14 Dec 2015, 10:22 am
EnglishInvader wrote:
Sethno wrote:
You could also help by suggesting a power supply, but it has to fit the slot the existing case had for the original power supply. If you're interested, I can post the measurements of the original.
If the slot size is standard ATX, any ATX PSU should do the trick. The most important thing is that you buy a good quality brand like Corsair or Antec (cheap power supplies have a high failure rate and can damage other components). 500w should be sufficient (not sure if the extra RAM in your build warrants a stronger PSU).
You can buy new cases for about £30 so you're not really saving much by shoe-horning your build into a proprietary case (just making more work for yourself by forcing a square peg into a round hole). You may even find that Gateway used a proprietary PSU and that there is no space for a generic power supply.
You could save money on the RAM. 4GB would be sufficient since you plan to use onboard graphics and don't intend to do any gaming/video editing, 8GB would give you a bit of growing room but 16GB is a completely different universe (most gamers don't even need that kind of memory).
Funny. I've been looking at Corsairs. The measurements I've found of several power supplies I've looked at seem to be within 1/16 of an inch of that of the original. Good chance they'll fit, even if Gateway used unusual specs on the original. I've been thinking anywhere from 450w to 600w, so your 500 suggestion helps narrow it down a bit. Thank you.
As for the case/tower, the point of this is to make the old case be the home of a new computer. The fun of having it LOOK like the old computer, but have it actually run and be a lot more up to date.
Do appreciate the advice on the memory. I may limit myself to four 2gb sticks, then, and end up with 8gb. (The board goes up to 32, but that seemed extreme, so I cut it in half. Now... Maybe cut it down to one quarter?)
Little by little, I'm getting there...
16 Dec 2015, 8:14 am
Edenthiel is right about the memory 4gb you can probably be fine with depends on your usage. 8gb for the price it's just best to put that amount in so you have room to breath (don't forget your augmenting the file system cache with spare ram)
16gb is a waste for nearly everyone I do actually use about 10-12gb at work but I have about 5-6 copies of visual studio open sql server, mongodb and elasticsearch running so... it's to be expected. At home I have 16gb and I rarely hit the 4gb point and I do sometimes have 2 games open and some browser games.
If your into video editing image editing you would also need 16gb+ but in these cases your getting into a special machine anyway and wouldn't bother updating an old one!
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)25 Dec 2015, 1:43 am
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