Go to the run box on your computer. Type "dxdiag" without the quotes. That'll give you a lot of info about your computer. Do you know what kind of mobo and power supply you have?
A simple RAM upgrade would net the most gains, but it is kind of hard to say. There is a lot you can do(new hard drive, more RAM, faster CPU, faster graphics card, etc.) that will increase the speed of your computer, or you can try a disk defrag and remove some startup programs if you have a bunch. For disk defrag, Auslogics is my favorite free program: http://www.auslogics.com/en/
1. Get 2 gigs total memory 2. Upgrade the p4 chip to a p4 3.4 ghz (you can buy them off ebay really cheap). I did this and it was a great upgrade. 3. Better Video Card. Depending Agp or PCI
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Well it matters what his motherboard/power supply will allow.
He will actually make his computer slower/fry itself if he: A) overworks his power supply, causing it to fry most of the computer with it. It is alright to have a PSU that is too big rather than too small. B) wont pass the POST at startup. Some mobo's can only support certain types/cuts/speeds of CPUs.
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Joined: 2/9/2005 From: KY Status: online
quote:
ORIGINAL: KTownGT
Go to the run box on your computer. Type "dxdiag" without the quotes. That'll give you a lot of info about your computer. Do you know what kind of mobo and power supply you have?
A simple RAM upgrade would net the most gains, but it is kind of hard to say. There is a lot you can do(new hard drive, more RAM, faster CPU, faster graphics card, etc.) that will increase the speed of your computer, or you can try a disk defrag and remove some startup programs if you have a bunch. For disk defrag, Auslogics is my favorite free program: http://www.auslogics.com/en/
What anti-virus/spyware are you using?
i did that which one is the mobo? and where does it say power supply? i had a friend build my pc
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87 notch a notch above the rest crossed over to the dark side +1 arent allowed in 50 tech sections
ktown, the power draw between a p4 2.8 and 3.4 isnt that much, he should be fine with his power supply.
Tell us what part of your computer you would like to upgrade? Snapiness, overall quickness of running tasks, opening programs quicker, faster load time, being able to open more web pages at once
Snapiness - another gig of ram would make the most notable difference overall quickness - upgrading to 3.4 p4 open programs quicker - the 3.4 opening more programs at once - another gig of ram faster load times/boot times - a faster hard drive more webpages - another gig of ram
Don't even waste your time upgrading to a faster P4. Those are stone-age procs and not even worth the trouble. The difference between P4 2.8 and 3.4 is negligible and you'd be hard pressed to note any appreciable difference (unless you get a hard-on from running 3D Mark or something.) If you're going swap processors, at least go Core 2 Duo.
1) Far less power draw 2) Much cooler 3) One of the most kick as architectures Intel has produced...blows P4 out of the water.
However, you may be in need of a new MOBO that supports Core chips.
Indeed, greatest "bang for the buck" in this case would be additional RAM. I just bought 4 GB for about $120. Sooner than I'd upgrade processors, I would uprade your disks. Separate the heavy-use files onto new spindles. Swap file, system files and program files sharing the same spindle set is definataly cause for disk contention (especially given your memory config now). Adding additional RAM should reduce paging significantly and reduce overall disk utilization.
As others have noted, a simple disk defrag is probably needed. By default Windows is allowed to manage its own swap file. During periods of heavy paging, the swap file is forced to grow on demand. This results in HEAVY disk fragmentation and increasingly degraded system performance.
In your specific case, I would throw in an extra gig of memory (even two as its alomost free these days), pop in a few new disks and rebuild your system. Least amount of hassle and will probably yield the greatest increase in overall performance.
an extra gig of memory WILL help if your multitasking between surfing, crankin tunes, looking at porn, etc...
honestly, i'll put my money on a nice fresh reinstall of windows. 98% of the time just giving your machine an enema and starting over once in a while nets people huge performance gains - things run more stable - and is all around a better operating machine.
That's not totally true. I built my PC with a P4 and my old motherboard supported Core with a BIOS flash. It just depends.
To say that Core is "Pentium redux" is simply falicy. It is not a tweaked version of P4 in the least. In car terms, that would be like saying the C6 Z06 is just a "tweaked" version of the hatch. LOL
quote:
ORIGINAL: mattlowe01
If is computer was built during the time of p4's, it will not support a c2d. Thats the only reason i suggested p4
and a c2d is basically a p4 arch, just tweaked a little still blows it out of the water though.. shows how half asses the p4 was
I cant find it, but bascially they tweaked the mobile version of the p4 to run lower speeds more efficiently, and then added some other fancy stuff..
