Upgrading Old PC

jamescd

Hi, I have a Compaq Presario S5600UK and it's very slow now. I want to make it boot quicker and perform faster for everyday use like web browsing and MS Word. So am I right in thinking I should upgrade the RAM?

I couldn't find what type of memory I need on the HP website, but I found it here http://www.memorystock.com/memory/CompaqPresarioS5600UK.html.

I found this on Elara http://www.elara.ie/products/detailsfull.asp?productcode=MME3424882. It says on the bottom "This memory is intended for ABIT AA8 DuraMax Motherboard, ABIT AA8-3rd Eye Motherboard, DFI LANPARTY 925X-T2. ". Will this work with my PC or is there a specific brand/model of RAM that I need?

Effluo

Well the max ram it can take is ddr 512mb 333mhz(i just read this, it might be wrong)

You would notice a difference considering xp would be using up nearly all of your current 256mb's...

I'd recommend that you reinstall the operating system first before upgrading.
If you don't already have an anti-virus program you should get one, avast or AVG are both good and very light on systems too!

Your pc is very old but word processor and browsing the internet does not ask a lot.
Disk defragmentation, ccleaner(free program) and managing start-up programs are also ways to potentially speed up your computer

Catalyst

Hi,

You will be able to find the correct memory with the configurator

http://www.elara.ie/products/Framed.asp

Hope this helps

jamescd

Thanks for the replies. It says on this website http://www.memorystock.com/memory/CompaqPresarioS5600UK.html.

Presario S5600UK Memory Specifications
Standard Memory: 512 MB = 256 MB (removable) + 256 MB (removable)
Maximum Memory: 4.0 GB
Memory Expansion: 4 sockets
Memory Comments: PC2700/3200 DDR SDRAM DIMMs. Supports Dual Channel DDR.
CPU Type: 3.0GHz Intel Pentium 4
Model Comments: 400/533/800MHz FSB, Intel 865PE Chipset

It says maximum memory is 4GB and there are 4 sockets. That's why I thought I could put in two 1GB sticks in two of the sockets and just remove the old one's.

I haven't opened up my PC to see if this specification is right, but from the looks of it I'd say it's correct because it's written on the front of my case that I have an Intel Pentium 4 @ 3.0Ghz and 512MB of RAM.

@Catalyst: Thanks I will try that link.

deckie27

Effluo wrote: »

Well the max ram it can take is ddr 512mb 333mhz(i just read this, it might be wrong)

You would notice a difference considering xp would be using up nearly all of your current 256mb's...

I'd recommend that you reinstall the operating system first before upgrading.
If you don't already have an anti-virus program you should get one, avast or AVG are both good and very light on systems too!

Your pc is very old but word processor and browsing the internet does not ask a lot.
Disk defragmentation, ccleaner(free program) and managing start-up programs are also ways to potentially speed up your computer

This is your best advice

Do you have the xp CD and drivers?

jamescd

No, XP was pre-installed onto the PC. I can do System Recovery, it deletes all files and all programs installed.

I still want to add more RAM though. Will the RAM i linked in my 1st post not work with my PC?

Effluo

Remember when you first got your pc?

Was it fast or slow? Well i'm gonna suppose it was reasonably fast... You would have been given an xp cd with your pc when you bought it, everyone is...

By reinstalling the operating system and defragmenting you hd, you can expect system speeds very close to that of when you first got the pc.

Even though that website says that the pc can take up to 4gig's of ram i wouldn't be so sure, considering the pc can come with as low as 256mb's of ram.
Find some other sources of info on that matter. Not places that are trying to sell it to you either!

polyfusion

Effluo wrote: »

Remember when you first got your pc?

Was it fast or slow? Well i'm gonna suppose it was reasonably fast... You would have been given an xp cd with your pc when you bought it, everyone is...

HP and Compaq (several years ago, at least) didn't supply XP CDs with their systems, at least not with the Compaq laptop and HP desktop I had close association with - there was a recovery partition that recovered the system to a "factory state". I remember having to have a computer "expert" have a look at the desktop for an ntloader problem, and nearly getting to the point of tearing his head off at his insistence that there must have been an XP CD included with the package, when I knew well and told him several times that there wasn't.

Anyway OP, google your systems model number, or even better, have a look at the motherboard and find it's number, you'll probably get further with that) a quick google of the model number you posted threw up a LOT of junk, with lots of link to upgrade the memory, which is what you want, but you need to know the specifics, I think, before purchasing something.

