard, mouse, original OS, and case etc: £0. And this will give you a new PC for £150 delivered (parts source: ebuyer). :thumb:

I usually build my own, but I bought a Dell because the case on the existing machine was pretty scabby (and full size ATX, would rather have a smaller mATX) as was the mouse/keyboard, DVD drives were full of dust and crud, case fans were knackered, and I needed to a new operating system as we lost the OEM disks plus the label with the XP serial number on the case was illegible (damn cleaners :rolleyes: ), new OS alone was £80, so a built PC was a no brainer - as it was much higher spec for only £20 more.

All you need to do is plug in a mouse into a laptop, but will possibly be a USB type to work, or if you have a ps/2 type already you can get PS/2 to USB converter plugs for pennies off E-bay :) The same goes for the keyboard ;)

If it is purely for internet and email what about one of those Revo things? Plenty good enough for internet and email and been some stupidly low prices on them recently. For example:

ACER Revo R3610

It was £20 cheaper recently but still good spec for the money.

Jeff what do the Frenchies use for a supply spec. for electrickery out there ?

Could this have killed the psu, i.e. non-uk supply voltage....

dunx

I'd second this.
Would be light enough to carry over there whenever you want.
Lack of optical drive though.
But you can remove your old one, and the 80GB HDD, get some usb enclosures, and use them.


Edit: Didn't notice the cost of that in the link, these would be better: http://www.ebuyer.com/product/167153...otd&hp_deal=10

A bit of playing around to install an OS though, but I take it you have the licence key from yor old PC?

Cute but a dual core cpu with 2 Gb of memory ( for less ! ) is going to be a bit more future-proof, IMHO.

dunx