Need advice/help on upgrading old gaming pc.

[Meatman1488]

So my laptop quit working on me a few days ago and i've had to resort to using a old gaming pc that runs Windows XP and only has 322 MB of RAM. I want to buy new parts for it and upgrade it to Windows 7, i'm on a budget of $300. Uploading pics of internals in about 10 minutes.

 

[Evander]

Might not be worth upgrading, especially if you don't already own a copy of Windows 7. I wouldn't put more than $75 into the project, $100 MAX. A brand new HP desktop will set you back only $340:
http://www.staples.com/HP-Pavilion-p...product_102191

or Toshiba laptop for $330 after $50 rebate:
http://www.staples.com/Toshiba-C855-...product_984635

Those are a little over your budget of $300. You could sell the XP desktop for probably $25 to $50 to cover the difference. But if you have a retail box copy of Windows XP instead of XP that came w/ your computer, sell that by itself for a much better return

 

[Meatman1488]

What is your opinion on upgrading to windows vista? I just to make the computer somewhat more faster.

 

[Puppies04]

What is your opinion on upgrading to windows vista? I just to make the computer somewhat more faster.

Vista will not run with 322mb of RAM, don't even try it. If you can reuse your case and fans then go for it but I would image everything else (CPU, MOBO, PSU, DVD Drive) will either need to be replaced because they are too slow or because they are IDE and not SATA.

$300 should be enough as long as you aren't expecting top tier gaming performance. Check out an I3 + H61 mobo + 4GB DDR3 + whatever GPU you can afford. AMD might also work depending on your resolution, check out their APUs they negate the need for a discrete GPU.

 

[lakedude]

What are you doing with this computer? If surfing is you primary deal you might try Puppy or FatDog-64 Linux instead of any type of Windows. Puppy will load completely to RAM which will make it lightning fast. No waiting around for old, slow hard drives.

Puppy is completely free and you can use it with NO INSTALLATION required. Just burn a CD from the ISO and boot from the CD. You will not believe how fast that old computer can be (booting will take a while because optical drives are slow).

While Puppy is small it is full featured. In fact it works so well it really makes me wonder just what is taking up so much space in all the other operating systems...

Here is a screen of Puppy in action:

http://distrowatch.com/table.php?distribution=puppy

http://distro.ibiblio.org/fatdog/iso/

An ISO burner if you need one:

http://www.ntfs.com/iso-burning.htm

 

[Evander]

What is your opinion on upgrading to windows vista? I just to make the computer somewhat more faster.

I agree w/ the other poster: don't even try it, especially if you don't already own a copy of Vista upgrade.

For speed, your best bet would be to max out the RAM and to use XP w/ classic interface. If you're still not satisfied you could try replacing the CPU w/ the fastest one available for that board. If that hard drive is 5400 RPM, you might replace it w/ a larger drive that spins 7200 RPM. I wouldn't bother swapping the video card unless you wanted dual monitor output and your current card doesn't have it.

 

[denis280]

Vista will not run with 322mb of RAM, don't even try it. If you can reuse your case and fans then go for it but I would image everything else (CPU, MOBO, PSU, DVD Drive) will either need to be replaced because they are too slow or because they are IDE and not SATA.

$300 should be enough as long as you aren't expecting top tier gaming performance. Check out an I3 + H61 mobo + 4GB DDR3 + whatever GPU you can afford. AMD might also work depending on your resolution, check out their APUs they negate the need for a discrete GPU.

Puppies is right.and you already have another post similar for this.