What can I mix-n-match?

[BAC5.2]

Not sure that I have mentioned before that I have inherited two desktop computers.

One is a DELL Dimension 4700C
The other is a DELL Dimension 8400

They are a few years old, obviously.

I was looking at specs and it seems that both have strong and weak points. The 8400 has a big hard-drive (80gb), a relatively fast cpu (3.6ghz), and a good video card (I guess?).

The 4700 has twice the RAM, a DVD burner, and I can't find much more information.

My goal is to wipe clean the OS and start fresh with Windows XP Professional. My first question comes from that. Is XP-Pro the "best" OS to run? It seems to be the one most widely used and the one that I'll probably have the best results with. I don't know that I'd like Vista and I don't even know if the computer would be capable of running it. I hear it's a resource hog and that it asks you eleventy billion times if you are sure you want to do what you told the computer to do.

What can I mix-n-match between the two? The 4700 has 1GB of RAM and I'd like to harvest it in addition to the RAM on the 8400 now (512mb I think). I'd also like to snag the hard-drive and run two hard-drives.

Ideally, I'd really like to run two monitors (since I have two identical DELL monitors as well), so can I simply plug the video card from the 4700 into the 8400 and go from there?

The 4700 has a DVD burner, and the 8400 has only a CD burner and a DVD-Rom. The drives look different, faceplate wise (the 4700, thanks to the 'c' suffix, has what looks like a laptop drive). Thoughts and ideas, or is it truly not worth it?

I'm sure I can't run both processors, right?

I also have a Toshiba laptop that has seen better days. I'd like to dump everything from it onto the desktop and then see if I can clean it out to speed it up a lot (simply for internet and word-processing use).

I would probably map the desktop upstairs so I could access files on it from my laptop if need be.

Can XP-Pro enable remote desktop? And if so, how does that actually work? I can basically use the desktop from my laptop anywhere, as if I were using my desktop? How horrifically slow would that end up being?

I'm not much a gamer but I do have a little bit of music that I'd like to listen to. I'd also like to try and score a copy of ProEngineer and a windows version of MATLAB (I have the apple version) and be able to effectively run those programs at their limits.

What plan of attack should I follow? The idea is to keep this as free as possible. I got the computers for free and I don't have the money to throw into computers. I just want it to work and be reasonably quick.

[quicklook]

good luck.

most laptops can't run two hd's unless one is external.

i am a mac guy and only use pcs when i have a need for one.

(they read my ford shop manuals.)

i find pcs completely counter intuitive and very frustrating.

[n2x4]

A DELL Dimension is a desktop yo. Silly mac users

The RAM in the 4700 is slower (400mhz vs 533) so I say no on the RAM
You can run both HDD's, they're both SATA.

Take the 8400, add the second harddrive, do a clean install of XP Pro. The ATI Radeon X800XT can do dual monitors, just get the latest Catalyst drivers.

Google remote desktop. There's tons of howto's. XP pro, home, and Win 2000 can all do it.

[quicklook]

my bad, i swear i read laptop.

must be the drugs i am on.

you pc guys get to be experts at cobbling up your old big boxes unlike the cool mac users that start out with cool computers all ready to use.

silly mac user but happy.

[smh0101]

If I remember correctly the 4700c is the "compact" shell one...

So no, I dont believe you could swap the drive, but check Fry's Electronics ads... You can find DL DVD Burners for about $40... Probably less, I havent been looking at them for awhile now so I'm not completely sure of the going rate.

Because of the form factor I doubt you could pull the video card from the 4700c and put it into the 8400... But you already ought to be able to run dual monitors.

Ram is cheap... check out:
http://www.4allmemory.com

It will tell you the RAM spec for the 8400...

As for remote desktop... have you thought about making a small home network with the 8400 as the server?

[Legacy777]

I'm not much a gamer but I do have a little bit of music that I'd like to listen to. I'd also like to try and score a copy of ProEngineer and a windows version of MATLAB (I have the apple version) and be able to effectively run those programs at their limits.

Shoot me a pm.

[SubaruNation]

mostly depends on your motherboard if you can raid the HDD's together.

ram is really cheap nowadays so making the computer work better shouldn't be much of a problem.

[smh0101]

You dont even necessarily need to raid them... Just use'm as separate drives.

[SubaruNation]

ya thats true, or even as externals if you want lol