I need advice on upgrading my system. I don't need a souped-up gaming machine, but what I have now is pretty slow. I put the system together 3+yrs ago from mostly spares cannibalized from my previous deceased PC's. I've usually built systems from scratch and never really needed to upgrade and save data.

I would like to upgrade with the least amount of $$ and least amount of hassle. I would like to keep the cost under the $300 I could use to buy a new low end system.

I'm looking for boards and cpu recommendations which will allow me to re-use the audio/video cards...maybe memory too.

Also what is the best way to transfer the data off the 10gig drive? I would like to install the OS and Applications on another 80gig drive I have.

Uses: basic home computing/internet. No intensive video/photo applications or games.


Here is the stats:

Motherboard
ECS
System Model = P4VXASD2+
Chip
1.7mhz Celeron
Memory
576mb

OS Name

Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition
Version 5.1.2600 Service Pack 1 Build 2600

10gig Maxtor - >> OS and Applications
80gig WD - >> data files only

Sound Card
Creative SB Audigy

Video Card
SIS 315 /32mb ram

Drives
Lite-on
CD-RW/DVD-ROM Combo drive
LG
18x DVD/CD writer

Network
VIA PCI 10/100Mb Fast Ethernet Adapter
NETGEAR FA310TX Fast Ethernet Adapter (NGRPCI)
Belkin wireless card

Case
ATX 350w
4x 5.25
6x 3.5
2 fans

 

dude...

it's kinda like putting a ferrari engine in a pinto...

in the end, you still have a pinto. and then like 6 months to a year later, you'll just start thinking about upgrading something else on it...


suck it in and just buy a new machine. buy an external USB box to house the old HDs so you can extract anything from them. then reformat them to use as back drives.

treat yourself to a killer machine. even if you think you may not play games on it, you eventually will...

 

I recommend getting an AMD x2 3200 or better CPU with 2 gig's of DDR2 ram.
Keep the hard drive and get a moderate video card. I use tomshardware.com to judge what a good video card is for the money. Newegg.com is running specials on AMD with ECS mother boards under 140 USD.

 

Well.

If you only do motherboard+cpu+ram you will have a very slow hard drive, and you will have to settle for a 2-3yr old models because your video card has an outdated chipset (agp vs pci-e). Also the slowest part of any computer is the hard drive, you will be pairing up a newer chipset with slow data access hindering the chipset ability to speed up the computer on the whole.

What you have to start with is a case, and maybe the cd-rom's, even though I would not use those either (since they are very inexpensive and have sped up highly). Save up and replace it all, or just keep it as it is, your amount of money you are looking to invest does not = the speed increase you are looking for.

 

I like this idea, except I would say get the best possible video card. I'm fairly convinced, having a 128MB 900+MHz DDR3 video card on my system, that it's the best way to speed up any computer. Hard drive has little to no effect(no need at all for SATA speeds, I have ATA333), it's the front side bus speed of the processor combined with at least 1-2 gig's of RAM that really matters.

 

I got u bud...super nice for cheap....check it out...

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applicati...=MBM-MSNV-3800
this processor is really good i have currenty 3500 and its been keeping up with everything for the 3rd year now i think...

Get either 2 or 4 sticks of this and you'll be good...
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applicati...3&Sku=U93-6004

This is actually under $200 and I think it is actually quite decent...there are some other really good deals but this is the best/cheapest i could find in less than 5 min. look around... I have the AMD 3500 and it is really fast. I'm really happy with it. I got it 3 years ago and theres nothing i has lagged on yet...the last really demanding game I ran on it was Doom 3 and it was great...I lost interest in games since then so its been keeping up VERY nicely with all kinds of othe applications.. good luck...

 

Yah, actually the harddrive is what is keeping a computer's speed fairly down...I did a RAID setup on my friends computer with 2 raptor's 10,000 RPM and his computer jumped incredible speed leaps...it was amazing... that thing became so much faster (with the same other hardware). Also I decided to install Linux Ubuntu on one of my really old 7+ year old hard drives and that thing took forever to open up a program. When I partitioned my current harddrive and installed Ubuntu on it, the speed dramatically increased....

Also, the larger a harddrive is, the denser the disk is which means the spindle has to travel a shorter distance to access the data. So even though you might not need 500Gigs. it will certainly increase your load/boot-up times for everything that runs....

But in your case I think what I put up above is a very very good deal for under $200...keep browsing that website and also... www.newegg.com has some really killer deals (mostly on cpu's) check them out too... Good Luck...

 

ACtually I screwed up on the RAM...its not compatible with that mother board...sorry...but i saw some other pretty good deals on there I just saw that was the cheapest and didn't read anything about it...

 

haha...i keep looking back at your original post and see that you want to keep your video card....well that motherboard has audio but you probably will have to buy a cheap $20 card... I think you'll still have enough left over though....

 

AMD Based
http://www.motherboardsdirect.com/sp...temnum=BXP2000

Intel Based
http://www.motherboardsdirect.com/sp...itemnum=BP2400


Videocard
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814130270