System Ugrade Guidance - HELP

[Carl]

Hi,

I'm sure you folks read this 10 times a day, but this 61 year old guy
needs some suggestions to upgrade my system. I haven't kept up to date
on all this new stuff since I built my current system 2 years ago.
Thanks in advance for your guidance.

I currently use Win 98SE that has slowed down a lot. Much of it probably
has to do with a lot of junk programs I don't use anymore. Plus massive
registry entries that are bogus. I would like to move to XP and speed up
my computer with a hot new mb and cpu, plus switch out any other
components that aren't compatible. I use my computer for substantial
graphic image work from my digital camera and run GemCad for the design
of facets used in cutting precious gems. A couple of hobbies. My gaming
days are about over, with slowed reflexes.

My current system is:

* MB Epox 8K7A+
* AMD 1.4g/266 cpu
* Thermaltake Volcano 7 Cooling
* 512mb Crutial RAM (2x256) DDR PC2100 CL=2.5 Unbuffered, non-parity, 2.5V
* Gainward GF3 64mb
* Enermax 350W Power Supply w/dual fans
* 80G Maxtor HD
* Plextor CD-RW 24/10/40A
* Pioneer DVD Player 16X
* Hercules/Fortissimo Sound Card
* Blaster Modem, External
* Teac Floppy
* Logitech Optical Mouse
* Cooler Master ATX/Med ATC-201 SX w/personal killer casemod including:
window, lights, Dungeons and Dragons Figurines, etc. Very proud of my case.
* Sony 19" GMD-400PS

Any guidance for a speedy stable system would be greatly appreciated. I
also realize that some of the drivers will need to be upgraded to XP.
Most of my software is old and not used. Although I do use Office 97 Pro
and need the Access db program. Thanks again. Just have a need for speed.

Carl
O'Fallon, MO

 

[Dave C.]

Hi,

I'm sure you folks read this 10 times a day, but this 61 year old guy
needs some suggestions to upgrade my system. I haven't kept up to date
on all this new stuff since I built my current system 2 years ago.
Thanks in advance for your guidance.

I currently use Win 98SE that has slowed down a lot. Much of it probably
has to do with a lot of junk programs I don't use anymore. Plus massive
registry entries that are bogus. I would like to move to XP and speed up
my computer with a hot new mb and cpu, plus switch out any other
components that aren't compatible. I use my computer for substantial
graphic image work from my digital camera and run GemCad for the design
of facets used in cutting precious gems. A couple of hobbies. My gaming
days are about over, with slowed reflexes.

My current system is:

* MB Epox 8K7A+
* AMD 1.4g/266 cpu
* Thermaltake Volcano 7 Cooling
* 512mb Crutial RAM (2x256) DDR PC2100 CL=2.5 Unbuffered, non-parity, 2.5V
* Gainward GF3 64mb
* Enermax 350W Power Supply w/dual fans
* 80G Maxtor HD
* Plextor CD-RW 24/10/40A
* Pioneer DVD Player 16X
* Hercules/Fortissimo Sound Card
* Blaster Modem, External
* Teac Floppy
* Logitech Optical Mouse
* Cooler Master ATX/Med ATC-201 SX w/personal killer casemod including:
window, lights, Dungeons and Dragons Figurines, etc. Very proud of my case.
* Sony 19" GMD-400PS

Any guidance for a speedy stable system would be greatly appreciated. I
also realize that some of the drivers will need to be upgraded to XP.
Most of my software is old and not used. Although I do use Office 97 Pro
and need the Access db program. Thanks again. Just have a need for speed.

Carl
O'Fallon, MO

OK, you are one of the few users who would probably be happier with an Intel
system, with lots of RAM. Try a P4 ~2.8 on an AOpen AX4C MAX mainboard
(Intel 875P chipset) and (2) X 512MB Kingston or other good brand DDR400
RAM. (total 1GIG of RAM) You will also want a better Power Supply to keep
it stable. I'd suggest a 400W Seasonic brand from Axiom. You'll probably
want a better video card eventually also, but your other components look OK
for starters. Definitely move to XP pro. You will like it. Order it with
your motherboard so you can get a discount on it. -Dave

 

[llamaboiz]

