Taking first shot at Upgrading my computer! Slimline s3300f???!!!!

[Pcapprentice]

I have an HP slimline/model s3300f.  Intead of buying a new computer I figured i would take a shot and make this my first battle with computer upgrading.  I have a little knowledge of pcs and OS and have messed around with putting linux on my notebook, and have removed and deconstructed and reconstruted a few old dells my brothers had laying around, so im not afraid to dive into this! 

( Im presently running 32bit vista, and everything is stock except 1TB hardrive I swapped to.)

~link to my pc specs below~

http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/document?docname=c01297155&tmp_task=prodinfoCategory&cc=us&dlc=en...

  Heres my "QUESTions":

** My first thought was to intsall a 64 bit verision of Win7. seeing as the processor CAN run 64bits I was wondering if ugrading to 4G mem, then installing the 64 OS was attainable, or even worth it seeing as i would still be using the the old board and such?

**now my second question, and the one i really want to try is, Can i take parts( motherboard,, op-drive and exsisting hardware, buy a decent tower, then install all these parts, maybe buy a processor upgrade but nothing crazy, get the proper PSU to power these additons , maybe a cooling fan for this tower? Along with this crazy venture, i was aslo pondering, can i Go higher with the Ram on this original board if i change to 64bit Win7 ( I read in the manual my board only address 4gb, but is that only because the manual is assuming I am running 32bit vista???) could i pottentianlly put two 4g ram in there to get 8???  Or shall i scrap this whole crazy idea and buy a new pc!!!!!!??????

  Id like to add the reason im even considering this is for pure experiance, and I began with the intention of originally ugrading to 4g from 2g due to the fact i am running studio software and i have experianced some lag while running different plug ins.

 I apologize for being longwinded, but if anyone understands my intentions and would like to add their wisdom to someone attempting turn their old pc into a frankenstien creation i would be gratefully in debt!

   Thank you for any input.

[Pcapprentice]

I was also considering buying a barebones package from a site or maybe compusa?

   I know its cheaper buying it like this but what would be the benefits or cons of this.

I feel confident in attempting to put one together from scratch, but am i digging a deeper hole than just upgrading my ram( as i wrote in my first post) and sticking with the 32 bit vista, cause my computer runs fine. Would I have to program Bios and such( cause i do not have any knowledge on that!)  I guess im more intrested in attempting to build or rebuild a pc?

[Dragon-Fur]

Hi PC,

This combo unit is a little more than you would spend on a case/power supply/memory/video card upgrade but this will be much faster.

You can move your hard drive and dvd drive from the slimline and end up with a pretty nice PC.

http://www.newegg.com/Special/ShellShocker.aspx?cm_sp=ShellShocker-_-909857-_-05012012_1

About $250 US (while available).

Take a look and see what you think of this option.

Good Luck!

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                                 2012 Year of the Dragon!

[wb2001]

I must add that the SlimLine series computers use a  non-standard ATX motherboard plug.