Computer Upgrade

I put together the computer in our kitchen back in 2010 or so, using mostly 2008 low-to-mid range  technology.  It was kinda slow, but inexpensive.  It had been dual-booting Windows XP and Ubuntu 10.04.  Back in 2013, I updated to Ubuntu 12.04 LTS.  Since that update, things hadn't been running very well.  So I've been wanting to upgrade the computer and update to a more recent version of Ubuntu.

Now that Ubuntu 14.04 is out, I thought it would be a good time to upgrade and update.  The computer runs a slow processor, AMD Athlon X2 4800+, running at 2.4 GHz, I think.  It had 2 GB of RAM, 160GB hard drive for the OSes and a 1TB drive for the Linux /home folder.  The video card was a slow nVidia GT240 type card.  You can't get new AMD Athlon X2's anymore, so I decided to add more RAM, exchange the 160GB drive for a 240GB SSD, replace the 1TB drive with a 2TB drive, and replace the video card with a nVidia GeForce 9800 GT.  Not a huge upgrade, but should speed things up a bit.

Here's a picture of the old-timer:

Here it is opened up.

It was extremely dusty inside.  I mean, unbelievably dusty.  I vacuumed it out before taking the picture.


First up, RAM.  There were two available RAM slots on the motherboard.

I added 2x2GB G.Skill modules, bringing the total RAM up to 6GB.

Next up, SSD.

This may not be the fastest SSD's on the market but it is many times faster than a mechanical hard drive.  The one problem with these is that they are 2.5" drives, and desktop cases are not made to accommodate them.  So, I needed an adaptor:

It's pretty easy to attach the drive to it:

Next up, video card.

Back in 2008, this was a decent card.  Nowadays, not so much.  But, it's better than the card I had in there, albeit noisier and less energy efficient.

Here's the video card inside the case.  It has higher power requirements, so requires an additional power connection.

It also takes up two adapter slots.  I am not really used to that, but oh well.

Next, I installed the 2TB drive and tidied things up a bit before closing it up.

Also, since Windows XP is no longer supported, I thought I should upgrade to Windows 7.  I like Windows 7.

Ubuntu 14.04 was then installed for dual-booting.  Things run noticeably faster.  Windows 7 alone boots faster than XP, and with the SSD it boots under 20 seconds.  Ubuntu is also faster booting.  Things are pretty zippy overall, as long as it only needs to access the SSD.  Video is also much better, without the jitter we had been experiencing before.  Overall, I good upgrade.