The Merits of Upgrading an old OEM computer

[Brian McKee]

Hey everyone, maybe you've seen me around asking for help here and there but if not I've been working on upgrading an old emachine from 2011 to bring it up to snuff to do some light gaming on the cheap. I had gotten the computer for free so I wanted to make it a bit more useful. 

 

The original specs of the computer were:

 

• Athlon II x2 220
• NVIDIA GeForce 6150 SE (onboard)
• 3 GB of DDR3 ram

As you could tell the computer was incredibly limited. To put it into perspective, League of Legends ran at 1-5 FPS at medium high settings at 720p, and even choked on 1080p video on youtube, ouch. Not to mention I was stuck with VGA only which doesn't play very nicely with TVs, which is an issue because this is a living room PC.

 

The first upgrade I did was put extra ram in, I put a 4 gig stick I had lying around, only one because they were too high profile to fit under the drive cage of the device, putting the computer at 6 gigs of ram (default config is 1 2 gig stick and 1 1 gig stick). I also replaced the dead DVD drive with one I had from an old rig. The next thing I did was attempt to add in an old Phenom II x4 965 BE I had from years ago that I never ended up using (and couldn't return) but found out that a pin was missing, so while it would post it'd never start windows so I set aside plans to see if I could get it to work.

 

The next big upgrade I did was to the graphics. I had bought a GT 740 but the card was too thick to fit into the case. Feeling defeated I thought I'd never find a suitable card for a good price. Thinner GDDR5 GT 740s were insanely expensive, as were 7750s. And all the R7 250s were GDDR3 dell pulls that I really wasn't feeling. Until someone put up a Sapphire R7 250 with 1 GB GDDR5 on ebay for 45 dollars that I snatched for 35 dollars with a 10 dollar off coupon. Success! And to make matters better this card is also apparently the R7 250e variant of the card, making it a carbon copy of the 7750.

 

After installing the card games ran significantly better. Over 100 FPS in League of Legends and modestly good FPS in older titles like KOTOR 2, but the old Athlon, while really good for normal browsing and light gaming was holding back the things I was really itching to play so i decided to try and get the Phenom to work. Using a pin from a dead CPU and lots of swearing later I managed to get the CPU to post and load into windows! SUCCESS! But there was a problem.

 

See the issue was this CPU is a 125 watt TDP monster, and this heatsink and fan combo were used to cooling a relatively cool dual core... woops... 

 

Not only did it sound like a jet engine when cooling, the computer got up to 85 or higher when running Kotor 2! Which really should never happen. So I decided to replace the heatsink on the computer, no biggy right?

 

HA

 

WRONG

 

While this is an AM2+ motherboard the heatsink mounting is actually LGA 775! So while every heatsink on the planet will accept AM2+ it was a bit of a pain to find a suitable cooler that has compatibility for the legacy 775 mounting holes. I eventually settled on the be Quiet! Shadowrock LP, as the measurements were barely small enough for my case while providing proper cooling for the 125 watt beast. It was also on sale which was a big plus!

 

After getting the heatsink shipped to me I was eager to slap that sucker into the case and fire it up. But as we all know things are never that easy. The backplate of the motherboard was ADHERED onto the board. So I had to pick up a blowdryer from goodwill just to get the damn thing off. Once it was off I fitted the backplate on somehow with be Quiet!'s rather terrible instructions when I ran into another massive issue. 

 

See when AMD cpus are mounted they're actually taller than intel CPUs, so while I mounted everything correctly... the screws wouldn't make it to the holes to screw in. While I looked in home depot for screws that would actually FIT this device I had to settle on buying a set of nylon washers to boost the mounting bracket up a bit so I could screw it in. And success, that actually worked.

 

So I plug everything in, screw the case back together and bam it works right?

 

Nope

 

Nothing

 

On the verge of tears I wonder what's wrong, after many hours of tinkering I give up and decide the board is dead.

 

Before I buy a replacement board I get an idea and I test the board on cardboard and try to get it to start outside of the case.

 

Turns out I was plugging into the wrong set of pins.

