First build attempt
by George
(Ireland)
Hello again Monte and many thanks for your earlier reply. Regardless of all the good advice I received I've had no joy.
I have come to realise that the motherboards on both the old Dell's I'd problems with (the GX270 mini-tower and the GX280 desktop) appear to be past their best days. Computers seem to be very temperamental and get me increasingly frustrated but I am soldiering on. Despite all I have tried and all the advice I have received I have been unable to get any further with them so I am adopting a different approach. I returned to my friend in the computer shop and advised him of the situation and he very kindly gave me a brand new mobo still in its bag and a heatsink and fan to go with it. Armed with this I decided to cannibalise the Dell's + another couple of old machines I had lying around and try to make one reasonably good machine,that hopefully works, from the parts. With cash being tight and all I'm trying to get away with using as many used parts as I can. This will be my first time trying to do this - make a working computer from the components.
I extracted a P4 (Intel 845G-socket 478 I think) from an Optiplex 260 desktop, a P4 (Intel 845G-socket 478 I think) from the Optiplex 270 mini-tower and a P4 (Intel 915G - socket 775 I think) from the Optiplex 280 desktop. I also extracted 2 DVD players, one CD player and have the neccessary memory, a SATA 320Gb HD, any amount of ATA HD's and Win XP and Win 7 O/S. One of the cases of an older machine , not a Dell, fits the new mobo perfectly and only the PSU from the Optiplex 280 will fit the new mobo (24 pin connector) but it fits in the case snugly and has the SATA connectors. If the 24 pin PSU turns out to be faulty can I use the older PSU with the 20 pin connector and ATA connectors? I have the ATA to SATA extras.
The new board I got, while by todays standard is oldish, should do the trick as it has DDR2 and a PCI slot which is all I really wanted. It is called an MSI 945GM3.
As this is my first attempt to put one together from scratch I was wondering if any of the above processors will be compatible with this mobo. And where and how exactly do those tiny front panel connections connect. The writing on the mobo is miniscule. I'd have to get a magnifying glass and even then I wouldn't be sure exactly which way to connect them. I'm not sure if there's anything else I should be asking before putting it all together and trying to switch it on but if you can think of anything I'm forgetting it would be appreciated.
Apologies that this sort of covers more than one question but it would take me forever trying to do this one question at a time.
Again,
Many Thanks,
George.
