Topic: Advice needed with P.C Upgrade...

[carnaging]

hi, firstly i would like to thank everyone at PC-Pals for helping sort out my graphics card/OS error . Now that it is sorted and my system is running how it should, I have been thinking of an upgrade, I have an AMD Duron Processor, but other than that im not sure on the specs of my system???, I know it's pretty low though, as it seems to be very unstable and slow at some tasks. I am just wondering what video/sound card, processor or RAM you would recomend

[Sandra]

Can you download and run Belarc advisor and post the results here Daz, that will give you most of what we need to know to be able to help you  

http://www.belarc.com/free_download.html

[carnaging]

'aha, will do!! you guys are great!!

[Sandra]

Thanks Daz, hope we can help further when you run the prog and post the results  

[carnaging]

:)ok, i ran the program, the results are as follows:

OS:
XP Home Edition

Processor:
900 megahertz AMD Duron
128 kilobyte primary memory cache
64 kilobyte secondary memory cache

Drives:
20.02 Gigabytes Usable Hard Drive Capacity
12.74 Gigabytes Hard Drive Free Space

CyberDrv CW078D CD-R/RW [CD-ROM drive]
IDE DVD-ROM 16X [CD-ROM drive]
3.5" format removeable media [Floppy drive]

ST320014A [Hard drive] (20.02 GB) -- drive 0, s/n 5JZA2GS2, rev 3.04, SMART Status: Healthy

Controllers:
Standard floppy disk controller
Primary IDE Channel [Controller]
Secondary IDE Channel [Controller]
SiS PCI IDE Controller

Bus Adapters:
SiS 7001 PCI to USB Open Host Controller
SiS 7001 PCI to USB Open Host Controller

Comunications:
Intel(R) 536EP V.92 Modem
RAS Async Adapter

System Model:
ECS K7S5A 1.0
Asset Tag: 0123ABC

Main Circuit Board:
  Board: ECS K7S5A 1.0
Bus Clock: 66 megahertz
BIOS: American Megatrends Inc. 07.00T 04/02/01

Memory Modules:
128 Megabytes Installed Memory

Slot '0' has 128 MB
Slot '1' is Empty
Slot '2' is Empty
Slot '3' is Empty

Local Drive Volumes:
c: (on drive 0) 20.02 GB 12.74 GB free

Display:
NVIDIA RIVA TNT2 Model 64 [Display adapter]
Proview 15.7 [Monitor] (15.7"vis, September 2002

Multimedia:
C-Media AC97 Audio Device
MPU-401 Compatible MIDI Device
Standard Game Port
Unimodem Half-Duplex Audio Device

Other Devices:
Standard 101/102-Key or Microsoft Natural PS/2 Keyboard
Microsoft PS/2 Mouse
USB Root Hub
USB Root Hub

I Left a few of the results out, as the wern't relevent (Users, Printers). Does any of that make any sense?

[Sandra]

Ok Daz, as its late here,( or early 3-10am) and I have been waiting for your reply before I went to bed, I can only give you a quick answer.
Hopefully someone can expand on it later  

I found this review for your mobo :

http://www.sysopt.com/reviews/ecs-k7s5a/

So straight of I would change the CPU for the  1.4 GHz AMD Thunderbird.
It may even take a faster CPU than that but I havent had time to read the article fully yet.
It also takes DDR ram, Belarc doesnt say if your 128 is SD or DDR but 128 of either isnt that good for XP, it was fine for 98.
So I would also say get a stick of 512 DDR ram either in addition to the 128, if its DDR, or as a replacement for the 128 if it is SD ram as you cant usually run SD and DDR in the same board at the same time.
If you look on :

www.crucial.com

Theres a place to put your mobo model in and they will give you a list of the ram that is guaranteed to work with your board and are not to badly priced.

I think that you can probably get a lot better graphics card than your current one for not silly money but someone wil hopefully advise you a little later.

Hope that this gives you a little food for thought  

[carnaging]

::)ok, thanks Sandra, i'll look at those sites in the morning, too tired now Thanks for the help, now i have a basis of what i need, as before i didn't have a clue!

[Sandra]

Just had a quick look on the Elite site and if I have got the correct mobo, you would need to visually check the revision number of course and consider whether it was worth risking flashing the bios, then theres a BIOS upgrade that appears to allow a big increase in the CPU speed  

02/08/09 09/09/02 AMI® BIOS. Support AMD Athlon XP 2400+ and 2600+ CPU

That would really make your pc perform especially along with the DDR ram and a decent graphics card  

[Simon]

You might like to have a look at this Graphics Card from Dabs.  I fitted the PCI version of this in another machine, and it seems fine.

Device Type  Graphics adapter  
Enclosure Type  Plug-in card  
Interface Type  AGP 8x  
Compatibility  PC  
Graphics Processor / Vendor  1 x nVidia GeForce FX 5200  
Graphics Processor Data Width  256-bit  
RAMDAC Clock Speed  350 MHz  
Video Memory Installed ( Max )  128 MB DDR SDRAM - integrated  
Memory Clock Speed  400 MHz

[/size]

[princeofdarkness]

i would say more ram and i would say get it from a computer fair   if not then www.crucial.com

just make sure you get sdram not ddr ram  


PoD (jonah)

[princeofdarkness]

adding to the last post here a specific link to sdram   http://www.crucial.com/search/srchrslt.asp?keywords=sdram&type=All&ANDOR=AND&rowcount=20&cv=Crucial

hope i helped  

PoD (jonah)

[Sandra]

just make sure you get sdram not ddr ram  

I think you meant that the other way round didnt you PoD  

DDR is a lot faster than SD ram  

[princeofdarkness]

i know but doesnt daz'z pc take sdram?

jonah

[princeofdarkness]

also sandra could you tell me y my pics arnt working  :'(  :'(  :'(

and i am changing my name to jonah  

[Adept]

also sandra could you tell me y my pics arnt working  :'(  :'(  :'(

I can  No space between the IMG tag and the grin smiley