Upgrading - quick question

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Hi All,

I'm looking to upgrade my PC, its about 7 years old and it's about time to give it a bit of umph...

Quite often the CPU is showing 100% usage so I’ve been looking at a Motherboard, CPU & RAM package rather than just throwing more RAM at it.

Apart from the motherboard form factor is there anything else I’ll need to take into consideration, anything else I’d need to upgrade if I’m changing the Mobo, CPU & RAM. Hard drive is IDE but is 7200rpm so not looking to upgrade that.

I’m not looking for anything amazing and I’m not running any games, just want to beef it up a bit for when I start using Virtual PC. Considered buying new but I’d rather keep costs down to a minimum and have seen reasonable packages for c. £120.

Thanks!

 

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you need to buy RAM that is compatible for the motherboard. If you visit the crucial site use the memory advisor tool to find the correct RAM http://www.crucial.com/uk/?gclid=COOSm8qA6pQCFQyN1QoduWdRQw

Also note with Virtual PC or VMware in my opinion you need atleast 2GB and if you are running lots of virtual machines you may need more.

With CPU upgrading you also need to find out what type of CPU your mobo can take. You can usually find that info from the motherboard manufacturers website.

 

I'm currently looking at an AMD package, Motherboard with AMD 4600+ cpu & 2gb of RAM, then will look to get another 2gb on top of that.

As the 3 are being replaced together and will deffo be compatible i believe that it will be fine but i just thought i'd check.

Cheers

 

Blanch, if you are buying a new mobo etc, remember that the new mobo may only come with sata support and your old pata hard drive may not be compatible (assuming your not already using a sata drive). I recently upgraded the mobo, ram and cpu on my PC and I made sure that the mobo had ide compatability as well as I needed to keep the costs down.

On top of that, if you are using an AGP graphics card there might also be a compatibility issue if the new mobo only accepts pcie.

My suggestion is to take your time and do a lot of research before making a financial commitment.

 

ahh right. Have a look at the mobo to see how much RAM you can upgrade it to in the future.

 

IMHO 'upgrading' a 7 year old machine is a waste of money. The case won't take a modern motherboard for starters!

Just buy a new machine (or build if you want to). You will find it a lot easier than trying to upgrade!

Harry.

 

Remember to check the power output on the PSU.

But I'd recommend you just buy a new computer and just transfer your data over.

 

I have to agree with Harry here. Forget upgrading and get a new box. Your pc probably has an AGP graphics card (slots no longer fitted on motherboards) and your using a PATA hard disk, and newer motherboards are being made with only SATA interfaces (though if you look you can find ones with the standard IDE 40 way connecters on). The PSU in yours will be nearing the end of its life and probably wont be rated high enough for newer components (back then 300w would be wnough, today your looking at 600w to 700w min).

So to upgrade you would need, new motherboard, new CPU, new memory, new graphics card, new psu and possible a new hard disk. Which basically amounts to a new pc. And with prices these days, dependant on what you want from it, you can get a decent pc from £400 or go extravagant and pay over £2000 for high end.

 

A wipe and reinstallation works wonders on old hardware.

That said, you can't expect a lot out of a 7-year-old box. I would also recommend retiring that computer to be a test PC and purchasing a new one.