New unboxing series available

I’ve just added a few new items to my “Unboxing Series”. It’s a simple photo diary that’s designed to give an idea of what a product looks like and what to expect when you open the box.

The parts are a result of the previous article designing a home theatre PC – so stay tuned for more on this little box!

• AMD Athlon X2 5050e Dual-Core CPU
  
• Kingston KVR800D2S5/2G DDR2-800 SODIMM Memory
  
• J&W MINIX 780G Mini-ITX motherboard
  
• Aywun/Apex MI-100 Mini-ITX Case
  

Upgrading computer without reinstalling Windows

One question that sometimes gets asked is, “How easy is it to upgrade a computer?” The answer is that it’s often quite simple (for someone who knows how to take apart a computer and replace parts). For others, just let your techie friends do the work.

Upgrading a computer can be a matter of less than an hour, including testing. This includes installing a new hard drive, adding more memory, etc. There are times, though, when upgrading a computer is not a simple task. One of the complications in upgrading a computer arises when your try to upgrade your CPU or motherboard, or both. It’s because Windows doesn’t like it when the core system hardware is changed. It might not even work at all.

But there’s a way around having to reinstalling Windows.

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