Will this work?

Andy Pandy · 22 Jun 2009 at 14:10

Hi, I'm looking to upgrade my computer as the one in my sig is showing its age

. I have decided to get the 4ghz I7 bundle, but will the motherboard work with an IDE hard drive, a cd drive and a dvd drive that are a 3 years old.

Can I just put new motherboard in, plug in any existing cables and it be ok? I've never built a computer before so I'm a little nervous

. Thanks.

reflux · 22 Jun 2009 at 14:15

Andy Pandy said:
Hi, I'm looking to upgrade my computer as the one in my sig is showing its age . I have decided to get the 4ghz I7 bundle, but will the motherboard work with an IDE hard drive, a cd drive and a dvd drive that are a 3 years old.

The bundled motherboard has an IDE port, so you will be able to run IDE devices fine. However, if you want to run more than one you will need a master/slave cable and fiddle with the jumpers. Bear in mind that this drive is likely quite slow by modern standards, so you might want to invest in a new one (they're cheap as chips these days).

Andy Pandy said:
Can I just put new motherboard in, plug in any existing cables and it be ok? I've never built a computer before so I'm a little nervous . Thanks.

It should work fine if you have plugged the cables in correctly and have sufficient power to run the hardware, but you should reinstall the OS or you might suffer severe software problems, given the differences between your old hardware and your new hardware. This is actually a lot easier than it sounds, but back your stuff up first.

Andy Pandy · 22 Jun 2009 at 14:25

I was thinking about upgrading the hard drive to something bigger anyway. Which would be a good one to use thats around £30. I dont need lots of space, 200gb would be plenty but if theres more for the same money then thats good too. Is there a way to check if my dvd drives are IDE? If I have to open the case what do I look for to check? Sorry for all the questions

SKaRT · 22 Jun 2009 at 15:05

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AT_Attachment
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sata
Have a look at the pictures in the links and look at the back of the drives. The two possible connectors look very different so shouldn't be too hard to see which one they use.