Upgrade Old Spec

jimmy_uk

jimmy_uk

jimmy_uk

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Joined
12 Jan 2007
Posts
12
Hi,

I have the following system and was wondering what the best upgrade route would be, any suggestions:

Midi Tower with 400w PSU
Intel P2 450Mhz
Asus P2B 440BX Motherboard
256MB PC100 SD-Ram
8GB Hard Drive
Matrox G200 8MB Graphics
Creative SB Live Sound
17" CRT Monitor
32x CDRW/DVD

Was thinking of upgrading CPU to P3 600, Ram to 512MB PC-100 and adding XP Pro which would cost approx. £100, what do you think?

Or should i go for new CPU/MB(with on-board GFX+SND)/Ram/XP Pro with a budget of £150-200 and keep everything else?

Thanks.
 
I wouldn't bother to be honest dude... it's a very moderate upgrade, it's upgrading from older technology into old technology... The £100 or £200 is best put towards a new rig altogether.
 
furnace said:
I wouldn't bother to be honest dude... it's a very moderate upgrade, it's upgrading from older technology into old technology... The £100 or £200 is best put towards a new rig altogether.
Click to expand...
Agreed.
 
What are you going to use it for??

Upgrading to new mobo / CPU / RAM may also mean you need a new PSU, as the early ATX PSUs simply won't work with today's ATX2.2 standards.

If you have a fairly new PSU then 200 can get you the following, but doesn't include the XP though:

OcUK 1GB (2x512MB) PC2-6400 800MHz DDR2 Dual Channel Kit
£61.99 (£72.84)

Asus M2V-TVM VIA K8M890 Micro ATX (Socket AM2) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard
£34.99 (£41.11)

AMD Athlon 64 3800+ 2.4GHz (Socket AM2) - Retail
£62.99 (£74.01)

Sub Total : £159.97
Shipping : £8.25
Vat : £29.44
Total : £197.66
 
Thanks for you suggestions guys.

It will be mainly used for kids homework including Word/Excel(mainly MS Office)/Internet. Its running on 98se at the moment and needs an upgrade to XP, so i thought it'd be better to upgrade the spec as well.

The kids also have use of our other system, a AMD Sempron 2400+/512MB/MX 440/XP Pro and compared with this the above system seems very slow at the moment, so the kids always want to use this one. Thats why i was thinking of going the CPU upgrade path but if you guys think it's better for the future to go with a full upgrade then i'll do that.

Thanks.
 
Asus K8V-VM Socket 754/VIA K8M890/2 X DDR400/PCI Express X16/ Micro ATX/SATA/RAID
(£34.06 inc VAT)

AMD Sempron 2800+ 1.6GHz/256KB Cache/1600MHz FSB/Socket 754/64 B it/Processor with Fan
(£34.06 inc VAT)

512MB DDR400 PC3200 MEMORY
(£36.28 inc VAT)

SEAGATE BARRACUDA 80GB SATA2/300 7200RPM 8MB
(£32.30 inc VAT)

Silver and Black Midi Tower 400W ATX
(£23.49 inc VAT)

Windows XP Home 32Bit with Vista Upgrade Coupon OEM
(£69.33 inc VAT)

LITEON 16X48 DVDROM DRIVE BARE - BLACK
(£9.98 inc VAT)

Basket Total (inc VAT/Excluding Delivery Charges)
£239.50

Obviously not from OcUK because they don't tend to stock older hardware which is what you need to be looking at. Of course, I can't say where it's from but it just gives you an idea of what you can get for your money. I built one of these for work before christmas but with a 3000+ Sempron instead of the 2800+ and for the money, it really is a great little machine :)
 
Thanks Trigger, great spec. Just wondering if i should use the following from the old PC:

Western Digital 20GB 2MB 5400 Hard Drive
Lite-On Combo 32xCDRW/DVD Drive
Midi Tower Case with 400W PSU (the PSU was replaced about a year ago)

What do you think? Will the 5400rpm slow down the performance a lot if i go with Trigger's spec?
 
