Starting from nothing, but i have $500

So ive been using this Compaq laptop for about 4 years now. it was aroud $300 dollars and frankly the cheepest thing on the counter at walmart whe i was in 8th grade. And i want to make a nice gaming pc. i have seen a lot of videos and read a few things, but thought i would write this for just 1 last bit of confedence.

the games i mostly play are mmo's/rpg's. like WoW or minecraft, maybe battlefeild 3. but trying to play with the lagg i get on minimal setting on WoW makes me want to blow my brains out. Dont even ask about minecraft.

So again, im starting with nothing here. Will need a monitor/screen, wifi thingy, and all the stuff for a gaming pc-$500.

so if you were me, and were limited to $500, what would you do?

thanks for the help :)

and sorry if im asking the same thing you've answered 50 times, i swear its not that im lazy, im just really bad when it comes to looking through forums.

I used to have the same laptop before i punched it so hard that the motherboard cracked and the keyboard had the impression of a fist.(insta unstoppable crash and freeze on startup, already had my current build with ubuntu on it.) ill see what i can put together for 500, and do you need a keyboard or can you scrounge one up? as well as a mouse?

ill try and get back to you within the next week or so. until then i may just start listing parts(out of town right now)

http://pcpartpicker.com/p/1oOCn

with that you should have no problem running wow adn bf3 will run on low-meduim settings while playing.

you might have to work a bit more to get the extra cash(58 bucks). Sorry man i didnt want to compromise in game performance for price and monitors are expensive. you could probably find a refurbished hard drive on newegg for cheaper though. just take whats on that list and find cheaper stuff cause 500 bucks isnt much to go off.

Have a nice day    -jammy

ps-punch the shit out of that laptop once you are through with it, it eases alot of the frustration.

thanks, that really helped :)

Since you're on such a budget, I'd really recommend going for Linux or even *cough cough* pirating Windows. I'd rather not compromise performance for a $100 copy of windows. Here's a build that I'd go for:

http://pcpartpicker.com/p/1qLA6