Upgrading an old office computer...

[Cuda1447]

My dad has an old P2 333mhz with 63 ram, cheap video, and cheap everything. Its basically an old slow office computer, and he ALWAYS complains to me that its slow and he wants it to be fast like my 1.7 p4 Well I told him I would upgrade it for him, but what Im wondering what would be the best bet to go with. Im looking for the most bang for my buck, not really going to use this for any games, although he might play a golf game on it every once in awhile Basically its an office computer, and we need to speed it up for as cheap as possible.


I was thinking I could keep the PSU, A drive CD ROM, and HD for now. Until I find a hot deal on an HD the 6.4 gig will work just fine.

I was looking at upgrading the Mobo, with someone cheap. And then adding maybe 256 DDR Pc 2100 RAM, and one of those real cheap Athlon Processors for 65 bucks or something. Athlon 1.6 or something would work good Im guessing. You guys think that would speed him up quite a bit? And would the old HD, CD Rom and all that other old crap in the PC work just fine with the new stuff? Im assuming it would?

 

[Beau]

A jump from an old 333 to a newer P4/Athlon is not an upgrade, it's a new PC. You'll need a larger power supply (400 watt), possibly a different case (if it's an LX case, not ATX). Depending on if the old HD is UDMA or not, you will want to get a new one (with HDD's being as cheap as they are now, a good 40gb 7200rpm drive is well worth the investment). How fast is the old CD? I don't think I'd upgrade it if it was at least 16x. Sure, it'd be slower, but how often do you actually use a CD-ROM drive, especially at speeds higher than 16x?

 

[mcveigh]

more ram/ there might be some of those cpu units that let you put a faster cpu into an old motherboard, maybe a 500 MHz in to it.

all in all he should buy a new PC

 

[Athlon4all]

Specific's? Like what mobo? What Power Supply? What Form Factor? I would bet the CPU can perform fairly good in office apps. I ran very modern OS/Office apps on a K6-2 450, which a P2 333 is fairly close to (I ran Win 2K, Office 2K and IE 5.5 and some games).

First off, build him a fully new PC if u are going to get a new mobo. It will not be cheap to upgrade the mobo, you would likely need a new power supply and possibly case, and besides I think it coudl perform very respectively with some ehancements.

First off, go pick up 256MB of PC100/PC133 SDRAM. It is pretty steep at the moment ($90), but it definately would be worth it. A slightly cheaper alternative would be only 128 for $45. It certainly would help still, I would just be more comfortable getting 256. My K6-2 450 system had only 128 and while it still perfrormed admirably on the software I ran on it, it definately would've done better with 256Megs. Next, I would seriously consider a new 7200RPM Hard Drive. 40Gig's can be had for $70 and I bet you could get a used 20Gig 7200 for about $55. My system had only a 5400RPM, and again, it did very well for office apps, but it could've used a 7200RPM Hard Drive.

I would bet you that upgrading the RAM and Hard Drive, would let that PC certainly use older software (ie Win 98SE/Me and say Office 2000), and also would be good for the latest software like Windows XP and Office XP along with IE6. I would prefer a CPU Upgrade to a P2 450-500, but I don't think the performance boost by going to it would be huge, and plus, if your board is just an old LX440 mobo with only 66fsb support, your options would be limited to at best a Coppermine Celeron 766, but a more relaistic expectation would be a 533Mhz PPGA Celeron niot a 533Mhz Coppermine Celeron. So, I would start with the RAM, and then the HD, and then if he still wants more look at a faster P2 (if your mobo can take 100fsb P2's). But like I said, I was very satisfied with very modern OS/Office Apps on a system that would be very similar to the one you would get if u upgraded the RAM and HD.

Please feel free to email or PM me if u would like some more help. I'd be happy to give it. God Bless!!!

 

[SearchMaster]

I agree about the memory upgrade - you should notice a large performance boost. But the price has gone down dramatically over the past month or so...I just picked up a couple of 256MB sticks of PC133 from Office Max for $35 each ($20 after rebate), so I think you should be able to do a big boost for a small price.

 

[smp]

Is it a BX board or an LX .. if it's a BX based mobo you have a lot more options. Athlon4all suggested a new hard drive, I don't think that's necessary unless you want to get a controller card as well, because the speed of the new hard drives will be hampered by the slow ATA33 that is probably on that board. Some BX mobos do have ATA66 though, and that should be fine. Again, tell us what motherboard is in that thing.

edit: and yeah, RAM would be the first thing.