Everybody wants to save money (who doesn't?)  In upgrading computers
however, people don't realize that there's more things to consider than just
harddrives and CPU speed.   A customer at one time walked into the shop with
his old Gateway CPU box.  He wanted his old P-II 350 MHz entirely upgraded
with the exception of the case.  After a quick evaluation, our technician
said that it would not be feasible to reuse the Gateway case because of its
low power supply and a motherboard  which was unquestionably old and
obsolete, using SIMMs.

After politely telling the customer the situation, he stubbornly insisted
for us to replace the Gateway P/S with "maybe a 350W?"  I showed him our
supplier's catalogue showing the 350W P/S at $75 which he was very willing
to pay.   We tried to convince him to get an entirely new system instead for
a lot less than what he wanted to do.   Well, we sold the man a
'new-everything P4 1.8 system' (per his spec.) minus the case.  We end up
installing a new 350W P/S (with temperature sensor output) and
replaced/modified the front power sw/monitor lights/USB module on his
Gateway box  to match the pins for the motherboard connections.  Also
installed 2 cooling fans.

5 days later the man showed up, tickled to death when he saw the
"day-and-night difference!" in performance between the old system and his
new "Gateway" P4 system.  He practically left the store with an ear-to-ear
smile.  The bottom line?  We sold the man a very reasonably-priced upgrade
system.  In addition to that, I gained a new CompuCase ATX mid-tower case
minus the power supply.  What I paid for the CPU case with the 350W P/S?  A
lot less than what you would pay for the power supply itself. (This is where
Jun Quian's comments below comes in.  The only difference is, this was a
Gateway!)

Emie DelRosario

>
> This is the part I don't want to say (people don't like to listen), but to
> speak the truth, it is not a very smart thing to recycle your dell box.
The
> money you spent on new power supply, and case fan, in total, would come
> close to a good quality case with good power supply. eg. Antec Lanboy
case,
> which come with 350w Antec power supply + case fan, is barely expensive
> (US$20 - $30) than just buy the power supply itself.
>
> Jun Qian

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