Upgrade or replace?

[Resonance03]

So I have this old Dell computer that I've had for the last 10 years (literally since I was about 6), and in all honesty, it sucks. It's abysmal. It has no excuse to even turn on anymore. In fact, it's just been sitting plugged in in the basement over near a wall for about 2-3 years. I have two other desktops and a laptop that work just fine and are fine for mainstream use. The thing is, recently I've been considering using the old desktop as a linux box. The funny thing is, it can't even handle that. So here's the question... seeing as it's not going to be used for anything hardcore, and probably won't ever even have a monitor attached to it (PuTTY ftw), would it be better to just go through Newegg and replace the outdated hardware, that being the RAM (768 MB at the moment... weird number), the processor, and motherboard, with some more uptodate but still for all practical purposes crappy hardware, or would it be better to just get a whole new box for $450 or something?

When I say crappy replacements, I mean like... the cheapest stuff on newegg that's been made in the last 5 years and doesn't have a reputation for breaking.

 

[Jolin88]

if you make such changes most likely you'll have to throw in a new PSU too, and there you have already a whole new rig, except for graphic card
replace and upgrade would amount to the same thing : replacing it

 

[Sardaukar]

Yup, your only choice is to donate it to a school or something, and just replace it. If you need help figuring out a computer and a price range you can work with, just give a shout and start up another post!

 

[Rishwin]

Well give us a full list of system specs first so we an see exactly what we're dealing with. Depending on the specs then we'd see if upgrading would even be viable. Also the 768MB of RAM would come from 1x512MB and 1x256MB sticks, unless you have 1GB and 256MB is being used as shared memory for the video.

 

[.Yoss.]

If it's 10 years old and you have the $ then just go ahead and buy something new for $450.

e.g

+cooler

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