PC repair or replace

My parents have a 7yo dell desktop. About a year and a half ago the HD died and I replaced it with a new 500GB and upgraded it to Win7 from Vista. Recently the PSU went. Being a slim case PC, the PSU is a TFX. Newegg has several, this one looks best.

The system specks are dated, but serviceable(2.? 2x athlon, 3gb ram) for basic use. The PSU is likely the last thing to be replaced. Mobo is dated, and the slim case doesn't lend itself to a custom build. The only parts that would live on would be the newer HD and possibly the optical drive and card reader.

So, drop a final $40 into it or pull what I can and start over?

Drop $40 of new PSU into it, easy. Just the case to build a new PC in would cost you that much.

If it currently does what it needs to, then put the 40 into it. Your parents can get another year or two out of it, and then you can upgrade them to something that will run the latest iteration of Bill Gates' horrible creation.

Provided the machine doesn't use a Dell homebrew PSU...

^Good point. When I heard it was a Dell I was surprised it used ANY kind of standard PSU. Dell loves them some proprietary hardware.

I'd get a PSU and run it for a while. Then start keeping an eye out on new systems when Bill Gates releases the next creation, naturally waiting a few months for the bugs to be worked out and stablized.

Looking to do something similar on my home desktop. Onboard video processor is dying, crashes regularly. Don't want anything to do with Windows 8, heard about the next release called Windows 10 (have no idea what happened to 9). Going to buy a video card, install and disable onboard video. Will be an upgrade, currently shared memory that will become all RAM and video card has its own RAM.

Windows 9 had a version information conflict with Windows 95/98. Win10 is a free upgrade if you have Win7 or newer.

I thought Dell's were all proprietary stuff? I did finally cave and buy a Dell last year, couldn't pass up the $450 with good enough specs to do video editing. I just didn't have the time or energy to build anymore.

But for $40? Yeah, give it a go.

I thought so. It is a secondary use computer. Mom won't touch the thing, dad has his laptop, and all he does on that is internet and an engine/dyno sim program. This is mostly for printer use and the grandkids hop on and play some browser games. In the past it ran CS3 and WoW.

As far as the fit in the dell case, there are multiple reviews with the same dell and it fits fine.

Jerry wrote: I thought Dell's were all proprietary stuff?

Not all, but I would guess more than half of their PCs have a proprietary case & mainboard (which usually comes with a wacky CPU cooler), and close to that many would have a proprietary PSU.

The other half isn't aimed at average home users.

GameboyRMH wrote: Win10 is a free upgrade if you have Win7 or newer.

Free? Microsoft? You gotta be kidding! It'll be free long enough to get it installed, and then they will start billing you monthly for an inferior product, just like Comcast.

It's possible, but on the other hand Microsoft's new CEO knows that the massive price of the OS is bad for their business and has talked about releasing a version of Windows for free...

BoxheadTim wrote: Provided the machine doesn't use a Dell homebrew PSU...

GameboyRMH wrote: ^Good point. When I heard it was a Dell I was surprised it used ANY kind of standard PSU. Dell loves them some proprietary hardware.

Jerry wrote: I thought Dell's were all proprietary stuff?

Dell stopped using proprietary stuff over a decade ago (2003).

1988RedT2 wrote:

GameboyRMH wrote: Win10 is a free upgrade if you have Win7 or newer.

Free? Microsoft? You gotta be kidding! It'll be free long enough to get it installed, and then they will start billing you monthly for an inferior product, just like Comcast.

No, that's only for "gamers" too stupid to realize that paying for an internet connection, plus a monthly game subscription and the game(s) on top of the console is just money down a hole for some "entertainment"

GameboyRMH wrote: It's possible, but on the other hand Microsoft's new CEO knows that the massive price of the OS is bad for their business and has talked about releasing a version of Windows for free...

They realized that Linux was finally poised to kick their butts in the private sector and Apple has been doing nearly free upgrades for decades.

GameboyRMH wrote: Windows 9 had a version information conflict with Windows 95/98. Win10 is a free upgrade if you have Win7 or newer.

OK, do I want too? Don't know anything about Win10. Have Win7 at home and at work. No real issues with it. Sort of like it after I got used to it.

Win10 isn't out yet, but by the time it is you'll probably want to move onto it just because Win7 will be pretty old at that point. It would be best to take advantage of the free upgrade to avoid paying game console money for a copy of Win10, and you can be sure Microsoft will be doing the old DirectX trickery to have newer games only run on the latest versions of Windows.