Intel P4 chips didnt benefit from cpu clock increases a great deal like a 200mhz increase because they had such a deep pipeline and didnt scale well at higher clock speeds. This isnt true of the Core duo architecture which also has much lower latency and performs more per clock cycle vs the P4. This equates to effective performance scaling with each mhz increment.
Yeah, its an old PC...another words, buy a new pc or you're just wasting the cash in upgrading within the existing system (like ricers do).
Defrag (o&o seems great, if you can get the full version), and get junk off your system by using disk cleanup and ccleaner (formerly called crap cleaner..dwld it). Get a free version of AVG (and allow the downloads to perform when they happen daily). Scan your pc for viruses with it.
Get spybot as well.
Lastly, what OS do you have? With XP, you should be fine with those specs..considering how much $$ it would be to upgrade.
The only reason I could think to upgrade is if your hard drive was running @ 5200 rpm...then you could swap one out for a 7200 rpm drive and notice some difference.
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it was built last year. it was built from parts from my friends old computer when he upgraded. i have 400 in my computer (that includes my flat screen speakers and desk)
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87 notch a notch above the rest crossed over to the dark side +1 arent allowed in 50 tech sections
theres an article that explains it... i read it a while ago, ill have to try to dig it up
It was the Pentium Pro I thought... And it was very loosely a reference point.
I brought his PSU into it because of a potential future path for upgrading a GPU or maybe a new mobo/etc.
@Jasper: What anti-virus do you have? To tell Power Supply you have to open your case up and look for a brand name and look for a chart with the power ratings! Nvm about the dxdiag thing, I thought it gave a better round up of CPU specs. Grab a small program called CPUz and that will tell you everything.
@stang: True, but he prolly wont want to re-dl every program he has, and most likely does not have a backup anywhere.
@matt: It has a chance to support C2D if it is a LGA775 socket mobo.
The socket type is irrelevent. If its a Pentium 4 or Core, its LGA775. Simply because you have an LGA board doesn't mean your board supports Core.
quote:
ORIGINAL: KTownGT
quote:
ORIGINAL: mattlowe01
theres an article that explains it... i read it a while ago, ill have to try to dig it up
It was the Pentium Pro I thought... And it was very loosely a reference point.
I brought his PSU into it because of a potential future path for upgrading a GPU or maybe a new mobo/etc.
@Jasper: What anti-virus do you have? To tell Power Supply you have to open your case up and look for a brand name and look for a chart with the power ratings! Nvm about the dxdiag thing, I thought it gave a better round up of CPU specs. Grab a small program called CPUz and that will tell you everything.
@stang: True, but he prolly wont want to re-dl every program he has, and most likely does not have a backup anywhere.
@matt: It has a chance to support C2D if it is a LGA775 socket mobo.
Posts: 9820
Joined: 2/9/2005 From: KY Status: online
quote:
ORIGINAL: KTownGT
quote:
ORIGINAL: mattlowe01
theres an article that explains it... i read it a while ago, ill have to try to dig it up
It was the Pentium Pro I thought... And it was very loosely a reference point.
I brought his PSU into it because of a potential future path for upgrading a GPU or maybe a new mobo/etc.
@Jasper: What anti-virus do you have? To tell Power Supply you have to open your case up and look for a brand name and look for a chart with the power ratings! Nvm about the dxdiag thing, I thought it gave a better round up of CPU specs. Grab a small program called CPUz and that will tell you everything.
@stang: True, but he prolly wont want to re-dl every program he has, and most likely does not have a backup anywhere.
@matt: It has a chance to support C2D if it is a LGA775 socket mobo.
symantec antivirus. i have xp OS
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87 notch a notch above the rest crossed over to the dark side +1 arent allowed in 50 tech sections
Posts: 9820
Joined: 2/9/2005 From: KY Status: online
quote:
ORIGINAL: mattlowe01
ktown, the power draw between a p4 2.8 and 3.4 isnt that much, he should be fine with his power supply.
Tell us what part of your computer you would like to upgrade? Snapiness, overall quickness of running tasks, opening programs quicker, faster load time, being able to open more web pages at once
Snapiness - another gig of ram would make the most notable difference overall quickness - upgrading to 3.4 p4 open programs quicker - the 3.4 opening more programs at once - another gig of ram faster load times/boot times - a faster hard drive more webpages - another gig of ram
how much is a faster hard drive? how much is the 3.4 p4? is the hard drive the same thing as the 3.4 p4? also i was told i have 2 512 thigns of ram. so how much would 2 1 gigs of ram cost?
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87 notch a notch above the rest crossed over to the dark side +1 arent allowed in 50 tech sections
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computer upgrades - 
still blows it out of the water though.. shows how half asses the p4 was
