The year is still fairly young, only being halfway through the second month, and so I have begun work on a new project.  This project is a combination of upgrading one computer and replacing another.

While I will be chronicling the process of the project, I first want to give an overview of my current computer setup.

Currently, I have three desktops.  Each one has a different purpose and usage pattern.

Main Computer:

This computer started off as a Barebones System from TigerDirect back in 2011 and has very little upgraded since then.

The original specs were:

• MSI 990FXA-GD65 motherboard
• AMD FX-8120 8-core processor
• Samsung 22x DVDRW drive
• Patriot Gamer PC10666 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3 RAM
• OCZ Technology 120GB SSD SATA II
• Ultra 750W ATX power supply
• Corsair Carbide Series 400R Mid-Tower
• MSI Radeon HD 6870 !GB Twin Frozer II PCIe video card
• Corsair Hydro H100 CPU Liquid Cooler
• Western Digital 1TB Hard Drive
• Microsoft Windows 7 Ultimate x64

Since then, the memory has been increased to 16GB with another set of Patriot Gamer PC10666 4GB DIMMs and the Solid State Drive was replaced with a Kingston SATA III SSD, and the DVD drive replaced with an LG Blu-ray burner.

With the SSD upgrade, the system was reimaged with Microsoft Windows 7 Enterprise x64.

This computer is my “general purpose” system.  It is used for gaming, photo editing, videos, finances, word processing, etc.

Basically, anytime I want to sit in front of a computer and do something, this is the machine that gets used.

Home File Server:

This computer started as a Dell Dimension E521 in 2007 running Microsoft Vista Ultimate, and has been upgraded several times.

The original specs were:

• Dell Dimension E521 motherboard
• AMD Athlon 64 x2 5600+ CPU
• Western Digital 250GB hard drive
• 2GB DDR2 RAM
• nVidia GeForce 7300 video card
• Toshiba/Samsung DVD-RW drive
• Philips DVD-ROM Drive
• ATI TV tuner card
• Teac Card Reader
• Microsoft Windows Vista Ultimate

Over the years, I have done my best to max out the system, largely being limited to what the Dell BIOS supports and the power supply could handle.

The system has been upgraded to an nVidia GT9300 video card, LinkSys Wireless G card, Gigabit LAN PCIe card.  The DVD-ROM drive was removed and the 250GB drive mounted in its place so 2 2TB Seagate drives could be installed in a RAID 1 configuration.

The system was also reimaged with Microsoft Windows Server 2008 Enterprise.

As noted above, this system serves my needs as a file server, plus it is used for me to learn, experiment, play around with Active Directory and other Microsoft networking features.

Home Theater PC:

This computer was originally built in 2007 and has undergone several upgrades over the years.

The original specs were:

• Asus M2A-VM HDMI motherboard
• AMD Athlon 64 x2 5400+
• 4GB DDR2 RAM
• Western Digital 320 GB hard drive
• ATI Theatre TV tuner (taken out of the Dell)
• BenQ Blu-ray drive.
• Microsoft Windows Vista Ultimate

The system originally was in a large gaming tower, but has been reinstalled in a Antec cube case.  The BenQ drive was replaced with an LG and recently a different LG Blu-ray was installed and the previous moved into my main system.

The onboard video originally met the DHCP standards, but after a while, a discrete video card had to be installed.

The system’s current specs are:

• Asus M4A785-M motherboard
• AMD Athlon 64 x2 5400+
• 4GB DDR2 RAM
• Western Digital 320 GB hard drive
• 2 Western Digital 3TB External drives
• Microsoft Windows 8.1 Pro
• MediaBrowser

Well, that’s a basic rundown on the small network I have and in the next month one will be replaced and at least another upgraded.