Quote Originally Posted by WallyWest View Post
Replacement of the bloated caps was a success. I actually did a very sloppy job at desoldering the old caps as I tried to make do with a 30W iron (coupled with 2 decades of non-practice). Finally got a Creston 60W from Ace HW to get the job done. Buti na lang hindi nasira ang trace sa board.

PC seems to be rock stable. I also managed to grab 2 4GB DDR2 sticks for around 700 'cause I previously suspected my blue screen woes were because of the old RAM sticks having gone bad. Hindi nga lang mag-boot when I try to mix it with my old 2GB sticks.

Now I'm seriously considering getting a Phenom II X3 or X4 chip to replace the single-core Sempron (unlockable cores, I tried).
My current Linux box is a Phenom II X3 720 BE I assembled back in 2009. I used to have the 4th core unlocked through the BIOS. But, I reverted it back to 3 cores after I built my FX-8350 in 2013. The Phenom II DIY was a rock-solid PC. One of my most satisfying builds.

The Gigabyte motherboard have 8GB DDR3. Once the Phenom II was retired from gaming, I paired it with a GDDR5 GT 640 video card.

I don't like getting rid of stuff that still works fine. So, one thing I might do with the Phenom II DIY is replace the GT 640 with a spare GTX 770, put in Windows 10, and hook up that PC to the kitchen TV. My wife watches a lot of YT content on smart TVs and it just pains me to see how lacking the built-in computer on all of them are.