Consolidating two PCs

[JohnnyM]

A few years ago the fiance and I bought identical towers. She now uses her laptop exclusively and we want to get rid of this other tower.

I want to add the HDD, CD/DVD Drive, and RAM to my current tower. I am fairly certain I have all the space needed.

Is there anything I should know?

I found a tutorial for adding a HDD and that looks pretty straightforward. Do I need to format the drive before I install it or can I just take it out of her computer and plug it in to mine with everything on it? Assume she's virus-free, since I know that would need a formatting.

As for adding the RAM, can I mix and match sizes of RAM? Both the towers came with two 256k chips. I added a 1gb chip to my system. I think that means I have one slot left, so can I just stick another one of her 256k chips in?

And any thoughts on adding the CD/DVD drive? Any special things to look for?

I also already run two monitors, but can I add her video card and run a third? I don't really think I need it, but if I can do it, why not!

 

[alden]

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[JohnnyM]

Thanks. Here's where I'm at:

I have the new HDD installed, that was simple. Showed right up. I'm reformatting it so that it's clear, but I didn't even really need to do that.

I didn't realize that when I bought 1gb of RAM a couple years ago that I bought two 512mb chips. So I already have two of those and my two old 256mb chips, so her's won't do me any good.

You were spot on with the monitor...motherboard only has one slot for the video card. Oh well, it's at least a better monitor so I can use it, just can't have all three going.

I can't for the life of me get the damn CD drive out. I can see another screw that's holding it in place but I'm having a hard time getting to it. But it looks like it'll just plug and go like the HDD.

Edit: Got it out, didn't know it came out the front as opposed to from the inside.

Thanks for the reply, even if I didn't wait for it to rip both of these open.

 

[JohnnyM]

The back of my CD/DVD drives contain places to connect small wires for Digital Audio or Analog Audio. What are these used for?

I know it seems obvious, but they haven't been plugged in and I still get audio from the drives.

 

[Ignatius]

I'm assuming it's a Serial ATA drive, if so the audio is directed from the drive to your soundcard via the motherboard through the SATA cable, although you still have the option to connect the analog cables if you want (some people like analog better than digital).

If it's not SATA, I don't know how in the hell you're getting sound...

 

[alden]

The audio connection to the CD drive is optional. It goes from the drive to your sound card, and is only used if you play an audio CD in the drive. If you don't connect it, you should still be able to play an audio CD, it'll just go through the regular data cable. There's really not a big reason to bother with it these days.

 

[JohnnyM]

Ok so I know I didn't have to mess with a motherboard or anything, but this was seriously fairly simple.

I know a lot of people build their own machines...do you get a substantial savings and not give up much in the way of performance?

Now I know I'm getting a bit ahead of myself here and I'm a year or two away at needing a new system, but I think I may try to tackle it next time.

 

[Fried JJ Pickles]

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