Right, here's the situation, i will explain from the start....


In my flat i have 3 dead PC's.


PC 1.

The packard bell pentium 4 that was my main PC up until last year that has a dead hard disk and a faulty PSU, no RAM in it, plus the case is wrecked and theres a hole where one of the DVD drives used to be (i gave it to a mate when his broke) plus it has the product key sticker for XP on the case which worked when i used it as my main PC when i reformatted just before its death.


PC 2.

Then i have an old thing, from around 2000 ish that has a very old and slow pentium 2 350mhz CPU, but it has good RAM (only 512mb, but still good) and a DVD drive in, but its in a very small case, plus its dented, it works, but the USB ports are nackered and wont recognise anything plugged into them, plus the PSU is very noisy, but it has a 28gb HDD, running windows 98, not good.


PC 3.

Then finally, i have another old thing from 98 ish that my other half was given, which has an AMD k6 CPU that runs at a very very slow 300mhz, and only 64mb RAM, and although this one is running XP, but on a tiny little 8gb HDD, it is only just managing it, literally taking 15 minutes from power on until ready to use, and even then the whole thing lags as soon as you do anything, even clicking start causes at least 30 seconds of lag, however, it is in a much taller case, i like having space for airflow and stuff.


So, my plan, if it is possible, is to use the mobo, CPU, and XP key from PC 1, the RAM (i already checked, it will fit) and the DVD drive and HDD from PC 2, and the PSU and case of PC 3 (provided i can suss the wiring from the power switch to fit the newer mobo) to build one good PC out of the 3, format it, stick XP on there and hopefully we will have a working spare machine for my other half to use.

Does anyone else think that validating windows is going to be an arse probably as there will be more than 3 bits of hardware that are different to when PC 1 was working, as im not sure if the online validation process will have stored my PC details or specs in some way from when i last used that key on that original machine last year so it will somehow know that i am using some of the hardware as before, or could it (as i fear it might) class it as a whole different computer as opposed to a rebuild and reject the key?


If anyone knows or can offer any advice then it would be greatly appreciated!

You should be fine. As far as I know, as long as the key is legit and works no one cares on what machine you are using it.

(Is that what you're asking?)

You said you have XP on the hard drive of PC3.
Why bother doing a reinstall of it then? Why not just leave it already installed?

Ahh yes, i forgot to mention that bit, apart form its on a tiny little HDD, that install is totally nackered, it has all sorts of problems with popups and stuff, and a slightly screwed registry from what i remember, mainly because when my gfs brother had the pc it was running win98, and has somehow got a erm, how do i say it, non legit version of xp sp1 on, so that everytime you boot up there is a message saying this copy of windows is not genuine, please resolve, or words to that effect, plus all the crap and slowness, and as it isnt a legit windows install, you cant do any windows updates, plus sp1 is WELL outdated.

Do you have an XP install disk or is it a restore disk from the Packard Bell PC? I'm guessing it is not an actual XP disk beings it is Packard Bell. If that's the case, it won't work because even if you change out the DVD, it doesn't work due to not having all the original hardware.

The XP disk i have is of sp1a which my mate gave me (as i know the physical DVD that the install is done from isnt tied to the key) and i also have the SP3 upgrade DVD (non bootable) which was very very kindly burned for me and sent to my house by post by Jakg

So i would have to install my copy of 1a and then install sp3 and then validate i guess.

tbh...i wouldnt run XP with that hardware.
rather use something lighweight, like ubuntu lite or so.

but...if u wanna do, it shouldnt matter if u use different hardware.

Could you post the specs of PC 1, Personally I don't see why there should be any problem. Even if you don't have a copy you can download one. It's legal to download a copy as long as you have a legit product key

packard bell mobo, packard bell oem key, no biggie. oem cases suck.

Quote from wild :

Could you post the specs of PC 1, Personally I don't see why there should be any problem. Even if you don't have a copy you can download one. It's legal to download a copy as long as you have a legit product key

The full page of details and specs for my packard bell, or PC 1 as it is now known, is here... http://support.packardbell.com ... ?pn=P700405101&g=1400

Incidently its all built and powers up OK, but thats it, packard bell screen flashes up as soon as its on and then it goes straight into the BIOS setup and thats all it will do.

I even managed all the fiddly daft wiring on the mobo for the power switch (which never worked properly when it was in the other case) the power on green light now works, the HDD light comes on dimly when it powers on as it should, and gets brighter when there is HDD activity like it should, the reset button works, but still just BIOS.

