PC Upgrade...?

[CountryPug]

Over the weekend I reconnected my old PC, its been sitting gathering dust in the spare room since I got my laptop nearly 3 years ago, I had no use for it. After rearranging my room I had an empty desk so I decided to get the old machine up and running again. Well, I forgot how much I preferred using a PC. After cleaning up the HD and transferring my files across from the laptop all is going well. However, it is an old machine of 2004 vintage, well outspec'd by today's PC's. My question is: Where do I start to improve this old machine? Or should I be thinking of just buying/building another PC?

My long-term plan is to use my PC as the integral part of my entertainment system, using it to watch TV and films, play the odd game on and all the usual word processing and excel stuff too.

The basic spec is: AMD Athlon, 1.53GHz, 480MB RAM. It has a very basic capabilities and does struggle to do two things at once

[steve_earwig]

Perhaps you could see what the board will take with regards to upgrades, more memory is probably the easiest but a bigger processor wouldn't go amiss.

[jamjar1383]

tbh CountryPug thats old now it would be worth buying some new parts and buikding a new one imho

ive got 3 pc's in the house built last year when i decided to get shot of the laptops.
the one i got in my livining room plays downloaded vids on the tv

you could up grade the current hardware but it still wont be all that good, best off doing a full upgrade

maplins have normally got a fair deal on amd duel core stuff

[steve_earwig]

Depends if you have the cash and need the machine that much, I built this one in 2003 and with the memory to the max it's still usable (P4 2.4, 3 gig), I couldn't afford to replace it so when it goes bang I'll be trawling the town dump for a replacement...

[FarmerPug]

480mb of ram fancy. My old pc only has 256mb but is suprisingly quicker than youd expect.
hard drives are easy to change, get a quicker and bigger hard drive is easy.

[CountryPug]

it would be worth buying some new parts and buikding a new one imho

Yeah your probably right, I'd probably spend as much trying to upgrade this one as I would building a decent new one.

Depends if you have the cash and need the machine that much

2bh, I use my computer quite a lot, rarely is it not turned on, I'll trawl the internet reading stuff rather than watching TV. I could spend in the region of £300-£400 on it without worrying too much. My main worry however would be buying compatible parts and also the fact that software will cost as much, if not more than the actual components

[Gary406]

CP do not spend £300 on that machine mate

you could get yourself a nice i3 processor PC with DDR3 ram and a huge 1000gb hard drive for that mate .

and it will be 4096MB of ddr3 ram at that - 4gb ddr3 .which will certainly NOT struggle doing several things at once

check this place out mate. this store is 10 miles from me , best place in the UK for pc parts

http://www.scan.co.uk

build your own pc to your requirements and your price.

[CountryPug]

check this place out mate

That's an epic site Gary!

Maybe this is a dumb question but if I buy all the parts that I need for a PC to work, how do I know that they will all work together? Surely not every type of processor works with every motherboard or graphic card etc.

[Gary406]

you have to link the socket of the CPU to the motherboard .

its very easy mate i will help you pick a good machine if you need.

[Gary406]

you get say a socket 999 prosessor (just an example-no such thing as socket 999)
then you buy a motherboard that accepts a socket 999.

you link them up. same with the memory. you have different types of RAM and motherboards support certain ones..

[rwb]

Indeed its not worth spending money on.
However, it sounds half decent and so maybe worth persevering with.

It needs more RAM -- Windows behaves very badly in low memory. Even Linux (Ubuntu) will be unpleasant with less than 512MB. Aim for 2GB.
It would probably take Windows 7, but of course it won't support the transparent window rubbish.

Note that hard discs really do die, so back up your data!

[steve_earwig]

2bh, I use my computer quite a lot, rarely is it not turned on, I'll trawl the internet reading stuff rather than watching TV. I could spend in the region of £300-£400 on it without worrying too much. My main worry however would be buying compatible parts and also the fact that software will cost as much, if not more than the actual components

I read the "gathering dust" stuff as you didn't use it that much but if you're using it a lot and can afford to replace it then indeed kick it to the kerb.

[CountryPug]

its very easy mate i will help you pick a good machine if you need.

Cheers, might be asking a few (read: a lot) of questions in the near future

I read the "gathering dust" stuff as you didn't use it that much

Yeah I didn't use it at all during uni, the laptop was more convenient. Now that I'm finished uni my laptop never leaves the house and the PC is so much nicer to use with a proper keyboard and big screen

I'll take a few days to think about it, whether I persevere with this machine and throw in a few upgrades or start building something epic

[highlander]

Don't buy anything without checking Scan's Today Only page, which they literally update every day (around 13:00) with new crazy deals.

http://www.scan.co.uk/todayonly

They normally put on some really nice Intel Core i3, i5, or i7 bundles (processor, memory & motherboard) at very good prices - all you need to do is add a case, power supply, hard disk, and monitor.

[DiscoPol]

Damned good advice

EDIT:bugger it s moved to the next page, what i meant was highlander is right about checking out the daily specials