Upgrading an Old computer

[Kingfrail]

Aright, thanks a ton to everyone who posted, I just ordered all the parts, and now I need to think about an OS. I'm a little confused as to what kind of CD I have, my father is a professor, and was able to bring home a MS Office XP Cd a few years ago. I remember being able to successfully install XP on my old PC a year or two ago, despite the CD saying that it "expires/expired" in 2003.

Will these disks successfully install XP on my new PC? If not, I was considering purchasing the Premium Vista home edition, until I saw the hundreds of furious comments left on every review site I read. With the computer build I have, will Vista really be crawling? Or were these people simply overreacting? I'd love to run DirectX 10, and thats basically one of the only reasons I'd consider making the switch to Vista, but if these MS Office XP Disks will work, I'd be perfectly happy staying with them.

[rkagin]

I'm not sure what quite would expire with install disks, as I have my laptop from '02 that I still wipe every year or so, and reinstall with the same CDs (XP, that is).

[Trotter]

Windows can be installed from any disk as long as it is the same version, no matter what the source. A "restore" disk won't do it, though.

[Kingfrail]

So, I just got my pieces, and I installed them to what I believed to be correct. When I power up the computer, the fans boot up, the Led lights come up, but the monitor does not respond. Ive checked around online, and so far noone has had their problem resolved that I could see, so Im a little doubtful that Im going to get a quick fix, but anyone have any ideas on how to get the monitor to work with my comp?

[Puddle Jumper]

Did you connect the power cable to the graphics card?

[Kingfrail]

Yep, also tested my monitor on another comp, and it worked.

[Trotter]

Hook your monitor up to the graphics card. If that doesn't work, hook it up to the onboard. If the onboard is still working you will have to disable it in Control Panel and in the BIOS.

[Kingfrail]

I currently have it plugged into the video card, and I dont think my motherboard has an onboard video card.

[Trotter]

My bad... I was thinking you were on your old mobo.

Make sure everything is seated correctly... RAM, video card, CPU. I don't think I see a speaker on your mobo... Do you get any beeps when you fire it up?

[Kingfrail]

Na, Im not hearing anything when it boots up. Im pretty sure everything is in correctly, except my Processor, thats the only thing Im a little uncertain on. When I put it in, I was unable to lock the cover up like it was when the processor was not in. I'd pushed it in fairly hard, and it was nowhere near close enough to lock into place, and I didnt want to screw something up by snapping the mobo or processor or something, so I just let the case close unlocked. Did I do something wrong in that part of the installation?