# 2 looks like a pretty nice suggestion. I'd already sort of sold him
on the mATX form factor (his current machine is a full tower). We've
already done # 3; he upgraded to a 19" LCD a few weeks ago (from a 17"
CRT.. from 800x600 to 1280x1024.. nice move). Anyway, this (and all
other suggestions) gives me some more to chat with him about this weekend.
Cheers!
~B
James Brigman wrote:
On Tue, 2006-08-29 at 08:52 -0400, Brian Henning wrote:
Hiya Gang,
My dad is asking me for advice on upgrading his P-III 750MHz Win98
desktop which is gradually grinding to a halt. It seems that the
marketplace is really trying to shove 64-bit desktop computing down our
throats (anyone seen an Athlon XP for sale lately? Or a quality mobo to
Brian, two suggestions:
1) If the existing machine is in great shape but has wimpy RAM and HDD,
you could upgrade both the RAM and the HDD and see about 20-30% speed
improvements for most tasks. Do the suggested reinstall of Win98 with
the new RAM and HDD, keep the box relatively "clean" with
Ad-aware/Spybot/Antivirus and it might give a couple more years of
service. Total cost less than $200, much less if you have good
scrounging skills.
A 750Mhz PIII is dated, but I still run a similar laptop as my main
email machine at home just because it's quiet, has a decent LCD screen
and is and low power.
2) http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16813138025
It's a motherboard/CPU combo from NewEgg, about $100. You can:
- reuse your case if it takes an mATX motherboard
- reuse your RAM if it's DDR (probably not if you're upgrading from a
PIII, but DDR is now cheaper than PC133...so two 512 sticks wouldn't
double the price)
- reuse your AGP 4x/8x vid card if you need to
- reuse your drives and/or add a new, fast, big drive
- upgrade your dad to USB 2.0 from USB 1.1
- upgrade your dad to 100mbit ethernet
- has onboard video if you don't have a vid card
- has a modern Socket 754 CPU onboard
You could try reloading Win98 on this motherboard - it comes with a
driver CD that has Win98 drivers, but I'm not sure how well that would
work. You might have to go with WinXP.
3) You might do only item 1) above, but add a nice LCD screen, new mouse
and keyboard to make the box seem really new. An LCD upgrade can make a
huge difference.
Know that there are many of us out here who likewise are trying to
provide good performance and value for family members using old HDW and
OS's.
JKB
--
----------------
Brian A. Henning
strutmasters.com
336.597.2397x238
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