Fun repairing home PC

It's a Dell Inspiron 518.
K068D DG33M04 Socket 775


I went to the basement to see if I have a spare fan. Nope.

 

CPU speed is dictated by the Mobo, likely what was installed is the fastest it will run.

And to be fair, Grizzly Adam mentioned the fan first, I just agreed and re-emphasized his point.


I likely have a CPU fan that would work if you'd like me to peruse the carcasses I still have.

 

If you have a moment, that's my last ditch effort before I go to new pc time.

 

Some advice for the future-- don't buy just a new motherboard unless its a direct replacement. Get a motherboard combo, they come with CPU and fan. If doing a major upgrade you can get them with RAM too.

 

It was a direct replacement though. Same exact Dell model #

 

Even still, it isn't that big of a deal to buy another board. (so long as it's the same socket as cpu)
All that will happen worst case, is you have to format the drive for a fresh install of the OS.
Best case scenario, the OS boots and installs new hardware drivers.
example. MY SSD died, I took a drive out of a Win10 machine that I didn't care about.
Connected it to my PC and it booted right to win10, (my pc is win7)

 

My first action in these cases is to secure the data. Throw the drive into a working pc and back up the important stuff. You can also get a cheap USB conversion case to put the drive into if you don’t want to tear into 2 boxes at once.

 

I think I'm just going to buy a new pc. I found refurbished dells on Amazon with Windows 10 for 175. Shipped.

I don't need it to do much, just basic home PC crap.

I think this will work fine. Reviews are good. It's a 2016 Dell updated to windows 10. There's room in the case for the old hdd, and I can upgrade it with a better video card, with my new PS.

What do you guys think?

 

I would probably do it for 175 in your shoes.
Sure couldn't build one for that price and assuredly not at the performance level most likely.

 

Yeah, it seems like a good deal, and well do what I need. My old PC was windows Vista, and but even supported anymore.

 

It's here.

Now hooking it up. There's only an hdmi output on the new pc. My old monitor which works just fine, only has a serial(?) Cable input.


So I am pretty sure I can just take the old video card out, as I did, and plug it in the new pc? There's a spot. Should it just simply go in and then boot it up?

 

You should be good.
It will search for vid card drivers, but it should be a simple process

 

Thanks bud!

 

Progress...

I'll let it boot up and rescale the screen.

I'm a user. Lol

 

I monkeyed with the video display and it's better, but not quite right.

Now I just have to get it all set up, then I can get to adding the old HDD from the old puter and hopefully it's all there and able to be read.

 

It's better now.

It just auto set itself to a more optimized display setting.

I installed chrome, and it seems to log into the internet just fine.

I changed the password too

Tomorrow or over the weekend I'll take the old hdd and try to install it on the new pc.

 

Best $175 spent. I could've chased and wasted a lot more time and money trying to fix the old one.

 

My wife approves the new PC.

 

Ok, I tried to hook up the old hard drive to the new pc, and after hooking it up, now the oc won't start. Ugggggg

Why did I do that? Any ideas. I unhooked the old hdd from the wiring and it still won't start up.

 

Our old computer died awhile back, so I'm gonna re-read the posts, and pester some of you in the future for info.