I need to schedule my upgrades

[Der Helm]

Over the last months I began to notice that my old desktop does not cut it anymore. Newer games are barly playable, if the run at all. I edited a recent dxdiag, to give you an idea what I am using at the moment (please tell me if I give sensitive information away  )

------------------

   Operating System: Windows XP Home Edition (5.1, Build 2600) Service Pack 2 (2600.xpsp_sp2_gdr.070227-2254)
           Language: German (Regional Setting: German)
       System Model: System Product Name
               BIOS: BIOS Date: 07/15/05 12:14:52 Ver: 08.00.09
          Processor: AMD Sempron(tm) Processor 3000+,  MMX,  3DNow, ~1.8GHz
             Memory: 1024MB RAM
    DirectX Version: DirectX 9.0c (4.09.0000.0904)

---------------
Display Devices
---------------
        Card name: RADEON 9550
     Manufacturer: ATI Technologies Inc.
        Chip type: ATI RADEON 9550 AGP (0x4153)
         DAC type: Internal DAC(400MHz)
       Device Key: Enum\PCI\VEN_1002&DEV_4153&SUBSYS_0200174B&REV_00
   Display Memory: 256.0 MB
     Current Mode: 1440 x 900 (32 bit) (75Hz)
          Monitor: Plug und Play-Monitor
  Monitor Max Res: 1600,1200
      Driver Name: ati2dvag.dll
   Driver Version: 6.14.0010.6652 (English)
      DDI Version: 9 (or higher)
Driver Attributes: Final Retail
 Driver Date/Size: 11/22/2006 05:25:23, 261120 bytes
      WHQL Logo'd: n/a
  WHQL Date Stamp: n/a
              VDD: Nicht zutreffend
         Mini VDD: ati2mtag.sys
         Registry: OK
     DDraw Status: Enabled
       D3D Status: Enabled
       AGP Status: Enabled
-------------
Sound Devices
-------------
            Description: C-Media Wave Device

My problem is, I am a student with a pretty low income. So I won't be able to upgrade several expensive components at once. If someone could come up with an upgrade scheme that would keep the computer running without spending more than 100€ (150$ ? I am not sure) at once, I'd be glad.


PS: I know 1 Gig of RAM is not enough but my motherboard only has 2 slots, would upgrading it to 2 4 Gigs help much.

For reference, I would like to arrive at an level that would allow me to play AoC. No matter how long it takes 

[Rendakor]

I see your vid card is listed as AGP; do you have a PCI Express slot? Also, yes upgrading your RAM would help greatly.

[Der Helm]

I see your vid card is listed as AGP; do you have a PCI Express slot? Also, yes upgrading your RAM would help greatly.

Only Pci I think.

edit: This is it

Would upgrading the RAM be worth it if I have to upgrade the motherboard anyway to upgrade the CPU ?

[schild]

Honestly, you need to save up some money. Like $700 USD. That's like $300 Euros, rite?

[Rendakor]

Upgrade your mobo and CPU first; make sure the mobo you get can take a PCI express card (ideally you can find one with a PCIe slot and an AGP slot so you can keep your old card til you get a new one). No point in upgrading the RAM if you're going to do the mobo as well.

[Salamok]

make sure the mobo you get can take a PCI express card (ideally you can find one with a PCIe slot and an AGP slot so you can keep your old card til you get a new one).

Are there some decent mobo's available that support both PCIe&AGP?  I wouldn't mind picking something like that up if it had the latest chipset...

[Lantyssa]

Unfortunately there is only so much you can do with upgrades.  You may be able to add some memory, but you will need to check the specs to see how much it can support.  My guess is you will not be able to go above two gigs, if you can at all.  The graphics card you can go a step or two up, but AGP commonly stopped at the 7600 for Nvidia, so there isn't a lot more you can do.

I would recommend you take your upgrade plan, and instead of buying a part each time, put it aside towards a new machine.  Start specing what you want so you know your total budget needed.  If you're going for functional over monster machine, you can probably get a nice new machine for not much than you would spend on marginal upgrades.

Given your BIOS date, you probably want to start with a new motherboard and CPU.  If you upgrade those, you'll need new memory and likely a new video card.

Doesn't Tom's Hardware or some place make a monthly list for a budget gamer rig?

[Morfiend]

Make sure you get some thing that supports the new Nehilium (sp?) chip that is coming out the end of this year. The early benchmarks on those are amazing.

[Tale]

make sure the mobo you get can take a PCI express card (ideally you can find one with a PCIe slot and an AGP slot so you can keep your old card til you get a new one).

Are there some decent mobo's available that support both PCIe&AGP?  I wouldn't mind picking something like that up if it had the latest chipset...

Time for a mini-review ... I've still got one of these (supports AGP, PCIe, AGP, DDR, DDR2, and Intel Core2 processors). It was insanely cheap - A$83, which back when I bought it was about US$60, so I regarded it as an interim platform to help me upgrade over time. Which has worked - my 1Gb DDR has gone to 2Gb DDR2, and my AGP 6800 GS has been upgraded to PCI-e 8800 GTS (because I spilt red wine on the 6800 GS ...).

