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Rebuilding a computer and finding the lost city of Atlantis
splash
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
I had a 7 year old Dell Dimenion 4100 and now it's being used by my brother. Surprisingly it runs pretty well for what it is, Dell used to be a good company. I might get some 3-4 year old components from my friend and I'm eager to see what I can do to rebuild it for my brother's birthday this month.
While I was on the old computer today to make sure about reformatting and things it came to fruition that for 3-4 years I had Windows ME but everything had been covered up when I installed XP. Back then I didn't understand that would happen. I easily forgot about it. So at this point I can't really remember what I had and being able to recover it would be like discovering the lost city of Atlantis for me. There must be a lot of interesting stuff. Is there any way to do this pretty easily?
After that's done, I won't be changing the motherboard but perhaps replacing the CPU, hard drive, power supply, and already did a CD/DVD burn drive. It's an OEM copy of Windows XP, is that going to be okay? How does it work to re-register, do you have to do anything? Also I had a slight worry about drivers for the new components and whether I need any of the stuff Dell pre-installed. Since it was probably created by Dell in 2000 is it safe to assume all the new components will... have basic functionality if I go right to installing XP? The CD/DVD drive seems to work good. I really don't want to have to install ME first than XP.
Thanks!
While I was on the old computer today to make sure about reformatting and things it came to fruition that for 3-4 years I had Windows ME but everything had been covered up when I installed XP. Back then I didn't understand that would happen. I easily forgot about it. So at this point I can't really remember what I had and being able to recover it would be like discovering the lost city of Atlantis for me. There must be a lot of interesting stuff. Is there any way to do this pretty easily?
After that's done, I won't be changing the motherboard but perhaps replacing the CPU, hard drive, power supply, and already did a CD/DVD burn drive. It's an OEM copy of Windows XP, is that going to be okay? How does it work to re-register, do you have to do anything? Also I had a slight worry about drivers for the new components and whether I need any of the stuff Dell pre-installed. Since it was probably created by Dell in 2000 is it safe to assume all the new components will... have basic functionality if I go right to installing XP? The CD/DVD drive seems to work good. I really don't want to have to install ME first than XP.
Thanks!
splash on
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To your third paragraph - You might be able to install an OEM version of XP. There are two types of OEM versions - ones locked to a specific computer and generic OEM. The latter options should let you install on any machine, while the former can only be installed on a particular machine to whose BIOS the disk has been locked. If it's an XP install disc that came bundled with a PC from a major manufacturer, chances are it's locked, but the only sure way is to try.
For drivers, it should run. You will, however, have to go on a driver hunt to restore full functionality. I'd advise you do that before reformatting and whatnot, as doing it at a proper resolution on a properly functioning machine is far better than not being able to do it after reformatting/reinstalling Windows because your network card no longer has functional drivers. That's a choice I'll leave up to you.
As for power supplies, i went with this after market one that worked pretty well and isnt too expensive = Link
As for hard drives, anything ATA will work, I just got a quiet 120GB 7200 drive.
So, by the end of the rebuild I had a machine that ran about 1.2 Ghz, 512mb of RAM, 120 gig drive, radeon 9250 pci card and the only part still factory was the motherboard. Ran old stuff great, and ran stuff like EvE, WoW, homeworld 2 decently
Ronzo do you happen to know if the Dell Dimension 4100 is locked like Dark Moon said? I know when I boot up the BIOS it doesn't really let me configure anything = must be locked?
My friend's computer has a broken motherboard and I'm buying parts off him. The CPU still works (3 year old computer) and I'll do the research but I was hoping to put that one in my 7-year old computer. Similarly, the same with the HDD and power supply I can get from him. Right now I figure they are both Dell but separated by about 3 years of technology because his is a miniATX or similar. I found out today it's a Dimension 4600C. I kind of made it unclear because I didn't say first I'm going to combine the best parts for my friend between his broken motherboard Dimension 4600C and Dimension 4700 he got from a relative, and then I get the left-over parts.
Thank you for your advice.
Yeah, you'll probably have to flash your bios. I had to flash mine to a intel one for the new CPU, and that was probably the hardest/scariest part of the whole thing. One wrong move and bam, motherboard is not coming back