Best upgrade for Athlon 2000XP?

[Bobby]

My PC is acting-up and I am thinking about replacing it. I am having boot
problems (it freezes at various stages during boot, taking me about four
attempts to get it running). I'm looking for advice.

My current configuration is:

Athlon 2000
512Mb RAM (PC2100)
ATI 9600 Pro graphics card
Avermedia DVB-T TV card
Wireless network card (Belkin 54g)
Wireless (MS) mouse
MS Office keyboard
19" Hansol CRT
Broadband Net access (BT)
Full tower case with 300W PSU
OS - WXP Pro SR2

I use my PC for professional and leisure purposes. I guess I'm a power user.
Mostly Office apps (but lots of them), lots of online work (Web, e-mail,
newsgroups). some graphics (photo processing, some video - but not - yet -
editing). Also leisure (music, DVDs and some games - currently Doom 3). I
often have music playing while I'm researching something (online) while I'm
writing - so lots of multitasking and window switching.

My budget is tight - around £200. And I want to re-use as many peripherals
as possible. But I don't want to spend £200 only to find the new system is
pretty much the same as the old.

I would appreciate advice and suggestions.

Cheers.

Bobby

 

[JK]

My PC is acting-up and I am thinking about replacing it. I am having boot
problems (it freezes at various stages during boot, taking me about four
attempts to get it running).

It might just be a power supply problem.

I'm looking for advice.

My current configuration is:

Athlon 2000
512Mb RAM (PC2100)
ATI 9600 Pro graphics card
Avermedia DVB-T TV card
Wireless network card (Belkin 54g)
Wireless (MS) mouse
MS Office keyboard
19" Hansol CRT
Broadband Net access (BT)
Full tower case with 300W PSU
OS - WXP Pro SR2

I use my PC for professional and leisure purposes. I guess I'm a power user.
Mostly Office apps (but lots of them), lots of online work (Web, e-mail,
newsgroups). some graphics (photo processing, some video - but not - yet -
editing). Also leisure (music, DVDs and some games - currently Doom 3).

I
often have music playing while I'm researching something (online) while I'm
writing - so lots of multitasking and window switching.

My budget is tight - around £200. And I want to re-use as many peripherals
as possible. But I don't want to spend £200 only to find the new system is
pretty much the same as the old.

I would appreciate advice and suggestions.

You might just need a new power supply. Get a high quality one(Antec?)
at least 350 watts, so that you will have enough power when you are
ready to upgrade to an Athlon 64, new motherboard, and new ram. You
will probably need a higher budget than that to make the upgrades.
Upgrading to a faster Athlon XP (you didn't mention your motherboard
and what it could take) doesn't really make sense, as it wouldn't help
that much with games, and would still require new ram.

 

[Bobby]

It might just be a power supply problem.

Yes, that thought crossed my mind too. The odd thing is that it behaves OK
once it eventually boots and settles (usually after 4-6 attempts). Then it
runs OK for hours (occasionally freezing when left alone for long periods).

Could a power supply produce these symptoms?

 

[Bobby]

so that you will have enough power when you are

ready to upgrade to an Athlon 64, new motherboard, and new ram. You
will probably need a higher budget than that to make the upgrades.
Upgrading to a faster Athlon XP (you didn't mention your motherboard
and what it could take) doesn't really make sense, as it wouldn't help
that much with games, and would still require new ram.

Already maxed my current mobo (2K is the fastest CPU it supports).

Are you recommending that I stick with what I've got until I can upgrade to
a 64 bit system? Would that require me to ditch everything? Including my
precious ATI 9600 Pro gfx?

 

[Jabba]

Yes, that thought crossed my mind too. The odd thing is that it behaves OK
once it eventually boots and settles (usually after 4-6 attempts). Then it
runs OK for hours (occasionally freezing when left alone for long periods).

Could a power supply produce these symptoms?

I 'possibly' had a similar problem with my old Win 98 SE machine. It could
take 3-4 attempts before it would boot properly. It would tend to just hang
with a blank screen and a flashing cursor in the top left hand corner.

The solution was to reformat and re-install the OS, so I presume this was
nothing to do with the PSU.

 

[JK]

Already maxed my current mobo (2K is the fastest CPU it supports).

Are you recommending that I stick with what I've got until I can upgrade to
a 64 bit system?

Yes, especially since you did say that you like playing games. If you didn't
mention games and your motherboard took a faster Athlon XP, then
a faster Athlon XP might make sense.

Would that require me to ditch everything?

You would need a high quality power supply of at least 350 watts
(Antec?)(it looks like you probably need a new power supply anyway).
You would need a new motherboard and new ram to use an Athlon 64.
I don't know about UK pricing, but in the US, an Athlon 64 3000+ is around
$160 for the retail box with heatsink, a decent motherboard for it is at
least $80, and a 512 meg stick of PC3200 ddr ram is around $75.

http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/showdoc.aspx?i=2065&p=1

Including my
precious ATI 9600 Pro gfx?

That would work fine with an Athlon 64.

 

[Bobby]

Hi Jabba. That solution also crossed my mind. But I recently did a clean
install (for no particular reason except that my system was due one) so I'm
reluctant to do it again.