Upgrading an old rig

swiss

A few months ago the hard drive on my parents computer failed. As the resident 'techie' I advised them that they could use one of my two rigs (which are both superior to 'house' computer). However, I'll be leaving shortly, and as such need to get a replacement hard drive. However, I have thought that as a little 'thank you' I should beef up the specs a little bit (especially considering that prices of older computer components have plummeted).

Now, the system in question is a PIII 500MHz (slot processor), with what I assume is a socket 370 motherboard (I'm not terribly au fait with older PIII motherboards). It ran on 128Mb of SD (PC100) RAM, and had a 10Gb hdd. It had an AGP gfx which had 16Mb.

I'm between two minds as to whether I should simply buy another hard drive, put in a 256 stick of SDRAM, and leave it at that, or whether I should just get a cheap (around €50) socket A motherboard, stick in a duron 1.3GHz (which a friend donated to me after I helped upgrade his rig), and put in 256 DDR ram instead. All that is really required of the computer is to be able to access the internet - and run open office. However, it would be nice if I could use this as a gaming rig when I get home, and run games such as Half-Life, Deus Ex, Quake III, etc. I'm not expecting miracles of course.

My query is two part. Firstly, if I did decide to go down the "buy a cheap DDR Socket A motherboard" route, which one offers the best price/performance ratio (price must be below €60) and say if I was to put in a GeForce 2 or even a GeForce 3 Ti, where could I find reasonably priced components. I don't think komplett stock old components such as these. Secondly, say I wanted to keep the motherboard - what is the highest P3 processor that socket 370 motherboards can take? Also, where could I obtain these processors (again komplett are deficient in stocking these components).

unkel

Hello there swiss

First of all, I doubt if your mobo is socket 370. It is more likely to be slot. Could you check that out? The socket 370 has a lever which can be clearly seen even without removing the HSF. If it is however socket 370, you're in luck as it can typically take a PIII or Celeron 1400MHz chip. You're best bet in getting one of these cpu's is probably the wanted forum here or ebay.co.uk. This option would be very cheap, setting you back just about €30 - €40 for the cpu and then another €10 or so for another stick of 128MB SDRam. Add the graphics card as well - total costs about €80

If I were you, I would get the cheapest available nforce2 motherboard of komplett.ie (around the €80 mark iirc), stick in your 1300MHz Duron and a cheapo 256MB stick of ram. Use your 10GB harddisk and the graphics card (if you don't have it already, a gforce3 ti200 should go here for about €35 - €40)

This option, costing about €150 should give your system a significant boost

Try sourcing the components here on boards second hand if you can - no cheaper source in Ireland

Going this route, you'll be able to upgrade further if funds become available in the near future, i.e. change the cpu to a xp2500+ and later change the memory to 2*256MB

Slutmonkey57b

Keep the upgrade a simple and cheap as possible. Unless your parents are going to turn into CS heads there's no reason to put in a GF3 or any other graphics card really. Slap a bit more ram in it and make sure they've got a modem and a flatrate connection. What else are they going to be doing with it?

swiss

What else are they going to be doing with it?

I don't even think they need the flat rate connection. However, my younger brother is doing a computer science course in CIT, and I think it would be useful if he could run more CPU intensive applications, such as perhaps Codewarrior, or Borlands C++ IDE. He's not much of a CS head, (he usually plays Champ Manager IIRC), but I'm sure he'd broaden his horizons if he got the chance.

unkel, I'll check the motherboard again if I go home again tonight. I didn't check the socket number on the board because I didn't want to take out the slot processor, but I'll see if that lever is there.

As for the nforce 2 boards - well I have one myself, they are indeed "teh win" but I'm not sure if I really want to stretch to them for a machine I won't be using much (if at all). I was looking at an Epox+ motherboard on komplett the other day. Can't remember the exact specs but from what I recall it had pretty much all I wanted from a motherboard (except for dual ddr, obviously).

Thanks for the advice guys, it looks like I'll be heading towards the 'wanted' board, for the GeForce 3 Ti anyway.

Slutmonkey57b

Ok - Codewarrior is a bit CPU intensive all right - but most IT courses don't require you to do your project building at home, so he should be able to cover it on college lab time. He can do all his code writing in notepad, if he's got teh mad skillz. If you've got a free Duron then I'd say go with Teh plan and get a cheapo socket A.

And get a flatrate connection just to spite eircom.
Besides, takes the worry out of the phone bill for parents - alternativly try explaining the peak/off peak system to them.