VirtualLarry
No Lifer
I used to only upgrade when I really needed to, when things were either non-functional, or so slow as to be effectively non-functional.
I upgraded to a Pentium II 300 SL2W8, because I found one at a great price and had researched how well those overclocked, with just a piece of scotch tape on pin B21. I didn't need the scotch tape because I invested in an Abit BX6-r2. That rig served me well for quite some time, and due to the extra cache (512KB as opposed to the 128KB of the Celeron 300A), it multitasked very well. (300A might have matched it for gaming usage, but for desktop usage it was no comparison, the PII was faster). I ended up adding a DVD drive to the rig too, which was a new thing at the time. 2X DVD-ROM cost me like $300.
I then upgraded to something better with a slotket adaptor. I eventually got a Tualatin Celeron PIII CPU, and after a failed slotket mod to get that CPU to work, I fried my motherboard. My old reliable, faithful, 440BX-based motherboard. Sigh.
So because of need, I upgraded again. A friend of mine bought me a KT400V-L from MSI, and an AMD Athlon XP 1800+ (1.53Ghz). I was finally a member of the Ghz-plus club. And it was cheap! For the same price that I would have bought a Pentium III Tualatin 1.4Ghz CPU, I got the AMD CPU and a motherboard. ($140 IIRC).
I used that rig for a number of years. I never got into the Pentium 4 platform, nor the A64 platform, until later on.
My next upgrade was to a C2D, an E4400, on an 865PE-chipset motherboard, because I wanted to maintain compatibility with my Win98se/W2K/XP multi-boot from my Athlon XP rig. It worked, and it was faster, but win98se didn't like the fact that I had upgraded to 2GB of RAM. Win98se really prefers 512MB or less of RAM, although it can put up with up to 1GB, barely. That's WITH the vcache and maxphyspage tweaks.
So that was a Want upgrade, because my Athlon XP was still going strong.
But after that, I kind of went crazy with upgrades, that I didn't need. Something that continues to this day. Does anyone else have this "problem"?
Do you upgrade, just because something newer is on the market? Or do you buy, with the intent to keep until it either gets too slow, or dies?
What is your upgrade cycle? 6 months? 1 year? 3 years? 5 years? Longer?
I upgraded to a Pentium II 300 SL2W8, because I found one at a great price and had researched how well those overclocked, with just a piece of scotch tape on pin B21. I didn't need the scotch tape because I invested in an Abit BX6-r2. That rig served me well for quite some time, and due to the extra cache (512KB as opposed to the 128KB of the Celeron 300A), it multitasked very well. (300A might have matched it for gaming usage, but for desktop usage it was no comparison, the PII was faster). I ended up adding a DVD drive to the rig too, which was a new thing at the time. 2X DVD-ROM cost me like $300.
I then upgraded to something better with a slotket adaptor. I eventually got a Tualatin Celeron PIII CPU, and after a failed slotket mod to get that CPU to work, I fried my motherboard. My old reliable, faithful, 440BX-based motherboard. Sigh.
So because of need, I upgraded again. A friend of mine bought me a KT400V-L from MSI, and an AMD Athlon XP 1800+ (1.53Ghz). I was finally a member of the Ghz-plus club. And it was cheap! For the same price that I would have bought a Pentium III Tualatin 1.4Ghz CPU, I got the AMD CPU and a motherboard. ($140 IIRC).
I used that rig for a number of years. I never got into the Pentium 4 platform, nor the A64 platform, until later on.
My next upgrade was to a C2D, an E4400, on an 865PE-chipset motherboard, because I wanted to maintain compatibility with my Win98se/W2K/XP multi-boot from my Athlon XP rig. It worked, and it was faster, but win98se didn't like the fact that I had upgraded to 2GB of RAM. Win98se really prefers 512MB or less of RAM, although it can put up with up to 1GB, barely. That's WITH the vcache and maxphyspage tweaks.
So that was a Want upgrade, because my Athlon XP was still going strong.
But after that, I kind of went crazy with upgrades, that I didn't need. Something that continues to this day. Does anyone else have this "problem"?
Do you upgrade, just because something newer is on the market? Or do you buy, with the intent to keep until it either gets too slow, or dies?
What is your upgrade cycle? 6 months? 1 year? 3 years? 5 years? Longer?
