Next year I'm going to be a senior in high school and am going to build a computer for college. Though I think I can do it, I decided to take a co-worker's old comp(win 95, 32mb ram, 2.75gb hd) off of her hands just to take it apart and see how everything works. This is going to be so much fun!

Hehe, have fun and don't shock yourself.

or any of the components. Ground yourself.

Inside every electronics component is a small amount of smoke. Don't let it out!

Oops... I was checking online how to remove the processor and found out I shouldn't be doing this near carpeting(sp?)...

I'm doing this ON carpeting.

/me puts it back together and sees if it works

Yeah, be VERY careful about static electricity, it will fry almost any of the components. maybe wear rubber gloves and do it on a surface that does not generate static electricity (and keep the humidity reasonable) .

Do you know of any linux distros that will run on horrible specs? This Win95 thing needs to go...

Try DSL (a Small Linux)

Edit: wtf? I have damn censored? That's stupid.

You got pwned by your own filter

@foamy: touch an unpainted metal surface of the chassis (case), and you'll discharge static electricity.

Magic Smoke!

A little research will tell you a good distro to use also (almost any will run, just performance is the kicker)

Jpez: there's also a tiny explosion inside the CPU that you can release by giving it a large amount of current.

Okay, I'm downloading DSL. It should be finished by morning (stupid dial-up ). I have to leave to take my ACT's early though and won't get back until after supper... Oh well, at least I'll have something to look forward to while testing.

And how can I clear a hard drive? I can run DSL as a live cd, but I'd rather install it. How can I remove windows? Will a "del C:" from within DOS work?

foamy, use cfdisk in linux to format the harddrive, then follow the distros manual to see how it wants to be installed

while static electricity is very bad, it won't happen much. I've done must of my compy work (including building the one i am on right now) on carpet, and i have never had a problem. just touch the PSU (big block on the top with all the cords coming out of it ) before you touch anything else, and you will be fine

and don't be particularly stupid and wear socks on carpet.....

Scuffing socked feet on carpet before working on computers will ground you too...

i guess you were never a kid then, because i certainly remember scraping my socked feet along the carpet, sneaking up behind someone, and shocking the hell out of em

I usually did it to myself with a doorknob.

Oh, okay. I always thought you just partioned so you could keep your windows files and install linux. I didn't know you could uninstall windows like that.

And my internet disconnected last night... I'm trying to get it again now. It should be done in about 2 more hours.

Keep in mind that you will lose all your documents and such if you do that...

That's exactly what I want to do. It's a used computer and I feel weird having all of their personal information. Plus, I already found and deleted one porn folder. I don't want to find another, later.

Oh right, this wasn't your computer. 0x5