i know one of you builds custom pc's...i have a question!

[themadness]

my uncle found what i think is a gaming tower in one of his rental properties. i have no clue really what i'm looking at b/c it has lots of stuff regular pc's dont. its ruff as a corn cob cosmetically but does work. the only thing i have managed to find so far is the oldschool mouse port doesnt work. whats this thing worth if anything and what can a non-gamer do with it. i havent tested its speed or what not until i can grab a usb mouse that works.

[Money pit Beretta]

Open it up and see what kind of graphics card it has. Try to find the brand and model of the mother board too. If you get it up and running go to PC Pit Stop and do a scan. That will check for problems and give you some info on the computer(then you won't really need to open it up).

DTMAce is the computer builder here.

[themadness]

i finally got it running and it only has windows xp on it. looks like a fresh install. as far as the hardware, i will have to look. there are some random harnesses unplugged here and there, 2 fans, and several usb ports. the case isnt in great shape either....

[berettaboi]

download.com and search "cpuid"

[RobertISaar]

CPU-Z specifically will give you some pretty detailed info on the CPU/RAM. not sure if there is any program to reliably identify the video card though.

assuming you open it up, take plenty of pics.

could also run a benchmark on it to get some idea of whether or not it's got some power to it, last time i built a gaing rig (late 07, early 08), futuremark's 3dmark was a pretty widely accepted benchmarking suite.

[DTMAce]

It probably isn't going to be worth much, if its like that. I have an idea, take a picture of it. LOL

Custom build to me, means you build it outside of its intended design. This can be from using colored fans, colored wiring, aftermarket cooling, case modding (paint, cutting, adding, etc).

My advice. Unless its got better than the older dual core processors, its probably not going to be worth more than a couple hundred. And if its even older than that, you will be lucky to get more than 50. Check the BIOS revision date, that will give you some idea of how old the system is. Check the build date on the parts, etc. Run CPUID as suggested, it will give you the specs on what processor, how much and the speed of the memory, and what graphics card it has.

Chances are, if its rough and ugly, its better tossed or parted out.

Oh, and take it from me. Don't use an online diagnostic. They are about a 50/50 chance of helping or finding any real problems and they can report problems even on a brand spanking new perfectly working computer out of the box. So as tech, I never ever recommend those sort of sites. This is because most of them check your computer against a template of what that site/company thinks your computer should have for settings, programs, drivers, etc. But no two computers are built the same way, so they don't always have the same settings. Hence the problem.

As with drivers, unless something ISN'T working, I usually don't update them (unless its a brand new machine I'm building), same goes for the BIOS. If they work, don't gently caress with them. lol But keep everything else updated.

[themadness]

as mentioned it only has xp on it now. all i did is erased the old user accounts....buncha facebook addicted teens. if it werent so dang big i might would try to use it to run netflix in my spare room but its a monster and my house is small. it has some cool led lights on each side of the front.....wonder if i could snatch them and make some mood lights in the car

[RobertISaar]

i see 3 standard PCI and what looks to be a single AGP slot on that motherboard...... i haven't seen any motherboards released since ~early 2007 that still had AGP slots.

that's the best reference i can see. the fact that it's unpopulated as well means it's a ricer of a computer(all show, no go).

[themadness]

well i'm just going to start snatching what i think i can use. i saw write up on instructables.com on how to make a portable fan from a pc fan. i might try to salvage those led light bars on each side somehow. put some of what i can use in my other pc....memory, dvd drive....what ever else. any ideas from you guys? looks like there is a lot of stuff in there.

[3X00-Modified]

that's the best reference i can see. the fact that it's unpopulated as well means it's a ricer of a computer(all show, no go).

LOL!

[DTMAce]

Yikes. Toss that thing. Not worth its weight in scrap. AGP based systems are too old for me to mess with anymore. Memory is going to be DDR or SDRAM, which means that unless you have a computer that's the same age, the ram is worthless. If I had one that age, best I might get out of it is $25, IF it actually had some goodie to it. That one doesn't. Might have eye candy, but these days that kind of stuff is cheap brand new.

Right now I don't take trade-ins, unless they are at least DDR P4 HT class 2.8 or faster (or the AMD equivalent) with PCIe and SATA. After the first of the year, going to stick to socket 775 and higher chips on trade in value. These are computers that I will actually give customers a small discount for. Might be 25-50 bucks, but hey, it helps. I typically wipe them, reload them and sell them for 50-100, depending on what they got or if I can tweak them faster, more memory, etc. I just scrapped 10 computers last week, either because they were too old, had blown caps, or other failures. I also scrapped over 20 hard drives. Took a big mallet and pounded every one of them into pulp first too.

I did recently trade in a Dell XPS 700 gaming rig. http://reviews.cnet.com/desktops/dell-x ... 72975.html
Bad ass system when they came out 6 years ago. Core2 Extreme (over clockable in the Dell bios), dual nVidia 7900GTX cards, 2GB, dual 160GB SATA RAID 0, Dual DVD burners, 1KW PSU, customizable porch LED lighting, the works. I traded it in for about $150, sold it for $250, so I made a 100 on it. Damn nice system, but huge. Nearly 60LBs, stood over 2 ft tall, nearly a foot wide and quite deep. Solid aluminum outer housing. Sold for 2700-3200 when new. Anyway. THAT would be an old computer that is worth something. lol

[themadness]

well so far i repurposed one of the fans to run in the car via cig lighter plug. hung it in front of the vent to aid airflow. makes a difference too. i broke down the hard drive as well. one of the disc is now a shower mirror LOL. the strong ass magnets are in the think tank to be used in th car somewhere....maybe to mount a phone holder or something. i tried to save the LEDs but they werent working. now i have some small plexiglass pieces, the hard drive body that is machined, and still looking for some other things i might be able to upcycle.

[Beretta1234567]

That looks like the intel version E-Machines motherboard and there is no graphics card plugged into it from what I can tell.
It has imbedded nVidia graphics driver chip, thats about it.
That is what the south bridge chip most likely will say on it.

The E Machines Motherboards came in many different colors like green, yellow, red, blue, etc...
And the north bridge was sometimes turned like on mine, most always they were straight like on yours.
And theey only had 2 slots, rarly did you find one with 4 slots that were 2x2 channels, ours are just 2x1 channel.

Your Motherboard is probably around 10-12 years old, as is mine.
Mine you can see has a graphics card in it.
Its not the fastest computer, but it works good enough, I used to use it as a minecraft server when it was able to.
Now it sits and sometimes I use it as a file server or home proxy.


Specs of your board from what I can tell of its components:
Mother board has RS232, LTP port, PSU, PSE, audio, digital audio, microphone, 4 USB ports.
2 ram slots, DDR2 max per slot is 2 GB.
Max supported HHD's is 2. Max CD drives is 2, Optional Card reader like I have. Support for floppy drives, max 2.
Support for direct audio from disk drives to Motherboard to Graphics card and back. (Thats those grey wires).

I'm assuming your Processor is a single core intel running around 1.0-1.4 GHz.

---------------------------

It is a descent every day average use computer, will not play much of anything as far as games.
I suggest keeping windows XP on it if you will keep it, It will lag with Vista/7, even with 8.
If it was me, I would keep the case and find a motherboard and other components that will work in it and build a good gaming PC with it.
Someone might buy that Motherboard as parts on ebay.

EDIT:
Photo of mine attached.