It also turns out I'm a massive bonehead.

 

So I plug it in properly this time, and after some reseating of the graphics card I get the thing to run! And the results were astounding. 

 

After I managed to get the service stuff on windows to stop taking 30% CPU for no reason, idle temps went down from 60 to 40 degrees Celsius, and even in demanding titles the cpu doesn't get hotter than 65 degrees! 

 

Now it was time to run some serious game tests with this bad boy with the limited titles that I own. 

 

The first thing I tested was Fallout 4, and the results kind of surprised me. I was getting 30-50 FPS at medium settings at 1080, high textures with anti aliasing. This impressed me, though there are random drops into the 20s that can be a bit jarring, a simple mod for FPS could easily make this game super fluid while looking great.

 

The next test I did was Mass Effect, a game I love very much. After dropping in the controller mod and fixing the low res texture bug this game runs at (almost) maxed settings 1080p and 60 FPS constant, with only minor dips during intense explosions. This impressed me since the game still looks really good! The only setting I dropped was particles to medium, and I can't see the difference.

 

I also tested some weaker games but we all know the story for those, silky smooth.

 

So yeah I think there's a lot of merit to upgrading an old OEM depending on what you have, you can get a very decent gaming experience for not much money if you're willing to go through the heartache. I'm thinking of making a more detailed video on this computer, would you guys be interested?

 

Edit:

 

Here are the final specs of the computer as a bit of a "tl;dr"

 

• Phenom II x4 965 BE
• Sapphire R7 250
• 6 Gigs DDR3 ram
• Shadowrock LP CPU cooler

[Space Reptile]

27 minutes ago, Brian McKee said:

would you guys be interested?

yes!

 

just see yourself lucky that it is not a DELL wich has a BTX board and is hard to get either replacement or upgrade for  

[WkdPaul]

7 hours ago, Brian McKee said:

*snip*

I'm thinking of making a more detailed video on this computer, would you guys be interested?

*snip*

 

Technically the only place you can post your video is in a status update;

Quote

No advertising of any non LTT/LMG material

• eBay/trading sites
• Referral links
• Personal websites or businesses
• Twitch/YouTube links are only allowed in user profile status updates

 

 

And yeah, older OEM PCs make for cheap gaming machines, I can locally get 1st and 2nd gen i5s Dell, Lenovo and HP for $100-150 (CAD) and they often only need 4GB of RAM and a low power GPU (gets complicated if you want to install a more powerful GPU because of the space available and the PSUs).

 

BTW, I also moved you thread to the appropriate section

[Brian McKee]

4 hours ago, wkdpaul said:

 

Technically the only place you can post your video is in a status update;

 

 

And yeah, older OEM PCs make for cheap gaming machines, I can locally get 1st and 2nd gen i5s Dell, Lenovo and HP for $100-150 (CAD) and they often only need 4GB of RAM and a low power GPU (gets complicated if you want to install a more powerful GPU because of the space available and the PSUs).

 

BTW, I also moved you thread to the appropriate section

Excuse me? Then please go after the people who post any of their videos in the review sections or build logs. That seems like a bit of a double standard no?

 

Also this isn't the appropriate section, this isn't a NEW BUILD, I've already done it. Did you even read it? Or did you just read the title? If you're going to move it to a section move it to build logs or something. I spent a lot of time on this computer and on this post and I'm excited to talk about it, don't let it rot in an under traveled and just flat out wrong section of the forum.

[Quaker]

I'm not quite sure what the aim of this post is, but as far as the merits of upgrading an old OEM computer goes.

- If the computer has a full size ATX or mATX case, you can re-use the case. You can re-use the optical drive and hard drive if they're SATA.

You might be able to re-use the power supply if it's good quality and is around 400 or more watts.

 

-if the computer has a low-profile SFF case, you mostly can only re-use the drives.

 

Since you would be replacing most of the guts, it often makes more sense to sell the old system and use the money to buy a new cheap case and power supply, such as:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIA07232B1027

The power supply in this case is not the best, of course, but it's as least as good as the old OEM one.

