Very Cheap GBPVR Machine (Canada)

[bdgbill]

I was poking around TigerDirect looking at raid cards trying to solve my disc spanning problem and found this off lease desktop. $204.00 after rebate plus $40.00 shipping. Should be here by the end of the week.

512 Megs of RAM and a 2.4GHZ P4 should be a nice trade up from My 196 Meg 600Mhz PIII.

This will be my third used IBM box. I have had nothing but good luck with IBM hardware.


I am going to try plugging my old system drive, recordings drive, video card and PVR 150 into the new machine and hope the OS detects the new Mobo/CPU.

This seems like it is way too easy to work. Anyone ever tried it?

[bdgbill]

all sorts of obsure and unfixable problems'.

And that's why I've never tried it

Hmm this sounds bad.

So the normal procedure when replacing /upgrading a mobo / cpu is a complete OS reinstall?

[fender]

You would be best off reinstalling Windows on major hardware changes.

The other thing to be aware of is that this system probably doesn't have room for more than one 3.5" drive - so you might have to give up the CD-ROM drive once you've got it up and running to have a spot to mount the harddrive.

[whurlston]

There is a way to reinstall windows and keep all your programs/settings. I use it whenever I do major upgrades (upgrades that require all new system hardware drivers) such as motherboard upgrades. I've done this a couple hundred times and never an issue. err.. unless the original data was already corrupt

I did a basic tutorial for someone with screenshots:

http://www.oshinetworks.com/Brian/repairxp.html

[bdgbill]

You would be best off reinstalling Windows on major hardware changes.

The other thing to be aware of is that this system probably doesn't have room for more than one 3.5" drive - so you might have to give up the CD-ROM drive once you've got it up and running to have a spot to mount the harddrive.

This machine is pretty much a updated version of my current machine. I pulled the floppy drive to make room for a 2nd hard drive. There is also a spot for an aditional optical drive that could be used for a 3rd hard drive with some custom cables.

I have had my problems with Tiger but one of the great things about their site is that they show lots of product photos. They have a shot of this machine with the case off and I was able to confirm that this machine is layed out almost exactly the same as my current machine.

[nitrogen_widget]

I second this suggestion.
I've replaced many motherboards in PC's with XP & doing a repair has always worked for me also.
Except as Whulston said the drive was corrupt.

There is a way to reinstall windows and keep all your programs/settings. I use it whenever I do major upgrades (upgrades that require all new system hardware drivers) such as motherboard upgrades. I've done this a couple hundred times and never an issue. err.. unless the original data was already corrupt

I did a basic tutorial for someone with screenshots:

http://www.oshinetworks.com/Brian/repairxp.html

[bdgbill]

There is a way to reinstall windows and keep all your programs/settings. I use it whenever I do major upgrades (upgrades that require all new system hardware drivers) such as motherboard upgrades. I've done this a couple hundred times and never an issue. err.. unless the original data was already corrupt

I did a basic tutorial for someone with screenshots:

http://www.oshinetworks.com/Brian/repairxp.html

Thanks - I found something similar to this online last night. Going to give it a try. Do you need to call Microsoft to re-register XP with this method?

[kram_0]

You won't need to re-register when you just repair the system.
Another option would be to sysprep and enable detection of non-plug-n-play hardware. I can't remember if you are required to regenerate the SID to do that off the top of my head. This way may not require the original XP install CD but I'd only do it if you were going to clone the HDD and run both installs.

[martint123]

I'll give thumbs up for a 'repair' installation as well. Works a treat every time I've tried it.

[bdgbill]

There is a way to reinstall windows and keep all your programs/settings. I use it whenever I do major upgrades (upgrades that require all new system hardware drivers) such as motherboard upgrades. I've done this a couple hundred times and never an issue. err.. unless the original data was already corrupt

I did a basic tutorial for someone with screenshots:

http://www.oshinetworks.com/Brian/repairxp.html

Just an update. The method whurlston suggested worked great. The only software that needed to be reinstalled was the Hauppauge drivers.

As i was watching a video on GBPVR just after closing up the machine I suddenly got a "blue screen of death". A reboot got me "no operating system found".

I pulled the case off and found that I had pinched one of the IDE cables under my hardrive cage and shorted it to the case. Replaced the cable and everything seemed fine but my GBPVR database was corrupted. Why didn't anyone ever give the advice to backup the recordings database before futzing with hardware??

I Reinstalled GBPVR and was back in business in time to record "Heroes" for my girlfriend. This was the first time I had used the "import recordings" function and it worked beautifully.

The difference bteween my old 600 MHZ PIII and the new 2.4GHZ P4 is subtle. Menus are way snappier, remote reponsiveness is much better and the 5-6 seconds of jerky video at the beginning of each recording are gone. Live TV on GBPVR is almost as responsive as my STB. GBPVR.exe also fires up in just a few seconds as opposed to about a full minute on the PIII.

Basically I'm loving life with a whole new machine 400% faster than my old one for $204.00. The TigerDirect experience was painless (for once).

Thanks to everyone who offered advice.