It's really very simple to build your own PC. I first need to know what brand and model your current PC is so I can figure out what components can be used from it in your new PC (this will save you some money). The other option is to build a complete new PC. Let me know which way you want to go and we'll take it from there.

I can't tell you anything about the current pc: it is a no-brand assembled pc. I would opt for a new one. I could partially recover the cost by selling the old one.
Thanks

If it is a 1GHz P3, it is likely a few years old (4-5 yrs even), and has out-dated perhiferals. The CD-R is likely VERY slow, and the HD is likely small and slow as well. The RAM won't be compatible (what little RAM your old system has), and neither will the video card.

You can likely keep your printer (assuming your new PC will even have a parallel port ;) ), and if you can tolerate your CRT, that can likely stay (but run at a restricted resolution) but that is probably about it. OH - you can ALWAYS keep the Floppy Drive (but they are only $9 brand-new!). You would fair better selling that PC as a complete system, and starting from scratch IMO.

I just bought the parts for my second "home-brew" PC, and I went with a "Small Form Factor" XPC style box from Shuttle with a P4 3.0E/Socket 775 and a Intel 915/ICH6 chipset and 1 Gig of DDR400 Dual-Channel RAM (CAS 2.5-3-3). Should be every bit as powerful as my "full size" tower PC, and it will be fairly portable! (I almost bought a laptop, but I got MORE power and saved $1000 going this route).

If you do end up selling the P3 system, let me know. My young 2nd cousin is in dyer need of something above his current 100MHz Pentium 1 and 64MB of ram on a 1.2Gig hard drive :shock: :oops: . Not much budget, so this may be ideal.

Big_D sounds very knowledgeable, so I'm sure you will be in good hands :cool:

I'll put together a short list of components I reccomend so you can choose something that fits your budget. I assume you live in Europe, maybe someone else from Europe could tell us where they get their parts so you could get the best deal.

The great thing about building your own PC is you can use the best components instead of the junk that most store bought PC's come with. This is the main reason people have problems with PC based DAW's. Store boughts use cheap components to keep costs down and the drivers don't always work with DAW software. By building it yourself you can get name brand components with stable drivers and avoid the hassles. Plus performance is better than store bought as well. Once you build your own you'll never go back to store boughts.

After I get the list together I'll put together some links to good sites for home builts (I don't have my site up any more) and I'll try to dig up the step by step photos from my old site, if I can find them.

I'll post again soon.

Big_D, thanks!
To Randyman: I'm from near Venice, your 2nd cousin will find some good stuff a bit closer to home... :wink:
To be honest, my current pc is not that bad, since it's running Cubase SX and I used it to produce my last demo cd: it's P3 1GHZ cpu, 512 ram, double HD scsi (the system one is removable) 20 and 80 Gb respectively, cd-rom WAITEC and cd-writer Plextor 8x, USB1x2; the monitor LG 17" and the printer HP5550 are brand new.
My concern is: it seems it isn't worth spending money to improve it when its components are not compatible with the new standards.
I may keep the cd rom, the cd-writer, the monitor and the printer and sell the remaining of it for 400 Euros. that's it.

Fmik