Upgrade path.....

[Bryan Anderson]

Okay - loads of help needed - been lurking and reading and just got
myself confused!

Currently I have the following:

eMachines 190 PC
Intel IM845GL motherboard
2.2Ghz Intel Ceneron (Socket 478)
512MB RAM
Geforce FX5200 graphics card
2 x Maxtor 8MB Cache, 7200RPM drives.

I am happy with the memory and storage space and the processor
seems fast enough for me for now. Problem is the video card. The Intel
motherboard has no AGP slot so I had to go with a PCI card. I tried a
Radeon card but it caused no end of problems with "delayed write
errors" on the hard drives, so that came out and this one went in as
an alternative.

It's not great.

But I have hit a bottleneck in upgrading. I need a new motherboard
that supports AGP cards before I can get a new card.....but I need
some advice on a new motherboard.

What I'd *like* to do is to be able to just get the new m/b, and take
all the 'bits' from my current setup, plug them into the new board and
carry on as I am, with the possibility of upgrading the video card as
soon as funds allow.

So - I need a recomendation and any tips/hints on a new card that will
accept my current processor, memory, video card and drives, but will
allow me to go AGP in the near future and also upgrade the processor
at some stage.

I don't need on-board graphics, sound or firewire but USB2 and LAN
would be nice. Not a major problem as I can add them if needed. I
do have a tight budget though.....so ideas around the 50ukpounds
mark would be good.

Any ideas......?

Bryan Anderson <[email protected]>

 

[kony]

Okay - loads of help needed - been lurking and reading and just got
myself confused!

Currently I have the following:

eMachines 190 PC
Intel IM845GL motherboard
2.2Ghz Intel Ceneron (Socket 478)
512MB RAM
Geforce FX5200 graphics card
2 x Maxtor 8MB Cache, 7200RPM drives.

I am happy with the memory and storage space and the processor
seems fast enough for me for now. Problem is the video card. The Intel
motherboard has no AGP slot so I had to go with a PCI card. I tried a
Radeon card but it caused no end of problems with "delayed write
errors" on the hard drives, so that came out and this one went in as
an alternative.

It's not great.

But I have hit a bottleneck in upgrading. I need a new motherboard
that supports AGP cards before I can get a new card.....but I need
some advice on a new motherboard.

What I'd *like* to do is to be able to just get the new m/b, and take
all the 'bits' from my current setup, plug them into the new board and
carry on as I am, with the possibility of upgrading the video card as
soon as funds allow.

So - I need a recomendation and any tips/hints on a new card that will
accept my current processor, memory, video card and drives, but will
allow me to go AGP in the near future and also upgrade the processor
at some stage.

I don't need on-board graphics, sound or firewire but USB2 and LAN
would be nice. Not a major problem as I can add them if needed. I
do have a tight budget though.....so ideas around the 50ukpounds
mark would be good.

Any ideas......?

Bryan Anderson <[email protected]>

To get decent gaming performance (which I assume is the point of this
exercise), including the support parts, you need to replace all of the
following:

Case
Power supply
CPU
Memory
Motherboard
Video card

In other words, the hard drives aren't too bad yet. That's the
situation when you get an emachine.

The Celeron (& it's FSB & memory) is hurting even the FX5200's
performance. Perhaps a particular game(s) need the faster video more
than faster CPU, but I expect you'll move on to other games
eventually.

Your eMachine power supply isn't meant to support faster parts,
including the video card. It isn't enough to just buy a new mATX
power supply... the whole reason we have full-sized systems with
full-sized power supplies is to support the power and heat of (systems
with higher performance, your goal(?)).

At any rate, it's just not a good bang-for-buck to buy a new
motherboard for a Celeron 2.2. I don't know what's going on with your
HDD errors, but probably a power supply issue... ATI's drivers, as bad
as they are sometimes, should not be causing that kind of problem.

If you really want to avoid ATI cards (since you feel the Radeon was
the problem) then nVidia's what's left... GF4Ti4200 is a great value
when you can find one on sale, but not DX9 capable. An FX5600 would
be the more modern alternative at slightly higher cost.

 

[Bryan Anderson]

To get decent gaming performance (which I assume is the point of
this exercise),

To get better gaming. I don't tend to spend huge amounts of time in
games, and am happy to play on medium quality settings. But at the
moment, the current setup with the FX5200 card is awful.

including the support parts, you need to replace all of the following:
Case
Power supply
CPU
Memory
Motherboard
Video card

Damn! I didn't want anyone to say that ;-) The processor and memory
are fine for my day-to-day use (probably 90% of the time spent on the
PC) and they are the more costly items to upgrade....and I am on a
very tight budget.

In other words, the hard drives aren't too bad yet. That's the
situation when you get an emachine.

