Question: How would you advise the customer and what would you suggest

You have just completed a fault diagnosis of their stand-alone non-networked AT system. The family uses this for internet access and general purpose applications including games. You have diagnosed a faulty CPU and PSU. The CPU is obsolete but you have a second-hand one in and old working motherboard. You can obtain a replacement AT PSU from your main supplier. Before you commence any repair work, you politely state your diagnosis, remedy and the cost of the repair to the customer. At this point Mrs. Malone asks you if the repair will be cost effective and whether a better option would be to upgrade the system with a new CPU and mother board able to accept modern add-ons like a digital camera. However at present they cannot afford a completely new system, but she is thinking of buying her husband a digital camera for his birthday.

To upgrade the old AT machine to an ATX system, the case, PSU, motherboard, CPU and RAM would have to be replaced. At the very best, the only salvageable items from the old system-unit are the Graphic Card, Sound Card, Hard Drive, Optical Drive and Floppy Drive. But when these are compared to today’s accepted specifications it is questionable whether these items are worth reusing. The existing Monitor, Keyboard, Mouse and Modem can be reused.

Question: How would you advise the customer and what would you suggest?