I really think that its going to be worth the extra £30, SATA2 7,200RPM 8mb cache should really improve loading times over a old 5,400 2mb cache drive.

Your Case & PSU sound fine, might need a 20 to 24pin adaptor on the PSU though (Can't remember if 754 needed this?), Can't see a reason to change the CD drive either.
 
jimmy_uk said:
Thanks Trigger, great spec. Just wondering if i should use the following from the old PC:

Western Digital 20GB 2MB 5400 Hard Drive
Lite-On Combo 32xCDRW/DVD Drive
Midi Tower Case with 400W PSU (the PSU was replaced about a year ago)

What do you think? Will the 5400rpm slow down the performance a lot if i go with Trigger's spec?
Click to expand...

Hmm, I wouldn't use the old hard drive, as gamesaregood said below it should improve loading times and just file access in general. I'd definatley say though that you can use the DVD-ROM/CD-RW drive as well as the case and PSU.

gamesaregood said:
I really think that its going to be worth the extra £30, SATA2 7,200RPM 8mb cache should really improve loading times over a old 5,400 2mb cache drive.

Your Case & PSU sound fine, might need a 20 to 24pin adaptor on the PSU though (Can't remember if 754 needed this?), Can't see a reason to change the CD drive either.
Click to expand...

Socket 754 motherboards in general don't, however having built the spec above just before christmas, i know that board does actually have the 24 pin socket but I just connected the 20 pin connector from the PSU onto it and it was fine leaving the 4 end pins empty :)
 
I'm ready to be flamed for this...

Go along to your local computer superstore whose name I am not allowed to mention. Their bottom end stuff is not far off your budget, taking into account the cost of an OS. I am assuming you have install CDs for the office products. Also look at deals on dell's website, particularly reconditioned and second hand. Generally I am sugesting scouting around for reputable suppliers of cheap and second hand gear (With Warranty) and OS installed (Win 2000 is as good as XP for what you want).

Sadly old gear has pretty much zero value even though it cost a lot to buy and works perfectly.

I speak as someone who has only just ditched a Compaq 386s from circa 1991, and still have systems based on 150Mhz, 300Mhz, 450Mhz Pentiums of various types sitting around and occasionally in use. Not to mention Athlon 1100, and Athlon 2400XP.

I really must learn to throw things away.
 
jimmy_uk said:
Hi,

I have the following system and was wondering what the best upgrade route would be, any suggestions:

Midi Tower with 400w PSU
Intel P2 450Mhz
Asus P2B 440BX Motherboard
256MB PC100 SD-Ram
8GB Hard Drive
Matrox G200 8MB Graphics
Creative SB Live Sound
17" CRT Monitor
32x CDRW/DVD

Was thinking of upgrading CPU to P3 600, Ram to 512MB PC-100 and adding XP Pro which would cost approx. £100, what do you think?

Or should i go for new CPU/MB(with on-board GFX+SND)/Ram/XP Pro with a budget of £150-200 and keep everything else?

Thanks.
Click to expand...


If you have a budget of £150-200 as parts are so cheap these days you'd probably get more bang for buck with a new system. As people have pointed out you can get a whole new system for that - just buy the cheapest of everything and it will be fine.


On the other hand, I fail to see how it will cost £100 to do the upgrades you've mentioned.

I have the Asus p2b-ds, with 384 meg and p2 233mmx and recently I went on the bay of e and picked up 2x P3 450Mhz processors (it's dual proc), some extra mem, (it's now at 640 meg) and matrox PCI card and a bunch of scsi hard drives all for £35.

This is the basis of my 'new' 0.6 TB raid 5 fileserver. (with the help of some extra drives I had lying around).

So either you be ultra frugal, and scrouge around 2nd places auctions for cheap parts to improve your machine or splash out £200 and buy a new machine. Your call.

The Asus P2B boards make fantastic reliable server boards. Mine has been running solid for about 6 years now. Oh Depending on the revision of your board you may be able to run either P3 800/100, or even the Slot1 P3 1GHz/100. No competitor talk please!
 
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