It was a special offer over the Easter weekend......

The Celeron (& it's FSB & memory) is hurting even the FX5200's
performance.

Would a new processor be a better first upgrade? Swap the Celeron
out for a 'real' Pentium?

At any rate, it's just not a good bang-for-buck to buy a new
motherboard for a Celeron 2.2.

Okay - getting the message.....I have a crap PC and need to upgrade
almost everything 'cept the keyboard ;-)

I don't know what's going on with your HDD errors, but probably a
power supply issue... ATI's drivers, as bad as they are sometimes,
should not be causing that kind of problem.

I did some looking around and there were a large number of people
reporting the same problem with an ATI card. I tried all kinds of
driver version and nothing solved it - basically when copying a large
file from one drive to another, or to another directory on the same
drive, it would almost always hang and the file could end up corrupted
or missing. It started as soon as I put the ATI card in and stopped as
soon as I took it out and I have had no repeat with the FX5200 card.

Anyway - thanks for the tips, but it looks like I may just have to
stick with old games for now - until I can afford the full set of
upgrades.

Bryan Anderson <[email protected]>

 

[kony]

Damn! I didn't want anyone to say that ;-) The processor and memory
are fine for my day-to-day use (probably 90% of the time spent on the
PC) and they are the more costly items to upgrade....and I am on a
very tight budget.

It's likely that a significant video card upgrade would be a
significant, perhaps largest performance boost, but still the case and
power supply may be problematic.

You wouldn't be getting most of the value out of the video card
though, without a suitably fast system powering it... such is the case
with most of our systems, we don't need modern performance but for a
few application types, all the basics like email/office/internet would
run from 500MHz system but that OTHER stuff...

 

[Bryan Anderson]

It's likely that a significant video card upgrade would be
a significant, perhaps largest performance boost, but still
the case and power supply may be problematic.

In that case, would this be my best upgrade path:

(1) New case/psu
(2) New motherboard (with AGP!)
(3) New video card
(4) New processor
(5) New memory

If I did it in this order, do you have any recomendations or things I
should look out for when buying the case/psu and also any ideas on
motherboards that will take my Celery and memory but allow me to
upgrade next year to a faster processor?

Bryan Anderson <[email protected]>

 

[kony]

In that case, would this be my best upgrade path:

(1) New case/psu
(2) New motherboard (with AGP!)
(3) New video card
(4) New processor
(5) New memory

If I did it in this order, do you have any recomendations or things I
should look out for when buying the case/psu and also any ideas on
motherboards that will take my Celery and memory but allow me to
upgrade next year to a faster processor?

I'd upgrade in this order:

1) Case/PSU

2) Memory (assuming your present memory is PC133? then the new board
would need DDR)... have the memory ready so when the board arrives you
can check it for DOA and defect before the vendor warranty runs out,
usually that's under 30 days, possibly <=15days. Suggest PC3200.. it
need not be high-end CAS2 but at least brand-name. It might help to
delay memory purchase till you know what board you want, and can
research compatibility with chosen motherboard. Just order so that it
arrives just before the board, so you have everything ready to test,
and have the most time to test the part more often problematic, the
motherboard.

3) Motherboard

4) Video card (or CPU)

5) CPU (or video card)


I'd go ahead and get the case & power supply first. Be sure it has at
least one 80-120mm exhaust in the back, and adequate air intake holes
in front. If you'll have more than one HDD, look for one with a bay
or bays that allow ample airflow in-between the drives, with the front
intake holes (or even better an 80mm fan) moving air past the HDD(s).
Metal 1mm thick is a lot sturdier but often it's hard to figure out
the metal thickness... .8mm is tolerable but avoid cases with .6mm
thick metal, they're just too flimsy, IMHO. Unless you'll be carrying
the case around a lot there is negligable benefit to aluminum, it
doesn't even cool better contrary to many marketing blurbs.

Take your time and set up the case good, including assessment of
airflow... too often a case will have significant stamped-in-grills
impeding airflow by over 50%. In such cases you may want to cut out
those fan grills and leave them open or add a wire grill if there's
any chance of wires or fingers/pets/etc getting into them. Better,
more expensive cases may have better airflow, but only you can decide
the budget, and how much $ your time is worth. Get the case set up
good, and such that the fans move enough air quietly... then you have
a good foundation for future upgrades.

Don't skimp on the power supply... Name-brand, as-in, a power supply
manufacturer's name on the label, is some assurance of quality. I'd
suggest a minimum of 350W these days, particularly for someone wanting
a decent video card in the system. Even better to go with 380-420W,
though anything over 420W is generally overkill unless it's running a
dozen HDD, dual CPUs, or something unusual like a peltier or
compressor cooler.

Most people like Antec cases, and they're a good deal if an Antec
power supply is included. Often you can find deals on the 'net for
(one model or another) around $65.

