Calling PC geeks - computer upgrade time

MikeWhitney · **Joined:** Wed Aug 20, 2003 9:15 pm **Posts:** 4724

I have an ancient (by modern standards) pc that I built in 1998 and have upgraded along the way. Due to some BIOS limitations I'm considering a motherboard and processor upgrade.

It's a Enlight ATX case with an EPOX MVP3 board, AMD-K6-2 450 MHz processor, a bunch of PC100 memory, 3 ATA100 IDE HDs, an ATI AGP all-in-wonder, and a few SCSI drives.

I'd like to keep the memory, drives, scsi controller, case, and ATX power supply, and video card if possible.

Anyone have recommendations on a motherboard and processor upgrade? A few years old is preferred, something in the 1-1.5 GHz range would probably be nice. Looking to spend $100. Any warnings about compatibility issues? Think it will power back up with no other changes? Anyone have something to sell?

Thanks!

(PS - Anyone use BitTorrent? My "discovery" of this P2P network is what's driving me to upgrade this thing

I'm a closet Star Trek fan and I have been downloading all of the "Enterprise" episodes that I missed earlier this season!)

Matthew_Thomson · **Posted:** Mon May 03, 2004 4:52 pm

keeping all that stuff shouldnt be a problem.. i'd go with a board that supports AMD athlon chips and go with a 1.2 or 1.4 or something like that (duron maybe) if you dont want to spend much money.. i have a 1.2 athlon thunderbird on an asus A7V133 (board on ebay probably < $30).. i've got a adaptec 29160 scsi controller with a 10k rpm boot drive and an adaptec ide raid card with mirrored 60gig drives, two scsi cd's and all 6 expansion slots full and the machine is really fast.. just dont let anyone convince you that < 1.5 ghz wont be enough.. right now the only things that need much more cpu than that is video editing (and large photo editing).. most peoples bottlenecks are hard drives anyway.. 3.2 gig machines out right now with 7200 rpm ide drives is a waste of CPU..

Dale Schendel · **Posted:** Mon May 03, 2004 7:19 pm

AMD! AMD! AMD!

Don't worry My puter is so outdated it makes a 64 falcon look new.

Patrick Wellenius · **Posted:** Mon May 03, 2004 11:39 pm

raid is the shizzy...but you IBM guys should know that pretty well. matt, do you run the parallel back up or a seamless larger capacity setup?

MikeWhitney · **Joined:** Wed Aug 20, 2003 9:15 pm **Posts:** 4724

All right, guys, don't geek out on me too much yet.

I'm just looking for a recommendation for a cheap board and processor. Something I can pick up on ebay or "last year's model" at a local shop.

Maybe I should go with a Soyo K7VMP2 Socket A or a ASUS A7V600 KT600 Motherboard with a Athlon XP 2000+?

Or a barebones system from Tiger Direct? http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications ... p?CatId=31

Probably couldn't hurt to replace my case and power supply too.

Patrick Wellenius · **Posted:** Tue May 04, 2004 12:42 am

We may have an extra ATX case and decent working power supply laying around the house. Let me look around...

Matthew_Thomson · **Posted:** Tue May 04, 2004 8:12 am

i've got it in raid 1 (mirrored).. i had a bunch of old drives for a while and they randomly started dying.. I got sick of losing all the data I had on them so i bought the raid card and 2 drives to keep stuff on until i got a chance to burn it to cd..

Chuck Frank · **Posted:** Tue May 04, 2004 8:39 am

Intrex computer here in Raleigh has some good deals on MB and AMD processor bundles if you want instant gratification. I've had real good luck with ASUS MBs. For simplicity, if you don't need max speed I'd look at a MB with graphics, sound and Lan connector all on the board, especially if that power supply in your old case is not at least a 250W. If you have a greatly anemic power supply, most of the older ones were only 100-150W pick up a new 300W PS while you are there for ~ 30.00. I buy most of my computer equipment from www.newegg.com for large selection, quick service and great prices. Watch out for items with shipping charges tho, they can add up quickly, often it's cheaper to buy something that's a few bucks more that has free shipping included.

Matthew_Thomson · **Posted:** Tue May 04, 2004 8:42 am

newegg is a great place to buy stuff.. most of the time everything is priced well.. and definately look for the "Fedex Saver" items for free shipping..