[Brian McKee]

4 minutes ago, Quaker said:

I'm not quite sure what the aim of this post is, but as far as the merits of upgrading an old OEM computer goes.

- If the computer has a full size ATX or mATX case, you can re-use the case. You can re-use the optical drive and hard drive if they're SATA.

You might be able to re-use the power supply if it's good quality and is around 400 or more watts.

 

-if the computer has a low-profile SFF case, you mostly can only re-use the drives.

 

Since you would be replacing most of the guts, it often makes more sense to sell the old system and use the money to buy a new cheap case and power supply.

This is just a post showing the results of upgrading the cheapest components to upgrade and displaying their gaming prowess. As well as the pain it is to upgrade OEM. Of course it doesn't make sense to replace the motherboard and stuff, but that's not the point.

 

In a lot of cases if you don't have the money to build a full computer and don't have issues with compromise then upgrading this stuff is completely worth as I showed.

[Quaker]

3 minutes ago, Brian McKee said:

 Of course it doesn't make sense to replace the motherboard and stuff, but that's not the point.

Au contraire. The first and best upgrade to an old system is usually the CPU and mobo, followed closely by the graphics card.

 

 

[Brian McKee]

3 minutes ago, Quaker said:

Au contraire. The first and best upgrade to an old system is usually the CPU and mobo, followed closely by the graphics card.

 

 

Oh yeah you're right, silly me, instead upgrading the graphics in the computer I should have grabbed a shitty intel board and equally shitty intel CPU with the price I paid here so I'm sitting with an extremely unsatisfactory gaming experience rather than a pleasant one. No offense but at this price point (less than 100 dollars) standard upgrade paths don't apply.

[Quaker]

Um, I don't follow. Wasn't one of the first things you did was to replace the CPU? Also, why do you say "a shitty Intel board, etc" at the price you paid? Does the word "used" mean nothing to you?

I have an old i5-3570K and motherboard I could give you for free, which would be better than your "shitty" AMD processor. (The motherboard is ATX though, so it probably won't fit in what I assume is an mATX case. But I could give you the old CM Centurian 5 case it's in as well).

 

It seems as though you assumed I meant "new" parts.Remember what they say about "assume".

[Brian McKee]

13 hours ago, Quaker said:

Um, I don't follow. Wasn't one of the first things you did was to replace the CPU? Also, why do you say "a shitty Intel board, etc" at the price you paid? Does the word "used" mean nothing to you?

I have an old i5-3570K and motherboard I could give you for free, which would be better than your "shitty" AMD processor. (The motherboard is ATX though, so it probably won't fit in what I assume is an mATX case. But I could give you the old CM Centurian 5 case it's in as well).

 

It seems as though you assumed I meant "new" parts.Remember what they say about "assume".

Why would anyone assume they can get parts for free like that? lol

[Quaker]

Why would anyone post the same answer twice? It's all so mysterious. I'm beginning to get the idea that there may be a Troll involved.

[Brian McKee]

2 hours ago, Quaker said:

Why would anyone post the same answer twice? It's all so mysterious. I'm beginning to get the idea that there may be a Troll involved.

Or the forum bugging out. I'd have some words for you but I'll restrain myself.

[Quaker]

Been there, done that with the forum bugs.

 

So let me get this straight - you're saying that a old OEM system can only be upgraded by using parts you have kicking around and that any parts you buy new or used, or get for free, don't count?!

[Brian McKee]

5 minutes ago, Quaker said:

Been there, done that with the forum bugs.

 

So let me get this straight - you're saying that a old OEM system can only be upgraded by using parts you have kicking around and that any parts you buy new or used, or get for free, don't count?!

Having parts yourself is one thing, but I have never been given components for free. Obviously buying used components is fine but the cost has to be right, and considering I spent about 50 dollars, 70 if I had to buy the CPU (would have used a tricore instead). I'd say the upgrade was completely worth while especially since the stuff I did buy is reusable or can serve as something else in the future.

 

I don't plan on using this as an HTPC forever but I was really curious what performance I could get on the super cheap.