Reinstalling a fresh OS will definately improve things, speed-wise, though with it's present 512MB, I wouldn't advise AVG as a virus scanner. Probably ok with 2GB or more, but I wouldn't advise it with anything at or less than 1GB. Avast is less resources hungry, IMX.

Effluo

polyfusion wrote: »

I wouldn't advise AVG as a virus scanner. Probably ok with 2GB or more, but I wouldn't advise it with anything at or less than 1GB. Avast is less resources hungry, IMX.

That may have been in the past but i'm running avg right now and it's using 788K(whatever that is) of ram...

jamescd

As polyfusion stated, the PC came with a program called System Recovery which pretty much does what an OS re-install would and so it doesn't come with an XP disc. I've done this several times already so I wanted to try something else to boost my PC even further.

I will open up my PC and check my mobo and memory slots. Thanks for the replies so far.

jamescd

Alright, I've opened up my case and it appears I have an Asus P4SD-LA. Here's a link to the specs http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/document?docname=c00022505&cc=us&lc=en&dlc=en. I also found out that I have only one 512MB PC2700 RAM, instead of two 256MB's.

It supports up to 4 x 512MB PC3200 so will this work? http://www.elara.ie/products/detailsfullat.asp?productcode=ECE1441619#spec. Is 1GB good enough or should I max out it out with 2GB?

I also discovered that it has two SATA ports so I was thinking of adding a 7200 RPM SATA hard drive. Will this increase the speed of my PC even further? I currently only have 160GB so I could also use the extra storage space.

My only concern is the PSU is kinda small, I have a Bestec 250W. Will it be able to handle a second HDD?

polyfusion

I think you should go to the 2GB. The RAM you linked should work fine with your motherboard.

I think if you're only using it for Word and the web, the speed of the RAM isn't going to make much of a difference, whether it's 2700 or 3200; going from 512MB to 2GB would make a huge difference in performance though. By all means, go with the faster RAM, probably not much of a price difference there, but if you were to get 2GB (or 1.5GB) of 3200, and wanted to use your 512MB @ 2700 as well, the motherboard will ramp down the speed of the 2GB to 2700, so it can all happily exist at the lowest common speed. Again, for what you're wanting to do with it, the difference in speed won't make an appreciable difference.

As for adding another hard drive, and increasing speed, that would depend on the speed of your current hard drive. Chances are that it's 7200 as well, so no real difference in speed, but check it to see (google the model number on it). There are benchmarks of various hard drive speeds, but for general use, the difference in speed between 7200 hard drives isn't going to be noticible. My experience is that 5400 drives tend to be a little slower at booting up, and 10000 drives are less reliable. If your going with another drive, then I'd advise to leave the OS on the smaller drive (personally, I use 20GB or 40GB hard drives for the OSs and applications - less stuff to backup when reinstalling, and quicker to image or reimage).

PSU should be fine, but may depend on what else you've got in the case; how many optical drives, using floppy drive or ZIP drives (disconnect them if your not using them), hungry graphics card? I currently have 3 hard drives, a DVD writer and average graphics card in one 6 y.o. PC, with XP and 2GB PC2700 RAM, CPU and case fan, and a 250W PSU and it's running great. My opinion would be to use it, and if it craps out, get a bigger wattage. PSUs rarely fail when they're on; it's usually when you go to start them up that you realise there is something wrong with them.

jonny72

Also go to download.com and get windows system care I think its called, free and v popular

Defrag harddrive, defrag and clean registry, clear off all the spy and malware, clean up all the junk files, optimise, etc

Makes such a difference with old pc's that are full of junk.

jamescd

Alright cheers poly. If it won't make much of a difference then I'll just get this 512MB PC2700 RAM and keep the old one for a total of 1GB. The old RAM might be a different brand/model though, will that cause problems?

I'm planning to get this HDD http://www.elara.ie/products/detailsfull.asp?productcode=ECE1691117#spec. I need more storage space badly. At the moment I'm only left with 18GB of free space, is this contributing to the slow speed of my PC?

@jonny: Thanks for that, I'll give it a try.

polyfusion

The brand won't make a difference, and don't worry about matching pairs either, it's marketing hype in the main, if you ask me. If it works, it works. I think the chance of getting 2 sticks that won't work together are slim to none. Some motherboards may be picky about the RAM they let run, but Asus wouldn't be one of those manufacturers.

