CAD workstation

JAYCAD

Member
Greetings all - first time poster here (be gentle!).

We're looking to buy a CAD workstation that can work smoothly with AutoCAD, Autodesk Inventor (small assemblies), and possibly MicroStation.

No idea about specs, graphics cards, etc. - no idea about much really - but we've got a 3.5" hard drive that we pulled from an old PC that we'd like to plug and play into a new one if possible??
 

SpyderTracks

We love you Ukraine
Greetings all - first time poster here (be gentle!).

We're looking to buy a CAD workstation that can work smoothly with AutoCAD, Autodesk Inventor (small assemblies), and possibly MicroStation.

No idea about specs, graphics cards, etc. - no idea about much really - but we've got a 3.5" hard drive that we pulled from an old PC that we'd like to plug and play into a new one if possible??
What’s your max budget?

Do you already have a monitor or is that included in the build?
 

JAYCAD

Member
Woooaaah, lots of technical stuff there! Sorry, it's whooshed over my head.

It would just be for the tower. We've got a CAD monitor, and a keyboard and mouse.

Looking to spend about £1k but I'm guessing that won't be enough?!?
 

SpyderTracks

We love you Ukraine
Woooaaah, lots of technical stuff there! Sorry, it's whooshed over my head.

It would just be for the tower. We've got a CAD monitor, and a keyboard and mouse.

Looking to spend about £1k but I'm guessing that won't be enough?!?
My apologies, I must have got mixed up with another thread, hold on, let me draw something up.
 

JAYCAD

Member
We have a tower which worked well with AutoCAD, but the motherboard (ASUS A55M-K??) suddenly died. The VGA connection just stopped working one day when we switched the PC on. We tried different cables - they worked elsewhere so it's not them.

Does the attached help?! It was bought six years ago.
 

SpyderTracks

We love you Ukraine
Woooaaah, lots of technical stuff there! Sorry, it's whooshed over my head.

It would just be for the tower. We've got a CAD monitor, and a keyboard and mouse.

Looking to spend about £1k but I'm guessing that won't be enough?!?
Do you have a copy of windows you can transfer over to this build from your previous one? What version of windows was it?

Do you do any post process surface rendering at all, or is it simply CAD work itself?
 

JAYCAD

Member
All the software (AutoCAD, Microsoft, etc.) is on the original hard drive that we have removed from the previous chassis, but we don't know how to transfer licenses.

There wouldn't be any rendering or anything, just CAD work.
 

SpyderTracks

We love you Ukraine
All the software (AutoCAD, Microsoft, etc.) is on the original hard drive that we have removed from the previous chassis, but we don't know how to transfer licenses.

There wouldn't be any rendering or anything, just CAD work.
So you won't be able to to just plug and play the windows installation or programs, you would have to do a clean installation on the new computer as it's different hardware etc.

What version of windows was the old computer? If it was initially windows 7, there should be a key somewhere on the case, unless you bought the copy of windows yourself in which case you should have received the key in an email or however you purchased it?
 

SpyderTracks

We love you Ukraine
The Autocad license could be a big problem, they are very tight on those
It should be listed somewhere, you're perfectly allowed to carry it to another build, it's only when you try to run it on more than one device concurrently that it will block you. This is the case with any software these days, they all connect to the internet to verify if it's the only device being used.
 

JAYCAD

Member
So you won't be able to to just plug and play the windows installation or programs, you would have to do a clean installation on the new computer as it's different hardware etc.

What version of windows was the old computer? If it was initially windows 7, there should be a key somewhere on the case, unless you bought the copy of windows yourself in which case you should have received the key in an email or however you purchased it?
Erm ... a clean installation?!

So we couldn't get everything bar the hard drive, then just connect this one (Seagate Barracuda) to it? Dangit. Really thought it would be as simple as that.

The old PC was Windows 7 - pretty certain it came with the PC.

When you say "a key" - do you mean like a serial number?!
 

JAYCAD

Member
It should be listed somewhere, you're perfectly allowed to carry it to another build, it's only when you try to run it on more than one device concurrently that it will block you. This is the case with any software these days, they all connect to the internet to verify if it's the only device being used.
We'd only be using it on the one device, which is why we'd need to somehow get it off the old hard drive. Likewise with Inventor, Microsoft, and other software like Norton, PDF Professional, etc.
 

SpyderTracks

We love you Ukraine
So we couldn't get everything bar the hard drive, then just connect this one (Seagate Barracuda) to it? Dangit. Really thought it would be as simple as that.
No, unfortunately not as the new PC is all different hardware so you'd just get severe system instability at best, at worst repetitive BSODS.

The old PC was Windows 7 - pretty certain it came with the PC.
In that case, there should be a windows key label on the PC with a key on it? Sometimes they're on the rear of the case, often look something like this:

windows7proactive.jpg


Was it still on windows 7 or did you upgrade to 10?
We'd only be using it on the one device, which is why we'd need to somehow get it off the old hard drive. Likewise with Inventor, Microsoft, and other software like Norton, PDF Professional, etc.
Yes, so all of those will come with license keys, if you bought online it will be in your online account, or you just log into the program with that account and it will automatically register it to the new machine. If it was a physical copy then the key will be in the case.
 

Martinr36

MOST VALUED CONTRIBUTOR
We'd only be using it on the one device, which is why we'd need to somehow get it off the old hard drive. Likewise with Inventor, Microsoft, and other software like Norton, PDF Professional, etc.
Don't you have the installation discs
 

JAYCAD

Member
We have the installation software but it was reusing the license that concerned me - wouldn't the license be shown as used, thereby preventing us from using it again
 

JAYCAD

Member
No, unfortunately not as the new PC is all different hardware so you'd just get severe system instability at best, at worst repetitive BSODS.


In that case, there should be a windows key label on the PC with a key on it? Sometimes they're on the rear of the case, often look something like this:

View attachment 19099

Was it still on windows 7 or did you upgrade to 10?

Yes, so all of those will come with license keys, if you bought online it will be in your online account, or you just log into the program with that account and it will automatically register it to the new machine. If it was a physical copy then the key will be in the case.
Oooh wonderfully informative reply, thanks!

Dangit. So ... the old Seagate can only be used for storage, an external hard drive?

I'll have a look at the chassis - hopefully there will be key label on there. We didn't upgrade to W10.
 

SpyderTracks

We love you Ukraine
We have the installation software but it was reusing the license that concerned me - wouldn't the license be shown as used, thereby preventing us from using it again
Like I say, you’re allowed to use on as many different computers as you like so long as it’s only one at a time.
 
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