Computer Upgrade

[seb brown]

My computer is 4 years old and starting to struggle with everything. It's a 1700MHz, Pentium 4, 127MB memory. Most computers i've seen advertised are about 2500MHz and 256MB memory. Approx how much would it cost to upgrade, and to what standard/ what do i need to be concentrating on? Would it be cheaper/ easier to buy a new computer?

[Mattk]

4 years old with 1.7 processor ? anyways,for pricing it all depends how much you want to spend and for what purpose.u can buy a brand new machine for approx �600 but if its for gaming it wont cut it ! i upgraded by buying upgrades ie mother board(as my existing one couldnt take a faster processor),new ram,new gfx & a dvd writer - all that cost me �400+ as they were top of the range.....then !

[honkytonkman]

I would think that for starters just more RAM would help your computer immensely. Wins XP needs at least 512mb RAM to run well and ideally 1Gb would be best. This would vastly improve it's 'thinking speed', especially as new software gets larger and larger and needs more oomph to process things.

[Disco Fever]

I agree with honkytonkman whack in some more memory sticks and go to the magic gig and your problems should be over. Are you sure its 1700Mhz or 700Mhz as it seems a bit fast for its age.

[stevie21]

If what you say is right then in terms of hardware, I can only repeat what others have said. More RAM would do you a world of good. Take one of your memory sticks (your only memory stick?) out and take it to a PC shop and say "gimme more". An extra 512MB would be nice! If you're reluctant to do this off your own back then figure out which type of RAM you need ( a piece of software called "Sandra" from SiSoftware can do this for you) and get more. In some cases (although 4 years is a bit too recent), motherboards can only cope with so much memory. Some older ones up to a max of 1GB, for example. It may be an idea to figure this out before whacking great lumps of memory in there. It may just be that you have installed a lot of old kak on your PC which is slowing it down. If it is v.short of hard drive space and you have compressed your HD then don't expect it to be superfast.

[smithy]

you don't say what you want it for. One of my pcs has XP, office XPpro, it's used for internet access, general office at home stuff, prototype scripting in perl and application development in VB/VBA for work. It's a pentiumII 350Mhz albeit with loads of memory, disk and good graphics. CPU is almost flat out. Read Stevie21s advice on clutter et al NB (I wouldn't want to play a game on it!)

[seb brown]

Thanks for all the advice everyone. I went to a computer shop, and confirmed the 127MB was the problem. They said it would only take 5 minutes to put about 500MB more RAM in for me, which would solve everything. But on opening up the computer, they found I unfortunately had SD(?) RAM (a rare type, though i might have forgotten the exact name), which is apparently very hard and expensive to upgrade. Is the computer shop man right?

[seb brown]

Sorry, my mistake, RD RAM was the type he said i had, which is apparently rubbish. I'll go and throw it in a canal.

[stevie21]

It's a bit technical & I'd perhaps rely on someone else to do it all for you but you could replace the motherboard and buy some new RAM (it's technical as the motherboard you're able to use will be determined by your existing processor). Your motherboard also generally dictates which type of RAM you can use and everything else on your PC (hard drive, CD Drive etc) will work on the new motherboard. This way, you'd have to fork out for the price of the new memory AND the motherboard :( Or you could just dig around lots for the memory that you need (ebay?). Have you used the prog Sandra to check your memory - just as a 2nd opinion?? If you do try to upgrade your existing RAM, bear in mind that all 16-bit RDRAM must be used in pairs (2 x 256MB, or 2 x 512MB etc) but 32-bit does not. Either way, it is incredibly expensive memory it may be cheaper to go for a new m/board + RAM or even just remove excess rubbish from your PC and stick with what you have until you're ready to buy a new PC. No easy fix here!

[Raydude]

Upgrade the ram and you will find the performance improves - also defrag, run a virus program and clean your Pc of spyware