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Upgrades for Old PC? Or just wait it out...

I

IceBoy109

Member
My father is using a Dell PC that is about 5-6 years old and for the most part it works just fine for him. He uses Picasa, Open Office, and just does a lot of web surfing (email, Facebook, youtube).

I recently upgraded his primary hard drive to an M4 SSD drive and that has helped with the load times for Open Office and Picasa, but I'd like for him to be able to take advantage of the media server I have in place for him.

He has a pretty nice Samsung TV that serves as a monitor, and I think he'd love to watch all the HD movies I have available. So I'm looking for any suggestions as to what I can do for his current rig to make this possible without spending too much money - especially since I don't imagine it would cost much to build a lightning quick computer that will only be used for Picasa, Open Office, and 1080p playback. 😉

I have a feeling this might be as simple as getting a video card, but I HATE compatibility issues with Dell motherboards. I think I tried to add additional ram to this machine once and it did not go well. Anyway...

Here's are the specs:

Operating System: MS Windows 7 32-bit SP1
CPU: Intel Pentium 4 640 -- Prescott 90nm Technology
RAM: 2.00 GB Dual-Channel DDR2 @ 265MHz (4-4-4-12)
Motherboard: Dell Inc. 0KF623 (Microprocessor)
Graphics: Intel(R) 82945G Express Chipset Family
Hard Drives - M4 60GB HD

Motherboard Details:
Manufacturer Dell Inc.
Model 0KF623
Chipset Vendor Intel
Chipset Model i945P/PL/G/GZ
Chipset Revision A2
Southbridge Vendor Intel
Southbridge Model 82801GB (ICH7/R)
Southbridge Revision A1
BIOS
Brand Dell Inc.
Version A02
Date 10/13/2005
 
The best you can do is probably just give it a bit more ram, but at this point, I wouldn't bother. I'd look into getting a cheap ~$300-400 PC, and of course, move the SSD into the new PC.
 
Win7 on a Prescott. OK, cool.

The mobo has a PCI-e 16x slot. I'd suggest a Geforce 210, I'm running an eVGA version on my living room HTPC, works great. About the cheapest nowadays is $23 AR: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814162041. You could go with a card that doesn't have HDMI, but then you'd need a DVI->HDMI cable...probably best to stick with cards that do HDMI. I'm pretty certain every current card supports HDCP, so if he wants to upgrade his optical drive to Blu-ray, he should be fine with this card.

Note that his Prescott cannot run websites like Hulu in full-screen mode without major stuttering due to hardware acceleration being active by default: you'll need to manually disable hardware acceleration.
 
I like the idea of trying a really cheap video card so that you'll be able to take advantage of hardware acceleration. Not all sources can be hardware accelerated well (or at all, I'm looking at you Netflix), so the ultimate solution may end up being a full upgrade.
 
Slugbait said:
Ya know what...scratch the 210, spend a few extra bucks AR on a 9600 GSO, and get a free copy of COD4 for $27: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814150570. Free game, faster memory, and three times as many stream procs for just four extra smackers.
Click to expand...


Can you even play COD 4 on a pentium single core? I suppose you can, but dont know what the experience would be like.

Personally, I would tend to go with a newer card, probably much more power efficient and have better image quality.
 
In case anyone's wondering, yes, that's a LGA775 board. But, reportedly, "This motherboard works with HT enabled single-core Pentium 4's only. It is not compatible with Pentium D's or Core-2 Duos." 🙁
 
frozentundra123456 said:
Can you even play COD 4 on a pentium single core? I suppose you can, but dont know what the experience would be like.

Personally, I would tend to go with a newer card, probably much more power efficient and have better image quality.
Click to expand...

Yea, I played COD 4 MW on xp 3200+ & 9800pro at 1920x1200 on low and only had to lower the res on 1 mission due to choppiness. VLC is also great at playing 1080p videos on old hardware. I just don't like how washed out the colors look compared to other media players on default.

Here's a 240 for $25 after rebate with CoD4:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814150553
 
A somewhat on topic question are pcix 2.0 cards capableon 1.0 slots? here at home My family has a gateway box with one of the original phenom quad cores and a radeon hd2400 i thought several times to get a new lower end card but i thought i heard ether or that nvidia pcix 2.0 cards wouldn't work on 1.0 and i also thought that pcix 2.0 gave more power through the card slots so wasn't sure that a card that didn't have any power input connectors could work on such a board.
 
sfan786 said:
A somewhat on topic question are pcix 2.0 cards capableon 1.0 slots? here at home My family has a gateway box with one of the original phenom quad cores and a radeon hd2400 i thought several times to get a new lower end card but i thought i heard ether or that nvidia pcix 2.0 cards wouldn't work on 1.0 and i also thought that pcix 2.0 gave more power through the card slots so wasn't sure that a card that didn't have any power input connectors could work on such a board.
Click to expand...

It's just bandwidth. All PCIe slots supply 75w to GPUs. Btw, pcix is totally different.

The bandwidth won't be an issue unless you are at ultra high-end I imagine. Seem to recall a couple generations ago that 1.0 vs 2.0 made no difference.

But how good is that Phenom? If it's sluggish, might as well consider a Llano with decent integrated graphics.
 
ther00kie16 said:
It's just bandwidth. All PCIe slots supply 75w to GPUs. Btw, pcix is totally different.

The bandwidth won't be an issue unless you are at ultra high-end I imagine. Seem to recall a couple generations ago that 1.0 vs 2.0 made no difference.

But how good is that Phenom? If it's sluggish, might as well consider a Llano with decent integrated graphics.
Click to expand...

K thanks doubt we will be upgrading it any time soon now iam getting some bugs that may or may not have to do with the hardware at this time. I defiately agree that it would be better to just rebuild it but dont know if my parents could afford it at this time. Anyways I guess we can get back to topic here.
 
Dag nab it! I failed to subscribe to this thread properly and I (wrongfully) assumed the thread fell between the cracks! Very useful information throughout! Many thanks to all of you. My only concerns with the GT240 is the noise issue and possible reliability issues based on reviews I read. I suppose considering the circumstances and that I'm trying to make an old PC work for modern day movie watching I guess I shouldn't bee too picky about something like that. Anyone have any Amazon recommendations? I have prime shipping and if the product is sold by amazon their return policy is top notch. Thanks again!
 
Something like this GT 240 for $25 AR would be a decent starting point. It won't be any louder than a fan in a Preshott-based system.
 
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