I just got a free computer off craigslist which I was happy about. the lady even gave me the receipt that said it was made in 02 and cost 1000 bucks. it is a p4 1.8ghz and 512mb of ram and a decent gpu. atleast good enough to use ubuntu special effects.

its funny cause she gave it away cause her nephew watched porn on it, and it got a virus so she thought it was trash. hahaha.

ok, now for the main point.

it is grey and has a blue plastic on the front and is really ulgy. and i want to spray paint it black.

I googled around, and every method involves hours of different sanding and makes it really shiny which i dont even really want. is there an easier way? and is it neccessary to reamove the inside if im only painting the outside? i was thinking i could just tape over any buttons or something, sand it once, and spray paint it. is this a good idea?

The real reason you have to sand it thoroughly is not so it's shiny, but because spray paint doesn't stick to plastic very well -- especially the "shiny", finished plastic used on most computer cases. So you should at least sand it enough to get rid of the case's finish.

I'd also take out the components on the inside, because you will forget to tape up some hole or another, or you will do a shitty job taping up a hole, and you will get spray paint on the inside.

yes, that is true... haha. I think I might just take off the two panels, and just spray paint those black. then maybe stick an apple sticker on the side I will see. haha. oddly there are no ventilation holes on either side. only the back. and on the inside there is a large plastic tube right over the CPU. I guess it is used to cool it down more. but it is very cramped. if anything i would think it is adding to the heat.

Just curious, what GPU is it? In 02, most low-midrange prebuilts used a variation of the ATI Rage series of cards.

why did you change your username to a processor? 9001 was best.

and idk. ill check once i get a monitor cause i only have wired internet in my room.
is there a cpu-z alternative for linux?

would display your CPU information, and

would display all your PCI cards, the one that says "VGA compatible controller:" is your video card.

ATI Radeon 9200.

?

and you were totally right about GPU being able to be a bottelneck. It has less memory then other boxes but it runs so much smoother.

and whats the command for info on the ram. not sure how many mhz it is running at.

MHz means almost nothing for RAM. it's timings and DDR vs DDR2 vs DDR3.

That rig probably has 266 MHz DDR or 133 MHz SDRAM.

and is the ATI Radeon 9200 any good?

It's a bit old, but still pretty decent. It's about five generations old now.

ive checked out a bunch of case painting guides, and I think they take a bit to far, but im just gonna get some low grit sand paper like 300 grit and high grit paper like 1200. and ill use the low first then the high. then prime it, then add the main color then add one or two layers of clear shiny. not a bunch like some people do cause i realy dont want it to be all reflective.

I dont get the whole wet sanding deal though.