OK, you are one of the few users who would probably be happier with an Intel
system, with lots of RAM. Try a P4 ~2.8 on an AOpen AX4C MAX mainboard
(Intel 875P chipset) and (2) X 512MB Kingston or other good brand DDR400
RAM. (total 1GIG of RAM) You will also want a better Power Supply to keep
it stable. I'd suggest a 400W Seasonic brand from Axiom. You'll probably
want a better video card eventually also, but your other components look OK
for starters. Definitely move to XP pro. You will like it. Order it with
your motherboard so you can get a discount on it. -Dave

Dave, why recomend a 875p based mobo? a 865pe is cheeper, just as fast, and
(like mine) you can enable PAT.

Oh well.. Carl, im a intel guy, my suggestion? 865pe (based mobo) from
Abit(if your comfortable in the bios), MSI(easy set up for newbs yet pros
will be happy too), or Asus(lots of those around so huge user base help).
Stick with those 3 companies.
cpu: how much $ can you spend, but, a 2.4c p4 will overclock nicely to 3.3
on air. so cheep 2.4c-2.8c (not prescott, the longer pipelines at 2.8ghz
speed make the 1mb lvl3 cashe bonus null)
ram: Corsair XMS series ram, you pay more but its worth every penny.
psu: did you like your Enermax? stick with it then but get min 420watt.
remember name brand only with 420watt constant not peak.
vid card: nvidia FX5600 or higher (how much you can afford) with VIVO. ATI
9600all in wonder or higher.
note: the nvidia FX5200's are cheep and some have lots of video type
features but dont buy its like buying a honda civic with leather int./fully
loaded, looks nice, appears nice, but the motor will chug going uphill...

some things you can go cheep for now but others? mobo and ram is a must for
quality, cpu & vid card can go cheep to upgrade later.

check out www.newegg.com for prices.

 

[Ron]

Holy cow, Carl. This is like visitng a car show and saying: I'm looking to
replace my Yugo. I do some camping...and some pizza delivery...and also
sometimes I drive wedding parties around. In the snow. At high speed.

The sky really is the limit. And you will get 100 different opinions for
every 98 people you ask.

<phew>
OK. Keep:
*the burner
*the DVD
*the case
*the PSU
*the Volcano
*the Maxtor (is it 5400 RPM or 7200?)
*the floppy
*the mouse
*and the monitor.

The modem? Up to you. Depends upon speed, mostly. And the s/c...again, up
to you. It depends upon age & oomph. It sounds like you couldn't care less
for exotic sound, and certainly not surround sound. So it's probably fine
to keep the Herc/Fort too.

Of course this depends greatly upon the availability of funds, too. Luckily
you don't need a pile of [new] stuff...so it won't be expensive anyway. So,
with that in mind, I'd say:
*AMD 2800 or so
*512 MB of PC3200 (trade in old RAM if possible)
*The Asus mobo of your choice
*and, depending upon the specifications of the Maxtor...perhaps a SATA 120
GB with a healthy-sized buffer

The Maxtor is obviously an IDE, but is nevertheless quite useable. However,
unless it is a 7200 RPM, (and even if it is, actually), you will probably
want to set it as a storage/backup drive and config the SATA as the main
boot/app drive.

Back to you. HTH
Ron

 

[Bob Davis]

I was in your shoes last June when I upgraded from a PIII-1000 running
Win98SE with lots of hardware and both legacy and modern software--even two
DOS apps, which I'm still running. With careful registry cleaning (Reg1Aid
and Windoc mostly), defragging, and other maintenance, it ran quite well as
long as I kept resources in check.

My new system is below, which as you will notice has some legacy
hardware--and it is not only stable but quite fast. I'd recommend going
with an 875p chipset, P4 2.8 or 3.0 HT, and 1 or 2 gb of RAM (1gb should be
plenty for most applications.) You'll like XP Pro. It is more stable than
even Win98SE, and resources are no longer a worry. If you have the RAM,
just load what you want and don't worry about it. Six iterations of IE6,
Photoshop, Outlook, and a few other apps running simultaneously? No
problem.

