Processors

Mossy Monk

how would i know what kind of processor would be suitable for my PC? i need to upgrade

tribble

Your choice of processor is dependent on your motherboard.

Examine your motherboard, find a make and a model or just google any unidentified alphanumeric strings for an accurate identification.

tribble

Matfinn

Let us know what brand and model of computer you have and then maybe we can help more?

Matt

clansman

they are bascally 2 types of motherboards

1.AMD
2.Pentium

the amd motherboard is know as socket A. there is only one type of socket A

the pentium is different. the Pentium3 CPU (processor) will not fit into a Pentium4 motherboard.

so if ur upgrading up processor u must know that ur motherboard type is.

Virus_Inc

Look for an app called ctbios.exe little wee thingy that reads the ID strings of your bios and tells you all the useful information like make, model & usually a URL.

A word of warning though - a lot of virus scanners will pick it up as something nasty...

Mossy Monk

my motherboard is a Packard Bell M5SIB
my current CPU is a Cyrix MII

MrPinK

You're not gonna find another cyrix chip to upgrade it with I'm afriad

You'll need a new motherboard. A couple of places like Komplett and Peats sell upgrade packages that include motherboard, cpu and ram. That's prolly your best bet.

Creamy Goodness

the best route is www.elara.ie they'll build your pc to your spec and u can save 18 euros if you pick it up instead of getting it delivered they are in parkwest in dublin

BraveSirAndrew

Don't forget if you're getting a new motherboard, given the age of your computer (I'm guessing that its pretty old if its a Cyrix), you're going to need a new case aswell. You can get a pretty good ATX mini-tower from komplett for 50 quid.

Shamo

Yeah and after that you'll need new Ram probably and then a graphics card i'd say so basically a new P.C without the Monitor should do

Mossy Monk

****e :mad:

any motherboards that will take 168 pins, 100Mhz, 7,5ns, 64-bit, CAS3, single-sided, 4 chips SDRAM

Shamo

New motherboards these days require DDR memory afaik.

Better off getting yourself an Athlon XP, nForce2 motherboard and some DDR ram.

Mossy Monk

i feared that would be the case

i had a look at www.elara.ie how does that rank in the value for money stakes. i'll probably get everything new bar the monitor

Mossy Monk

Originally posted by Cr3m0
the best route is www.elara.ie they'll build your pc to your spec and u can save 18 euros if you pick it up instead of getting it delivered they are in parkwest in dublin

is that €18 to anywhere in Ireland

BoB_BoT

mossy monk, out of consideration, what purposes do you wish to use your computer for, gaming? programming, web browsing etc...?? if you can let us know, we can probably suggest somethign that may be more pocket friendly than forking out for a state of the art gaming machine.... *** i recomend komplett.ie, have yet to try elara.ie, might give em a try in the near future, if they have better prices on the prementioned company.

Mossy Monk

games don't really bother me at all. the furthest i would go games wise would be MAME. the main uses would be general internet browsing, MS Office and i am considering a satellite card for the PC and the processor i have is useless. too slow

Shamo

Could just get yourself some 2nd hand hardware then.

A 1Ghz+ AMD Athlon (Not XP) with a Abit KT7 motherboard or similar would work nicely. Can still use your PC100 SDRam aswell.

I see no point in you buying anything faster for general browsing and office work.

Mossy Monk

what if in the future my computing needs change? what i want is something quite powerful minus the powerful graphic, sound cards etc.

BraveSirAndrew

There really isn't any point in getting something as low end as that shamo. Especially since new mobo's aren't that dear. Get a decent p4 motherboard for under a 100 quid, such as the Asus P4S800, with on-board sound, then a low end p4 chip, such as a celeron, plus some cheap ddr ram (€40) and graphics card (€40), even a new case (€50), and you're still looking at around only 300 euros:D. Then you can upgrade as much as you want later on.

BoB_BoT

as mentioned above by bravesirandrew you could pick up some cheap stuff. personally i'd go with an amd supported main board, you can get a 1ghz chip of some sort (you can pick up a 1.6ghz chip for €73 ) get a main board that supports 333mhz/400mhz fsb for the simple reason of updating (EPoX EP-8K9AI from Komplett, supports up to pc 3200 memory, and it's max fsb is 333mhz [€64.19]) . in the future if you want to stick something more powerful in there you'll have the means to do so. you can get both types of ram mainboards (both supported) but i'm not sure where you'll get one. 1 x 256mb stick of ddr generic ram for 48ish euro (pc2700). Graphics cards are really cheap if you just want something that's not that powerful, you can get a Sapphire Radeon 7000 32MB SDR for €34.18. Plus you'll need a case, if you pick up something from a computer shop it might be best. i bought a case for €60 inc powersupply, it's not a fancy case, but it does the job. so in total it comes to €277.19 (plus there's shipping, but it's just to give you a rough estimate)
gl, oh yeah you can just throw your old cd rom into the equation to save some money.

*** have a look at komplett, look at the bundle section, there might be something that suites you there.

maxheadroom

What's your budget?

What are you planning on using the computer for - you mentioned a satelite card - is this for net access or TV?

How would you rate your computer knowledge? Would you be comfortable putting it together yourself?

What version of windows do you currently have? If you are building your own, bear in mind you will probably need to buy a new version of windows.