Upgrading a prebuilt: things I've learnt

k.m.p · May 21, 2017

First off, apologies if I've put this post in the wrong section, I've created this post after seeing scrapyard wars episode 2 and thought it would be helpful to highlight some of the subtle problems when upgrading a prebuilt, after having done it and regretting it myself. This mainly provides advice on changing video cards, since upgrading storage and ram is normally very simple anyway

1. Compatibility

-Most prebuilt computers don't use a standard 24 pin connector for the motherboard, most lenovo ones use a 20 pin connector that does the same thing, you can buy a adapter that allows you to use a standard psu, but they may not be available for your specific pc.

-If there isn't a psu adapter available, you'd have to change your motherboard, assuming that you want to put a reasonably powerful video card inside (since it is unlikely that the psu will have any more juice then what the pc needs, and highly unlikely that it will have a pci connector either.

-If you are forced to go down the route of changing the psu and motherboard, you are likely to also have to change the case, as the case pins for power and usb are likely to be propreitery as well- CHECK BEFORE YOU BUY anything. Only continue if you are sure that the ram, storage and cpu will not need upgrading in the short term.

2. Space

-Prebuilt computers are made for people that just want it to work, they want to market it as a an 'i5' pc and it may be the cheapest i5 you can still buy, and they won't have graphics cards that push anything more then what they need, as a result, the pc's tend to be a lot smaller then ones built in standard cases. Check that your graphics card will fit, taking into account its length, height (there may be something e.g a drive caddy in the way) and that the case is wide enough to allow the gpu to fit and also attach the pci connectors- as they are usually front facing,

-When building pc's on a mass scale, companies will cut corners wherever they can, one issue I had was that the case fans provided only had a pwm wire that was just about long enough to reach into the slot in the old motherboard, and would not stretch to another port. Often times it is the smaller things that end up causing problems.

This is all I've learnt when trying to upgrade a prebuilt, which I brought at a really dumb price before I got into pc building. Hopefully it is able to help someone that is in the same hole as me, and stop someone falling into the same trap, feel free to add to this thread and ask any more questions

Technomancer__ · May 21, 2017

8 minutes ago, k.m.p said:

First off, apologies if I've put this post in the wrong section,

dont worry @TheRandomness can move it

May 21, 2017

I was lucky enough to have a prebuilt with 500W ATX PSU from Delta (which is really solid btw) and comes with all standard connector that you'd see in any modern non-oem, non-proprietery power supply

The case was not really nice to work around with since it's a micro ATX form factor and the PSU is also a non modular one too. But it fits my shitty card just fine. It's not something amazing as the card itself is a single fan.

There is only 1x 120mm case fan only and another fan mount at the front

TBH Asus hasn't cut any corners on my prebuilt. (Asus M32AD-US021S)

It was $500 on sale at Bhphotovideo

And rocks: WD Blue 1TB 7200RPM, Delta PSU 500w, modified Asus H81M-E motherboard (with one less PCIEx1 port and replaced by miniPCIE for Wifi card), an ASUS OEM GTX 760 with 3GB VRAM (it is noted that it runs very loud even on non demanding game like CS GO) and best of all i5 4460 (they didn't use stock cooler from intel but they used delta ones, still not something better than intel ones)

Spoiler

RAM is standard DDR3, single stick of 8GB and still have another slot for the second one. The board officially support up to 16GB of RAM only.

And nicely it has a DVD drive too. They also provided room for another 3.5" Hard Drive in their drive cage but the motherboard only supports up to 4 SATA port so that means I have only 2 SATA drive to work with since 1 SATA is used by the DVD drive and 1 SATA by the previously mentioned HDD.

After some use I now upgraded GPU to an RX 480 4GB, have extra 2TB Seagate Barracuda, 240GB SSD SanDisk Ultra II

pelark · May 21, 2017

2 minutes ago, deXxterlab97 said:

I was lucky enough to have a prebuilt with 500W ATX PSU from Delta (which is really solid btw) and comes with all standard connector that you'd see in any modern non-oem, non-proprietery power supply

The case was not really nice to work around with since it's a micro ATX form factor and the PSU is also a non modular one too. But it fits my shitty card just fine. It's not something amazing as the card itself is a single fan.

There is only 1x 120mm case fan only and another fan mount at the front

TBH Asus hasn't cut any corners on my prebuilt. (Asus M32AD-US021S)

It was $500 on sale at Bhphotovideo

And rocks: WD Blue 1TB 7200RPM, Delta PSU 500w, modified Asus H81M-E motherboard (with one less PCIEx1 port and replaced by miniPCIE for Wifi card), an ASUS OEM GTX 760 with 3GB VRAM (it is noted that it runs very loud even on non demanding game like CS GO) and best of all i5 4460 (they didn't use stock cooler from intel but they used delta ones, still not something better than intel ones)

Reveal hidden contents

RAM is standard DDR3, single stick of 8GB and still have another slot for the second one. The board officially support up to 16GB of RAM only.

And nicely it has a DVD drive too. They also provided room for another 3.5" Hard Drive in their drive cage but the motherboard only supports up to 4 SATA port so that means I have only 2 SATA drive to work with since 1 SATA is used by the DVD drive and 1 SATA by the previously mentioned HDD.

After some use I now upgraded GPU to an RX 480 4GB, have extra 2TB Seagate Barracuda, 240GB SSD SanDisk Ultra II

I agree, the Asus prebuilts are actually really good based on what I have seen.

k.m.p · May 21, 2017

2 hours ago, Ethocreeper said:

dont worry @TheRandomness can move it

Thank you

2 hours ago, deXxterlab97 said:

I was lucky enough to have a prebuilt with 500W ATX PSU from Delta (which is really solid btw) and comes with all standard connector that you'd see in any modern non-oem, non-proprietery power supply

The case was not really nice to work around with since it's a micro ATX form factor and the PSU is also a non modular one too. But it fits my shitty card just fine. It's not something amazing as the card itself is a single fan.

Well that is really good to hear, at least someone is not ripping people off as badly as the compettition, but still, not every prebuilt is as good,

Edit: I posted before finishing

I was in a similar situation, I had a lenovo prebuilt with an i5 4460, low end nvidia card, 8gb ram and 2tb hard drive, it did come with a dvd player but northing was compatable with the new mobo, my upgrade was to an rx 480 8gb as well

Edited May 21, 2017 by k.m.p