Refurbish a Aurora R4 PC?

nitrousx123 · 10 Oct 2020 at 23:10

Hi Guys my next door neighbour gave me his old Aurora R4 PC.
It originally had:
· I7-3820
· GTX 680 (Removed)
· 16GB DDR3 (Removed)
· Optical Drive (Removed)
· AIO CPU Cooler
But these items are no longer in the machine. He said that the GPU had stopped working.
And the drive is missing it didn’t say what happened to it.
I’m looking to refurbish machine.
What would like to do is if possible. Upgrade the AIO as he has had it since new. I’m also looking to purchase a 2nd hand GTX 980Ti. And buy a 2nd hand optical drive.

My question is:
The current PSU that’s included with the device can I easily upgrade the GPU without upgrading the PSU?

If I wanted to upgrade the CPU is it possible? If so, is there anything in addition I would need to do to make it work?

Seeing as the memory is removed looking to get second hand 16gb DDR3 memory, any of you have any spare if not I'll look on ebay or gumtree

dfour · 11 Oct 2020 at 12:08

You would need to remove it and look up the psu and see if its capable or will need a replacment assuming its a standard size psu.

A replacment single rad AIO is going to be £60+ depending upon brand choice.

https://ark.intel.com/content/www/u...-3820-processor-10m-cache-up-to-3-80-ghz.html

Yor cpu is quite old (in cpu years) and will only be a second hand upgrade and still possibly quite expensive as its an extreme edition chip on a 2011 board. 16 gig of ddr3 is also not going to be very cheap. It might cost you as much as brand new ddr 4.

nitrousx123 · 11 Oct 2020 at 14:04

dfour said:
You would need to remove it and look up the psu and see if its capable or will need a replacment assuming its a standard size psu.

A replacment single rad AIO is going to be £60+ depending upon brand choice.

https://ark.intel.com/content/www/u...-3820-processor-10m-cache-up-to-3-80-ghz.html

Yor cpu is quite old (in cpu years) and will only be a second hand upgrade and still possibly quite expensive as its an extreme edition chip on a 2011 board. 16 gig of ddr3 is also not going to be very cheap. It might cost you as much as brand new ddr 4.

I'll have a go at upgrading it from doing further research on the PSU its a 870W PSU. So it should be more than enough for any newer GPU from this gen. Think I may go ahead and upgrade it to a 980/980Ti. Aiming to spend max £250 on the rig as it would be a shame not to return it to its former glory and have it go to landfill

varkanoid · 13 Oct 2020 at 12:35

Isnt there a Xeon CPU better than then 3820 that could be used if its a 2011 board ?

geekyadz · 13 Oct 2020 at 13:25

varkanoid said:
Isnt there a Xeon CPU better than then 3820 that could be used if its a 2011 board ?

Depends on the board

Chaos666 · 13 Oct 2020 at 18:38

first it would be worth checking if it even works ... get some cheap ram and test with any gpu to see if it boots..

nitrousx123 · 16 Oct 2020 at 15:20

Chaos666 said:
first it would be worth checking if it even works ... get some cheap ram and test with any gpu to see if it boots..

I havent mentioned this but my next door neighbour would bring over his PC whenever it wasn't working. I asked him why he stopped using it he said that the graphics card stopped working so he threw out the memory and gave away the optical drive. I was like .
I will get some cheap ram and use one of my current GPU's in the rig

Chaos666 · 16 Oct 2020 at 22:27

you have a nice neighbour

nitrousx123 · 18 Oct 2020 at 15:34

Thanks

nitrousx123 · 1 Nov 2020 at 23:41

Quick update I purchased some memory, GTX 1060 & Optical Drive. Done some stress testing on the GPU in 3dmark for a hour on a loop no crashes. Played some fortnite and GTA V both for a hour all stable at stock settings. Next thing to do is clean the PC down

dfour · 2 Nov 2020 at 18:18

Nice one. Post some pictures when you have finnished

Chaos666 · 2 Nov 2020 at 19:06

nitrousx123 said:
Quick update I purchased some memory, GTX 1060 & Optical Drive. Done some stress testing on the GPU in 3dmark for a hour on a loop no crashes. Played some fortnite and GTA V both for a hour all stable at stock settings. Next thing to do is clean the PC down

I am glad it works mate..
can we please have some pics?

nitrousx123 · 3 Nov 2020 at 02:13

Sure i'll aim to take some before and after pics hopefully before the end of this week