Need Computer Help -- Trying to Decide if I Want to Upgrade CPU

[NYC GOP Chick]

OK, I have a computer that's about 3 years old and I'm very attached to it. I've done lots of upgrades and improvements over the past year or so and instead of getting a new one, I'd like to do one more upgrade.

Having put in a Network Interface Card, doubled the RAM to 256K, installed a CD-RW drive and replaced the hard drive in my IBM Aptiva, I'm giving serious thought to updating the processor from a Pentium III 600 MHz to something like a P4 2G or something, and I have a few questions:

1) Do I need a new motherboard to do this?

2) How difficult is this to do? Will it become one of those "more trouble than its worth" things?

3) What issues and potential problems should I consider?

Here are some of the specs:

Pentium III 600
system board: V66M
system board chipset: Intel 82443ZX
system board form factor: micro-ATX
front-side bus speed: 100 MHz

[NYC GOP Chick]

Well, I do use Photoshop, Illustrator, Flash a lot...

[ccmay]

I'm not into gaming or video editing, but I do a lot of processor-intensive work in programs like Photoshop, Illustrator, Flash, etc.

G4, baby!

-ccm

[NYC GOP Chick]

Yeah, but I'd have to replace all that software -- not cheap! :(

[John Lenin]

Than get 128 graphics card but for real speed you are better off ith a new CPU.

[Revel]

I am a little confused as to how you obtained an aptiva that can have a mother board upgrade. But maybe they made something like that in recent years. You will be much more limited if you can only use a micro ATX board. Chances are that your CPU is already maxed for your current motherboard. So you might have to buy a new case, motherboard, memory. The newer motherboards use DDR memory. A case is not expensive. They start at about $39.00 Asus used to be a good motherboard manufacturer, but they have slipped. Some of there stuff is real buggy now...I found out the hard way. The Soyo Dragon series are great. As others have mentioned...Amd is great. Just go with a mother board with a KT333 Via chipset or newer.(a higher number is newer). Via was buggy before that. As someone suggested...Newegg.com is a good place to buy. Many of there items have no shipping charges right now. No Tax unless you live in CA. If you don't get built in(Motherboard) audio or video then I would recommend a cheap ATI Radeon video card and a cheap sound blaster audio card. This is assuming that you don't want to buy higher priced cards which are needed mostly for gaming or video editing. All of your drives should be re-usable. If your burner came with NERO then it will install on your new system. If you don't have a stand alone copy of windows then you will have buy it...but you can get it for under $100.00 from newegg if you purchase it with a motherboard or hard drive.

Also a PIII 600 is not to shabby for normal use unless you are into really intense games or something like that. Your not going to see any improvent if all you do is search the internet or use Office and things like that.

[John Lenin]

Just find a PIII 1000, make sure your motherboard will accept it. You can probably find one for $40-50 used.

[NYC GOP Chick]

Would the graphics card really make a significant difference?

[XBob]

why do you wish to upgrade? What do you wish to achieve?

What you have should be quite adequate for most uses, and adequately fast.

I have built and rebuild and upgraded many computers over the years, and finally given up, as it is a big pain, due to all the various incompatabilites in components and software.

Most good computer systems are made from same era components which work well together. Companies will rarely 'upgrade' computers, it is far more cost effective to just replace them with new systems.

The easiest thing to do, is to buy a whole new system, fully integrated, with the latest operating system and software installed, and a large hard drive, then bring the old hard drive over to the new one, and 'copy' it onto a special partition on your new computer, most particularly your data files.

Then re-install your old hard drive in your old computer and use it for a backup.

If you are intent on upgrading however, it is a great learning experience, possibly far more than you wish to learn. I have lost a lot of hair over the years, trying to figure out the problems. And tech support today is almost non-existent, except at very high prices.

If you do decide to upgrade, I would buy a new hard drive, copy your old hard drive to the new one, and take out your new hard drive, and proceed with the upgrade. Large Hard drives are very cheap these days (about $1 per gigabite).

Lastly, windows 95 and 98 have many bugs, especially when you run out of memory - they do wierd things. Windows 2000 is currently the operating system of choice for the most stable, bug free operating system.

The biggest problem with upgrading is the major chance of losing all your important data, which probably took you hundreds or thousands of hours to collect and generate.

[FreeInWV]

I just got a P4 1.7 "basic" system for my dad for Christmas. It was $300 including shipping from www.pcusa.com It was decent enough for a $300 computer.

I can vouch for newegg. They treated me very well when I built an AMD 1800XP for myself a few months ago.

Whatever you do, look up the vendor at http://www.resellerratings.com/ before you buy. It might save you from a bad experience.

[NYC GOP Chick]

Thanks for all the info. Like I said, I use Photoshop. Flash, Illustrator, etc., often and am looking to boost performance.

[Terriergal]

ping!

[John Lenin]

What is the name brand and model number of your motherboard, Acer ?

[Terriergal]

I recommend an Athlon XP system.

Me too.

Running a dragon plus with 256M DDR2100 RAM and an athlon 1600XP. Very nice.

We have an Tbird 900mHz downstairs and it runs pretty darn hot.

MAKE SURE YOU HAVE ADEQUATE COOLING. Although the 1600XP is pretty efficient for its speed.

[krizzy]

Win XP is based on the NT / 2000 OS. Now I have used this trick with NT and 2000 but I have not tried it on XP.

Open regedit 23
Go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE
- SYSTEM
- CurrentControlSet
(delete) the "Enum" key

When the OS starts the first time, it has no record of any hardware and goes through the process of installing all your hardware.

with XP wou will have to call Microsoft and buy a new key.

If you have never played with REGEDIT32 use this only as a last resort. One wrong keystroke and you will be re installing the OS.

[savedbygrace]

Although you can get a complete new system from Dell for a lot less money, you should build your own computer at least once.

Start from scratch, reusing as little as possible from your old system.

You'll need a new motherboard (I like Asus) and processor (w/ heatsink/fan.) You'll need new RAM to match the requirements of the mobo.

Buy a new hard drive and format it from scratch, then install the operating system (WinXP, probably,) and all your apps. Install your current hard drive as a second drive, so you won't lose any of your data files.

Then give your old system to a deserving charity that will appreciate getting it.

Do a Google search for "installing motherboard" and read a few of the guides available online. Lots of good tips to help you do a good job first time out of the box.

Get the best prices at http://pricewatch.com

[John Lenin]

Get XP Coprorate, no activation required. :-)

[NYC GOP Chick]

I wish to achieve faster speeds, especially when using Photoshop and Flash, etc.

Is what I have adequate for graphic-intensive stuff?

I use Windows 98SE, but would definitely consider 2K -- although I had that at work and it didn't seem all that more stable.

I'm not terribly worried about losing data, since I back-up (on CD-R and CD-RW) just about everything important every week or so.

Thanks. :)

[NYC GOP Chick]

Where would I find that?

[krizzy]

Thanks for the tip. for now NT 4 and 2000 do everything i need. I have not found a good reason to move to XP yet.

[John Lenin]

Give me $200 and I'll get you an AMD 2000 XP w/no name motherbord and Ram at the next computer show. You can have the change if there is any left. :-)