Upgrading Old PC

[ThatPianoGuy]

I made my current system around June of 1999. Its a good system and its never been reformated. But... I feel that my system isn't behaving as well as I'd like. I'm reformating and trying to get it act closer to what I want it to do.

Here is the current system:

OS: Windows 98 1st Edition 4.10.1998 (maybe I'll get XP)
CPU: Intel PIII 450 Retail, Intel Heatsink
Mobo: Asus P2B-F Revision 1.0 (I'm upgrading to the latest bios now)
RAM: PNY 128 Megs of PC 100 Ram (It says CAS 2, but I don't believe it)
Case: Addtronics 3890A (I think)
PS: Channel Well 250 Watt Model CWT-250 ATX
Video: Voodoo II 2000, Revision C
HD: Maxtor Diamond Max 10.2 Gig 7200 RPM
Sound: SBLive! Gold, Model CT4620 (you forgot they made these didn't you?)
NIC: 3COM 3C905TX
(no mods except for a cheap enermax brushless fan)

Main Computer Use:
Web Surfing
VC++
Sound Editing (slower than crap)
Mild Online Gaming (Not got into the new ones like EQ)
Some DVD Watching

What I would like your opinons on:

*Overclocking, do I have a good enough power supply/with the set multiplier on PIII's isn't a pain in the booty? What about the RAM or Video Card

*What components I should upgrade on my tiny piano teacher income (9 students = little money)? And does my DVD just suck, or am I doing something wrong?


I *have* over clocked machines before, but only AMD. And I do have some left over arctic silver.

Thanks for your input!
Rob

(Thank you GoldenGuppy for your starter advice)

 

[Avalanche007]

you wont be able to overclock it that much. Its a PIII with a 4.5 multiplier thus if you could get it to a 133 bus it would be 600. But you only have PC100 Ram and a motherboard that probably doesnt have official support for the 133FBS thus your AGP video card will fry with the bus speed that high (due to 2/3 divider rather than 1/2). With that said you could probably go to 110 bus speeds to be relatively safe putting your system at about 500MHz with out changing anything you have.

EDIT: I wouldnt put XP on that machine... IMO

 

[TunaBoo]

AGP card wouldn't fry, it might make it.

 

[ledzepp98]

well, as far as overclocking, any success would probably be minimal as Avalanche007 pointed out...but it's worth a try. just start slow and work your way up a little at at time.

i would stick with win98 as the OS

an extra 128megs of ram will probably help noticeably with sound editing. i'm not too sure about VC++, but it would probably benefit from extra ram as well. 128megs used to be considered good when the price was higher...now for the money 256megs is the right amount.

as for gaming and dvd, a radeonLE or geforce2 mx (mx400, not mx200) should give you a nice boost. also, make sure DMA is enabled on the dvd drive, otherwise dvd playback will suck regardless of the rest of the system.

 

[ThatPianoGuy]

"AGP card wouldn't fry, it might make it."

I love the confidence in that statement Has anyone delt with Vodoo 2K's? How much abuse can it take?

Thanks
Rob