Upgrade Help

  • Thread starter DQuaN
  • 9 comments
  • 478 views
DQuaN

DQuaN

Goat of the Year
Premium
12,299
United Kingdom
Ealing-London
A friend of mine has a rather old PC, but is adamant that he wants to upgrade it and not get a new one.

I don't have too much detail on it at the moment (will hopefully post it later).

But if I give you some requirements, perhaps you could give me suggestions.

Graphics card: It is currently using onboard graphics. He doesn't want to spend much so i reccomended a 128mb medium end card. He has no AGP slot so it has to be PCI. I don't know much about PCI Express but i don't think his comp will take it.


CPU: It currently has a Celeron 900mhz (i think) I'm pretty sure this leaves little room for expansion. Does anyone know what the highest celeron this motherboad is likley to take is? I'll try and post motherboard details later.


Basically i need to know what the best Celeron it can take is. And I need good but cheap PCI 128mb graphics card reccomendations.

Many thanks all.


Dunc.
 
Perhaps you can convince your friend to upgrade his motherboard as well. Afterall, as long as the case doesn't change, it isn't a new computer right? :)

The graphics are going to be a problem if there is no AGP slot (and it sounds like no PCI-express slot). I didn't think there was a such thing as a celeron-only motherboard, though, so you could probably upgrade to a pentium of some kind.

The only thing you can do for him (that I know of) is to get a pentium (fastest the mb will take) and expand the ram. That is, if he stays with the same mb.

If he goes with a better mb, you can get a fast cpu, good graphics, and better ram. That's my suggestion. The hard drive is still likely to be a bottleneck, but it'll start feeling like a new computer if you have to put a new hard drive in there and move all his stuff over (and install a new os).

Edit: It would be helpful if you found out which mb he has and post it here.
 
It's a Dell Optiplex which means it is all weird inside! The case opens like a book and everything is cross wired. The PCI Bay plugs in at right angles. It's really weird.

There is a chance it could actually be a 1.7ghz! (from googleing what little info i have)
 
I guess about £150 max

Celeron Processors dont go much above £60 for a 2.8ghz. And i have seen a few Graphics cards for around the same.
 
I have gotten surprisingly good performance out of some old PIII 600mhz machines by putting in a decent video card and maxing out the ram (512-768mb).

I upgraded my buddies Dell Dimension (I think) from a 1.8 to a 2.8ghz (max for that chip set). He ended up selling the system because the performance upgrade wasn't quite less than what he expected. If he's going to use it for gaming, I would definitely look at Ram and Graphics first. Too bad it's PCI as AGP or PCI-X much more efficient. This means if he does upgrade to a new box down the road, his new graphic card would pretty much be junk and not worth putting into a new machine with AGP or PCI-X technology. For 150 I would look at RAM, Graphics, and Processor in that order as the budget merits it. I wouldn't put too much into it as your working with obsolete technology that really can't be used in anything else.
 
Thanks Pako. I have a serial number from the motherboard at home which I hope will shed some light on the subject. From what i could see inside there was no model number on the mobo.
 
Since it's a Dell, go to support.euro.dell.com and type in the System Tag number, which you will find on the case. This will give you the complete as-shipped spec of the box. It will also give you information such as the maximum amount of RAM you can put in.

You will be able to find PCI graphics cards. They won't be great, but still considerably better than the onboard graphics, which are designed for Productivity Applications, not games.

You should also update the BIOS and all drivers. These will be downloadable from the Dell support site. And you could consider ditching the hard disk and buying a newer, faster one. A full system rebuild is often a great, if slightly inconvenient, way to boost performance.
 
DQuaN
I guess about £150 max

Celeron Processors dont go much above £60 for a 2.8ghz. And i have seen a few Graphics cards for around the same.
Click to expand...

Seriously, it's almost not worth upgrading if that's all he can spend. You don't want to throw good money after bad - which is what it sounds like he wants to do. I would suggest not upgrading at all if he can't afford to upgrade without swapping out the old MB.

I'd say the minimum is a replacement MB, CPU, RAM and Video Card. If he can't afford that, tell him to make do for a while until he can.
 

Latest Posts

Back