Optimising my Optiplex

[Mongrel]

I have rescued a rather ancient Dell Optiplex GX110 from going in the skip at work. (Can't imagine why...)

128mb RAM
733mhz Pentium III
4mb Integrated graphics.
(I can't remember the exact specs - can find out tomorrow though...)

I'm currently saving up for a better PC, but for the time being I'd like to use the old Dell as a free stand-in.
I'm willing to spend £100ish to improve the performance a little as at the moment it's even struggling with internet browsing.
i was considering buying a video card and some extra RAM - is this the best way to go to get the most out of this beast?
If so, could you recommend a good video card for the job? Obviously I'm not going to be playing the latest 3D games, but I would like to play Quake 3 on it...
Thanks in advance

 

[muckshifter]

Hmmm, you have a heap of junk.

No, sorry but you may as well throw the money away.

It only has 3 PCI slots, and one of them is shared with an ISA slot and two of them are on a "daughter-board" riser ... that means you are going to struggle to find any decent graphics card at all and may not fit.

The on-board graphics shares the memory off the system ... 100-megahertz (MHz) synchronous dynamic random-access memory (SDRAM) to be exact ... you may get it from Crucial, I haven't looked, and you will need the max 512 it can take to do anything by todays standards.

It will be top dog with Win 98 as a typewriter, any other OS will bring it to it's knees ... even with Linux you are going to struggle to get any graphics.

Sorry to be so blunt, but I have two of them MBs sat here just waiting for a museum to accept them.


Good Luck.

 

[Mongrel]

Grim news indeed - I didn't think it'd be up to much to be honest. I'll save my hard earned cash and just put some extra RAM in then... No wonder it was getting chucked out!
Cheers

 

[Mongrel]

Hello again
Well - I've finally upgraded my mighty optiplex to 512mb RAM - and it is a lot better, but still very slow...Can just about run Firefox and Limewire at the same time, but things are a little jerky...

It has to be said that I'm enjoying trying to get the most out of this computer, though, and I'd still like to do more - I want to make it the finest of its type ever seen, and since I can't afford to start building a new PC for at least a few months, I thought I may as well do some more. So I have a couple more questions.

Muckshifter had this to say:'It only has 3 PCI slots, and one of them is shared with an ISA slot and two of them are on a "daughter-board" riser ... that means you are going to struggle to find any decent graphics card at all and may not fit.
The on-board graphics shares the memory off the system ... 100-megahertz (MHz) synchronous dynamic random-access memory (SDRAM) to be exact ... you may get it from Crucial, I haven't looked, and you will need the max 512 it can take to do anything by todays standards.'

I would like to try and put a graphics card in next, but I'm worried about compatibility. If seen this one:

PALIT GEFORCE FX 5200 AGP4/8X 128MB GRAPHICS CARD

Which as far as I can tell from reading Dell's literature on the subject should work. It's only £25 as well. Do you reckon this would infer a significant performance boost? I play a lot of old-skool 2d games, but even these are struggling at the moment, and obviously with my current setup 3D games are pretty much out of the question.

I suppose really I'd like a few recommendations of 3D cards which would be compatible and worth putting in...

Thanks again
Mongrel

 

[muckshifter]

Sorry to say, but ... you do not have an AGP slot to put that 5200 into ... it will not fit anywhere.

The "on-board" graphics is err, AGP but it is soldered to the MB.


You have done the most you can do with that umm, PC