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HTPC- old PC to be used or not

post #1 of 4
5/4/09 at 12:12pm
Thread Starter 
I have an old dell 4600c PC that is laying around and I was wondering if I could use it for a htpc. Could any of the hardware be used to save some money and upgrade the parts that need to be updated? I want a new case as the case is a slim case and I want a Antec NSK2480 case. can these parts be used?

here are the specs on the 4600c
Intel® Pentium® 4 with HT Technology
Intel 865G
integrated Intel® Extreme Graphics 2
ADI 1980 integrated 5.1 channel audio
power supply 160w

I am thinking of doing the below htpc and wanted to use any hardware from the 4600c that can be used.

# CPU: Pentium Dual-Core E2220 2.4GHz Socket 775, $90.
# CPU Cooler: Scythe NINJA MINI, $33.
# Motherboard: abit I-N73HD NVIDIA GeForce 7100 and nForce 630i chipset microATX, $68.
# Memory: Crucial Ballistix BL2KIT12864AA804 DDR2-800 2 x 1GB Kit, $25 (after rebate at Newegg.com).
# Graphics Card: XFX GeForce 8500 GT PV-T86J-YAHG, $67.
# HDD: Western Digital WD3200AAKS 320GB SATA, $64.
# PSU: Antec EarthWatts EA 380 (included in the case), $0.
# Case: Antec NSK2480, $75.
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post #2 of 4
5/4/09 at 4:54pm

Re: HTPC- old PC to be used or not

You most likely cannot salvage any of the parts if you are determined to switch cases. Computer manufacturers like Dell do not typically use standard sizes like ATX.

Therefore, it is unlikely that the motherboard would fit correctly in your new case. The power supply is also unlikely to fit. Looks like graphics and sound are integrated in the motherboard, so those are out too. The only really salvageable part is the CPU, but that would force you to buy an older model motherboard.

Since you're looking at a graphics card that does HD decoding on the card, an alternative solution would be to just add that card, and maybe a new hard drive and RAM, to you existing computer.
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post #3 of 4
5/12/09 at 10:09am

Re: HTPC- old PC to be used or not

Agreed, there's really nothing in the existing PC that you can salvage.

As to the suggestion of adding a video card to the existing PC...maybe. But I bet it's AGP, so even if you find an AGP card that can do hardware acceleration, you won't be able to re-use the card if you decide the old PC isn't powerful enough anyway.

Well, that was a run-on sentence. But you get my gist.
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post #4 of 4
5/12/09 at 12:48pm

Re: HTPC- old PC to be used or not

i was able to run hd via a bd drive on on extremely old amd athlon 2400+. i used an agp ati hd3650 which utilized hardware accleration via dxva.

i think the op can probably get away with only a hardware acclerated video card if he is only watching via bluray disk. if he is watching via .mkv he would need to make sure that the files are capable of hardware accleration. but that is a murky path to follow.
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