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My parents computer has aged a great deal - it is a Systemax PC (Tiger Direct's brand) from about 15 years ago, and it's time they had something more modern. The Systemax simply doesn't keep up even with basic tasks like web browsing anymore, and my father uses Ebay almost daily (buying and selling parts for old machinery.) I thought it'd be a nice xmas gift to build them a new one, or almost new, anyway.
I pulled my last build out of the basement - it was completely intact besides the power supply. I figured that's all I needed, so that's what I ordered at the end of November. When it finally arrived, I installed the PSU and hooked all the jumpers up, and then realized I didn't have a spare DVI cable (goes from the graphics port to the monitor) anywhere. I -probably- threw it out or burned it when I got rid of basically every non-essential item I had stashed away this fall. At any rate, I had to order the cable - because I don't even think we have a radio shack locally anymore - and wait for that.
The cable came Saturday. I hooked up everything up, and no post on the monitor after boot. I took that graphics card out, hoping it was simply bad from sitting around for 8 years or so, and tried a slightly newer one. No dice. Tried the newest one I had laying around, nope. Well okay then, chances are it's not the graphics card. Chances are it's the mainboard, actually, since a mainboard will post even if there's no CPU attached - but I figured I better be sure.
So I pulled the heatsink assembly from the CPU, and much to my surprise, the CPU pulled out of the mount simultaneously. It was fused to the heatsink. Some of the pins were bent - you're not supposed to be able to pull a CPU out of the mount without releasing the lever that locks it in place. I got those back in order, cleaned the thermal grease from the face of it, and set it back in the mount. Powered up - no post. Alright, this thing is toast, then.
I pulled the RAM out (8 gigs of NVIDIA DDR2) pulled the PSU out, pulled the new 128gb SSD, the new CD drive, and the old 200gig HD, and set upon myself to find a cheap new tower case and mainboard that was compatible with the processor and the ram. But guess what? They aren't readily available anymore. Socket AM2 was impossible to find brand new and not in some "ITX" model which won't mount in the vast majority of cases, besides having a real lack of PCI and PCIe slots. So I had to do what I didn't want to do - basically scrap the RAM and processor, and buy new.
I found a 3.9ghz dual core AMD processor for about 50 bucks, a mid-tower case for about 50 bucks, 8 gigs of overclocked, 2400 speed DDR3 ram, and a microATX mainboard (with 1 PCIe, and 1 PCI slot - just enough.) The total was about $180. The total for the PSU and the SSD from the end of november was also about $180. So mid-week I will basically have an entirely new PC, sans the 200gb HD and the O/S (I have a copy of VISTA not currently in use) for about $360. That's pretty freaking good, isn't it? The processor itself, even though it's only a dual core, is actually better than mine in clock speed, and it's only 65 watt...which SHOULD mean it runs fairly cool. I'm pretty stoked about getting it running at this point, even though it's not for me.
But all of this has me thinking - If I threw in another $150, bringing the total to about $510, I can build entirely new PCs with these specs. I have to wonder if I could sell them for a profit? I guess the graphics card would step the pricetag up a bit more as well, but some of the older models - like the one I'm running (a GTX 780ti) can be bought for around $100. If I sold them for $700-$750, I'd have covered my shipping and probably $25/h in labor. I love building computers - probably the only "skill" I really have - but I'm just not sure the market is there for mid to high-end computer systems that have zero warranty, and not only that, but I know if I can't sell locally, I won't be able to sell at all - tons of people already do this very thing and sell on Ebay or elsewhere, or even run their own websites. Kindof a hard market to get oneself into...and the same could be said about computer diagnostics and repair. Locally (in a County of about 20,000 people) we have three or more repair shops with numbers in the phone book...hard to believe that any of them can do it without being independently wealthy already.
I pulled my last build out of the basement - it was completely intact besides the power supply. I figured that's all I needed, so that's what I ordered at the end of November. When it finally arrived, I installed the PSU and hooked all the jumpers up, and then realized I didn't have a spare DVI cable (goes from the graphics port to the monitor) anywhere. I -probably- threw it out or burned it when I got rid of basically every non-essential item I had stashed away this fall. At any rate, I had to order the cable - because I don't even think we have a radio shack locally anymore - and wait for that.
The cable came Saturday. I hooked up everything up, and no post on the monitor after boot. I took that graphics card out, hoping it was simply bad from sitting around for 8 years or so, and tried a slightly newer one. No dice. Tried the newest one I had laying around, nope. Well okay then, chances are it's not the graphics card. Chances are it's the mainboard, actually, since a mainboard will post even if there's no CPU attached - but I figured I better be sure.
So I pulled the heatsink assembly from the CPU, and much to my surprise, the CPU pulled out of the mount simultaneously. It was fused to the heatsink. Some of the pins were bent - you're not supposed to be able to pull a CPU out of the mount without releasing the lever that locks it in place. I got those back in order, cleaned the thermal grease from the face of it, and set it back in the mount. Powered up - no post. Alright, this thing is toast, then.
I pulled the RAM out (8 gigs of NVIDIA DDR2) pulled the PSU out, pulled the new 128gb SSD, the new CD drive, and the old 200gig HD, and set upon myself to find a cheap new tower case and mainboard that was compatible with the processor and the ram. But guess what? They aren't readily available anymore. Socket AM2 was impossible to find brand new and not in some "ITX" model which won't mount in the vast majority of cases, besides having a real lack of PCI and PCIe slots. So I had to do what I didn't want to do - basically scrap the RAM and processor, and buy new.
I found a 3.9ghz dual core AMD processor for about 50 bucks, a mid-tower case for about 50 bucks, 8 gigs of overclocked, 2400 speed DDR3 ram, and a microATX mainboard (with 1 PCIe, and 1 PCI slot - just enough.) The total was about $180. The total for the PSU and the SSD from the end of november was also about $180. So mid-week I will basically have an entirely new PC, sans the 200gb HD and the O/S (I have a copy of VISTA not currently in use) for about $360. That's pretty freaking good, isn't it? The processor itself, even though it's only a dual core, is actually better than mine in clock speed, and it's only 65 watt...which SHOULD mean it runs fairly cool. I'm pretty stoked about getting it running at this point, even though it's not for me.
But all of this has me thinking - If I threw in another $150, bringing the total to about $510, I can build entirely new PCs with these specs. I have to wonder if I could sell them for a profit? I guess the graphics card would step the pricetag up a bit more as well, but some of the older models - like the one I'm running (a GTX 780ti) can be bought for around $100. If I sold them for $700-$750, I'd have covered my shipping and probably $25/h in labor. I love building computers - probably the only "skill" I really have - but I'm just not sure the market is there for mid to high-end computer systems that have zero warranty, and not only that, but I know if I can't sell locally, I won't be able to sell at all - tons of people already do this very thing and sell on Ebay or elsewhere, or even run their own websites. Kindof a hard market to get oneself into...and the same could be said about computer diagnostics and repair. Locally (in a County of about 20,000 people) we have three or more repair shops with numbers in the phone book...hard to believe that any of them can do it without being independently wealthy already.
