How to build your first PC on a very tight budget: Upgrading a business/enterprise PC.

artemiskiss... · December 21, 2021

Budget (including currency): 200

Country: Australia

Games, programs or workloads that it will be used for: Microsoft 365, Endnote, writing papers, Statistical analysis with Python and MATLAB, 3D modelling with Shapr 3D and Fusion 360

Other details (existing parts lists, whether any peripherals are needed, what you're upgrading from, when you're going to buy, what resolution and refresh rate you want to play at, etc): Upgrading from no desktop at all, with a used barebones HP EliteDesk 800 G1 SFF

Hi TechTips Fam,

I am going to share my first ever desktop PC build with those of you who are in higher education and need a basic computer for everyday tasks and some light 3D modelling on a very limited budget.

Since I live on a meagre PhD stipend, I did not have a huge budget to spare. But I was really tired of having to hook up my MacBook Pro to my monitors every time. It was a clean setup but the 2020 Intel i5 MacBook Pro was already starting to show signs of stress.

At the same time however, I found a random listing on Facebook marketplace, and bought 5 HP and dell business PCs from an ex-IT guy for AUD 230. They didn't come with any storage and only 4GB of RAM each, but had a decent Intel i5 4590. I scavenged ram from all the PCs and managed to get 16GB of those into one of the HP EliteDesk 800 G1. Next, I got two hard drives of 320 GB and 500 GB for storage from people on Marketplace for around $50 alltogether. I then bought a new Crucial 120GB SATA SSD as a boot drive for around $40.

I also bought some cheap used 4GB RAM sticks from the marketplace for around $40 to put into the PCs which I had scavenged from. So I now had 5 PCs, one for personal use which I wanted to upgrade, and four more, which I then sold of for $50 each.

If you like math, you'd figure that my net spending thus far was AUD160. I then also got a new AC Wi-Fi + Bluetooth PCIe card for another $40. Adding all of these was a fairly jank process (adhering to Linus' standards), where I was missing drive bays, which was especially a problem with my HDDs but I striped a few components and manged to screw them directly to the chassis to prevent unnecessary vibrations which could potentially harm the drives. I also had to get extra cables since the manufacturer only supported a maximum of two drives of 500GB and 120GB respectively for the two SATA slots. Having added the two drives and bypassing the CD drive's cables over to the SSD, I now had an i5 4590, 16GB RAM and nearly 1TB storage, 120Gb of which was solid state. I was ready for my next challenge.

I started by installing windows 10 from a USB boot drive, which was a fairly easy process, considering that this one, like most business PCs, came with a license for Windows 8.1 Pro. So the license carried over to the Windows 10 copy I installed. The next hurdle was a lack of TPM 2.0 (Mine was 1.2) and a processor which Microsoft did not recommend for Windows 11. However, with a few tweaks to the registry from Linus' Video and some googling allowed the system to bypass TPM checks when installing windows. Note that this method only works when you install using the setup.exe file from the Windows 11 iso, and not through Windows Installation Assistant. But eventually, I got Windows 11 on a 4 year old computer which does not have TPM compatibility and a processor which is now 8 generations old. And to be fair, in spite of all the drama which followed the release of Windows 11, it has been a very smooth system for me. I noticed markedly less chugging and glitching than the Windows 10 Pro which I upgraded from. Coming from MacOS, most of my Windows 10 gripes were solved in Windows 11, and I am a very happy Windows user again. I am able to run the whole Office suite, plus RAM heavy apps like Endnote and other processing heavy apps like Shapr3D and Fusion 360 without any hiccups at all so far. Like, literally, no issues whatsoever. In fact, I am sad that people will be deterred from installing the OS on older PCs because of Microsoft's "recommended" requirements, whereas, it runs perfectly well on my old PC too.

My future upgrades are planned towards a better CPU (i7 4770 or i7 4790) and a basic graphics card, however, I will now have to start considering the power limitations of the default power supply that the system came with. I would also like to have a beefier cooler to cool the ageing CPU better. But overall, today has been one of my happiest and most rewarding days, knowing that I went from watching Linus's videos for 5+ years to a 2-week long journey into PC building. I learnt to flash a BIOS, managed successful registry tweaks and got a sufficient PC for myself. Thanks everyone for this wonderful community, and massive appreciation to LinusMediaGroup. And yes, I know most of your PCs would beat the crap out of mine, but frankly, I don't care. I love what I built, and there will certainly be more to come.

Love you all.