Upgrade for parents Dell Dimension 2400

Today my parents old pc has finally stopped working. Tried powering it on and nothing happened.

I think the specs are as follows:

CPU: Intel Celeron

HDD: 20GB

Ram: 512mb

Mobo: Socket 478

So basically my question is would it be cheaper to just buy parts and upgrade or just buy prebuilt? Want to do this as cheap as possible. I already have a windows 7 disk and thought about re-using the case and cd drive.

Is it possible to reuse the dell case and just add in a new psu or would I be better off just geting a new case?

Is it possible to reuse the dell case and just add in a new psu or would I be better off just geting a new case?

iamthatdude_

Ahh that sucks, but oh well. I thought about going for the a6-3500, but the only thing my parents will be using is the web browser and watching youtube. Would the llano be that much be better for it than a sandy-bridge pentium dual core?

As much as I would normally be against it, I would recommend a refurbished Dell or HP, something like a Dell optiplex 755. They can be picked up cheap on ebay around $100 and are Core 2 machines. They are quite common, reliable and usually come from ex business environments.

It would be a huge upgrade over that 478 setup and would be more than suitable for their needs.

As much as I would normally be against it, I would recommend a refurbished Dell or HP, something like a Dell optiplex 755. They can be picked up cheap on ebay around $100 and are Core 2 machines. They are quite common, reliable and usually come from ex business environments.

It would be a huge upgrade over that 478 setup and would be more than suitable for their needs.

andyroo08

Well i doubt you could buy anything worse if you tried.

Thanks for the suggestions everyone. With black friday coming i'll see what I can find instead of building one.

As much as I would normally be against it, I would recommend a refurbished Dell or HP, something like a Dell optiplex 755. They can be picked up cheap on ebay around $100 and are Core 2 machines. They are quite common, reliable and usually come from ex business environments.

It would be a huge upgrade over that 478 setup and would be more than suitable for their needs.

andyroo08

Agree on this, you can pick a refurbished machine (but not too old, 1-2 year max) like the Optiplex 580 or 390

http://www.dell.com/us/dfb/p/optiplex-desktops