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Time to reinstall Windows? Or get a new desktop?

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Shades:
You can "refresh" your system without losing your setup of software. How?

Check the following link written by our famed and loved Fred Langa. The text and pictures make it easy to do.

Tried the method myself on 5 different PC's and it really works!

f0dder:
You can "refresh" your system without losing your setup of software. How?

Check the following link written by our famed and loved Fred Langa. The text and pictures make it easy to do.

Tried the method myself on 5 different PC's and it really works!
-Shades (September 09, 2008, 06:25 PM)
--- End quote ---
Nothing beats a fully fresh windows install, though :)

nosh:
Check out Techspot's PC buying guides to get a general idea of what's in store these days - they're fairly recent (June 27) and cover budget, mid and high end configs.

A 2001 rig definitely calls for an upgrade but installing Windows fresh with just what you need would give the system quite a boost. Also, there's no safer time to overclock, if your system permits it, than when you're looking out for a new system.  ;)

Just repeating the advice I was given in a similar thread, consider going in for two smaller HDDs - you can get better performance by putting them in a RAID, even if you don't implement RAID you can be more secure mirroring important data to another physical disk. I found WD's (7200 r.p.m) drives to be slightly slower than Seagate, but cheaper too - and they have the same warranty period.

Fans - I'd guess this would depend to an extent on how hot your video card runs, the newer multi-core CPUs run quite cool, just make sure you have a front fan blowing straight at the HDD/s as f0dder has suggested in more than one thread. My case came with two small ones already installed at the side so look out for something like that. My suggestion, get a BIG case - they're airier and can save you a lot of trouble later if things start getting cramped.

Audio card - Wish I could answer this one conclusively coz I need to decide the same thing for myself. ATM, I have got the onboard audio (Realtek) hooked into a Sony component system and with Foobar's kernel streaming support the sound is _crystal clear_, kind of a damper really... I was looking forward to getting the Xonar Lashiec suggested!  But, never say die!  :D

I assume you aren't considering Vista since you're not looking for a very high end rig, still... just in case... DON'T!

Shades:
@f0dder:

My XP installation is still going strong after 3 years!   :Thmbsup:

But then again...my system is not from 2001.

f0dder:
I've been using onboard audio ever since I got my new rig - I frankly don't see much use for dedicated audio cards anymore, unless you need special input/output for music production needs. Even the analog outputs aren't very noisy these days, and if you have an amplifier with digital inputs, you'll obviously get absolutely zero noise when using a digital output.

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