Might need some help....

[crazyhorsejohnny]

Hey guys. Over the weekend I helped a friend build a new PC. He had been buying parts when he had cash. He bought the motherboard first back in March and the last thing he got was the hard drive a couple weeks ago. Well lucky for him everything went ok and he has himself a brand new (well sort of) PC. Here's the list of important stuff we put into a Coolermaster CM 690:

Intel Core 2 Duo E4500
Western Digital SE16 500GB
G.Skill DDR2-800 4GB CL 5-5-5-15
ABIT IP35 Pro
XFX 7950gt

Now the reason why I'm posting. For helping him ( I pretty much did it all), he gave me his old rig. He says he bought it in 2003 so he was due for an upgrade. Plus it doesn't work. He said it "freezes" at the XP screen. But it gets worse. He said it was getting pretty loud the last couple weeks before it went "down". Power supply maybe? And when I asked him if he had any protection he said "no not really but I don't open any emails that look like viruses". Yikes !!! That led me to install AVG free on his new rig. He also can't find the XP CD or any other ones that came with it. I didn't have time to look at it today but I will tomorrow hopefully. Figured the first thing I would do is give it a quick cleaning with canned air as I imagine it will be pretty dusty. And then hook it up and see where it "freezes" and listen to see where the loud noise is coming from. I'm sure I will need some help on this. Should be fun. I'll post a picture of the inside before I clean it.

[biff]

Given the age a bad fan is very likely... and a cheap fix. No worries about finding the XP CD. There is software out there (free) that can get the key out of the registry if he doesn't happen to have the sticker stuck anywhere inside the case. Then you can use any XP CD as long as it's the same type, i.e. home or pro, and just do a fresh install. I'm sure it'll be fine.

[crazyhorsejohnny]

Yeah the sticker with the key is on the side panel. Didn't think I could use another xp home cd. I'm assuming his was xp home with no service packs (2003). Now if i use a cd with service pack 2 will it still work? Because if all goes well I would like to do a fresh install. Might buy a new hard drive too.

[kzEr]

Originally Posted by crazyhorsejohnny

Yeah the sticker with the key is on the side panel. Didn't think I could use another xp home cd. I'm assuming his was xp home with no service packs (2003). Now if i use a cd with service pack 2 will it still work? Because if all goes well I would like to do a fresh install. Might buy a new hard drive too.

Check if the sticker lists it as a OEM installation (most 'stickers' are OEM). If it is a OEM then you need a OEM installation CD for XP (Home or Pro). You can attempt to get Microsoft to transfer the key from a OEM to a retail version but the process is long and generally not worth it.

[crazyhorsejohnny]

Took a look and yep sticker says OEM. Oh well ! I hope to "play" with it on the weekend.