a whole lotta questions

[Mustafa Khalid]

I have a P3 800 Mhz. with 384 MB Ram, and a 30GB Hard disk (donno which rpm)
running on Windows 98' with an 8MB VGA card .I have several questions:

1) How can I check the RPM of my Hard Disk
2) For multi-tasking which is better: more ram / more hard disk space /
higher rpm for hard disk/ faster processor?
3) Currently I have SD RAM, I was thinking of changing the motherboard and
going for DDR RAM, will that be beneficial?
4) I have a partition on my hard drive, and want to format it cause it's
causing me all kinds of problems, errors, freezes, etc., but donno how to do
it properly (i have an idea but don't want to risk it)
5) I know how to add new hardware to my computer, say a CD Drive or Hard
disk, but have no idea of how to change the motherboard. Can someone refer
me to a site where I can learn how to build a computer from scratch.
6) I don't really do a lot of multimedia stuff or play games that much. So
should I go for a faster processor or not?
7) I was also thinking of getting a new vga card, 64 or 128MB. Now will that
make an difference when I'm not playing games or editing?

 

[philo]

I have a P3 800 Mhz. with 384 MB Ram, and a 30GB Hard disk (donno which rpm)
running on Windows 98' with an 8MB VGA card .I have several questions:

1) How can I check the RPM of my Hard Disk
2) For multi-tasking which is better: more ram / more hard disk space /
higher rpm for hard disk/ faster processor?
3) Currently I have SD RAM, I was thinking of changing the motherboard and
going for DDR RAM, will that be beneficial?
4) I have a partition on my hard drive, and want to format it cause it's
causing me all kinds of problems, errors, freezes, etc., but donno how to do
it properly (i have an idea but don't want to risk it)
5) I know how to add new hardware to my computer, say a CD Drive or Hard
disk, but have no idea of how to change the motherboard. Can someone refer
me to a site where I can learn how to build a computer from scratch.
6) I don't really do a lot of multimedia stuff or play games that much. So
should I go for a faster processor or not?
7) I was also thinking of getting a new vga card, 64 or 128MB. Now will that
make an difference when I'm not playing games or editing?

i agree with the other respondent...
it's one thing to add ram or change a video card...
but it looks like you plan to change just about all of your components...
so you might as well go for the whole new machine

i'd definately recommend a fast cpu and lots of RAM if you want to do
multi-tasking

btw...if one of your drive partitions is full of corrupted data
and you want to format it...
be sure to take anything off that partition you need to keep

then , for example, if it;s your D: drive...
merely issue the command format D:

if the format process finds a lot of bad clusters or cannot complete...
the drive is bad and further justification to just get a whole new machine

 

[Ralph Mowery]

I have a P3 800 Mhz. with 384 MB Ram, and a 30GB Hard disk (donno which
rpm)

running on Windows 98' with an 8MB VGA card .I have several questions:

1) How can I check the RPM of my Hard Disk
2) For multi-tasking which is better: more ram / more hard disk space /
higher rpm for hard disk/ faster processor?
3) Currently I have SD RAM, I was thinking of changing the motherboard and
going for DDR RAM, will that be beneficial?
4) I have a partition on my hard drive, and want to format it cause it's
causing me all kinds of problems, errors, freezes, etc., but donno how to do
it properly (i have an idea but don't want to risk it)
5) I know how to add new hardware to my computer, say a CD Drive or Hard
disk, but have no idea of how to change the motherboard. Can someone refer
me to a site where I can learn how to build a computer from scratch.
6) I don't really do a lot of multimedia stuff or play games that much. So
should I go for a faster processor or not?
7) I was also thinking of getting a new vga card, 64 or 128MB. Now will that
make an difference when I'm not playing games or editing?

Not to give a rude answer, but what you need is a whole new computer. By
the time you do much upgrading of what you have , you can get a new low end
Dell .

To go with a much faster processor you will have to go to a P4 and new
motherboard. The power supply will need to be changed to one that has a P4
power connector. That could also mean going to another tyhpe of memory
(ddr). As you are not playing games or vidio editing a bigger vidio card
will not make a noticiable differance.

 

[gargoyle]

I have a P3 800 Mhz. with 384 MB Ram, and a 30GB Hard disk (donno which rpm)
running on Windows 98' with an 8MB VGA card .I have several questions:

1) How can I check the RPM of my Hard Disk Sorry do not know how
2) For multi-tasking which is better: more ram / more hard disk space /
higher rpm for hard disk/ faster processor?

Adding ram is better, what type of memory do you have now?

3) Currently I have SD RAM, I was thinking of changing the motherboard and
going for DDR RAM, will that be beneficial?

