building a PC is fun... until it isn't.

[Electronic M]

Originally Posted by maxhifi

Get Windows 10 and learn to live with it, it was released almost four years ago already... eons in computer time. Win 7 is a legacy system, can't expect it to be supported forever. Sometimes no choice but to go with the flow. I've been on Win 10 for a year and a half already, and it's working just fine.

HDMI to composite adapters are cheap and easy to find on eBay, you can buy a few and decide which one you like best.

Another thing you could do is make like a tech and just change the caps in your dell. If there's anything any of us should be good at by now, it's changing caps

I'd probably do all of the above, to be honest. No reason the Dell couldn't live on as a dedicated media streamer while the new computer does the stuff you need a new computer to do.

You raise some good points. I plan to let the Dell live on as a basement media rig(it ain't good for much else)...till it dies. I've recapped the Dell twice and it's last power supply once (power supplies are more misery to recap than a new unit costs).... changing caps on that motherboard is sort of a last resort. Last time I destroyed a trace and lost back audio out....It is not fun or easy to work on compared to any other PCB I've soldered on.

I do use 10 on my laptop but there's no real features 10 has that 7 doesn't that come close to what a S-VIDEO port is worth to me.... Also 7 while not marketed still has a few years of support left it just don't make sense to me to stop making drivers for it till it is done or months from done.

I'm probably going to get a HDMI converter and install 10... that said 10 doesn't want to install, and keeps asking me for drivers (the bootable USB stick maker program did have a hiccup so I'm going to remake my Install media)..... In the course of combing the motherboard disk for win 10 drivers I found what claim's to be win 7 usb3.0 drivers so I might just try injecting them into the win 7 installer for chit's 'n' giggles before I install Windows 10.... I gotta rewrite the USB stick for 10 anyway so I may as well try 7 first.

[maxhifi]

Originally Posted by Electronic M

there's no real features 10 has that 7 doesn't that come close to what a S-VIDEO port is worth to me.... Also 7 while not marketed still has a few years of support left it just don't make sense to me to stop making drivers for it till it is done or months from done.

If you install 10 now, you get the most years of service from the new computer until 10 isn't supported anymore. If you go with 7, you're going with something which is already on its way out.. bad idea in my mind, maybe easier now but a potential future headache. And will be absolutely zero fun when some latest shiny engineering package you need for a last minute project can't be installed because it requires minimum OS 10. It's simply down to numbers - if the installed base of old OS is lower than a certain percent of total users, there's no profit in supporting said older users.

Same thing happens with every OS update.. some people held onto XP until its last dying breath - I say when you update hardware, should make software up to date too. Computers are a world where obsolescence is guaranteed, and if you plan to use the computer to make money, it's in your interest to stay ahead of the curve.