Why not just a new motherboard and new stick of memory? Replace the old one and stick in the new one, keep the same video card, hard drive, modem, monitor, keyboard, mouse, and CD/CDRW drives.

Well, I don't really know, I think it had something to do with not liking the case, but I'm not sure. Maybe he is gonna use the case, I'm not sure about that either. He said he was gonne BUILD me a new system, so I'm not sure what that means.

Obviously, I would keep the brand new keyboard, modem, monitor, and Microsoft mouse, but I think he might upgrade the video card, I don't know. He said it would be NEW and it would have newer hardware and run XP Business version because it is more stable. If the CD and CD rewritable drives are compatible, I'm sure he'll use those in the new one too. He said the Hard Drive isn't big enough to hold XP and everything else, It's only a 4.1 gig Hard Drive. As for the memory, not sure if the new memory we just bought is compatible either. He said something about the memory changing types as the computers get newer. We have SIMs.

I mean a decent motherboard and CPU with some new memory shouldn't cost any more than a couple hundred dollars unless you are going with the best CPU and motherboard money can buy. Try an AMD motherboard and CPU, they cost less. If not, get a low end Pentium 4 with DDR memory.

I'll keep all that in mind. He couldn't read in here tonight, or anywhere else, for that matter. He has to be AT WORK at 5 am tomorrow, because they are installing some program he helped write. So they want him RIGHT there in case anything goes awry. So he went to bed tonight, by 8:00 p.m. and has to get up at 2:30.

He'll read in here over the weekend and maybe I can explain more. He didn't elaborate earlier, just said, something along the line of [If Andrei is really getting that bad, I'll just have to go into debt and build you a new system and make him a Linux box.] I don't have the exact quote, but that was the idea.

Try the ABit line of motherboards, or whatever Zubin reconmends. I never had this problem with ABit motherboards.

Thanks for the recommendation. :)

But if enough hardware changes in Andrei, he still can't be Andrei, so I'll still need a new name, probably. I usually consider the brain (CPU) to be the personality of the computer. Guess we'll see.

Thanks for the information, and like I said, he'll read all this over the weekend. He barely had time to read my email, eat dinner and get to bed tonight.

Nightowl >8#

Well maybe he meant he'd build you a new system out of the old parts and replace the motherboard, CPU, hard drive, etc?

Yeah, I talked to him a little more this am, and he wants to get another case, like I said, he hates this one, and he would use some of Andrei's parts. But he also said he wanted a faster CD writeable so there might be some he would not use as well.

XP is more stable than 98; however, XP won't run some of the games, and some DOS programs won't work with it. I know that the WWIV BBS software was one that got clobbered by XP, but chances are you aren't running that. XP does have a compatability mode to try and run software designed for earlier windows. There is a program on the XP install disk that will check your software to see if any of it fails. You might want to do that first before the change over to XP.

Yeah, we want to know what will and won't run on XP I'm gonna start a new thread about that, and ask here, and also look on the internet.

Anyway keep the 4.1 Gig drive, just in case you want to go back to 98, and salavage the information off of that hard drive. Chances are that the XP install will be a fresh one, and you'll have to copy the data files and documents off of the 4.1 Gig drive to the new one and then reinstall the software. Either that or burn all your data and documents to CDR disks before the swap.

We would definitely back him up on CD before the changeover, but most likely the 4.1 gig drive would remain with Andrei. John has designs on making him a Linux box. I asked John why he couldn't just swap Andrei for his Pentium 60, but he said something about Quicken won't convert to new and the old won't run on new, or something weird about not being able to access the old Quicken files. I'm gonna look into that, too.

As far as memory, it went from SIMMS to DIMMS to DDR memory now. Each one having different slots to plug into, and each one running at different speeds. So chances are you will need new memory chips. The more modern motherboards use DDR memory now, very pricey but fast.

Yeah, we would most likely need new memory, he said. He isn't gonna get a SIMM board as far as I know.

It sounds like a lot of work, but hey... so was logging him, right?

Nightowl >8#

Created as new thread #92451 titled [link|/forums/render/content/show?contentid=92451|Andrei, Plan B- Converting from Win 98 to Win XP Business]