old system- need advise

RENEG4D3 · 4 Apr 2011 at 20:39

hi everyone

now before i start i know its really old and that is not that expensive to upgrade
but i dont got a job and have an extremely limited budget, jus would like some advise.

ok so i have an old pc and would like to squeeze some more juice out of it if you get what im saying. specs: amd athlon 2600+, 512m ram(133mhz), his x1950 pro 512mb (700mhz core) (1.5ghz memory turbo) agp, 750watt psu(yes i know its overkill it was just lying around) asus a7n8x-e deluxe, and 80gb wd generic hdd(dont got specs for it but its generic ide hdd)

im currently running xp 32bit, with bitdefender 2011(i wrote this since people say anti-virus slow down)---- so what should i change/upgrade, it takes around 3-4mins to boot and be usuable and the hardrive makes a racket when booting and i thinks it might need to be upgraded (maybe bottlneck).

thanks in advance

lenagh · 4 Apr 2011 at 20:48

Some extra RAM would help you I expect take it up to 2gb if you can can't be more than 30-40 quid second hand ? Your not going to set any speed records but it should help load times and general use.

iNPUt · 4 Apr 2011 at 21:00

As said 2GB of DDR-400 second hand should set you back about £30-40 and should give you a nice little boost.

Cr416 · 4 Apr 2011 at 21:42

iNPUt said:
As said 2GB of DDR-400 second hand should set you back about £30-40 and should give you a nice little boost.

+2 and maybe a new hard drive (depending on how old your 80gb is), an sata drive may help somewhat

.

RENEG4D3 · 4 Apr 2011 at 22:14

hi thanks for the replies
i was thinkig of ram and as for hdd my mobo does support sata 1(sata 150) but cant find any sata 150 hdd. also would it also be worth new cpu cost around 30 pounds, i currently have amd athlon 2600+ 2.13ghz to a better athlon 3200+2.2ghz?

again thanks for the help

Cookeh · 4 Apr 2011 at 22:42

SATA II drives work on the SATA I gen

iirc correctly, both are single core, so no point in upgrade for a meagre 0.1GHz speed boost

RENEG4D3 · 4 Apr 2011 at 22:52

i have read around that their is problems and that they need special jumpers and the mobo be able to auto negiotiate and not all drives are backwards compatible.

Cookeh · 4 Apr 2011 at 23:03

Ah k. I could be mistaken

Mind linking me to those?

RENEG4D3 · 4 Apr 2011 at 23:12

heres the link,
http://www.computing.net/answers/hardware/sata-2-backwards-compatible/42493.html

oh and anyone can tell me, should i upgrade ram,cpu or hdd?

lenagh · 5 Apr 2011 at 00:05

Ram only, anything else would be wasted money and effort imo.

Cliste · 5 Apr 2011 at 07:12

How limited is your budget?

danman2k · 5 Apr 2011 at 08:12

was going to say the same how much do you have to spend

RENEG4D3 · 5 Apr 2011 at 16:05

i would say within the range of 30-40 pounds
and would 2gb (ddr pc3200 400mhz non-ecc) be enough for a upgrade?

thanks

Tonester007 · 5 Apr 2011 at 22:39

+1 for the extra Ram.

You haven't said what you will be using the PC for, e.g. Web & Email/Games/Photoshop?
But 2Gb is normally the "sweet-spot" for XP imo.

A clean install of XP would also speed up your PC start times, along with some basic housekeeping like running a Defrag every couple of weeks and cutting down on any unneccessary programs on start-up.

I would recomend using an Anti-virus program at all times. Once you have the extra RAM its worth installing one. (There are plenty of free ones like AVG)

Cheers

RENEG4D3 · 6 Apr 2011 at 12:16

yh. i defrag regulary, and i just bought 2gb(2x1gb) of integral ddr pc3200 400mhz non-ecc.
and would use it for school work and light gaming.

Hagar · 6 Apr 2011 at 12:56

The athlon 2600+ is 16 x 133FSB, if your BIOS permits, I would try 166FSB and start at 13 x multiplier, go up in 0.5x steps up to 15x if you can, this will give 2.49GHz rather than 2.1GHz. The ram will easily cope as it is 200Mhz bus. Alternatively start at 11 x 200 and do the same steps.

RENEG4D3 · 6 Apr 2011 at 20:34

thanks for your advice will give it ago.