m0002a, whose mummy are we talking about here?
The HDD not being needed is a very good point, lhopitalified. The only non-program files on her laptop are text documents. IIRC that Samsung 830 is about the size of her current HDD.
CA_Steve, does any sane person like tech support...?
Really, though, I quite liked building my own machine, and most of my tech support for Mummy has been of the "why is it slow?" variety, much of which can be blamed on the age of her machine and especially the fact that it was low-end to begin with. Mummy is quite careful surfing the web, so malware has never been a problem. A Mac Mini or perhaps an iMac would be a great option, but I've sort of set my mind on doing it myself. I'll mention it for her, though. OSX would probably be a better OS for her than any version of Windows. Her first 2 computers were a Macintosh Plus and a Macintosh LC, by the way.
I agree with Mr Spocko that Windows 7 and another GB of RAM (and perhaps an SSD) probably would do wonders for her laptop, but she wants a desktop. She doesn't like the built-in keyboard and she's not too keen on the built-in screen, either, which leaves very little reason to keep the damn thing. As for wasting cash, I can see where you're coming from, but she just doesn't care. I should probably mention that a couple of large Flash ads will max out her single-core 1.4 GHz CPU and cause visible stuttering, so web browsing still won't be smooth even if every other bottleneck is removed from her current machine, and the ergonomic problems will persist.
boost, I really, really want a PicoPSU, but I'm just not quite comfortable spending another person's money in a shop that is not subject to Danish law. Mummy might not mind, though. I'll ask her. As for the sound card, I personally prefer using an external DAC for pc audio, and a local shop happens to sell a decent desktop amp with a built-in DAC.
If you know of a Danish retailer who sells PicoPSUs, I'm all ears.
Thanks for your advice, and by all means keep at it...