Upgrading an old Alienware PC

[Sorrows End]

Hello everyone!

My one pc is an older Alienware system that was purchased back in 2004.

It is an AMD 64 4000+ 939 socket. 74 gig raptor hard drive. 600w silverstone power supply. Liquid cooling on the cpu. Big ugly alienware atx case.

My question today is would it be worthwhile and/or even possible to replace the current motherboard with a nice 775 socket mb with a new dual core or quad core intel chip and use the exisiting case, cpu, hard drive, and liquid cooling system that is already in place to save some money instead of doing a completely new build?

Would I be able to just clean the cpu cooling block from the liquid cooling system and just apply it to a new chip? the 939 socket amd chips are obviously bigger than say a E8500 775 socket intel chip. Would the cooling block even be effective since the block is bigger than the chip?

I do apologize for the newbishness of my questions, im just trying to save some money by using what exisiting parts I have that I can recycle.

Thank you kindly for any advice or comments everyone, it is most appreciated. =)

 

[Denithor]

Welcome!

Totally different socket, your cooling won't attach properly unless you can find some kind of adapter.

But otherwise, probably just pull mobo/cpu/ram and drop in e8400/e8500/q9400/q9550 on a EP45-UD3P ($115AR) with 4GB G.Skill DDR2-800 ($40). Do a Windows repair install and you're gtg.

Might want to replace that Raptor with a WD6400AAKS or WD6401AALS (search newegg).

EDIT: One more thing - that S939 4000+ is actually worth some money these days, since AMD abandoned that socket completely. Sell it on eBay to offset the cost of your new parts.

 

[mpilchfamily]

Keep in mind when you replace the motherboard you won't be able to use the windows install that is on the HDD. You'll have to reinstall windows and the recovery disk that came with the PC won't work. You'll need a full retail or OEM copy of windows. If you don't change out the motherboard you won't have to reinstall windows or be foreced to buy a new copy.

 

[krnmastersgt]

Or you could try your luck by uninstalling all the drivers (including motherboard) then swapping the drive into whatever your new system is. Occasionally this works with just a few minor hiccups, sometimes it doesn't work at all. Nothing to really lose from trying though so why not?

 

[zerocool84]

Originally posted by: krnmastersgt
Or you could try your luck by uninstalling all the drivers (including motherboard) then swapping the drive into whatever your new system is. Occasionally this works with just a few minor hiccups, sometimes it doesn't work at all. Nothing to really lose from trying though so why not?

I did that in November and it worked fine until my copy of Vista arrived.