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<\/p>\nKat inherited my old PC (Athlon XP 2100+) when I upgraded about 18 months ago. It ain’t much to look at:<\/p>\n
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It was built on the cheap (this Antec was the least expensive case I could find that wasn’t beige), the USB 2.0 headers at the front were hit-and-miss, and it has always had overheating problems, hence the giant fan on the outside <\/em>and the permanently-ghetto lack of a side panel. I should have bought tiny cinder blocks and propped it up. But she only uses it for some audio recording and WoW\/CoH, so no biggie, right? Well, random lockups and restarts have made it more of an issue and I started to wonder if the mobo wasn’t shorting out on something. When Maximum PC<\/a> gave away some cases at work, Kat snagged a silver and blue Cooler Master Mystique<\/a> and I promised that during the holiday break I would migrate her machine to the new aluminum housing and try to diagnose along the way.<\/p>\n Then the OXM intern Thomas<\/a> upgraded his rig and gave me his old video card, proc, and mobo, so w00t, I suddenly had a near-fresh build on my hands. It turns out his old Athlon 64 3200+ rig is only a teensy bit slower than my main PC, and it’s built on the same MSI K8N Neo Platinum motherboard, so I already had the instructions and the drivers. That didn’t stop various Windows-related disasters from happening over the course of the afternoon, but when all’s said and done, it looks like it worked:<\/p>\n It’s much quieter (the side panel helps, as do the funky front doors), more convenient thanks to the top-mounted power switches and USB\/audio jacks, seems to be running much cooler, and of course, it will be much, much faster compared to what Kat’s used to. I kept her DVD drive, RAM (1GB of DDR-333), and Radeon 9800 video card (256MB is still beefy) but Thomas’s old 128MB version of the same card will replace the GeForce 3 (!) in my MAME rig downstairs.<\/p>\n So, Kat gets a new PC for Christmas, and it’s not thanks to me or even Santa–it’s thanks to Thomas the intern. Huzzah!<\/p>\n Kat inherited my old PC (Athlon XP 2100+) when I upgraded about 18 months ago. It ain’t much to look at: It was built on the cheap (this Antec was the least expensive case I could find that wasn’t beige), … Continue reading ![](\"\/blog\/katpcnew1.jpg\")
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