[Chester LUG] Old desktop needed

[Paul Williams]

Hi guys...

Update time.

John gave me an old Time desktop that looked perfect.  It was in cracking nick and the motherboard looked brand new.  It booted to Ubuntu 12.04 (I have no idea how) despite only displaying 300ish MB RAM.

I got it home, pulled the graphics card and RAM from the old one, fitted them and tried to install Mint 13.  No joy.  It loaded up but couldn't handle the graphics.

So I went lighter and tried Mint 11.  Still no joy.  So I thought I'd just boot it to Ubuntu 12.04 since it was still on there.  It got as far as GRUB then refused to do anything.  It wouldn't even take keyboard commands.  So I tried another keyboard.  And different USB ports.  Nothing.

So I thought maybe my RAM had gone.  I decided to put the old RAM back in.  I turned on the power.  It flickered and made a horible burning smell.  I pulled the power immediately.


So now I have no desktop and possibly buggered hardware.  Still, at least I have keyboard, mouse and monitor.  Ah...

Ok.  So, if Thomas still has a motherboard up for grabs, I'd love to have it.  John said when he gets back off holiday he'll have a go at tackling the 2 machines and ton of hardware in the hopes of getting one working PC out of it all.


Cheers

Paul

From: mrcrilly at gmail.com
Date: Wed, 8 Aug 2012 15:58:38 +0100
To: chester at mailman.lug.org.uk
Subject: Re: [Chester LUG] Old desktop needed

It's plug and play these days Paul. Connecting a SATA drive to the main-board is obvious; fitting a CPU only works one way; and the manual tells you what power connectors to use :-)
You're a smart lad, so I'm sure you'll figure it out. Check out sites ifixit.com etc 

- MTC
On 8 Aug 2012, at 15:32, Paul Williams <wilp4a at hotmail.co.uk> wrote:





Maybe you're right.  Maybe I'm being too lazy and it's about time I learned that sort of thing anyway.

If it's still up for grabs, I'll give it awhirl.

Ta Thomas.


Paul

From: mrcrilly at gmail.com
Date: Wed, 8 Aug 2012 13:00:43 +0100
To: chester at mailman.lug.org.uk
Subject: Re: [Chester LUG] Old desktop needed

Research it. Haynes, the people who do manuals for cars and bikes, also do a manual for computers. Buy a copy of it and learn :-) 

- MTC
On 7 Aug 2012, at 21:48, Paul Williams <wilp4a at hotmail.co.uk> wrote:





Thanks, but my skill with hardware is limited to fitting an IDE drive (I still haven't got both my 500GB SATA drives to be recognised by my computer) and RAM.

I wouldn't know what to do with a motherboard.

Cheers


Paul

> Date: Tue, 7 Aug 2012 19:03:04 +0100
> From: thomas at thomasprophett.co.uk
> To: chester at mailman.lug.org.uk
> Subject: Re: [Chester LUG] Old desktop needed
> 
> Hi Paul
> 
> I don't have any spare full systems.
> 
> But I do have a motherboard with an Athlon64 3000+ & 512MB of ram if
> that is any use to you? I'm quite sure the motherboard supports PCI &
> has an AGP.
> 
> ~ Thomas.
> 
> On 6 August 2012 22:17, Paul Williams <wilp4a at hotmail.co.uk> wrote:
> > The kids' old Dell desktop has died a death.
> >
> > Has anyone got an old tower they want rid of that can do the same job?  I'm
> > hoping I can salvage stuff from their old one.  It currently has a few IDE
> > hard discs, a couple of gigs of DDR1 RAM and an old 256MB PCI (not E) nvidia
> > card.  It was running Ubuntu 10.10 and was used for films, tux paint and
> > Angry Birds (under wine).  It has monitor, keyboard and mouse, just needs a
> > new tower.
> >
> > I had hoped that an old eeepc or my wife's old laptop might do the job, but
> > one isn't up to it and the other has problems booting.
> >
> > Can anyone help?  I can't afford to spend much (if anything), but might be
> > able to spring to a few beers.
> >
> >
> > Cheers
> >
> > Paul
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > Chester mailing list
> > Chester at mailman.lug.org.uk
> > https://mailman.lug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/chester
> >
> 
> _______________________________________________
> Chester mailing list
> Chester at mailman.lug.org.uk
> https://mailman.lug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/chester
 		 	   		  
_______________________________________________
Chester mailing list
Chester at mailman.lug.org.uk
https://mailman.lug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/chester

_______________________________________________
Chester mailing list
Chester at mailman.lug.org.uk
https://mailman.lug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/chester 		 	   		  
_______________________________________________
Chester mailing list
Chester at mailman.lug.org.uk
https://mailman.lug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/chester

_______________________________________________
Chester mailing list
Chester at mailman.lug.org.uk
https://mailman.lug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/chester 		 	   		  
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://mailman.lug.org.uk/pipermail/chester/attachments/20120812/261d1176/attachment.html>