What would you upgrade in my system for $100?

[Red]

I have $100 and I'd like to find something useful on FS/FT. Please check my rig below and see if you have any ideas of a PCI card I could add or something I could improve.

Hewlett Packard Pavilion a250y:

CPU: P4 3.0 w/ HT @ 800 fsb
RAM: 4x256 (1 gb) of PC3200 and PC3500 ram.
Hard drive: 250gb 7200rpm, 2mb cache western digital.
Sound: Turtle Beach Santa Cruz
Video: Radeon 9800 Pro 128mb 8x AGP, Leadtek Winfast TV2000 Deluxe TV / FM / Capture Card
Klipsch ProMedia 5.1 speakers
6-in-1 card reader.
4x HP DVD Writer (based on NEC-1100a)
52x Liteon CD-RW
Canon S530D Printer / HP Deskjet 5550 printer.
Visioneer OneTouch 8100 Flatbed Scanner.
Wireless keyboard and mouse.
Compaq P110 21" Flat CRT monitor.

 

[SpeedFreak03]

Whoa thats a nice setup u have there! See if you can find a 36GB Raptor HDD (the 10000RPM SATA ones) that would give you a nice speed increase, but they are like $120 new and u need a SATA controller if your motherboard doesn't have one. That is the only thing that isn't top of the line cutting edge in your computer! Also maybe an 8X DVD writer, but thats more than $100.

-Josh

 

[Bonesdad]

How bout a nice mousepad?

 

[novice]

Some one will probably suggest an Audigy 2 sound card, since the TB Santa Cruz is a little on the old side. (I still like mine, though)

 

[kenshorin]

Thats a dope rig. Ain't much you could change... take your fiancee out with that $100 instead (she's cute!)

 

[drag]

Get a nicer chair or a good set of head phones or something like that. Nothing I see for a hundred bucks is realy going to make a big difference in performance on your computer.

Maybe a games.

Or actually if you were me I'd pick up a wacom tablet. You can get decent (if a bit small) tablets from Waccom (wacom?). Avoid other brands in the less then hundred feild.

 

[HanzGunt]

Get the SATA HD it is fast!!!!

 

[0roo0roo]

hdtv card. slightly more, but very sweet.

 

[DAPUNISHER]

Use the money to treat your girl to a romantic evening out, you've already sunk too much cash into that HP

 

[Breezie]

pay 20 more and get a Raptor HD for your os and the other for storage ^^

 

[mrgoblin]

A better cooler and fan and some thermal grease. Also get a cooler for ure card and northbridge and ure looking at 15-20% gains thru overclocking.

 

[OverVolt]

Originally posted by: mrgoblin
A better cooler and fan and some thermal grease. Also get a cooler for ure card and northbridge and ure looking at 15-20% gains thru overclocking.

Waste of money imo since its an HP, and he can't overclock.

 

[FrustratedUser]

Originally posted by: OverVolt
Get a good TV Tuner Card so u can watch/capture TV.

Agree

 

[Corporate Thug]

Originally posted by: FrustratedUser

Originally posted by: OverVolt
Get a good TV Tuner Card so u can watch/capture TV.

Agree

he has a Leadtek Winfast TV2000 Deluxe

i wouldnt upgrade a damn thing

 

[gsaldivar]

your rig is already d0pe.

put your $100 in the bank and save it..

 

[The Green Bean]

Originally posted by: gsaldivar
your rig is already d0pe.

put your $100 in the bank and save it..

 

[xSauronx]

id say some nice nice headphones if you think youll end up needing some from time to time
oh

and a usb memory stick, love those things

 

[Jeff7181]

Memory sticks are ok... but he has a 6-in-1 media card reader, so he could use cheaper compact flash or smart media or a bunch of other things for portable storage.

The sound card is a bit dated... maybe get something with the latest EAX capabilities for those nice speakers.

You could get new RAM... sell all the stuff you got and get a couple 512 MB sticks of XMS Low Latency PC3200 stuff... don't need the PC3500 since you don't/can't overclock.

You could pick up a cheap Palm Zire or something like that if you don't already have a PDA.

You could pick up a bunch of games... maybe some older ones that you didn't wanna pay $40 just to try it out that are now $10 in the bargain bin.

You could rent a bunch of movies and copy them to build your collection =)

You could get a gamepad/joystick/wheel & pedals for games that you have, or might want if you had the equipment to get the best gaming experience out of the game.

Ummmmmmmm... you could buy up a whole bunch of old 486 and pentium processors and SIMM's, and glue them together to make a paperweight for your desk... kinda like abstract art =)

Or you could donate it to me to put towards my Athlon-64 rig

 

[Red]

Hehe, thanks for the suggestions guys!

Yeah, I don't need a memory stick or anything like that. No use for headphones, computer games, or things like that.

My sound card is nice enough. Hmm, things to consider!

 

[b4417]

Originally posted by: Redhotjrm
Hehe, thanks for the suggestions guys! Yeah, I don't need a memory stick or anything like that. No use for headphones, computer games, or things like that. My sound card is nice enough. Hmm, things to consider!

Nice rig, man!

The only thing I don't see in your list is a UPS. Do you have one? If not, you can get a decent Tripplite or APC for $100 or so. And even if you don't need it for the battery back-up, the surge/spike protection is well worth spending the money on, as it will help all the components in your rig last longer by filtering out the power nasties.

Bill