First of all your current board may not support DDR ram. What type of
motherboard is it? A good place for motherboad info is
http://www.motherboards.org/index.html

4) I have a partition on my hard drive, and want to format it cause it's
causing me all kinds of problems, errors, freezes, etc., but donno how to do
it properly (i have an idea but don't want to risk it)

How many partition do you have on you drive? Etc C:, D:, ..... Z:
What you have on the partition? Is there somethings you what or just
junk? If junk just format it. If its somethings you want to keep then
you need to transfer everything you want to keep on to a different
partition. Then format the drive. But before any of this you should do a
scan disk first to see how the drive look. It is located under Start/
Accesserie/System tools/Scan disk. This will give you idea if you have
bad sectors.

5) I know how to add new hardware to my computer, say a CD Drive or Hard
disk, but have no idea of how to change the motherboard. Can someone refer
me to a site where I can learn how to build a computer from scratch.

http://www.motherboards.org/articlesd/how-to-guides/924_1.html
It's alittle old but it will give you an idea of what you need to do.

6) I don't really do a lot of multimedia stuff or play games that much. So
should I go for a faster processor or not?

If you do not do a lot of multimedia stuff you will not find a big
improvement.

7) I was also thinking of getting a new vga card, 64 or 128MB. Now will that
make an difference when I'm not playing games or editing?

Why do you want a new card. It only helps on mm stuff.If you don't do mm stuff then I can not see why you want a new computer?
Or is it you just feel like behind the times with a P3 800 Mhz. with 384
MB Ram. If so,then that is a valid excuse that's why I build mine.
So if you want spend money and you can afford it go for it.
One more place to check out
http://arstechnica.com/guide/index.html
They build differnt levels of computers every so often form Under $1000
to $5000.
Good Luck

 

[kony]

I have a P3 800 Mhz. with 384 MB Ram, and a 30GB Hard disk (donno which rpm)
running on Windows 98' with an 8MB VGA card .I have several questions:

1) How can I check the RPM of my Hard Disk

Get model number off drive label or manufacturer's spec sheet, goto
drive manufacturer's website.

2) For multi-tasking which is better: more ram / more hard disk space /
higher rpm for hard disk/ faster processor?

Merely running multiple tasks requires nothing more than plenty of
memory. Running all those tasks and expecting them all to run at
higher speed, for instance a distributed computing client, real-time
tasks like MP3 playback, video capture, etc, can also require a faster
CPU and/or hard drive, even multiple hard drives, depending on exactly
what these programs do.

If by multitasking you simply mean having a word/excel, email, browser
and music playing, all that's required is enough memory.

3) Currently I have SD RAM, I was thinking of changing the motherboard and
going for DDR RAM, will that be beneficial?

No, there is no point to changing a motherboard only for DDR memory,
the far greater benefit from changing a motherboard would be the
faster CPU, at least for the purposes of your question, a modern
motherboard would also have benefits beyond those beneficial to
multitasking.

4) I have a partition on my hard drive, and want to format it cause it's
causing me all kinds of problems, errors, freezes, etc., but donno how to do
it properly (i have an idea but don't want to risk it)

Are you sure this partition is a problem, or do you simply mean the OS
is beyond easy repair and you want a clean start/reinstall? To do
that backup all important data, exit to dos and type "format /q c:".
That'll do a quick format, takes much less time than a full format.
This is assuming you don't think the HDD itself has a problem, but if
you do, run the HDD manufacturer's diagnostic floppy utilities and
check it before reinstalling everything again.

5) I know how to add new hardware to my computer, say a CD Drive or Hard
disk, but have no idea of how to change the motherboard. Can someone refer
me to a site where I can learn how to build a computer from scratch.

I don't know of a 'site that will provide all the minor details, and
the major details are pretty obvious once you have the parts. If you
have only the one PC I would advise you to keep it working and start a
new system in a new case, or at the very least get a new case and set
eveything up the motherboard, be able to power it on and boot to the
floppy before taking apart any more of your current system so it stays
operational until the last step, moving the cards and hard drive.

6) I don't really do a lot of multimedia stuff or play games that much. So
should I go for a faster processor or not?

Exactly when does this system experience the slowdowns prompting these
upgrades? In general, yes, a faster CPU does make a lot of
difference, but if you're not doing anything demanding there's no
cause to spend a lot of $ on high-end performance levels.

7) I was also thinking of getting a new vga card, 64 or 128MB. Now will that
make an difference when I'm not playing games or editing?

No, in general 2D use the video card is plenty fast enough but the 8MB
card will be poor at highest resolutions and refresh rates, a bit
fuzzy-looking. If it's an ATI video card it should be good for video
clip playback but if an nVidia or (other) 8MB-era card your video
playback visual quality would also improve from a newer card. When
you're not gaming or editing very large images at high magnification,
there's no benefit to a 64MB or higher video card. Even so, if you do
buy a new card you may as well get a modern card, not something many
years old that may not enjoy driver support for operating systems in
the future.


Dave