"upgrading" an old HP M8277C

[65dieselprogrammer]

Good day all. I don't see a "general PC questions" sub-forum, so hopefully this is placed correctly.

I've got an old HP media pc, M8277C:https://support.hp.com/ca-en/document/c01175532

Mobo is an Asus, IPIBL-LA (Berkley). chip specs/upgrades are listed as :

Socket type: 775
Motherboard supports the following processor upgrades:

Intel Core 2 Quad Q6xx0 with Quad Core technology up to Q6600 (Kentsfield)
Core 2 Duo E6x00 up to E6850 or E6700 (Conroe)
Core 2 Duo E4x00 up to E4400 (Conroe)

I've owned it since new. Was great way back when on vista, slowed down as the years went on (win 7 helped it a bit) and now I know it's well past "end of life" for a PC (slow as molasses on Win 10).

But the old clunker just keeps processing along, albiet painfully slow.

I'm looking at building an office desk for a new house we are building (I'm a bit of a woodworker) and I'd like to integrate a PC into the desk. The hidden monitor, PC built in, etc type of deal. I'd like to press the M8277C into service, at least to set up the desk and keep initial costs down.

I've already swapped out the HDD for an SDD and boot time on windows 10 pro N (clean install) dropped to 15 seconds! Holy crap! I never expected to drop that much! The old clunker is actually pretty enjoyable to use again!

The orignal geoforce 8400 gs went south, I had to pull it out a while back and toss it. Corrupted somehow. I'm currently using the on board graphics, which actually doesn't seem too bad for my uses. But I find myself in the market for a card that will work in this mobo, but worthwhile transferring to a new rig, or one that would be cheap enough that I could toss it when I build a new rig for the "in desk" PC. I was thinking something like an old GTS 450 or quantum 2000 video card might work for the interim and be relatively cheap to pick up (25-50 bucks). Recommendations would be welcome.

It's only got 2 mb ram, I may bump that up to the max of 8 gb (running 64 bit win 10). Again, if I find it cheap enough to not bother me if i can't reuse it elsewhere.

Power supply is an issue, the original is still in there and it's only 300W. At best, barely adequate for the original rig when it was new. So I've purchased a SeaSonic S12II Series S12II 620 Bronze (SS-620GB) 620W Intel ATX 12 V 80 PLUS BR. That should be more than enough for my rather modest needs and be transferable to a new rig when I'm ready. Or I may leave it in the M8277C and just buy another for a build.

So I guess I'm looking for recommendations for upgrades to my old M8277C in the way of components to make it a little better in the interim.

I use it mostly as storage for documents (pdf, word, etc) internet surfing, email, photoshop, sketchup, word dictation software (I fancy myself a bit of a writer) and such type uses. It's got a second HDD in the case, 1TB. But that's storage only.

Would be nice if I could still use it as a media PC if I wanted. The TV card is still in there and odd as it sounds, I kind of miss using media center. The Hp may end up at a "garage PC", holding my manuals, surfing the internet and maybe running a media center (55" TV, logitech z5000, etc, all stuff I have lying around from over the years). I'd at least need something with an HDMI out for that, which kind of brings me back to the GTS 450.

I don't "game" much and never any of the online games. I'm actually old enough to have owned/played the first "tomb raider" in ms-dos I'm pretty much stuck along those lines for games (I actually have all the tomb raider titles in the drawer and enjoy them from time to time!). I'm definitely not a "power gamer" and don't have much interest in becoming one.

Not looking to spend a lot of cash on anything that is specific to the Mobo, as I'm sure anything like CPU, etc isn't going to do me much good on a more modern Mobo. Used/clearance stuff would be fine if it's staying with the M8227C(keep costs down). But things like the power supply, the SDD, etc I can move to the new rig when I get around to it.

This isn't my only pc/laptop, but it is a faithful old warrior that just won't die. I'd like to give it a bit more life, however modest it's new purpose may be.

So, any upgrades worth my time or just use it "as is" until it's time to build something a bit more modern/powerful?

thanks for any ideas/recommendations.

 

[65dieselprogrammer]

So, I'm going to answer my own post!

Some googling turned up this hit: https://hothardware.com/reviews/gpu-redux-can-old-dualcores-drive-a-modern-graphics-card?page=5

It's a Q6600 cpu and a gtx660 showing performance gains.

Now, that newer gtx660 is probably more card than I will ever need, but the Q6600 is an upgrade for my old Berkly mobo.

A quick look on ebay turns up an Intel Core 2 Quad CPU Q6600 2.4GHz/8M/1066 LGA775 SLACR. 15 bucks. At that price, not much harm in picking one up and see what it does in my mobo.

Then, I came across a EVGA GTX 660 2GB GDDR5 for what seemed like a reasonable price, but still a bit high for my taste. It had a "make an offer" button. So just for grins, I offered half the asking price. I figured no way that is going to fly.

Yoink! accepted offer. 45 bucks!

Well, definitely waaay more card than I need, but the price seemed right. Even with it throttled down (maybe hobbled would be a better word) by my mobo and hardware, it will still be fine for my use. And, I can migrate it to a better rig later on. Seems like 450-500W is what the recommendations are to run it, so my seasonic 620 should be fine.

All that's left is to plug it all together and see what I get.

This should be interesting.....