Questions on PC upgrading

Croaking_Toad SG

Lately I noticed smoke coming out from my pc's power supply. Time to discard the old bucket of bolts.

The specs are as follows:

AMD-K6-2/500 (yes, really old) on a GA-5AX motherboard, running on 384Mb SDRAM. Creative 3D TNT2 Blaster 32MB. Sound blaster live! value sound card.

I would like to salvage the graphics and sound card. I know the days' of SDRAM are long gone. Was thinking of getting a pentium 4 CPU (No celeron please!)

Can anyone recommend a low-end motherboard from msi, gigabyte or asus that I can reuse my old graphics and soundcard?

Would it be a good idea to get one of the packages available for SLS and knock off whatever I don't need, or get the individual components ie. CPU, motherboard, fan, RAM, casing and power supply.

Budget is $300-400 total.

ndmmxiaomayi SG

I'm not sure whether the damage done to your PSU has damaged your motherboard as well. If your motherboard has been damaged, there's also a chance that any other expansion cards might have been damaged as well.

You can try to salvage it, but not too sure if it will cost problems.

Pricelist

PointBlue SG

You may also find this thread useful: http://forums.hardwarezone.com/showthread.php?t=1093205

Croaking_Toad SG

After that incident where smoke started to emit from the PSU, I continued to use it for numerous times without other incident. Everything was fine. Sound worked as well as the graphics. Until few nights ago, there was a loud pop. But the computer was still running. I believe that must be the last straw on the donkey's back. Haven't switched it on since.

pipipopo SG

according to your report its obvious which part of the pc assembly you should work on first, unless you need a real good reason to upgrade your century old PC.

Croaking_Toad SG

Yes, it's time to throw the ancient pc away. I hope to salvage the cards. But with so many motherboards out there, which one is still able to support the graphics and sound cards. Or is it worth salvaging at all? Advice please.

pipipopo SG

the above posts by the mod and other members may help. but u must know if youhave the budget or is willing to spend on a new PC or upgrade. u must also know what u hav been using yr PC for all this while, was it plain light internet surf or what?

u could have isolated the PC system prob when u see a smoking PSU by replacing it but as NDMxiaomayi has written now allthe parts might have been affected including the graphics card and sound card. i am not sure how close u r in touch with music but with most modern P4 or A64 mobos there is hardly a need for your old soundcard at all unless you are in to music recording and need the legacy ports at the rear for music output and the ones at the soudn card for dubbing/ music input.

since u hav opt for the upgade path it will take a few more lengthy posts from ppl here to brief you on the history and models of the various parts of a PC but buying an OEM unit should solve your prob fast. after all most now costs less than S$1000/- (e.g Dell) with the OS bundled. moreover the year is coming to an end and many sales and promotion going on.