[JimB]

1. I play mostly america's army.

I have a sony viao, 2.6 p4, 2G PC3200, 80g original drive, 250g second drive, antec 550 powersupply, DVD+/- rewriter, cd rewrite drives. It's okay, but it is AGP graphics slot, I can't upgrade the CPU, and all the ports are USB1. So I want to strip it out, reuse what I can, and build something more up to date. I'm looking for suggestions and technical help, because it didn't come with any OS disks.

I like the tivo functions (giga pocket) and some of the editing programs it came preloaded with. How can I keep those intact and change out the motherboard and cpu?

Presumably, I'd like to stay below a thousand dollars. Any suggestions?

Thanks

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The power supply, drives, and memory should all be good to go no matter what you get. Drives and PSUs work with anything, and PC3200 is still pretty standard. You'd be looking at upgrading CPU and motherboard, which would necesitate formatting (can't use the same Windows install with a new motherboard), and require you to have a Windows XP cd to install from. As you've already paid for a license, and Windows XP cd (of the same variety as the license key printed on your computer) should work to reinstall the OS. Just make sure you use the license key that's listed on your particular machine, or purchase a new retail copy (they're fairly cheap now), otherwise you're stealing software.

[Kurenai]

The power supply, drives, and memory should all be good to go no matter what you get. Drives and PSUs work with anything, and PC3200 is still pretty standard. You'd be looking at upgrading CPU and motherboard, which would necesitate formatting (can't use the same Windows install with a new motherboard), and require you to have a Windows XP cd to install from. As you've already paid for a license, and Windows XP cd (of the same variety as the license key printed on your computer) should work to reinstall the OS. Just make sure you use the license key that's listed on your particular machine, or purchase a new retail copy (they're fairly cheap now), otherwise you're stealing software.