Reviving my old PC Part 1 🐴
This one is for the nerds
The Defibrillator
So firing up an old desktop PC does often feel like returning to the mines. There was a solid layer of dust inside that I've chosen to ignore for now, choosing instead to first see if it turns on - having forgotten the last time I used it.
Thinking about the dust reminded me of the origin of deadmau5's name origin story - whom i never realised was Canadian not American...
Many such cases
To my surprise it boots up perfectly; on launch just kicking off some updates and being relatively usable right away (apart from a discord install loop that won't go away and One Drive being angry about being signed out).
I figure out from this that I last got the machine in working order ~3 years ago when I was backing up all my data to my RAID array in another country.
I also find my HDD's present, alongside an antistatic bag that was precariously placed inside the right compartment of the PC.
This is quite a good start up, usually when I return to an unmaintained PC/Windows install after some years (a mac convert for ~8 years) then all hell breaks loose and it takes a good hour or two of manual install, or potentially an entirely new OS install to get going.
I soon find out that Windows 10 support is dropping in 41 days (October 14 2025) - so as anticipated, time for a complete OS install 🙃.
However, it turns out that Windows 11 is dropping compatibility for all pre 8th Gen Chips (2017) apart from some exceptions after pushback.
We're now at 14th Gen, 10 Intel generations since my PC build.. i'm feeling old
So what's the specs?
- i7-4770K + Corsair H100 water cooling
- GTX1080 Founders Edition (previously 1 and then 2 780's in SLI)
- 32GB 2400MHZ ram (from different brands - oops)
- MSI Z87-GD65 Motherboard
- 1/2 of 2 240GB SSD's - previously in Raid0 until one died
- 2TB main drive - short stroked for performance - which is funny in 2025 with the low cost of storage these days
- 3TB backup drive
- Some cheap case from Amazon
A formidable build for my teenage self
How do we overcome the Windows 11 restrictions?
Well with the help of ChatGPT as with most things PC the community has quickly overcome the restrictions placed forth by our corporate overlords.
A registry edit or a custom install using Rufus (easier and preferred) that ignores the two core restrictions blocking my Windows 11 install: TPM 2.0 and Secure Boot.
A new lease of life
I also thought that it would be great to try and add a new M.2 NVME SSD to improve general performance, however I need to do this via a PCIE slot as the motherboard doesn't have the required M.2 connector.
The next issue is that this motherboard isn't designed to boot from a PCIE lane, so there are two options, use a bootloader from a USB or the main SSD to jump start and redirect to the PCIE, or, a custom BIOS edit.
Thanks to GPT being proactive and finding me a forum post from someone creating this edit for my exact motherboard, we're going to be brave and go straight for this approach.
MeatWar
For a little more context for anyone reading without too much knowledge of legacy hardware, the SATA connectors for my SSD's tap out at ~500-600 mbps, so this is the current max.
The 1TB M.2 NVME SSD I've bought can go up to ~7800, however it will be limited by the motherboard here to ~3400, which is still a great improvement over the SSD and should make the machine feel snappier and give me some more space for my games.
Also if any of this hardware does die or I choose to upgrade, then I can unlock the full modern speed without having to buy more hardware.
Doing the work
All the parts I need arrive tomorrow, so if I get the time and if everything goes smoothly (...IF) then tomorrow or Friday I'll share another article of how I did everything and whether it worked.
More Issues:
So part of the reason for this revival is that I've bought a new 240hz OLED monitor that I wanted to try out with some HDR gaming. While I know my system is barely going to hit 60 at 4K, it would be nice to try.
Everything was running smoothly at 60, but as soon as I changed Windows to 120 then I'm seeing screen tearing.
I'm hoping the Windows 11 install will fix this, but I've also ordered a new Display Port cable too just incase.
It's never easy is it.. 🐴
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N.B. I was explaining all the components to a friend and I thought I'd test nano banana 🍌, it isn't perfect but still pretty impressive.
