Adam F

My computer is about 5-6 years old now. It has served me very well, never broken down.

I've been doing a lot of video editing and making DVD's with my Sony MIniDV lately, and I've tried a few newer programs, and it runs a lot slower with these newer programs.

I'd like to speed things up a bit, but don't really want to spend a bunch of money right now.

I'm going to wipe everything clean and reformat soon, so I'd like to do the upgrades at the same time.

Here's the specs on my computer

Compaq Presario 8000z
AMD Athlon 1500+ 1.3ghz
512mb DDR ram
NVidia GeForce 2 MX 100/200 video card (64mb ram I think)

It's all stock except for an old dvd recorder (which is giving up on me)

What do you think is a good upgrade? Another 512mb of ram? Where's the best place to buy some? Is the processor upgradeable?

Thanks guys!

marko3xl3

To be honest with you, I could type a great paragraph about how you could push your PC to the limits, but if I were you I'd save my money and built up a nice PC with technology that's still good but being outmoded and is therefore cheap, because whatever you do with this PC won't give you the power you need for doing what you want to do with it.

For example, I could custom-built an Intel based PC (Intel = Good for media stuff) that's not top-of-the line for about $400-$500.

Adam F

I cant justify spending 400-500 bucks. $150 or so would be the maxx. id love to get away with less though.

Adam F

n/m

Nic

I'm almost in the same shape as you. My computer is about 4 years old. I have an AMD XP 1800+ with a GEForce Ti200 Video Card.

You can probably add some more RAM, maybe get a faster CPU depending on what your board supports, and a better video card, but it probably won't do a whole lot in the end. I doubt you can do all 3 for $150.00 either.

marko3xl3

Wasn't your computer a 7110US just a while ago?

Nic

The link you have says the motherboard is for Socket 754 (Athlon 64) CPUs.

You said you have an XP 1500+. The 1500+ has a 266FSB. I think the biggest XP CPU with a 266FSB is the 2400+, so you probably won't be able to go any higher than that in an upgrade.

marko3xl3

Here is the deal...your best bet is to just add as much as RAM as possible. It'll help with video editing and if you do a reformat, it'll refresh some power you were missing, but don't expect miracles.

Adam F

lol...messed up on the model number and the mobo.

Its a 8000z/cmt 8qsex1

I took the cover off and looked at the motherboard and found some numbers

Quick Silver CMT

K021C03177 Quick Silver 2

786k2

linuxrunner

MORE RAM WILL NOT HELP, unless you are already using all the memory you have. If you are using swap space on the hd regularly than yes more memory will give a speed boost, but if you are not using all of your memory than more memory will yield little results. if you are running xp than press clrl-alt-del and select the performance tab, take a look at the page file usage history while doing common tasks, see if you are using all or most of your memory already or not. A great upgrade if possible is more L2 cash for your processor if it is available.

marko3xl3

In this application (video editing) more RAM will most surely help, because anytime you are doing anything video related your RAM will peg, even if you have 2GB and I am talking from experience. So in this case, the more the merrier.

Other than that, this thread is confusing the piss out of me, because any motherboard that I find that matches the CPU you say you have, had SDRAM, not DDR. And any motherboard I find that has DDR, is A64, so I dunno man.

My last word:
More RAM will help, but make sure to get good RAM. Get some Corsair lifetime warranty. You might be able to upgrade to CPU some 200-300 mhz (guessing) but that's a waste of money.

Adam F

The specs say "128, 256, 512 MB, 1.0 GB PC2100 DDR SyncDRAM"

marko3xl3

I guess it's DDR then. I just can't find a motherboard with DDR that was used in the 8000z, I tried numerous combinations. But as I said, even if I knew which motherboard it was it would most likely only tell me that you won't be able to upgrade your CPU much. That's how it was with all my old Compaqs.

arjan

It's not worth spending $150 bucks on a older machine nowadays imo. I see so many used ones around in that speed range for barely more then $200 for the whole machine.
There are some stores around here selling off lease machines. Typically about 2 ghz for about $250Cad.

midiwall

ADD MEMORY - as much as you can toss in there. For what you're doing, the amount of RAM will be more of an issue than the processor speed.

I've had decent luck finding RAM on eBay, or I've also used both of these guys:
http://www.coastmemory.com/
http://www.oempcworld.com/

Using them for background info on your machine, it looks like you've only got two slots in there with a max of 1gig. You're looking for PC2100 DRR memory, so two sticks of 512meg will max you out. This eBay search shows a couple of options, including one guy selling 2 512mb sticks for $21 shipped.


I assume that you're running XP Pro?

Do you have one HD or two? If you have two, move the swap file to a drive other than the boot drive. I posted info on doing that, and a couple of other speed-up tips, over in this thread: https://www.yotatech.com/forums/f98/wanna-speed-up-pc-79856/

If you don't have two drives, GET A SECOND ONE! For what you're doing, shop for a drive with a larger on-board buffer and spinning at 7200 RPM . Many of the cheaper drives are 5400 RPM with a 2mb buffer, but on that system you'll feel the difference with an 8mb buffer. When you get it, format it NTFS with 16k or 32k cluster sizes. That will speed up the loading of video files (and the R/W of the swap file).

Again, look at that thread above where I babbled more about speeding things up.


You may also want to do something with the video card. That's not my forte' so I'll leave the specifics for someone else, but the bottom line is that if you can get a more powerful card, then the host CPU will be freed up to do more important things other than drawing images and managing card data.


Figure that this will be your last upgrade on this machine. You're pushing it into it's last life as it is.

Churnd

It's not your components that are slowing you down, it's your motherboard. PC Vendors are giving up on the gigahertz wars, as people are becoming aware that having lots of memory and a hella fast proc does you no good unless these components can take full advantage of their ability to communicate with each other, ergo their bus speeds. You can throw in a bunch of memory, but it's still going to be stuck at a fairly low bus speed of 266 MHz. Bus speeds nowadays are capable of 2-3x thatJust wanted to throw that in there so you'll realize what you're upgrading to.

It might be worth it to wait a little longer, and slowly gather some parts for a new machine. The best deals come from taking your time and buying from separate vendors. www.pricewatch.com is good for this scenario... it's also good for finding rare, older parts.

That being said, if you still wanna upgrade your machine, I'd do it like other's have already suggested:

1. Memory
2. Hard drive
3. Graphics card

The memory is going to help most. It's going to be a toss up between which would help more in terms of a hard drive or graphics card. If you shop around hard enough, you could find all 3 for under your budget, but you've gotta look hard.

Oh yeah, check your computer again and see if you can see anything concerning memory that looks like "PC2100" or "PC2700" or "PC3200". You can use the memory advisor tool at www.crucial.com to determine what kind you need.

^VooDoo^

Your machine is still fast enough to do anything, A newer GFX card will make an astonishing difference.