Hi,
I have about a 4 year old computer, which I haven't used for 4 months. Plan to use it again. Previously we had dial-up, but have moved and will have Cable internet connection.
The specs for it are(as far as I know)
pentium II 233
windows xp pro
256 ram
Matrox G400(?) video card
almost forgot, The motherboard is a TYAN S1854

My questions are: Would a CPU upgrade to a Pentium III be worthwhile?
And I want to increase my RAM. I took machine apart and there are 3 DIMM Ram slots.............

Please advice would be greatly appreciated.
Machine will be used mainly for internet and some word processing.
Thank you George
p.s. if processor upgrade is worthwhile.....how much.......where to buy.....is it complicated to install??sorry for all the questions but wanna do this soon.

Moving up to a PIII should be cheap and will greatly improve performance

I seem to remember that board will support it but I would have to recheck the docs to be sure...

I have seen decent AMD motherboards and CPU for $50 at Frys...
It would need newer Ram but since you are already buying some it might be a better move...

Yeah like thong inspector said make sure that the PIII can go into the same cpu slot as your old pII. Always make sure you find out the right equipment for your computer before buying it.

Here is some info on the board, but it means nothing to me.........if someone can help give me numbers as to what to upgrade to, I'd appreciate it alot. Thanks




CPU
Single Slot 1 connector
Single Socket 370 connector
Supports 66, 100 and 133MHz FSB
Supports Intel Celeron/Pentium II/Pentium III processors working at 233-600MHz and up (doesnot support older Intel Pentium II CPUs with 2.8V Vcore)
Chipset
VIA Apollo Pro133A (VT82C694X+VT82C596B)
Winbond 83977EF I/O controller
System Memory
Supports from 32 to 768MB system memory
3 x 168-pin DIMM modules
Supports 100 and 133MHz SDRAM with SPD
Supports VCM SDRAM

Geoss,
depending on what budget you are on,
I would go ahead and buy a new motherboard, cpu and ram
If you have cable internet -- your current motherboard will not support the decent hardware that you will need to seamlessly surf the web and word process and do all that fun modern day wonders of multitaking.
I can imagine that running xp pro on a pII is already painstaking -- a pIII will be an improvement -- but right now -P4's are in the "sweet spot" -- that is -- you get the best performance for price ratio. I know that pIII's are old -- but in the computer industry -- antiquated equipment is not your best bet.
for example -- you would THINK that getting two 80 gig hard drives would be cheaper than getting one 160 gig hard drive -- but because sales on 80 gig's have gone down and 160 gig hd's are popular -- it's actually cheaper to buy the popular mainstream equipment.
Anyhow -- pending on what you can spend -- I would get one of the cheapest p4 processors you can find -- a mobo that can support it -- and another stick of ram.
If you are feeling adventurous -- you can find a mobo that will support dual channel RAM and then try to find another stick of the EXACT SAME ram you have now so that you can run them in dual channel -- this will greatly increase performance because doing so will double your memory bandwidth and greatly enhance performance.

good luck
-Soral 3.0

what what? buying 2 80 gig. hard drives would be cheaper than a 160 gig. hard drive. I mean your going against the laws of economics to say that. The more demand for a product the higher the price. the less demand for a product the lower the price. It is simple economics, the law of supply and demand, I know I just got through with taking economics class...not trying to be rude :cheesy:

If you're not a serious "gamer" or into video editing or movie downloads, and such, then an upgrade may work. That mean's you will use the PC just for surfing the Internet, maybe some word processing and a simple spreadsheet. But since you can buy a decent PC with P4 chips, 512 MB RAM and about a 60-80 MB HDD for less than $500, I'd seriously think about just getting a new box. There's basically a rule of repair (or upgrade if you like) that says you just don't want to spend more than 50% of what the item will sell for, on repairs. It just doesn't make economic sense to sink good money into something that may turn into a "money pit". Just my thoughts!!

Thanks,
But if wanna upgrade can I get some suggestions as to Mobo, CPU and how much ram(would I still use old ram, too???
I am mixed up now............
George

Select the motherboard you want FIRST. Then go to the specifications on the Mfr's site to determine compatible processor chips and RAM. You never said, but's just for fun, let's assume you want the biggest and badest gaming machine now available and you want to use an Intel motherboard and chip set.

You might want to start by selecting these:
Intel Motherboard D925XEBC2 and the Intel P4 570J processor.
You would go to the Mfr's web site and look up the spec's on the motherboard (http://www.intel.com/design/motherbd/bc2/) to be sure that it will support the various hardware you will want to install, including the RAM, HDD's, Optical Drives, and more....

This processor supports HT technology, has a 1MB L2 Cache, 800 MHz Front Side Bus, and a Clock Speed of 3.8 GHz and has a LGA775 architecture. It's Intel's biggest and fastest processor, well suited for gaming and any demanding operations.

This motherboard supports all LGA775 processors, both standard and Extreme editions and with 533/800/1066 system bus. It has four 240-pin DDR2 SDRAM DIMM sockets and supports DDR2 533 MHz and DDR2 400 MHz DIMMs. It can take up to 4 GB of memory. It's a great motherboard (but not cheap).

You can find similar (and cheaper) motherboards at:
http://usa.asus.com/index.htm and http://www.xfxforce.com/mb/index.php plus there are a lot more out there. Just do a "Google" search for motherboards.

The key is to select the motherboard, read the specs, and then select the processors and RAM that is compatible. Your limits are your in your wallet. Hope this helps.

Oh, and one more thing I should have said. Get the most RAM you can afford. If you used the motherboard in my example for instance, and you could afford it, I'd recommend maxing it out to 4 GB. You always get the most speed for the buck with a given processor by more RAM. And if you used the processor in my example with all this RAM, your machine would FLY!!!!

And another thing to consider...technology is changing. Intel is planning to introduce a new dual layered processor which will be faster. The hard drive Mfr's are working on faster and bigger HDD's and the prices will come down next year for 10,000 rpm HDD's (the faster the speed of the rpm's, the faster access to your data). Changes in RAM memory are also on the horizon. You might want to do some reading to see how far out these things are and decide whether or not you might want to wait a year or so.