Techie help please

Popo_4

Have detailed the fiasco in a post on vent board but need some also advice on a very old outfit.

I don’t know much about pc’s and my dad only knows a bit more about the hardware than I do, but we need to find out:

-How to find out what processor is in the machine

-How to increase the memory and RAM

-Whether it’s possible upgrade the processor instead of buying a new machine if he cannot get out of this contract

The machine is about 7 years old and runs Windows 98. The physical memory is 48,000 KB!!! which I found out by going into Windows Explorer, Help, About. That’s about all I really know how to do in techie stuff. He has done some installation of RAM, sound cards and motherboards in the past.

Thanks very much in advance.

smcicr

ok, it's been a while since i saw a 98 machine so this may not be 100% accurate.

to find out about the processor / RAM try the following:

hopefully there is a My Computer icon on the desktop, right click that and select 'Properties' - fingers crossed this will bring up a 'System Properties' window and on the 'General' tab you should see information about the CPU / RAM and operating system etc.

by memory i assume you mean the Hard Drive as you mention as something seperate to RAM. it is possible to increase both the RAM and the Hard Drive in computers but there are limitations - particularly with RAM.

I suspect the only real option here will be to buy a new pc - if the current config is truly incapable of running the broadband.

1. being 7 odd years old will mean that you almost certainly will not be able to upgrade just the processor / CPU - the motherboard in the machine will require a certain style and speed of CPU - you will be highly unlikely to find one that is suitable now and it would essentially be a tiny increase in performance based on what is presently available.

2. if you decide that you will therefore upgrade the motherboard AND the cpu then you will also need to upgrade the RAM - again, the old motherboard will have used a certain style / speed of RAM and the existing RAM will not work on a newer motherboard.

3. so now you have a new motherboard, new CPU and new RAM. the next problem is that your additional cards (sound card etc) might now be incompatible as they may be ISA cards.

not wishing to make things worse - it seems a rotten situation - but i really think that buying a new(er) pc is the simplest and to be honest the cheapest solution here if the existing machine won't run the broadband - it may well work but just need to be configured right - i know of people still running very old machines.

oh and i suspect the physical memory is not 48MB total (windows would simply not be able to install if the drive was that size) - it might however be the room remaining on the hard drive - which would explain the performance issues (try uninstalling some applications and generally freeing up some space and then defragmenting the hard drive - it might be a large part of your problem).

Mr_Skint_2

Also try Everest Home Edition http://www.lavalys.hu/index.php

And Belarc Advisor http://www.belarc.com/free_download.html

Wig

I suspect the best solution will be to buy a new or second hand PC.

It will be too expensive to do anything worth while with this one.

You should be able to find them for sale for between 50 - 100 pounds secind hand in the free ads paper

If you double click on "my computer"
it will open up a new window which will list your hard drive capacity

31/2 floppy (a: )
Win (c: ) It will say the capacity here.

Popo_4

Thanks for all your advice.
I'm so used to XP now that when I go to my dad's I'm a bit lost with Windows 98 (not to mention how slow it is). Anyway, it has Windows Explorer which lists all the files and that's how I found the physical memory available to Windows. The System Resources had 76% free which, if that is equivalent to 48,000KB, doesn't sound like a lot of memory to me.

To install this broadband he needs at least 128MB RAM and 175MB free hard disk space (not sure if the "b" is supposed to be in caps or not ) and a pentium processor of 233MHz or higher.

Mr Skint, thanks for the links but he can't access the internet for the moment so can't use them for now.

Wig and Smcicr, I agree it seems the best option is to buy a new/secondhand PC - he doesn't need to change the monitor or anything else.

I did try to delete some stuff (mainly games demos that H had downloaded a looong time ago) to free up space but I dare not delete anything I'm not sure about in case it all goes wrong.

Mr_Skint_2

Popo wrote:

Mr Skint, thanks for the links but he can't access the internet for the moment so can't use them for now.

How are you able to post then, are you a Jedi Knight?

You can download and then burn them onto disc from someone else's PC
then transfer them onto another, Just a thought. :beer:

Popo_4

Mr_Skint wrote:

How are you able to post then, are you a Jedi Knight?

Yeah .

I don't live there, but will be going back tomorrow to try to help sort this out. Will (try to) download them and and burn them on to a disc here and copy on to his pc - do you think there will be enough space (48Mb doesn't sound like much to me)? Is it easy? (Am not very techie minded ).
Thanks again.

Rex_Mundi

To find system information on W98 is easy. Try this..............

Start>Programs>accessories>system tools>system information.

This should pretty much give you what info you need (RAM, CPU, HDD space left etc)

Just a thought.............It's easy enough to stick a second hard drive in for more storage space. The maximum RAM that will work with W98 is 512MB. This would make the world of difference to your dads present computer.

One of my home machines runs W98SE (4 years old) with 512RAM a couple of HDD and it goes like lightining. This works a damn site quicker than a lot of modern machines I've seen recently.

Popo_4

He has decided to get a new pc base unit as the current one has less than 1 GB HD space and isn't keen to faff around buying new bits and pieces, installing RAM, HDD and changing/upgrading the processor. His new pc will also be able to burn Cds and DVDs so he's very chuffed with that.

Thanks everyone for all your help and advice, lots of virtual beer :beer: and lovely karma all around.