For motherboards I like Asus, but they're higher priced than many.
MSI and Gigabyte, Abit, are reasonable values. I avoid brands like
shuttle, biostar, DFI, Chaintech, Matsonic/PC Chips/ECS, Albatron...
there are a bunch of mid-grade boards too like Epox, IWill, Soyo,
Aopen, etc. Generally the less you spend the more likely there are
"issues", so do the research and decide what you're willing to gamble.
I'd get an Intel chipset, but then again I'm suggesting higher-end
parts, when a budget upgrade might instead use a Sis chipset. I'm not
going to suggest a certain model though, make a list of the features
you need then see what the top brands have to offer, when the time
comes to buy that board... I suggest a model supporting 400MHz (800MHz
in intel-speak) FSB support, a model relatively new but that's been on
the market for long enough to have beginning of a user support base
and a BIOS upgrade or two already released.



Dave

 

[jamotto]

I'd upgrade in this order:

1) Case/PSU

2) Memory (assuming your present memory is PC133? then the new board
would need DDR)... have the memory ready so when the board arrives you
can check it for DOA and defect before the vendor warranty runs out,
usually that's under 30 days, possibly <=15days. Suggest PC3200.. it
need not be high-end CAS2 but at least brand-name. It might help to
delay memory purchase till you know what board you want, and can
research compatibility with chosen motherboard. Just order so that it
arrives just before the board, so you have everything ready to test,
and have the most time to test the part more often problematic, the
motherboard.

3) Motherboard

4) Video card (or CPU)

5) CPU (or video card)


I'd go ahead and get the case & power supply first. Be sure it has at
least one 80-120mm exhaust in the back, and adequate air intake holes
in front. If you'll have more than one HDD, look for one with a bay
or bays that allow ample airflow in-between the drives, with the front
intake holes (or even better an 80mm fan) moving air past the HDD(s).
Metal 1mm thick is a lot sturdier but often it's hard to figure out
the metal thickness... .8mm is tolerable but avoid cases with .6mm
thick metal, they're just too flimsy, IMHO. Unless you'll be carrying
the case around a lot there is negligable benefit to aluminum, it
doesn't even cool better contrary to many marketing blurbs.

Take your time and set up the case good, including assessment of
airflow... too often a case will have significant stamped-in-grills
impeding airflow by over 50%. In such cases you may want to cut out
those fan grills and leave them open or add a wire grill if there's
any chance of wires or fingers/pets/etc getting into them. Better,
more expensive cases may have better airflow, but only you can decide
the budget, and how much $ your time is worth. Get the case set up
good, and such that the fans move enough air quietly... then you have
a good foundation for future upgrades.

Don't skimp on the power supply... Name-brand, as-in, a power supply
manufacturer's name on the label, is some assurance of quality. I'd
suggest a minimum of 350W these days, particularly for someone wanting
a decent video card in the system. Even better to go with 380-420W,
though anything over 420W is generally overkill unless it's running a
dozen HDD, dual CPUs, or something unusual like a peltier or
compressor cooler.

Most people like Antec cases, and they're a good deal if an Antec
power supply is included. Often you can find deals on the 'net for
(one model or another) around $65.

For motherboards I like Asus, but they're higher priced than many.
MSI and Gigabyte, Abit, are reasonable values. I avoid brands like
shuttle, biostar, DFI, Chaintech, Matsonic/PC Chips/ECS, Albatron...
there are a bunch of mid-grade boards too like Epox, IWill, Soyo,
Aopen, etc. Generally the less you spend the more likely there are
"issues", so do the research and decide what you're willing to gamble.
I'd get an Intel chipset, but then again I'm suggesting higher-end
parts, when a budget upgrade might instead use a Sis chipset. I'm not
going to suggest a certain model though, make a list of the features
you need then see what the top brands have to offer, when the time
comes to buy that board... I suggest a model supporting 400MHz (800MHz
in intel-speak) FSB support, a model relatively new but that's been on
the market for long enough to have beginning of a user support base
and a BIOS upgrade or two already released.



Dave

Thought I add my two cents.

First aluminum does cool better than a steel case, but it is on
average only 5-10 degrees cooler than a steel case. If this is worth
it is up to you.

Another good power supply is SPARKLE POWER INC

As long has you pick a motherboard that supports dual channel then
PC3200 is worth it if you get a single channel motherboard don't even
bother. You don't get much performance gain.

I have had good luck with Soyo motherboards but Asus is one of the
better motherboard makers.

If you want top performance then the "800MHz" P4's are good, but I
wish the FSB ran at 400MHz, however they do not. The FSB speed is
200MHz and it is "Quad Pumped" (Intel speak) to run as though it is
800MHz.

good luck building your computer