cheap upgrade if possible?

gemmajp

Hi all just wondering I have a cheap pc i bought a few years ago and it has got a little slow I have bought extra ram for it but wanted to add a gpu, psu, harddrive and change os I dont want to spend much if possible its only used for browsing emails etc maybe odd dvd. Its an Acer M1100. Is it worth updating or starting from scratch. Any help would be brill and thank you

deconduo

Download something like CPU-Z and let us know what the stats are, it helps According to the specs page its an Athlon 64 or a Sempron, so while its not great it certainly isn't totally bad.

How big is the hard drive?

gemmajp

Mobo Acer F690GVM

Ram DDR2 4096 MBytes

Cpu AMD Athlon 64 4000+

hdd Seagate SATA-II 3.0Gb/s 80gb (160 c+d drives)

Os Vista Basic

Graphics are integrated Radeon x1250

The new memory installed has sped it up and it only sits in a wardrobe because its connected to my tv in the bedroom but i wouldnt mind spending 150-200 euro to keep it running somewhat better. Any suggestions would be great tank you again for any help

deconduo

Hmm, not great though the 4GB of RAM is handy. I'd say a 5670 would run ok on it without bottlenecking too much.

Moon54

Nice chunk of RAM. Yeah, I'd say the PC is very upgradable.

Probably the first thing I'd do is upgrade the OS to Windows 7 Pro 64-Bit using the Software4students.ie upgrade disc, it's €45;
http://www.software4students.ie/Microsoft_Windows_7_Professional_64_bit_Upgrade_Edition-details.aspx

Next, I'd look into finding a good, fast & quiet boot drive, a 7200 rpm one like the Samsung F3 1 TB for about €50;
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Samsung-HD103SJ-internal-SATAII-7200RPM/dp/B002MQC0P8/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1308614534&sr=8-1
(free shipping!)
or Samsung F3 500GB for €35;
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Samsung-HD502HJ-SATA-Drive-Internal/dp/B002J65AHQ/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1308614534&sr=8-2
(free shipping!)
If I understand your post right you already have a 160GB & 80GB?
Imo, it would be be best to reserve them for storage duties and not for the OS.
They are probably older drives and are likely to be lower performing compared to the Samsung F3.

Lastly, a graphics card upgrade could also be possible.
We'll need to know your PSU model and wattage, though, before advising about that.:D

Jonny7

Well, to the honest, that PC is more than capable of handling emails and the odd DVD, the reason why its slow is probably just software related, pc getting full, accumulated junk and spyware, etc, etc, etc

I'd say first of all download this

http://download.cnet.com/Advanced-SystemCare-Free/3000-2086_4-10407614.html?tag=mncol;6

its free, give it a try, spring clean the PC and then see how it is

You could also do a reinstall of windows.

If it still hasn't sped up after that, then all you should need is a new harddrive.

gemmajp

When I do insert a new hard drive will the upgrade version of windows 7 do or will it need to be a clean installation. I don't really know about a graphics card at the minute because it is only a 250 watt psu so i know that needs upgrading before I can think of video cards.:)