Ashraf Farrag · **Posted:** Tue May 04, 2004 12:42 pm

This may not be the answer you are looking for, but I thought I would throw it out there...

I got into the computer field building PC's/network support as a job and was a diehard "piece it together yourself" until a few recent experiences with bad components ordered for family/friends computers caused me to pull my hair out and spend way too much time on very simple things. My time is far more valuable these days.

I decided that my <gasp> Pentium2-300mhz wasn't cutting it anymore (I have a P-III laptop that I use primarily, which is also aging, ARGH!) and looked at component prices for a "decent" desktop/server.

My decision:
I bought a Dell PowerEdge SC 400 server for $400 after rebate (and a free Palm handheld you could hock on ebay for some $$).

It wasn't much more expensive than the bits and pieces (arguably cheaper since Dell gets stuff in larger quantity). You just need to pick out a good deal and not spend money with Dell getting upgrades. Just get a bare-bones box and let them "eat the losses" on the essential components since you don't pay for a memory upgrade that for the same money, you can buy the same amount of money and keep the RAM that isn't retained from upgrading.

Anyhow, the PE 400 SC (as I ordered it):
Pentium 2.4GHz @ 800Mhz
40GB IDE HDD
Floppy
CD-ROM
Keyboard/Mouse
Quiet case with nice ventilation
1 year warranty

No worrying about "is the ram bad, etc...etc..." was the important thing for me!

Downside: only 128MB of 400mhz ECC DDR RAM, 40GB HD (I have some 120/160GB drives I was using in a USB enclosure that got stuffed in there), no fancy schmantzy DVD-RW.

Solution:
Get more memory
Stuff some basic components in there to "soup it up"

As for prices on computer stuff, aside from pricewatch and pricegrabber, you might also check out bensbargains.net and other sites linked from there...

--Ashraf

Marty Howard · **Posted:** Tue May 04, 2004 2:43 pm

Another vote for Asus,

The have been great boards for me, and you can't be the price/performance of them.

Karl Shultz · **Posted:** Tue May 04, 2004 2:47 pm

Check your mail at work; I just sent you a parts list.

MikeWhitney · **Joined:** Wed Aug 20, 2003 9:15 pm **Posts:** 4724

Well here's what I bought today for $329:

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications ... CatId=1221

Biostar - M7NCD - nVIDIA nForce2 Motherboard
AMD Athlon™ XP 2500+ / 512KB Cache / 333MHz FSB / Socket A / Barton Core
512MB PC2700 DDR 333MHz Memory
Chieftec Mini Dragon Case - 7 drive bays, Clear Side Panel
Ultra 400 Watt ATX Nickel Power Supply With 120mm Blue LED Fan - Bling!!

Once I realized that I needed new memory, I decided to start with a new case & power supply and keep the old machine intact as a "beater" or sell it.

Anyone want to buy a nice AMD K6-2 400 MHz / Epox MVP3 board / 256 PC100 SDRAM / 6.4 Gb drive / InWin tower ATX case? Will come with Win2k, Office 2k, and other software installed (for evaluation only).

Mike

MikeWhitney · **Joined:** Wed Aug 20, 2003 9:15 pm **Posts:** 4724

Well, my old drive won't boot the new system, so it's time to load it from scratch. Problem is I can't find my Win2k CD! Anyone have one I can borrow? I have a valid license number - just need the install CD.

Please?

Jon Kerfoot · **Posted:** Thu May 06, 2004 1:44 pm

MikeWhitney wrote:

Well here's what I bought today for $329:

<snip>
Biostar - M7NCD - nVIDIA nForce2 Motherboard
AMD Athlon™ XP 2500+ / 512KB Cache / 333MHz FSB / Socket A / Barton Core
512MB PC2700 DDR 333MHz Memory
<snip>

Mike, I bought the same setup earlier this year (didn't get the blingin' case, but I'm just not a blingy guy, ya know), and it's been perfectly happy so far. I put XP Pro on the machine, and I've not had a BSOD (or whatever the XP equivalent is) yet.

My only complaint is that my old rally games don't like XP. Fooey!

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Calling PC geeks - computer upgrade time

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