I don't think the 18GB remaining would make it very slow, unless the hard drive is badly fragmented and you're running a dynamic swap file. I used to run with fixed-size swap files (1.5 times the amount of RAM), so doing something similar (particularly with smaller amounts of RAM) might make a difference to speed. Might be worth considering with 1GB. I don't think I have it fixed with my 2GB PC though. Lots of other things could be slowing it down, like malware/spyware, all the programs that have been installed, excessive registry entries, unneeded programs starting on startup or resident in the system tray. A fresh re-install will sort a lot of this out, but as I remember, HP and Compaq have a lot of their own "utilities" installed from the factory which don't help matters.

Much of a muchness when it comes to hard drives, I think. Of course, some people will have their own preferences/dislikes. Me, Seagate and Maxtor have always been good. I wouldn't go near an IBM again (but then that was a 10000 rpm model). If the capacity is big enough for you and affordable, then go for it.

jamescd

Cheers poly. I'll be ordering the RAM and HDD tomorrow.

Thanks also for everyone else who posted

jamescd

I've decided to follow most people's advice and did a system recovery. I thought it would uninstall everything and delete all the files but it didn't. It just restored everything to "factory settings", whatever that means. Now I'm stuck with a bunch of programs that are broken, for example when I try to open Microsoft Word it just says "This action is only valid for products that are currently installed.

I want to get rid of all these broken programs but none of them show up on the "Add or Remove Programs" list. I tried using the uninstaller of each program but it won't work either. Tried a program called Revo Uninstaller too but it doesn't show any of the programs as well. Can I just delete their folders straight off from the program files in the C: Drive without uninstalling?

How about I just format the drive itself to get rid of everything and start fresh? I can see two partitions on my computer. One is called "Presario C:" and the other one is called "Presario_RP ". The drive is only 3.7GB and apparently contains the recovery partition, could the OS be installed on it? I'm thinking of formatting the C: Drive only if the OS is not there. I don't want to accidentally delete the OS since I haven't got an XP disc.

Sorry for the long post

polyfusion

When starting the recovery, you should be presented with 2 options, a standard or non-destructive recovery, and a full or destructive recovery.

The second should restore your PC to the way it was when you took it out of the box, and you'll need to reinstall all your programs, XP updates, etc to get up and running again.

The first mainly just restores the OS and it's files. Since the OS is probably reverting to older dlls or other dependencies, some of your programs might stop working properly. Reinstalling them and making sure XP is all up-to-date should rectifiy this, but if you're going to that much trouble, then you're better off backing up your documents, music, movies etc, and doing a full, destructive recovery.

How to get there, I'm not sure in your case. Usually, the Compaq recovery utilities will get you there, but I seem to recall on the HP I have, by pressing F10 during startup would present you with the options. If you still have the manuals, have a look there.

It's also possible to make recovery CDs if your PC is newer than 2003 - handy if you want to use a different hard drive, of if the original was to fail on you: http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/fastFaqLiteDocument?lc=en&cc=uk&dlc=en&docname=bph08097

The D partition is where the recovery files are (RP=recovery partition). C partition is where the OS, applications etc will be installed. Be careful not to format the D partition if you decide to format the C partition manually, or before you create the recovery CDs (treat them well if you do make them!).

jamescd

Ah I see, didn't notice that. I have just finished upgrading to Windows XP SP2 and re-installing all the programs, now I'll have to start all over again

Thanks, I'll do system recovery again, but this time I'll be picking the destructive option.

polyfusion

A tip: once you have it all setup again, clean OS, up-to-date with patches (XP SP3 is available as a single download, and can be applied without having SP2 on there), bare minimum of necessary applications, and your new hard drive in, it might be worth installing Maxtor Maxblast, and making and saving an image of the hard drive at that state. You can then recover to that point any time you want, in minutes, instead of the several hours you'd spend reinstalling all that stuff again. You can save the image to the new hard drive, and restore to any hard drive as you see fit. Maxblast is free; the only condition is that you have a Maxtor or Seagate hard drive installed on the system. Much better than using system restore IMO; I always have it turned off, as it uses up disk space and resources, and when I needed it to work that one time, it didn't.

jamescd

Thanks for the tip. I picked up the RAM earlier and it slotted in nicely . The HDD I'll try to install later.