Upgrading a P3 600

[Alacrity]

Greetings from Miami,

Our school is getting ready to spend some money on new PC's. No doubt, we will buy a bunch of new PC's. However, we have about 70 Dell Optiplex's (P3 600's/64mb/12gig HD/W98). We also have about 70 relatively new P4's.

The P3's still work "OK", but they seem to be getting slow and they are a little buggy with our NT server. They run office, and all of the education programs just fine.

My question is what to do with all the P3's. I'm thinking that buying a 256MB/PC100/133 chip for $35-55 and upgrading to Windows XP for $66/license would be a good use of our money. We could update/upgrade about 7 old PC's for the cost of one new one.

What do you think? Is it worth it to spend the $100/PC or should we just spend all the money on new PC's.

Thanks in advance,

Kevin


PS. The Dells have PC100 memory. That's hard to find and tends to be expensive. Can I put 256MB PC133 chips into these old Dell Optiplex 110's?

 

[brian_riendeau]

why bother going to windows xp? if anything, it is slower than 2k and for strictly office purposes, i see no benefit in getting it unless you want to get all machines on the same os for easy support.

 

[majewski9]

The ram will work fine! My question is what chipset is in these dells? are you using int video? Definately get at least 256 megs to run WinXP! I dont even know if it will install wioth 64 megs of ram! It probaly would barely but be slow to crawl. I think you should consider upgrading the processors to Celly 1400's. you'll need a convertor but that would make them seem as fast or faster than the p4's! I dont know how much you want to spend. I say you keep the W98 OS and go with the celly convert. At least get the RAM! Is it any cheaper to use win 2000?

 

[DaveSimmons]

Even adding 128 MB each will make a big difference ofr 98, but 256 MB would be perfect to XP / 2000.

Are they slot-1? Then a "slot-T" adapter + 1.3 celly at $75 total per machine would more than double the speed.

By the way XP / 2000 have limited DOS compatibility (and even have problems with some old 95/98 programs) so if any of your edusoft is DOS you should test it under XP before removing 98 from all of your machines.

 

[Hanpan]

If you do upgrade the machines I may be intersted in buying a few of the p3 600's (say 4) depending on price and stepping. This could reduce your upgrade cost further.

 

[Gunbuster]

More Ram and an OS reimage

 

[apoppin]

Originally posted by: Alacrity
\The Dells have PC100 memory. That's hard to find and tends to be expensive. Can I put 256MB PC133 chips into these old Dell Optiplex 110's?

AFAIK, PC-133 can be used in place of PC-100.

 

[AgaBoogaBoo]

Just an idea, but at my school, atleast in the library, we have one citrix server with 4 processors, and using citrixe's software, we have 10mbit wires running which connects i nto a little box (looks like a usb hub) and gives a monitor wire, keyboard wire, mouse, 2 usb ports, etc. so you can spend less money by buying one powerful computer and then just use the old monitors keyboards and mice.

All you'd have to buy is the little adapter for all the outputs, the citrix server and software. Their website is www.citrix.com

 

[human2k]

Win98Se.

 

[Eug]

What chipset is the mobo? Just wondering about the compatibility of local 256 MB SDRAM.

Plus what are these used for? A PIII 600 ain't that bad.

 

[Alacrity]

Thanks for all the responses. I'm going to check on the chipset on Monday morning. I'll definitely add more RAM, but am still undecided on the W98 to XP upgrade.

Most of our programs run OK on these machines. The problem is that we now have an NT server, about 70 W98 machines, about 20 XP machines and about 60 W2K machines. Some of our classrooms actually have 3 PC's with 3 different OS's. On our network, PC's with different OS's sometimes can't "see" each other across the network.
Sharing printers, files and folders across the network is becoming difficult.

 

[AgaBoogaBoo]

You may want to upgrade them all to Win2kPro which is very much like Windows XP Home and Pro. For solving the printing problems, you could get a print server adapter so that the printers would connect to the print server (not a computer, just a small device the size of a USB hug) which would then take in a network wire.

 

[crisp82]

To be honest, the hardware you have is fine for the setup you want. Win2k/Pro is the way to go. Add some Ram as well. I don't think you'll need to upgrade your Cpu's, unless you are running software that is eating your Cpu up?


Definetley upgrade, why spend money when you don't need to?

Btw, do you know what stepping your Cpus are on? I may be interested in 1.........

 

[K6]

Upgrading OS is the best way for SLOWING down PC.

NT si OK , if you want more speed use 98 (NT license cover also 98)

And about making a LINUX network???