The theoretical downsides are that it can only hold two sticks of RAM at a time (4 slots, but that's 2x DDR and 2x DDR2, and obviously they can't be filled at the same time), and the PCI-e slot runs at 4x to make it work on a board with an AGP 8x slot (again you can't fill both at the same time, that would be nuts). Neither has bothered me.

It had some stability and compatibility issues at first, but I upgraded the BIOS around the time 8800s came out so I could use one, and it turned into a rock solid, ultra-stable motherboard. I then went through the Crysis "OMG gotta have the latest hardware" era with no problems running it, and now I'm running AoC on it at a good 40fps. The 4x PCIe has never been a bottleneck that I'm aware of.

RAM is so cheap now that I already possess 4Gb RAM but can only fit 2Gb of it on the board, so that's the issue which is going to make me upgrade the motherboard. Will probably buy the cheapest Gigabye P35 board and massively overclock my Core2 and move to 64-bit Vista (still running 32-bit XP).

[Salamok]

make sure the mobo you get can take a PCI express card (ideally you can find one with a PCIe slot and an AGP slot so you can keep your old card til you get a new one).

Are there some decent mobo's available that support both PCIe&AGP?  I wouldn't mind picking something like that up if it had the latest chipset...

Time for a mini-review ... I've still got one of these (supports AGP, PCIe, AGP, DDR, DDR2, and Intel Core2 processors). It was insanely cheap - A$83, which back when I bought it was about US$60, so I regarded it as an interim platform to help me upgrade over time. Which has worked - my 1Gb DDR has gone to 2Gb DDR2, and my AGP 6800 GS has been upgraded to PCI-e 8800 GTS (because I spilt red wine on the 6800 GS ...).

The theoretical downsides are that it can only hold two sticks of RAM at a time (4 slots, but that's 2x DDR and 2x DDR2, and obviously they can't be filled at the same time), and the PCI-e slot runs at 4x to make it work on a board with an AGP 8x slot (again you can't fill both at the same time, that would be nuts). Neither has bothered me.

It had some stability and compatibility issues at first, but I upgraded the BIOS around the time 8800s came out so I could use one, and it turned into a rock solid, ultra-stable motherboard. I then went through the Crysis "OMG gotta have the latest hardware" era with no problems running it, and now I'm running AoC on it at a good 40fps. The 4x PCIe has never been a bottleneck that I'm aware of.

RAM is so cheap now that I already possess 4Gb RAM but can only fit 2Gb of it on the board, so that's the issue which is going to make me upgrade the motherboard. Will probably buy the cheapest Gigabye P35 board and massively overclock my Core2 and move to 64-bit Vista (still running 32-bit XP).

A $32 motherboard, the dollar seems to be indicating this thing is a POS...

Then again for $32 it isn't exactly a costly experiment, I'd probably be more pissed at investing in a 1066fsb proc than the lost $32 if it didn't work out.

 Doesn't say anything about quad core, you think this setup would work?

ASRock 775Dual-vsta

Intel Core 2 Quad Q6700

Any faster quad and the FSB jumps up beyond the supported 1066.  This might be a huge bang for the buck upgrade for me at under $300.

I need to milk my 7800 GS for at least another 12 months.

[Tale]

Doesn't say anything about quad core, you think this setup would work?

ASRock 775Dual-vsta

Intel Core 2 Quad Q6700

Any faster quad and the FSB jumps up beyond the supported 1066.  This might be a huge bang for the buck upgrade for me at under $300.

ASRock make lots of different boards of the crazy multiple-tech-level variety, not just the 775Dual-vsta - you probably shouldn't pick it now, and I'm pretty sure it's limited to Core 2 Duo, not Quad.

If you want to go quad core and still mix and match technologies, there's a 4CoreDual-VSTA and 4CoreDual-SATA2 and 4CoreDual-SATA2 R2.0. I searched for "dual" on this list (dual in ASRock language means dual technologies, not dual core).

Asus (a better brand) started making similar multi-tech boards but I think they gave up - ASRock specialised in it.

[Der Helm]

I got an offer from a friend to buy a pretty decent Asus motherboard for cheap. I think its an Asus P5B-Deluxe.

With that offer I might be able to upgrade motherboard, cpu, ram and a PCIe card at once. 

Suggestions for a cheap Nvidia chip that I would get some mileage out of ?

[schild]

8800GT, if you buy anything else you're doing it wrong.

[Der Helm]

Whoa, second necro this week.

So, I am about to recieve some upgrades (finaly).

I plan to upgrade mainboard/ram,CPU and graphic card. Will windows recognize the new parts by itself ?

[Yegolev]

Generally, yes.  You will probably have drivers for the mainboard and graphics board but it should come up with basic ones.

