Upgrading-Question for Stevem

[dawsey]

Hi Steve

I just saw your post about you upgrading to a new motherboard and Athlon processor and it got me wondering.

I have, piece by piece been upgrading my P3 400mhz desktop PC. I have another 60gb hard disc,partitioned into 2x30gb. I have added 256mb more RAM to the existing paltry 96mb,added a CD rewriter,changed from '98 to 2000pro,put in a network card and a wireless network,Im happy with the graphics and sound cards but I can't go any further.
In your opinion,should I junk the lot,just saving the bits I can use again and get a new PC,or is it worth me junking just the motherboard and processor and getting new ones. Are there any likely conflicts if I went down this road re compatability of motherboard and existing PC?
I really don't see the point in dumping the lot just for extra speed/more open windows etc that a new PC can give me. Google earth is to blame

[stevem]

Originally Posted by dawsey

I have, piece by piece been upgrading my P3 400mhz desktop PC. I have another 60gb hard disc,partitioned into 2x30gb. I have added 256mb more RAM to the existing paltry 96mb,added a CD rewriter,changed from '98 to 2000pro,put in a network card and a wireless network,Im happy with the graphics and sound cards but I can't go any further.

Dawsey,

Always salvage what you can, like from above keep HDD, CD burner. I'm longtime user and fan of AMD processors, so I would recommend upgrading to an AMD 64 (as higher speed as the budget will stretch).

The motherboard, you'll need to get a socket 939 to take the AMD chip. You can become creative here, and look around. Mobo's these days come in all flavours, and unless your really going after cutting edge sound and graphics, get a mobo with onboard audio and video. Take a look at Gigabtye GA-K8N51GMF-9, retailing in Sydney at the AUD$153

All mobo's these days have onboard LAN, and some will even come with firewire and wireless. You may need to keep your wireless card is necessary.

I would also recommend upgrading your HDD to at least 120Gb, depending on the age of your existing on. Dont worry about SATA, stick with parallel disk drives for the time being. If your older HDD is OK, then I would use that as my C drive, the whole 60Gb, and then use the new drive as the D, and put everything on there.

I would recommend throwing away the 96mb of RAM and get a matching stick of 256Mb, just keep on eye on the speed. That will give you 512Mb, so you can upgrade to XP.

Going on prices in Sydney at the moment, the above will set you back around AUD$700. A great system for a small price tab.

Let me know if you want any further help

[dawsey]

Originally Posted by stevem

Dawsey,

Always salvage what you can, like from above keep HDD, CD burner. I'm longtime user and fan of AMD processors, so I would recommend upgrading to an AMD 64 (as higher speed as the budget will stretch).

The motherboard, you'll need to get a socket 939 to take the AMD chip. You can become creative here, and look around. Mobo's these days come in all flavours, and unless your really going after cutting edge sound and graphics, get a mobo with onboard audio and video. Take a look at Gigabtye GA-K8N51GMF-9, retailing in Sydney at the AUD$153

All mobo's these days have onboard LAN, and some will even come with firewire and wireless. You may need to keep your wireless card is necessary.

I would also recommend upgrading your HDD to at least 120Gb, depending on the age of your existing on. Dont worry about SATA, stick with parallel disk drives for the time being. If your older HDD is OK, then I would use that as my C drive, the whole 60Gb, and then use the new drive as the D, and put everything on there.

I would recommend throwing away the 96mb of RAM and get a matching stick of 256Mb, just keep on eye on the speed. That will give you 512Mb, so you can upgrade to XP.

Going on prices in Sydney at the moment, the above will set you back around AUD$700. A great system for a small price tab.

Let me know if you want any further help

Many thanks Steve.
A pretty comprehensive reply
Much as I expected, change motherboard and processor,and get extra RAM. I did try to upgrade to XP and just got the dreaded blue screen so I'm guessing not enough RAM then. Thats that question answered. I forgot to say I still have the original 9.6Gb hard disc thats doing nothing so it would be wise to remove that and replace with at least another 60Gb? Hard discs are so cheap now that theres not a lot of difference in price here in UK between 60/80/120discs. I only have 2 hard drive slots.
I assume new processors come with cooling fan?

Once Xmas is out of the way I think I'll treat myself
Thanks again

[stevem]

Originally Posted by dawsey

Thats that question answered. I forgot to say I still have the original 9.6Gb hard disc thats doing nothing so it would be wise to remove that and replace with at least another 60Gb? Hard discs are so cheap now that theres not a lot of difference in price here in UK between 60/80/120discs. I only have 2 hard drive slots.
I assume new processors come with cooling fan?

Get rid of that 9Gb drive, not much use these days. I would go for the 120Gb drive, as you say they are so cheap. When you install applications, install them onto the D drive, and keep the C drive purely for system stuff.

When you buy the processor, it does come with a fan and heat sink. Dont let them try and sell you a spearate one, as the boxed one is good enough. Just read the booklet well, and understand what your doing. It is very easy and straight forward. At least now with the socket 939's you cant put them in the wrong way around.

[dawsey]

Originally Posted by stevem

Get rid of that 9Gb drive, not much use these days. I would go for the 120Gb drive, as you say they are so cheap. When you install applications, install them onto the D drive, and keep the C drive purely for system stuff.

When you buy the processor, it does come with a fan and heat sink. Dont let them try and sell you a spearate one, as the boxed one is good enough. Just read the booklet well, and understand what your doing. It is very easy and straight forward. At least now with the socket 939's you cant put them in the wrong way around.

Cheers Steve.

An interesting project for me in the New Year.

[Benjy]

I'd keep the 60gb HDD, It will be pretty much exactly the same spec as a 120Gb drive and unless you use a lot of media (you probably dont) 60Gb is fine. Thorugh or pass on the 9Gb drive though, also make sure that your CD/DVD Rom Drive are on seperate IDE channels (i.e 0 and 1).


XP should run fine, regardless of RAM (though a minimum of 256mb is generally acceptable). A blue screen of death would have been because of a bad install or bad driver etc..

Buy a GOOD motherboard that can use Dual Channel Ram, then buy exactly the same ram as you have already, so you have 2 identical 256mb RAM sticks. Even if you spent perhaps 150 quid on a motherboard, processor and RAM you would probably have a very competent PC (perhaps 5x as quick as your current one).

[Mabus]

Hi Dawsey,

Just read the post. I agree with the rest of the posters that a new combo Motherboard/processor with some additional ram would problaby be your best road.
An AMD64 with a motherboard soket 339 with an Nvidia chipset (NV4)would do nicely(any brand). But bear in mind that the new Mobo's all come with PCI-express and dont support AGP anymore, so unless you buy a mobo with included graphics that will probably mean that you'll need another graphics card.

On the other hand you can find cheap motherboards with socket 754, but it's a dead end as AMD is discontinuing the production of processors for 754 by the end of next year...but you find them with agp, so no new graphics card needed (by the way graphic cards with agp are also discontinued...).

If you do buy a new HD I would use that as you C (partioned if you want in C and D) and use any other HD as a secondary since the new generation of drives tend to be a lot faster and have more solid state memory for pre-catching.

hope it works out.