Right now I am in the planning and assessing stage of the project. This system is well over 10 years old, so it is using older technology, but isn’t completely useless. I will just have to be more choosy over what it will be used for. If nothing else, it could be a “museum piece”.
Here are the basic steps I will be following for the refurbishment process.
- Assess current condition
- Catalog components
- Determine what is needed to get system running again
- Retrieve motherboard and cards manuals and drivers
- Clean dust from components
- Obtain parts/materials required
- Reassemble system
- Decide of what OS version
- Perform fresh OS install
- Install drivers
- Install additional software as required
Current system condition:
First obvious note of the condition of the system is that the optical drive has been removed, leaving the bay completed open and empty. Also the thumbscrews to secure the case are missing. When I removed the case, it was a mess inside as well as dusty. The only cables I saw that were still in place were the power for the CPU and case fans and the ribbon cable for the serial port. The hard drive cage was just laying in place, without the hard drive even secured. On further inspection, I noticed that the CMOS battery was also missing.
Components list:
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Motherboard: |
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Asus M2A-VM-HDMI |
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CPU: |
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AMD Athlon 64 X2 5400+ 2.80GHz |
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CPU Fan: |
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Ultra X-Wind Socket K8/AM2/AM2+/AM3 Copper CPU |
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Case: |
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Apevia Aspire X-QPACK-NW-BK/420 |
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Case Fan: |
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Kingwin CF-012LB 120mm |
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Power Supply: |
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Corsair VX550W 550W ATX |
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Hard Drive: |
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Western Digital WD320AAKS 320GB SATA III |
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Optical Drive: |
None |
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RAM: |
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2x Corsair CM2X1024-6400 G (800MHZ 1GB) 2x Kingston 1GB KHU006-OIA 2666216-0704 9995315-008.A03LF |
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Ethernet: |
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Onboard NIC |
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Wireless LAN: |
None |
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Graphics Card: |
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XFX GeForce 9400 GT |
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Display: |
none |
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Keyboard: |
none |
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Mouse: |
none |
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Additional: |
none |
Parts and equipment required for refurbishment:
Assuming all parts are still usable, the required additions are few.
- CMOS battery
- Optical drive
- Wireless adapter
- Monitor
- Keyboard
- Mouse
- CPU thermal paste/compound
Of those parts, I may only need to purchase the battery as I do have a couple DVD drives, assorted keyboard/mice sets (wired and wireless), a small 12" touchscreen display, and a still shrink-wrapped TP-Link AC1300 USB WiFi adapter. So right now, I'm looking at less than $10. This is very much within the budget amount of $50.
Conclusion:
Looking over the parts, and my surplus items, I will only need to purchase thermal compound and a CMOS battery. Also, as the motherboard has integrated graphics, I will probably skip reinstalling the XFX GeForce 9400GT. As I will be using a small display, I'm not seeing enough need to have a discreet graphics card installed. Originally, it did not as the onboard was sufficient for HDCP compliance, and only installed a newer card as the compliance changed. This XFX card wasn't even for that, but had come from a different computer that I had to swap out a few years ago. It was primarily in the HTPC for safe storage.
Aside from waiting for Amazon to deliver, what should take the longest to complete the project should be the OS and driver installs.