[fuser]

I plan to upgrade mainboard/ram,CPU and graphic card. Will windows recognize the new parts by itself ?

Your Windows install will blue screen a stop error on boot due to the chipset change.

You could use sysprep to strip the drivers out, there's another option to run a registry file that imports most of the key's needed to fire default pci chipsets.

Backup user data, and start fresh.

[Yegolev]

LOL, I have been getting lucky, then.

[Der Helm]

I reinstalled Windows. Fun times ! 

After ripping out the old mainboard and installing the new one I noticed that there is only one IDE connector.

I have 2 IDE hds and 1 CD and 1 DVD drive.

Right now I have 1 hd and 1 DVD installed.

Did I miss something ? The documentation did not mention anything about non-hd drives.

[fuser]

I have 2 IDE hds and 1 CD and 1 DVD drive.

Right now I have 1 hd and 1 DVD installed.

Did I miss something ? The documentation did not mention anything about non-hd drives.

What happened is the market has shifted away from PATA (the 40/80pin IDE cables you have) to SATA. It's getting pretty rare to see the PATA connections but one is usually kept around for legacy devices.

 Your quickest solution is to junk the CD/DVD drives unless your really attached to them like a plextor, and pick up a cheap SATA DVD-RW and use your current PATA drives, or pickup a new SATA hdd ;)

 You also will probably need a 4pin Molex -> SATA power also.

[Der Helm]

Your quickest solution is to junk the CD/DVD drives unless your really attached to them like a plextor, and pick up a cheap SATA DVD-RW and use your current PATA drives, or pickup a new SATA hdd ;)

Oh. Great.
Well, lets see what is cheaper.

Hm. Upgrading memory is a bitch. I put in 2 more 800ms/DDR2 sticks and they are not recognized.

Earlier I got the system to recognize at least one.

I suspect I am to stupid to install them properly, they always (ALWAYS) seem to be tight fits.

[schild]

Ugh. Why would you put a CD and DVD drive into your PC? Wtf? Does the DVD Drive magically not read CDs?

Also, what size are the HDDs?

[Der Helm]

Ugh. Why would you put a CD and DVD drive into your PC? Wtf? Does the DVD Drive magically not read CDs?
Also, what size are the HDDs?

Got this thing from my father a few years ago, my theory is that they ripped him off.

HDs are 120 and 150. Replacing them might not be a bad idea.

[Murgos]

Ugh. Why would you put a CD and DVD drive into your PC? Wtf? Does the DVD Drive magically not read CDs?
Also, what size are the HDDs?

Got this thing from my father a few years ago, my theory is that they ripped him off.

HDs are 120 and 150. Replacing them might not be a bad idea.

You can get a 500 GB SATA drive for around 60-70 bucks.  Do a fresh install of windows to the new drive, copy what you want from the old ones to the new one (Or use a back-up utility to transfer your old images to two partitions on the new drive).  Toss the old CD drive and hook up the DVD drive.

This will give you a new drive with more space, better life and faster transfer times and leave one IDE connector free.  Then you can hook up one of the old drives if you want secondary storage or whatever.

[Pennilenko]

Honestly, you need to save up some money. Like $700 USD. That's like $300 Euros, rite?

Best advice here.

[fuser]

Ugh. Why would you put a CD and DVD drive into your PC? Wtf? Does the DVD Drive magically not read CDs?

Without seeing the specs I'm guessing a CD-RW and a DVD-ROM

I'd just junk it for the SATA DVD-RW, they cost what... 20euro max?

[NowhereMan]

Heh, I'm in pretty much the same place as Helm. I've got a slightly faster PC than his old one and am in the fun position of really needing to rip out mobo, CPU, memory and graphics card to make an upgrade worthwhile. I'm thinking of waiting for the new chipset to become available and seeing if I can get a compatible mobo that will also run older processors and get a quad core or something going cheap (would that be possible or do mobos tend to only be compatible with one chipset?) I've not only not got a great budget though I'm also trying to save to buy scuba diving equipment at the moment as well. Fuck having two expensive hobbies

[fuser]

Heh, I'm in pretty much the same place as Helm. I've got a slightly faster PC than his old one and am in the fun position of really needing to rip out mobo, CPU, memory and graphics card to make an upgrade worthwhile. I'm thinking of waiting for the new chipset to become available and seeing if I can get a compatible mobo that will also run older processors and get a quad core or something going cheap (would that be possible or do mobos tend to only be compatible with one chipset?) I've not only not got a great budget though I'm also trying to save to buy scuba diving equipment at the moment as well. Fuck having two expensive hobbies

I'm really a fan of, buy a new PC and sell the old.

In the past four years with three complete rebuilds I'm out a small portion of time and money vs dumping money into an old system and keep upgrading it and trying to sell off parts. I sold my last complete system for more then I paid for and it offset building a whole new system minus the monitor.

Save moola and shop smart on parts or big tag items. Then use craigslist/kijiji to sell the hunker.