I have two friends with Asus P4C800 mobos and they are equally impressive.
If you don't need the frills and won't be doing serious overclocking,
Gigabyte has 875p mobos with similar specs that would serve as well.
Keeping much of my legacy hardware including the case and PSU, I spent about
$800. Go for it--you'll like it. Remember, dual-channel requires multiples
of two RAM modules. One or three won't do.

And think about a WD Raptor drive (10k rpm SATA), either 37 or 74gb, as
they'll add even more spark to your system. I moved from the 160gb Maxtor
to the 37gb Raptor and the performance difference was quite noticeable.


Motherboard: Gigabyte 8KNXP v1 (non-Ultra), f9 bios
CPU: 2.8C P4 (not OC'd) with Zalman CNPS7000-Cu HSF
2gb RAM (4 x 512mb Kingston DDR400 in dual-channel mode @ SPD, matched
pairs)
OS: WinXP Pro SP1
Keyboard: Northgate 102 Ultra (via PS2 adapter)
SATA0 (ICH5R) - WD360GD [C:]
IDE1 - Maxtor 6Y160P0 [D:]
IDE2 - Empty
IDE3 - Empty, disabled
IDE4 - Empty, disabled
AGP - Matrox G450 DH at 4x
Monitors:
-Sony E540 (21") primary
-Sony A240 (17") secondary
NIC (on board) - Connected to Linksys 4-port router
Networked computers: 3
Sound (on board): Enabled
Firewire (on board): Disabled
PCI1 - Empty
PCI2 - StarTech firewire adapter
- Lexar Compactflash reader/writer [F:]
- WD800BB 80gb on firewire adapter (normally not running) [J:]
- WD1200BB 120gb on firewire adapter (normally not running) [K:]
PCI2 - AHA-2930B SCSI adapter:
- Plextor 12/10/32TS CD-RW [H:]
- Plextor 32Plex [I:]
- HP 6250 Scanner
- Iomega Zip [E:]
PCI3 - Extra parallel adapter (LPT2)
PCI5 - Empty
LPT1 - Brother HL-645 laser printer
LPT2 - Epson LQ-850 dot-matrix printer
USB:
- Epson Photo Stylus ink-jet printer
- Wacom pen tablet
- Digital Wallet (usually not connected)
COM1 - USR Courier V-Everything external modem (for fax)
COM2 - Empty

 

[Ron]

oops...I forgot to list the vidcard.
I'd hold onto it for the time being. If you move up in the other arenas,
you will definitely want to upgrade the vidcard too...but it strikes me as
one of those things that you could postpone for a couple of months.
Naturally this always depends upon $$.

But do post a follow-up, OK?
Ron

 

[Dave C.]

Dave, why recomend a 875p based mobo? a 865pe is cheeper, just as fast, and
(like mine) you can enable PAT.

Oh well.. Carl, im a intel guy, my suggestion? 865pe (based mobo) from
Abit(if your comfortable in the bios), MSI(easy set up for newbs yet pros
will be happy too), or Asus(lots of those around so huge user base help).
Stick with those 3 companies.
cpu: how much $ can you spend, but, a 2.4c p4 will overclock nicely to 3.3
on air. so cheep 2.4c-2.8c (not prescott, the longer pipelines at 2.8ghz
speed make the 1mb lvl3 cashe bonus null)
ram: Corsair XMS series ram, you pay more but its worth every penny.
psu: did you like your Enermax? stick with it then but get min 420watt.
remember name brand only with 420watt constant not peak.

Well, since you asked . . . based on personal experience and reviews, AOpen
is one of the most stable brands of motherboards you can buy. That one I
picked is reasonably priced, also. You might be able to find a 865pe
cheaper, but probably not much. In any case, 875 or 865pe should both work
just fine. Oh, and 420W constant would be at at least 1200W peak. Don't
you think that's overkill? -Dave

 

[Nystagmus]

Well, since you asked . . . based on personal experience and reviews, AOpen
is one of the most stable brands of motherboards you can buy. That one I
picked is reasonably priced, also. You might be able to find a 865pe
cheaper, but probably not much. In any case, 875 or 865pe should both work
just fine. Oh, and 420W constant would be at at least 1200W peak. Don't
you think that's overkill? -Dave

I agree with Dave. AOpen mainboard based systems are the most stable
systems I have built to date.

Nystagmus