A couple of weeks ago I was looking into upgrading the ram on my pc that I had built like 4 years ago. So I opened up the case to see what type of ram I had but misread it only to buy the wrong type. So I go into bestbuy where they had a sale on ram and I saw some 1gig on sale for like $24 bucks and I hurried up and jump on that. Little did I know I was buying the wrong one( I bought ddr2 but misread the label on my ram that was currently in my pc which was ddr3), major bummer on my part. So later on that night I was getting ready to do some work on my pc and forgot to put in my newly ram and went for it. Once I got it started I left the room to go get something to drink and came back only to see SMOKE coming from my pc(I WAS LIKE NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!). So I hurried up and turned it off thinking maybe I didn't push the ram chip down into the motherboard socket far enough, but that wasn't the case. Then I let it cool down and didn't try to turn it back on until the next day and it was still doing the same thing which was running but no signal to my monitor( I was really PISSED AT THAT MOMENT). Then I called up my friend to see what he thought of the situation and he said that I probably burned up my motherboard, cpu and ram( I was like isn't that some ______!) Here is a list of my pc specs. from when I built it like 4 years ago:

Asus p4p800 deluxe motherboard
Pentium 4 2.8 ghz processor
1 gig of pny ram
160 gig western digital hd
250 gig western digital hd
330 watts true power supply(forgot the video card Ihad)
sound blaster sound card
Pioneer 108 Dvd Burner
Microsoft Windows XP Professional (and I had one of those big tv like monitors)

That setup alone when I first built it cost me a whopper of $2300 bucks back then. So I went online to compusa site to find alot of things on sale there(thank the LORD). I got the following setup for like $1400 bucks:

ASUS P5Q Intel P45 Socket 775 Motherboard
Intel Core 2 Quad Q6700 2.66Ghz Socket 775 CPU processor
OCZ SLI 4096MB PC6400 DDR2 800MHz (2x2048MB) of ram
Western Digital 1 TB Hard drive
500 true watts Power supply
PCI Express 2.0 1 gig video card
21 inch LCD Samsung Monitor
Pioneer 113D Dvd Burner
Pioneer 112 Dvd Burner
Microsoft Windows XP Professional SP3


I can truly say that both setups were monsters and I really did like the old one cause it was my very first built, on the other hand I was starting to have problems out the old hardware and it was starting to run slow. My newly rebuilt machine runs alot more quiet and it much faster though which I am really enjoying. I'm truly hoping that I don't have any more type of problems like that for many years to come cause having to rebuilt that cost me the $$$ that I was going to use to rebuild the motor that's in my 73 plymouth car. Now it will be a while before I can get a chance to do that which is very heartbreaking to me but it will be okay I guess in the long run. Just though I share some of the lil pain that I suffered over the past week with you guys on that, let me know what you think of my new MONSTER design.

 

the ddr2 in the ddr3 slot is more than likely what did your old motherboard in. but i doubt i cooked the cpu, it probably just burned up the motherboard. you can probably look at the circuits on the motherboard and see exactly where it started cooking at.

as far as your new setup goes, it sounds decent but if i were to go to the dark side (pentium) then i would get a core i7 processor.

why the extra dvd burner?

tiger direct is the same store as comp usa and always has great deals.
i've probably given them 2 or 3 thousand dollars in the last couple years.
tiger has a 24" acer for 170$ at regular price which is pretty great. i got my 22" acer for 180$ after the rebate and it sucks that something better comes out shortly after you get something and it's cheaper than what you paid for your inferior hardware.

you should look at your cpu and video card specifications and make sure the 500 watt power supply is enough to push them. if it isn't then your new pc will freeze if you play a game that is really demanding on the video card.

don't get me wrong though, 1400 sounds like a good deal for everything you got and i'm sure it's a pretty good pc, better than most pre-built computers that you see in best buy or wal mart actually.

 

Not to be a jerk (and really late at that), but that 4 year old PC did not have DDR3 memory.

4 years old would have put it at approximately 2005-2006. DDR3 was not released until 2007.

The Asus P4P800 board uses DDR RAM. Not sure what you did exactly, but DDR2 RAM does not fit into a DDR slot unless you really force it in. DDR2 is 240 pins, DDR is 184 pins. The slit in the DDR2 vs DDR also don't line up, they are in different positions.

Not a bad motherboard choice. Although I haven't looked at this board anywhere near in detail, Asus usually makes quality stuff.

Not sure what you paid for this chip, but at where they used to be, I'd look at crossing over to AMD. In benchmarks, their current AM3 quad cores (Phenom IIs) beat out all but the Core 2 Q9xxx series, which they get barely beat by, and of course the i7s.

But the Q6700 is not a bad chip, just saying look at all the options.

Nice choice of RAM brand. OCZ usually makes good stuff, I like Corsair as well.

Black? Blue? Green? (If you are a geek, you'll know what I am talking about. )

I'd probably shop around for a better PSU, maybe even one with more watts, personally.

This is like saying you bought a "4x4 pickup". It tells us nothing about the card's make, chipset, speed, etc. More details please!

Excellent choice. Samsung makes quality LCDs.

I used to have Asus DVD burners, which were rebranded Pioneers. Good drives.

Why? Why not Windows 7? Almost the same speed as XP, and far superior. Going with XP is like going with a 2nd Gen engine in a 4th Gen truck.

 

Thanks for your input guys, so far so good on my setup with no problems. Yeah I had thought of installing windows 7 on there in a while but its running fine with xp at the moment and hasn't froze up or anything on me. I havent shut it off at all since I've had it whereas on the old setup I had to every once in a while lol but thanks again for your input.