time for a new computer, or upgrade??

Knub

Looking at the state of your motherboard it can only go upto 1.5gb of Ram it seems. So triple what you have, and its not the fastest RAM in all fairness. It would make a difference but the CPU is getting dated and the motherboard shows its age with limited upgrade capability.

You can get some pretty good budget PC's these days for around £300 notes, if all it is doing is browsing/office/basic applications.

I'm sure if you search the forum there are countless threads on getting a cheap PC. Often come without operating system/monitor/peripherals but you probably have all that anyway.

Might be worth looking into now, unless you want to upgrade to 1.5Gb and wipe the system. Given the date of the hardware you might get away with it for another year or maybe more but it could be time for a new system.

Personally if it were me, I'd probably do the latter, given this new information provided.

chunter

tubster wrote: »

I don't run games, but I might have 15 word documents open, 10 web pages, outlook and excel running all at the same time.

Tubster

I think maybe its not just the computer that's overloaded...

tubster

Many thanks all of you. this last comment made me I try and multi-task all day and often found I haven't really finished anything!

I'm thinking I'll get a couple of 512kbs cheap as I can from ebay and re-install windows to get another year out of it for a tenner and a day or two hassle.

If it slows up again I'll get the motherboard/dual core/new ram - one last question - will I be able to move my XP hard drive over to the new board without having to re-install windows and everything else - this is a couple of days hassle and I don't really want to do it all over again if the plan A doesn't work...

almillar

It might work but you can have absolutely no guarantee, and if it does boot up you could be looking at an awful screen, no network, sound etc, and you'll have the leftovers of all the drivers for the old hardware. You sound like you're capable of backing up and clean installing, so do that, far less potential hassle, and definately a better result in the end. Part of the reason you're doing all this is because your system is gunked up so do it properly!

andy2004

You would need to reinstall windows if changing the motherboard due to the motherboard drivers being completely different, even if you uninstalled all the old motherboard drivers from the OS, and installing new drivers on top of the old one could cause some conflicts as the old wouldnt completely be uninstalled.
IF you where buying the same motherboard then yes it would be possible, but your not, so not a good idea.

DCFC79

Why dont you buy the ram and see how it goes as well as doing a defrag etc,

Strider590

Might as well give the RAM a go, 1gb or 2gb will make a big difference with your multitasking.

I would advise buying a matching pair of dimms, systems can get a little unstable when they're not the same manufacturer or speed.

tubster

OK, many thanks everyone. I'll let you know how it goes when the memory turns up....

tubster

Hello again

You helped me out with an upgrading issue post a little while ago with some recommendations to upgrade my mobo, memory and processor. I thought about all the hassle of reinstalling windows and decided I might as well get some new hardware at the same time.

I could spend a couple of hundred quid to get something really, really fast. I don't use games but I do sound editing, occassional graphics work with images but mostly (90 per cent) use it for outlook, word, excel, graphics viewer etc simultaneously.

I've been looking at quad cores, phenoms etc but I'm not sure if they will be helpful multi-tasking progs like this that aren't built for it. But then again I'd like this to to last a few years. Or should I just go for a dual core/core 2 or whatever.

I'd like to recycle my graphics card if I can (see above), drives, case (ATX) etc.

Could someone recommend a good mobo/cpu/memory combo? I'll be running XP - should I install 64bit and get more memory (4gb or 8gb)? or will simple stuff run slower on 64 bit? And is there a point where I'm wasting my money on faster processors for these kind of applications?

I've never tried overclocking or anything. I just need a really reliable set up and preferably one that isn't massively powerhungary, the thing gets left on more than it should. My hard drive runs at 7200rpm.

Any advice appreciated

Tubster

[Deleted User]

tubster wrote: »

I could spend a couple of hundred quid to get something really, really fast. I don't use games but I do sound editing, occassional graphics work with images but mostly (90 per cent) use it for outlook, word, excel, graphics viewer etc simultaneously.

I've been looking at quad cores, phenoms etc but I'm not sure if they will be helpful multi-tasking progs like this that aren't built for it. But then again I'd like this to to last a few years. Or should I just go for a dual core/core 2 or whatever.

What software do you use for sound editing and graphics? There's no point in buying a quad core processor unless they are going to take advantage of it, because Office sure won't and you'll be spending money unnecessarily.