Upgrading my 75 year old mums pc

Toyota1968

My mum despite her age is comitted to mastering "this new fangled interweb" - however it pains me everytime i visit at how slow the pc runs - she bought it a number of years ago from i know not who - but it runs xp microsoft office etc.

What can I do to upgrade its performance to make it a bit more of an enjoyable experience -

I managed to extract the following info from the PC

Motherboard Dell Computer Corp. 0TC666
Bios Phoenix ROM BIOS PLUS Version 1.10 A02 A02 20041108000000.000000+000
CPU Intel(R) Pentium(R) 4 CPU 2.80GHz
Memory size = 268435456 KB speed = 333 MHz
Memory size = 268435456 KB speed = 333 MHz
VGA Intel Corporation Intel(R) 82865G Graphics Controller size = 100663296
HardDisk Maxtor 6Y080L0 size = 79999073280


All help appreciated

Serephucus

I'm assuming it has 268435456 bytes of RAM. Otherwise, your mother has got her hands on a very powerful server with 512GB of RAM. :P

Unfortunately, there's not much, short of building a new system. However, that's not as expensive as you might think:

Item|Price
Total build cost: €334.21 (inc delivery Free!)
ASRock S1155 Intel H61M DDR3 mATX|€49.19
XIGMATEK Asgard Chassis|€32.52
Intel Core i3-2100 3.10GHz LGA1155 3MB|€105.45
Kingston 8GB (2 x 4GB) HyperX Blu DDR3 1600MHz DIMM 240-pin CL9|€36.33
Corsair 430 Watt CX430 V2 Builder Series 80 Plus Power Supply|€39.84
Samsung 160GB SpinPoint G1 Desktop 3.5" SATA 3GB/s 7200RPM|€70.88


This system will obliterate her current machine in terms of performance. Them Office docs will load in seconds!

Unfortunately, that board doesn't have an IDE connection, so you won't be able to re-use the CD drive, or hard drive (you should get an adapter for this, if you want; they're cheap), but all the parts there are great value.

It's actually the same build I'll be using for a server some time after Christmas (plus the hard drive), so you can rest assured every part there has been thoroughly researched by an obsessive perfectionist. :P

Monotype

I agree, you'd probably want to get a completely new system really.

I'd definitely consider a Solid State Drive instead of a hard drive for a new build in this circumstance. A ~64GB one would give enough space for windows (you should get a a new copy of Windows 7). This would allow programs to open near instantly.

Crucial's M4 drives are one of the most reliable, but to get the most out of it, you would really need a motherboard with the faster hard drive interface (SATA 6Gbps). You could switch to a more expensive motherboard or save some money by going with an AMD system. You'd be sacrificing some CPU speed by going with this option but it will not be noticed in office programs whereas the SSD definitely will.

If you want further/full build suggestions, I can pick out specific components.

uncle_sam_ie

Would Linux work on that system?

Monotype

The original or Serephucus'? Depends on the distribution but the mainstream ones are good at finding drivers for whatever you need except for recently released hardware.

uncle_sam_ie

I suppose it wouldn't hurt to try it. Give mint a go. http://linuxmint.com/