suggestions!

sideshowdave

hi all,
Looking for some advice on making my pc a bit less of a pain in the A$$ i have it around four years which i know is ancient in computer terms but current situation (student) doesnt really allow me to go and buy a new one. anyway what i have is

INTEL (P4)Celeron CPU running @ 2.6ghz
Asrock P4 mainboard (upgradeable to P4 3.2ghz and above)
1 GIG DDR memory
160 gig branded IDE hard drive
64 meg onboard 3d Video card
Onboard 3d sound card
Seperate 8X AGP slot for future VGA upgrades

so i want to be able to do is run various programs such as pro engineer and other 3d modeling software but still use other apps while running these at present its being very uncorperative but as i said its four years old and running out of space on the hard drive. I just want to know if i upgrade the processor to a 3.2ghz does this allow me to increase the ram? will i have power issues? can i add another hard drive? will i need to introduce more cooling? And what are VGA upgrades?

anyway thanks for reading and any suggestions appreciated.
Dave

segasega

Is this a pre-built Dell,HP etc. machine or something you put together yourself?

zod

cheapest is to simply increase the RAM to 3GB
install the OS on a fast hd like this one http://www.komplett.ie/k/ki.aspx?sku=343054
use the old hd for data

if you want to change processor and video .. might as well start again imo

TerrorFirmer

• Switch the Celeron 2.6Ghz for a Pentium 4 2.6-3.2Ghz. If you look around, this shouldn't cost more then 25-40 euro. The difference will be huge.
• Upgrade the ram to 2GB. Shouldn't cost more then 15-20 euro for another 1gb.
• A replacement or secondary hard drive of a bigger capacity would cost about 30 euro.
• Install a fresh copy of WinXP, and make sure AVG&Spybot are installed, for the equivalent programs.
• Use Ebay and Adverts.ie, unless the stuff is gotten cheap it won't be worth it.

The onboard video is probably OK, but it does depend on what exactly you want to do with the machine. VGA upgrade means to upgrade the video card in your machine. It would need upgrading if you planned playing any sort of games (even oldish ones) - but anything else will be ok using the integrated video.You'd be looking at about 80-90 euro to overhaul it and give it a drastic increase in performance.

sideshowdave

thanks for replies

@ segasega it is a "custom built pc" not by me though, online.

@ zod what is the difference between sata and ide hd's is it possible to have both on one system?

and whats the difference between ddr / ddr2 / ddr400 will i have to take the pc apart and see how many pins there are on the ram before i know what i need or is it specifically only ddr type that i can use?

@ TerrorFirmer if i put in another hd and partition it do i have to put avg and spybot on both hd's?
and yeah i dont use it for games maybe when im getting a new system i will keep all this in mind.

thanks all for posts great help.

TerrorFirmer

Check if your motherboard has Sata ports.

You'd pick up a decent sized IDE hard drive fairly cheap on ebay or adverts.ie.

What you are looking for is regular DDR, DDR400 is a type of this. DDR2 is different and won't work.

sideshowdave

had a quick inspection of the insides and there are two small ports that say sata1,2 but just from looking at the hd in already there is the power connection and then a large lead (wide) connected to the motherboard there is a multi pin connector midway on this lead that is not connected to anything is it possible to plug the second hd into this? be it sata or ide as i dont see anywhere else to plug it in on the motherboard.

i also took the fan off the processor to clean all the dust off it as there was alot but i noticed some sort of greyish paste, what i imagine is to do with any damage due to heat between the fan/heatsink and processor but will i need to get more of this for new processor and where do i get it?

darealtulip

sideshowdave wrote: »

had a quick inspection of the insides and there are two small ports that say sata1,2 but just from looking at the hd in already there is the power connection and then a large lead (wide) connected to the motherboard there is a multi pin connector midway on this lead that is not connected to anything is it possible to plug the second hd into this? be it sata or ide as i dont see anywhere else to plug it in on the motherboard.

i also took the fan off the processor to clean all the dust off it as there was alot but i noticed some sort of greyish paste, what i imagine is to do with any damage due to heat between the fan/heatsink and processor but will i need to get more of this for new processor and where do i get it?

thats paste for between your cpu and cooling block is normal and you can buy it in every pc shop, you need it in there to transport the heat better. so no damage at all. if you want sata there is a lead that goes from the 4 pin (forgot english name again, duh!) to a sata power plug in every pc shop as well. sata's are a lot quicker so well worth doing.

sideshowdave

ahh i see.
yeah i did see that i need to get a four pin lead this is for power right. and i have discovered that the "wide connection lead" as i mentioned before is referred to as ribbon, so are these used with sata hard drives or just ide because i did come across something somewhere stating so. and is there a difference in the cache size 2/8/16/32? and will i even notice any on what i am running it on?
thanks again

darealtulip

sideshowdave wrote: »

ahh i see.
yeah i did see that i need to get a four pin lead this is for power right. and i have discovered that the "wide connection lead" as i mentioned before is referred to as ribbon, so are these used with sata hard drives or just ide because i did come across something somewhere stating so. and is there a difference in the cache size 2/8/16/32? and will i even notice any on what i am running it on?
thanks again

the sata is a small wire whit a conection that fits on the port named sata (you can buy them in any shop too) just tell them you want a sata lead and they know the one you mean. The ribon is not used on sata.

About your other question, I dont know if you notice, I'm not to familiar with intel but on my amd set up I really noticed. Also it is a more fool proof system. you dont have to worry about master/slave settings and Vista finds and installs them automaticly.