My old PC packed up. I suspect the mother board. It's a Packard-Bell with a MCP73VT-PM mother board. I understand this supports a micro ATX form factor (whatever that means).
I've a chance of getting a MB with AMD 2700 processor with fan installed and back plate. Takes DDR memory.
Or a : Motherboard AOpen Micro ATX with processor fan and memory installed. Extra pair
memory and back plate.
Would either be a direct replacement for mine?
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It's the case you need to make sure supports the new motherboard. If the old one has a micro ATX board and the new board is too.... it might be okay. But it might not depending on position of components on the new motherboard compared to the existing case.
If the old computer was fairly new, then a lot of the components could be reused probably including case, power supply etc. But it might be just as cheap for you to get a new system, especially if new RAM, power supply, etc. are needed.
You don't say what CPU comes with the existing PC, or the AOpen Micro ATX. But you're also going to have to reinstall Windows if you want this to work reliably. And if you swap from Intel to AMD CPU's then this will be needed for sure. And your existing motherboard is a socket 775 so it's an Intel CPU of some sort and an old one at that. So the memory type won't work with a new motherboard - it's likely to be DDR and you'll need DDR3.
Last edited by: rtj70 on Tue 3 Sep 13 at 12:08
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And if by AMD 2700 you mean AMD Athlon 2700XP then that's very old and you can't surely mean that....? It was introduced more than 10 years ago!
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Thanks for the prompt replies, that sounds like it's beyond my ability.
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I am guessing you can get these for nothing (or cheap) as they are second hand.
The chances are the board will fit okay in the case and cooling is not a problem. And if you have an LGA 775 Intel based motherboard your power supply might be sufficiently powerful (and hopefully efficient) to cope with these.
But if you go for the Athlon 2700XP you really ought to reinstall Windows if it's XP. Windows will recognise new hardware and try to swap drivers but you're going to be lucky if all works. But Windows will pick up on major hardware changes and need you to validate it. Better to reinstall if you have valid product key - still needs validating.
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I would consider looking for a cheap PC locally on ebay assuming you don't need much spec. Picked up a nice (Packard Bell actually) XP machine for stepson for £40 a while back, which was fine for facebook, emails etc.
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If you do end up looking for a cheap replacement PC then I can recommend these; seem to be 2 year old ex lease machines, bought SWMBO one a few weeks back and it's working fine. 100 quid for base unit, 4GB RAM, 250GB HDD, running WIN 7 Pro:-
snipurl.com/27qqlle
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Thought Windows 7 was more than £100 retail!! Potentially dodgy?
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I did wonder about that so the first thing I did on recieving the machine was put it through Windows Authentication (it has a COA sticker) and that worked fine so seems legit. Presumably you can't (legally) transfer the Win 7 Pro license to another machine though.
Not a fan of SFF machines from a repairability/upgradability point of view but at that price with Win7 Pro seems a bargain. Judging by internal & external condition of machine it's been sat in a nice clean air conditioned office running Office 2010 for a couple of years. Either that or they've cleaned them very thoroughly.
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>> Thought Windows 7 was more than £100 retail!! Potentially dodgy?
Seem to be sold as by Microsoft Authorised Refurbuisher. Clean install, no disc but recovery partition.
No idea if it's Kosher but I'm tempted too as my 2006 laptop is on its last knockings.
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Fair amount of discussion on these machines here:-
www.hotukdeals.com/deals/refurbished-fujitsu-esprimo-e352-windows-7-pro-desktop-under-100-99-tier-1-1621635#comments
One person did get one that looked like it had been knocked around a bit, but the seller swapped it for a better one no hassle. As I've pointed out in that thread, mine's got a couple of feet missing but is otherwise fine.
Many of the machines on the Tier1 site are sold as MAR which means you get no COA and you've had your chips if teh machien breaks, but this specific deal has a COA so should be re-authenticatable (not sure if that's a real word) in the future .
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Mother board compatibility - rtj70
