PC Upgrade time....Help please

[Daniel san]

Conitinued from: http://www.sxoc.com/vbb/showthread.php?s=&postid=254251#post254251

Right, after the fiasco of my new HDD, I'm looking to upgrade the PC a bit to something that'll at least let me use the new drive:rolleyes:

Looking at ebuyer.co.uk, AMD Athlon XP's seem to go cheap enough, but I know I need another M/B to go with it and the RAM from my PC won't work either will it, so need some of that too. Question is, what else if anything will I need?

Ideally wanna spend as little as possible but still make a worthwhile upgrade from my P3 450mhz. Seen XP1700 for about £40 and Motherboards from about £50 or so, RAM about £40 (256), any good u reckon?

Also, anyone got experience with mounting processors onto the board, then heatsinks and fans on top etc?

Cheers

[Cookie]

1.) What do you use your pc for, this is key to deciding what computer to go for.


I would personaly go for the fastest processor i could afford.

Motherboards, Make sure that you investigate the board you are going to buy to ensure that it has no design faults or problems that users have been reporting.

Depending on the operative sys i would go for 512mb ram if running WIN2K or XP, If doing graphics or video work you should buy at least 512 and you will see a benefit if you have more.

Again the questions is what do you use it for.

C.

[AndyT]

All I can suggest is get a motherboard that can accept a bigger processor than you intend to buy, that way it's a simple upgrade if you need more power. Don't know much about the Athlon, always end up with Intel when ever I buy.

Most motherboards have ZIF (Zero Insertion Force) processor sockets these days, just drop it and pull a lever (bit like a fruit machine), and the fan clips and/or sticks on top.

[Daniel san]

Important thing is that its not for games! I only use it for the net, keeping all the sxoc stuff in files, email and web design now and again.

[Cookie]

Don't bother upgrading if it is not slow and just go for the IDE controller card.

C.

[AndyT]

Originally posted by Cookie
Don't bother upgrading if it is not slow and just go for the IDE controller card.

C.

Just gave a Promise 133 IDE card away to my neighbour. Sorry.

[Cookie]

Also have you looked at this segate software, it allows an old machine to run a disk that is too big to be correctly picked up by the bios.

Sounds exactly like what you need.

http://www.seagate.com/products/discsales/discextras/A1i1.html

C.

[Daniel san]

Andy T.....Grrrrrrrrrr. Never mind mate, cheers.

Cookie, you may have just come to the rescue, I'm gonna try that.

[Mark]

Dan if you get new the bits give us a shout and i'll put it all together for you ;) :D

[philk]

Gents, i have always been of the view why go for ide drives apart from thier cheapness, if you want performance go for scsi.

a reasonably priced machine would be

2ghz celeron
256 ddr pc2100
jetway p4 xfb m/b
2x fujitsu 10000rpm scsi 320 hdd's
1x scsi 320 controller (raid)
geforce mx 440 g/card
48 x writer

and bobs ure uncle...

a fast machine which can be upgraded to 2.8 ghz p4 when prices come down.

ps Celeron processors seem to run really cool so they seem to last. i have found with Amd that they run too hot and dont keep up thier performance through the life of the processor.

hope this is of help

[Cookie]

Scsi is an expensive format, New IDE drives are fast enought for any normal user, you only need scsi if you are doing alot of disk io (Servers/Audio/Video editing)

You PC spec is Interesting.

If your going to include scsi you need to pick an architecture that is going to provide a high data though put on the bus , the celeron is not a high spec processor.

256 DDR is ok for running Win2K or WinXP but that is all you'll be able to run on it you need at least 512mb ram on xp to get the best performance out of it.

No idea who jetway are (my point being)

Fujitsu drives are very unreliable (We have them in most of our machines at work and are currently throwing them in the bin and fitting IBM drives)

Scsi controllers, Id have to say going to buy a scsi controller buy adaptec.

Geforce V Radeon choice is yours , I swing to Radeon.

Writer, CD or DVD ? you would also want a dvd drive and decent sound card and decent monitor.

RE: the old AMD heat thing, never seen that problem my home machine is on 24/7 and still at least the same (Actualy Better) processor score as when i bought it a year ago (AMD XP 1800)

C.

[Daniel san]

Right, after many hours of fiddling, it's all sorted, thanks to Cookie and Seagate's very intensive, but very useful software and instructions. Cheers everyone.:)

Now I've got that money spare for something else........

[Daniel san]

Originally posted by Nismo Mark
Dan if you get new the bits give us a shout and i'll put it all together for you ;) :D

Cheers Mark, would defo have buzzed you if I got stuck but usually I can handle most internal stuff on a PC. I used to build them in my spare time for a local company when I was back in college but things have changed slightly since then and I sometimes run into a grey area.:rolleyes:

[Cookie]

Glad to be of help.

C.

[philk]

Cookie the point i was making was it was a reasonably price high performance option.

the Celeron runs cooler and has 400mhz fsb support, the best u can get out of a high spec Amd xp is 333mhz and p4 supports 533 fsb.
Unless u were going to spend silly money there is no point going above pc2100 ddr unless ure going for the PE chipset boards which supports 333fsb ddr but is more than twice the price.
point taken about going for 512mb.
Jetway is a generic brand i have found to be good.
and as for the graphics cards its purely personal choice, but the Geforce is half the price!!!
In my oppinion i prefer scsi as it transers data at 260mb/s compared with a high end IDe drive at 133 and as u know IDE drives only burst data initally at 133,where as scsi is a constant data flow. and yes IDE does have a faster initial data transfer but thats why i went for a raided solution.

I was only trying to be helpfull though not intending to be shot down lol

[philk]

By the way rumor has it that intels next release will be a 4ghz processor with 800mhz fsb, supporting ddr 400 spec memory. Looks like fun to me lol

[AshT_200]

Originally posted by philk
In my oppinion i prefer scsi as it transers data at 260mb/s compared with a high end IDe drive at 133 and as u know IDE drives only burst data initally at 133,where as scsi is a constant data flow. and yes IDE does have a faster initial data transfer but thats why i went for a raided solution.


Not quite, the speed reference is the Bus Speed, not the drive speed.

Interesting choice of RAM, wouldn't RAMBUS give you more performance?

[Vipers]

i've known of jetway for a few years now, they're an ok board but if you want quality u need to go for somehting like MSI biostar or asus forgot who the other big player is now.
i h8 gigabyte tho, had a batch of 20 come in one day when i was @ computerb shop and 3 were DOA:eek: almost 1:4 DOA that just ain't good enuf

but i have found that elite group (ECS) are quite good no where near as good as asus or those alike but for cheap as chips & reasonable qualtiy this is option i'd go for

seeing as u've got a p3 400/450 u'd need to upgrade ur PSU as well if u were going to upgrqade the box

once u've forked out

£40 cpu
£10 decent hsf
£60 for pretty good mobo
£40 ish for 256
£20 psu

u may as well just by a upgraade kit from a smallish company

which do case mobo cpu hsf ram for £160

either that or just go for a new computer @ around £350 for entry level

£1000 will get u dogs danglies

[Daniel san]

Glad to see some spirited responses here:), just remember, it's Sadman we're after in the Gulf:D:D

Anyway, computer runs fine now guys thanks to that sweet bit of Seagate software that fits on a floppy and a half. NOw someone point me to the car vids:)

[philk]

Rambus is dead long live DDR......
and yes im a big fan of Asus boards.