Add some ram if you have the money but not too much ram (128 or 256 MB is OK)

 

[crisp82]

On a Win2k/Pro network, unless some very Cpu dependant programs are running, then there should be no need to upgrade (except Ram) as 600 mhz is fine

 

[AgaBoogaBoo]

I agree, upgrade the RAM, OS as well to 2k Pro or something, and that should be enough. At schools, theres hardly anything done on it, poewrpo int for a few presentations, word for typing up essays, excel for a math project, browsing the web, etc. None of it requires a high end computer, upgrading your cpu will probably only help in boot up times and probably the time it takes for programs to load but at school noone cares about that.

 

[EdipisReks]

i definitely agree that upgrading the RAM and going to Win2kPro is the best thing to do. i would personally skip on the CPU's.

 

[Eug]

The licencing agreement for my institution makes it a lot cheaper to upgrade to XP than 2000 for some reason. Thus I'm gonna buy XP for my 2nd office computer (since I'm forced to use NT with my other one).

I tell ya, in our departmental office, some of the secretaries would kill to have PIII 600s. Some of them are using PII 350s. Ug. Mind you, if our department would simply buy them more memory, the a PII 350 would probably be fine too for most of the programs. I think some of them are still running 128 MB RAM.

Unfortunately, most of the people doing the purchases have no idea. Their concept of an upgrade is to buy a whole new machine for $1500.

Anyways, depending on the chipset you're using just be careful with the memory. I'm sure you're aware that most current 256 MB sticks are incompatible with some older mobo chipsets, but I just thought I'd remind you...

 

[Alacrity]

Thanks to everyone.

I'm glad I posted this question here.

To tell you the truth, buying a new computer is much easier than upgrading. Our school district has rules that essentially require us to buy only from approved vendors. All I have to do to buy a new PC is to write a purchase order to Dell.

I'm paid to teach not buy tech. Still, I've been tasked to spend the money and I want to get the best bang for the buck that I can. I've already ordered 35 new PC's, but I'm sick and tired of seeing older PC's become useless paperweights. I upgrade my home PC all the time, why can't I do that with our school's PC's.

Our approved vendors only sell Windows XP upgrades. They do NOT sell W2K upgrades. Therefore, I can only upgrade to XP. That's $66/license. Buying memory is going to be a fight, but I want to upgrade the 64MB machines to at least 128 and probably 256K. Of course I can't really buy XP without an upgrade to 256MB.

I'm trying my best to use our dollars to get the maximum benefit possible. I'm thinking that spending $100/PC to upgrade to XP/256mb will keep our old Dell P3/600's going for at least another 2/3 years.

Our Dells are Optiplex G110's with 64MB/W98. How can I tell what chipsets the mobos have and whether or not I can buy (cheaper) PC133 memory instead of the current PC100.

Thanks Again, Kevin

 

[crisp82]

I have a BX chipset from 1998. most from that year will be roughly the same.
Download a program called WCPUID from Here. It gives you all the Cpu and chipset info you should need.

Ps. Don't worry about installing the language pack. It still shows in English

 

[Alacrity]

 

[Alacrity]

Thanks Crispy

 

[Alacrity]

Thanks again everybody.

The machines have an 133MHz FSB, 810E chipset.

PC133 memory seems to be a LOT cheaper than PC100. Can I use 256MB PC133 memory with this chipset?


Manufacturer: Dell
Model: OptiPlex GX110 600
Standard Memory: 64 MB (removable)
Number of sockets for upgrade: 2
Maximum amount of memory: 512 MB
Memory must be installed in sets of: 1
Bus Type: PCI
HardDisk Bustype: Ultra ATA-66
CPU: 600EBMHz Intel Pentium III
Standard Videos: 4 MB
Max Video: 16 MB
Video Slots:
Video Comments: Integrated Intel 3D Graphics with Direct AGP and a 4MB display cache, Optional: nVidia TNT2 M64 16MB PCI graphics card
HardDisk Comments: Ultra ATA/66 4.3, 6.4, 13.6 and 15GB 5,400RPM and 10 or 20GB 7,200RPM hard drives
Model Comments: 133MHz FSB, 810E chipset
CPU Comments:
Native OS: Windows 98/NT

 

[mcveigh]

yes

 

[Eug]

What is High Density SDRAM? Does it have problems on BX motherboards?

The second factor to consider is the organisation of the RAM cells inside each chip. There are a number of configurations available for the organisation of a single chip. Take the 128Mbit chip as an example. It can be organised as 8mbit x 16 cells, 16mbit x 8 cells, or 32mbit x 4 cells. The last configuration is classed as high density.

Much of the very cheap RAM that you see today is in the form of the final organisation (?? x 4). No Intel chipset is compatible with this RAM, regardless of the overall Mbit size of the RAM chip.

Be careful what you buy.