Upgrade or not?

[oboyco]

I thought I'd ask all you experts here for an honest opinion, since I've been out of the loop for a few years.

My curent system is an athalon tbird 900mz with 256mb pc133 with a qdi mb, 20gb maxtor, windows me.

I do plan on purchasing a new hd, and winxp in the very near future, because of the age of the hd, maybe living on borrowed time. Question is, should I upgrade my mb and cpu?

Or just increase my memory by 512mb or more. System runs fine with the exception of slowing down after a lot of time and 15 windows of internet open. Word could also be a little faster.

I use this pc mainly for internet, quickbooks pro, word and excel. Absolutely no gaming, (well solitaire, lol).

Would I see any noticeable difference in a higher cpu, or would the memory increase be sufficient. And yes, money is a huge object right now. However I could probably swing $200-250 for a mb, cpu memory combo and hopefully build it myself.

 

[SLCentral]

Get a cheap Athlon XP (2500+?) and motherboard, and 512MB of PC2100/PC2700.

 

[imverygifted]

since your only using the pc for "internet, quickbooks pro, word and excel" i would jus stick with what you have for awhile longer- your best upgrades now would be maybe upping the memory to 512, and winXP. although a 20 gig hd is very small, you'll never fill it w/ work or quickbooks files

 

[YOyoYOhowsDAjello]

Once you get XP, you'll definately want 512mb of ram.

What's your power supply situation?
What's your videocard? (AGP, integrated?)

If your power supply is good enough, your case has decent ventilation, and you have a non-integrated videocard, you could get the following within your budget:

A64 2800+
Biostar skt 754 nforce3 mb
A gig of kingmax ram

Comes to $263.99 - $15mir = $248.99

If you're not doing anything intensive though, you should just stick with what you have and upgrade the ram because xp is going to want more. If you want to spend that $250 though, what I linked to above would be a nice combo.

You could go cheaper too with an athlonXP set.

 

[oboyco]

ATI rage agp, integrated sound, 300w enlight psu, 1 case fan.

One of the reasons I was thing about going with a new combo is the age of the system, 5 yrs. Will it die on me suddenly? The hd is of concern, so that is a good starting point. I don't think I could fill my existing 20gb if I tried, no music downloads, or large vids. But anymore hds are so inexpensive I've considered the seagate 120gb with 8mb buffer, simply for the seagate 5 yr warranty.

And yes at least 512 ram for xp from what I've read. Those are some good prices for the a64, and the xp2500, just don't know how much of a gain that would be for my limited usage. I'm not one to upgrade often, but I do want durability, when I do.

 

[YOyoYOhowsDAjello]

Maybe just wait for something to go wrong with your current system and then upgrade. If your current computer is performing as well as you'd like, keep the cash until you need to replace something, and then get a whole new computer.

You'll probably want to get a new case and powersupply when you do too. For future reference, antec makes nice case and powersupply combos that have good ventilation, are pretty sturdy, and have high quality power supplies.

If you're worried about your computer dying suddenly, just make backups of the stuff you can't afford to lose once in a while. Everyone should do that, but not enough people do .

 

[oboyco]

That makes a lot of sense, probably due for a whole new system, case, psu, etc. at some point. Speaking of backing up, I do that to my old slave hd, and have been thinking about the Asus 52 cdrw unit. Any experience with these?

And just one other question, which pc components are most subject to failure after time? My guess is hd first, cd and floppy drives second, psu, then mb, and cpu.

BTW thanks for all the replies, this is without a doubt the best site on the web for any and all computer related questions and informed answers. Now saying that just who is this compusaguy? LMAO.

 

[ShadowBlade]

for backing up, go with a DVD burner...cheaper in the long run as 1DVD=almost 7 CDs

 

[YOyoYOhowsDAjello]

Originally posted by: oboyco
That makes a lot of sense, probably due for a whole new system, case, psu, etc. at some point. Speaking of backing up, I do that to my old slave hd, and have been thinking about the Asus 52 cdrw unit. Any experience with these?

And just one other question, which pc components are most subject to failure after time? My guess is hd first, cd and floppy drives second, psu, then mb, and cpu.

BTW thanks for all the replies, this is without a doubt the best site on the web for any and all computer related questions and informed answers. Now saying that just who is this compusaguy? LMAO.

I like cds for backups vs another hard drive in the same system. A second hard drive will save you if it's a harddrive that fails, but if your powersupply blows up and takes your whole system with it, you're screwed.

I'd agree with hard drives for most likely to fail. After that I think it depends a lot on what you're doing and the brand/quality of the parts. My motherboard just died 3 days ago and it was under 2 years old , the capacitors started leaking. Luckily it didn't take anything else with it.

Oh, and compusaguy is just an a$$hat.

 

[oboyco]

OK, the dvd burner sounds like maybe the way to go, what is a decent low end unit, I see Sony and Benq, with the Benq having Nero software. Any difference in the software that comews with these? However with the limite amount of data that I need to backup, it may be just as well for me with cdrw.

And yes I agree with more than one form of backup, probably the first thing I should buy.

 

[YOyoYOhowsDAjello]

If you just want a cdrw, I've had good luck with Lite-On.

NEC makes a good budget DVD burner. $62 with software. I'm not sure on the Sony or Benq models.

 

[oboyco]

More food for thought.
Thanks again!