upgrading a friends PC

dark_jedi_ire

Hi folks,

Just looking for advice and options on a cheap upgrade for these Specs,, its not for gaming , just office and home use, but its dog slow and a friend is looking to spend little and see what upgrades are available ( I would say Max 100 Euro)n second hand equipment is a possible route

Windows XP Home Edition Service Pack 2 (build 2600)
Install Language: English (United States)
System Locale: English (United Kingdom)
Installed: 01/06/2013 15:04:28
Boot Mode: BIOS (Secure Boot not supported) Compaq Presario
Enclosure Type: Desktop
Processor a Main Circuit Board b
2.20 gigahertz AMD Athlon 64


Board: AMETHYST-M 1.0
Bus Clock: 200 megahertz
BIOS: Phoenix Technologies, LTD 3.33 08/17/2005
Drives Memory Modules c,d
320.06 Gigabytes Usable Hard Drive Capacity
123.79 Gigabytes Hard Drive Free Space

ATAPI iHAP122 W [Optical drive]

Memory DDR PC3200, DDR (non-ECC)
Slot 'A0' has 512 MB
Slot 'A1' has 512 MB
Slot 'A2' has 512 MB
Slot 'A3' has 512 MB

Ram would be the first thing I would Look at then possibly a CPU upgrade

Thoughts?

marco_polo

TBH you're better off gutting it, I doubt you could even buy a 939 CPU or DDR1 nowadays, and even if you could the money spent it certainly wouldn't be worth it.

For about €100 you could definitely get a G1610, mATX H61 board and 4GB DDR3. Even at that a 10 year old HDD (presuming it is even SATA) is going to be very slow, so that would want to be upgraded as well.

The case and PSU might be reusable but you'd want to check it for SATA power connectors etc.

dark_jedi_ire

Thanks,, thought as much, Noy knowing AMD boards, etc, just thought I would ask,,

Thanks for getting back to me,,

dazberry

Based on this this spec ...

First thing would be off to ebay and get thyself 2x DDR 400mhz 1GB, should get this for at-most €10/15. As your friend is using a 32bit OS there is not point in going to 4GB as a chunk of it won't be usable, so IMO it's better to stick at 3GB (2 x 512MB sticks will become redundant).

Next thing is to get a CPU upgrade, something like AMD Athlon™ 64 x2 3800+, SKT 939, should pick one up for less than €10. You may or may not need a replacement cpu cooler.

It's debatable whether it's worth spending any more, I've seen big speed increases in putting new SATA drives into older 3Gb/s sata machines, but this machine is only 1.5Gb/s. Might be worth it just to back up all the data, do a new fresh install of Windows XP and reinstall all the apps / data if your friend still has all the relevant disks.

HTH

D.

dark_jedi_ire

Thanks Dazberry, As above I havnt a clue about Athlon etc have always be an intel man, so, yeh agree on the 32bit, she has no need for a 64 bit os,,, Thanks for the Specd guide, I will hunt down those parts and get a pricing and see what she wants to do, Cheere M8 :-)

dark_jedi_ire

Just wondering what Kind of PC could you guys get together for 250 Euro?

Use of the Computer is: Light TV/Video., Skype, SOMe photoshop, Essays Email and Internet and some Youtude and music play.., pretty basic really..

OS, Keyboard, mouse, Monitor not needed

Just a basic PC .. ordered from http://www.hardwareversand.de

4 gig of ram DVD drive, Wifi, kinda thing ,, would be looking at an I3 at least. if possible

Thanks

marco_polo

Something like this would be decent and pretty upgradeable, there not a huge loss in performance between that and an i3 which would push it over €300. For regular day to day usage you'd really hardly ever notice the difference.

http://www.cpu-world.com/Compare/291/Intel_Core_i3_i3-4130_vs_Intel_Pentium_Dual-Core_G3220.html

You could shave a bit off with a similar 1155 build but for the sake of €20 or so, it a bit more future proof with Haswell.

Item|Price
Zalman T3 Mini-Tower - schwarz, mATX, ohne Netzteil|€26.46
Corsair VS Serie VS350, Non-Modular, 80+|€29.54
WD Blue 1TB 6Gb's|€52.43
4GB G.Skill PC3-10667U CL9|€31.94
MSI H81M-P33, mATX, Sockel 1150|€41.83
Intel Pentium G3220 Box, LGA1150|€49.74
LG DH18NS schwarz bare SATA II|€11.96
Shipping|€18.99
Total|€262.89

dark_jedi_ire

Thanks Pretty cool,.

Thanks a Million,, will pass this on to her and will order I think,

Thanks for that :-)