Posted 11:09PM July 26 2006
In an effort to bring an old Gateway 450 TBR3 PC (circa 1999) into 2006, I decided to learn some new techniques and replace its primary components, including motherboard (mobo), central processing unit (CPU), and memory (RAM). Later on we learned we would also need to replace the power supply unit (PSU).
With rock-bottom part prices available online, we were able to perform this upgrade for under USD$200 including shipping. All components for this project were purchased from Tiger Direct; however, many similar warehouse vendors exist, such as
PC Connection and Newegg. The PSU and an extra case fan were purchased at Circuit City.
Before upgrades
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Before |
After |
| CPU |
450 MHz Pentium III (32 bit) |
2.4 GHz Athlon 64 (64 bit) |
| FSB |
100 MHz |
1600 MHz |
| Mobo |
Intel Socket 370 (5 PCI, 1 AGP, and a whole lot of dust) |
Gigabyte Socket 754 (5 PCI, 1 AGP, Ethernet, SATA, USB 2.0) |
| Memory |
384 MB SDRAM |
1024 MB DDR |
| PSU |
200 Watt |
400 Watt |
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After upgrades
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This part was easy enough. I've replaced/added PCI cards in the past so it was no problem taking these out. Our graphics card we purchased about a year ago (ATI Radeon 9200) uses the black AGP port.
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The connector's pretty easy to find. In our case it was a 20 pin socket (they also come in 24 pin varieties) that provides power to the motherboard directly from the power supply unit. Later on we run into a major problem with the power supply's connectivity.
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There were six screws securing the motherboard, raised about 1/4" to allow air to pass behind it. The ports and connectors slide out along with the mobo.
I tried to pay attention to where various wires connected to the motherboard, especially non-standard wires like the ones to the front LED's and on/off switch. This really didn't help later on, though, as I cannot get the LED's to function on the updated computer. (On/off switch works great though, thankfully.)
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You shouldn't have to do this. Any new case comes with a removable metal plate that you can replace with the one provided with the motherboard. Ours, however, came welded to the case.
It took nearly two hours to cut a hole large enough through the steel for the new motherboard's connectors to even stick out. I had to make a special trip to Home Depot for jigsaw blades capable of cutting through metal.
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Attached the motherboard in the case. Attached ATX power. Even went ahead and locked on the CPU, fan, heat sink and RAM. However, next we ran into a major problem.
The "ATX_12V" 4-pin power connector (circled) supplies additional power directly to the CPU. Our old power supply from 1999 did not include this connector. I had to make another trip out, this time to Circuit City, and purchase a new power supply unit, made by Antec.
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We purchased some round IDE and FDD cables for $12.99. These cables connect to the hard drive, optical drive and floppy drive the same way but take up less space than the huge ribbon type. If we had purchased a new hard drive, I would have used the new serial ATA (SATA) connection which operates at a much faster speed (150 Mb/sec).
I also bought a blue LED 80mm case fan from Circuit City to make this PC officially pimp, yo.
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The whole reason we did these upgrades was to allow my little sister to play The Sims 2 on this computer, so I just kept Windows 2000 as the OS. I had to run the Windows Setup utility to repair the installation and allow Windows to realise that everything around it changed.
But that was pretty much it. The whole process took about eight hours on one day and three the following day. However I think I've gained a lot more experience working inside a computer and troubleshooting hardware issues (with tin snips and jigsaw blades).
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PC Upgrade Project
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