I thought it might be the DVD drive causing it, as the light on that flashes on and off constantly, but i unplugged it and it didnt help, plus i tried both HDD's and it still won't work, so i reckon i will take it to the guy who always mends my PC's when i try and do something to them and it goes wrong.

Quote from [RCG]Boosted :

tbh...i wouldnt run XP with that hardware.
rather use something lighweight, like ubuntu lite or so.

Yeah, i know its old, but thats the exact same hardware specs as my main PC pretty much, except its a medion machine as opposed to a packard bell, plus i have 1gb ram and a bigger GFX card in here.

It runs XP like a dream really, after following the blackviper services setup guide so i can turn all unnessecary stuff off, plus some registry tweaks i have made, from power on until ready to use is just over 1 minute, so not too shabby for an 8 year old PC, plus i can run LFS with 4xAA and 8xAF with a 15-20 grid with no problems apart from maybe the odd FPS dive at T1, so not too bad for what it is, plus it kicks my dads PC's ass, and thats about 2 years old with a core2 duo CPU and 2gb RAM, but he wont let me tweak it so its faster, plus its on windows bloatware, oh, sorry, i mean vista, well, same thing.

Gaming on a budget, it can be done!


EDIT: This is what the rebuilt one is doing..

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XN0AjfxAiF8

Set your CD Drive as the main boot up device then reinstall windows. Should do the trick Don't hold me to this please.

I had a go at that, but the same outcome, however i have a feeling that the DVD drive is a dud, as it doesnt spin up and the light just flashes constantly weather there is a disk in there or not, so i will try another DVD drive tomorrow and see what it does, as its at my, well, my girlfriends flat now, as i have moved 5 miles away to my mum and dads again, because its cheaper.

Quote from danthebangerboy :

EDIT: This is what the rebuilt one is doing..

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XN0AjfxAiF8

stuck keyboard?

be sure that that old PSu you want to use has enough "juice" for all your components. But normally they start to beep like mad if thats not the case

I had to reactivate XP a couple of times in my old machine due to hardware changes. The first time I just had to re-input my product key and it worked. The second time I had to call a 24-hour number and get a new activation key. They just ask 'is this the only machine this copy of XP will be used on?' to which you say Yes.

Well, is DVD drive first boot device?

No, well it wasnt by default, but i swapped the boot order around so it was, tried a different dvd drive, tried the other hard disk and tried some other ribbon cables from the donor machines and it made no difference, so it is now in the hands of the pc tech i mentioned, together with some spare bits to try.

Well, maybe the faulty PSU damaged the motherboard, thats my only guess atm.
Can you get any pics of the motherboard? I wanna know if the capacitors are okay.
[edit]: One idea, turn the computer on, then turn it off, remove power cable, then turn the pc on without power cable, then fans should spin a little, then put the power cable back and try to turn it on.

The caps are all fine, i did the test thing last night and the fans did indeed kick a little which proves they are storing power as caps should, plus they all look visually ok (spending months trying to restore a classic 80's fruit machines MPU board taught me a few things about electronics lol) so god only knows whats up with it.

I tried different RAM and another GFX card too which made no difference, i can only assume that i must have plugged something in incorrectly or left something unplugged, although plugs not plugged in would have attracted my attention i would have thought, plus you cant really get things incorrectly wired in a PC that badly anyway (if i had then i would expect the mobo to beep at me or the thing not to even power up) as things will usually only plug into where they are meant to go as all the plugs are different so you cant muddle them up.

Time will tell, once my PC tech guy has finished with it anyway.

One thing I remember from old ass OEM compaq's was that they needed a proprietary optical drive to work... Bear in mind, that this was probably 10 years ago, and I'm not sure if PB does that too.

Got it working?, if not then send the mobo and cpu to me

You were right bmwe30m3, it seems that the board is nackered, oh well, ebay search time then!

Quote from danthebangerboy :

You were right bmwe30m3, it seems that the board is nackered, oh well, ebay search time then!

Have you tried to flash the bios just to make sure that doesn't do anything to it?

Quote from danthebangerboy :

I had a go at that, but the same outcome, however i have a feeling that the DVD drive is a dud, as it doesnt spin up and the light just flashes constantly weather there is a disk

ide cable in the wrong way (back to front). this was a common problem with older machines. once they added a little notch to the connectors, all was good.
pin 1 on the ide cable is the red wire on the ribbon. this should but connected in such a way that pin 1 is closest to the power connector on the drive.

Is the ram compatible? Even tho it might fit in the same slot its from a pc that the cpu is at least 5x slower...