My parents recently bought a new computer, and since I've been expressing my interest in building my own computer for awhile they decided to give me their old one to screw around with. It's an old factory built dell 4400 or something like that, it's around 7 years old and right away I saw a lot of things that needed to be upgraded, like the ram and the video card. I plan on getting around to working on those eventually. Before I do anything though, I want to completely wipe the hard drive and reinstall xp. I heard wiping hard drives can lead to problems with your computer or memory if you don't know what your doing, so I wanted to ask if anyone here has had any experience doing this and could give me some pointers or instructions on how to do this before I started.

Just so you know, I'm not planning on building this for crysis or heavy video editing. I just need a basic yet effective computer to play some of my games (starcraft, spore, runescape, ect.) and for playing music and editing basic videos (YTP lol). I don't know a lot of the exact specs yet as the computer isn't set up right now and I haven't gotten a chance to look at them yet, but I do know it has an Intel Pentium 4 processor 1.6GHz, 252 MB DDR RAM, an NvIdia video card that has a 2 on it, and no integrated ether net port (it has two NICS, one for ethernet and one for modem! lol). Don't really know anything about the mobo and the PSU and cooling are integrated into the case.

I realize finding parts compatible with this model might be a challenge, and since I didn't see anything in the rules against asking does someone know a good tech store that sells old computer parts that might be compatible with my computer? I would just use newegg, but I haven't setup paypal yet and due to technicalities I'm not going to anytime soon.

If I upgrade my ram, do I need to use old ram from around when my mobo was made or can I use newer models? I have no idea how compatibility works

Thanks for reading that I hope that made sense Any help or suggestions are welcomed!

i know one thing, if you want to wipe your hardive maek sure you have the XP install disc or better yet get Windows 7 (w7) apperntly w7 is really good, for computer parts >this< is good, alot of parts for building, for building computers, i have no experience with it. Sorry

Yeah I still have the xp install disc. I'm going to use that since I can't run windows 7 until I upgrade my RAM.

I also know about newegg I can't use it though since I haven't set up paypal and I don't want to use other forms of payment. My friends use newegg and I have browsed around there before so once I get everything all in order payment wise I'm going to start using it.

Could anyone tell me the process of wiping a hard drive? I don't know where to begin on that.

maek sure you have the CD key to actavaite XP, drivers if avaible (if not download) it should come up reinstal or uninstall come up (not 100% sure) i have never had to uninstall it so sorry, make sure you have the CD key it is cruicle.

Windows 7 won't even install on that. Stick to XP forever on that machine.

The max ram it probably supports is 512MB. That'll run you up about 30 bucks for DDR, and even then you'll still face the fact that a 1.6 pentium and crazy old graphics.

Is there an AGP slot on it? You could maybe get an AGP card and plug one in. Maybe that would be around 30-40 bucks.

Could you also try upgrading the processor to something a little faster? 3ghz for 80 bucks isn't too bad of a deal. I'm not sure if that would work, though. I have a friend with a Dell and their proprietary parts are a real pain to deal with. That's OEM meaning there's no fan or heatsink, but if you can get to the processor in your computer and pop it out, then you should just be able to pop it in.

So for a /decent/, and I say that loosely, computer with a 3.0ghz P4, 512MB DDR RAM, and a /decent/ AGP card, it'll run you up around $150.

I'd use that money to save up for a better computer. You can build a better computer for 300 that is more upgradeable in the future.

Here's the real question: why even bother? I'd personally say that you should basically harvest the hard drive and optical drives and build new from there. MANY times better performance and about the same price.

Crap I was kinda expecting this reaction I found out how to wipe my Hdd and I'm in the process of updating drivers right now. Here's the specs I could find on my video card: NVIDIA GeForce MX/MX 400. A piece of crap, basically.

I don't really have an option to build a new computer right now, so this was going to be the one I use until I can afford to build a new one. Right now I guess it's down to a moral obligation on whether to be patient with my crap computer or have a slightly less crappy computer that can actually do stuff for a few hundred washingtons less than it would take to build a new one.

Honestly, I wouldn't even bother. You can just buy a new computer with Windows 7 on it. You probably couldn't even sell the parts on that thing. The old graphics card is worth maybe $10, RAM for $20, just because of the metal. You could always just buy a netbook. They are really cheap, only about $300. If you can't build your own, customize one online.
~Vincent

I'm not getting a netbook. Their not sufficient for what I need.

Yeah i talked with some of my techie friends and they suggested the same thing. I'm going to salvage what parts I can and sell, donate, dispose of the rest.



Do you think you could give me some help finding parts for a computer like that?