Z
Zordiac
I have a PCChips M726 BXcel board (yes I know, I know) with PII 400
P100 64MEG SDRAM
ATI Rage Pro 8Mb Gfx
8GB seagate HD ST something or the other, sounds like a blacksmiths
foundry but has never errored.
And an ahem almighty powerful 200watt PSU by ?, having said that I
also have a 56k modem and lan card happily working away.
First off lets get this out of the way - I'm contemplating buying
another PC anyway.
Also should say I have had the above PC for 4 years and had no
problems at all. It was from Protek.uk who have sadly gone now and it
was a real bargain....hmmm probably one of the reasons why they have
gone.
With that out of the way I seem to have given myself the challenge -
have to do something as I dont like crossword puzzles - of how I can
speed this existing PC up so it will be capable of playing the odd
not-to-3d-demanding-game and play video full screen (at present it is
tooo slow). I'm going to buy another PC so this is a shoestring jobby
and a chance to dabble. I've swapped graphic cards and hard drives in
PCs before but thats the extent of my experience.
Ok then my first thought was to flash the bios (exciting stuff for me)
as this will allow me to bung in a PIII 500 in (max it will take) and
add in some memory (I think even 133 SDRAMs work). But this all goes
to show that I have taken my eye off the ball for some time as I cant
find a PIII 500 and have seen suggestions in newsgroups that a new
mobo+cpu is better than my risable option.
But since I have a smallish case (mini atx?) I'm not sure of :
a) whether a new mobo would fit - they dont seem to give the size -
and
b) whether the existing components would be compatible. I assume the
ram would not be. Then again some mobos have nvidia graphics in, so
its swings and roundabouts.
I thought the PIII option was sensible as a friend has a dell with a
PIII and a bit more memory and it seems to be a much more capable
machine ie plays the games and vids that mine cannot.
P100 64MEG SDRAM
ATI Rage Pro 8Mb Gfx
8GB seagate HD ST something or the other, sounds like a blacksmiths
foundry but has never errored.
And an ahem almighty powerful 200watt PSU by ?, having said that I
also have a 56k modem and lan card happily working away.
First off lets get this out of the way - I'm contemplating buying
another PC anyway.
Also should say I have had the above PC for 4 years and had no
problems at all. It was from Protek.uk who have sadly gone now and it
was a real bargain....hmmm probably one of the reasons why they have
gone.
With that out of the way I seem to have given myself the challenge -
have to do something as I dont like crossword puzzles - of how I can
speed this existing PC up so it will be capable of playing the odd
not-to-3d-demanding-game and play video full screen (at present it is
tooo slow). I'm going to buy another PC so this is a shoestring jobby
and a chance to dabble. I've swapped graphic cards and hard drives in
PCs before but thats the extent of my experience.
Ok then my first thought was to flash the bios (exciting stuff for me)
as this will allow me to bung in a PIII 500 in (max it will take) and
add in some memory (I think even 133 SDRAMs work). But this all goes
to show that I have taken my eye off the ball for some time as I cant
find a PIII 500 and have seen suggestions in newsgroups that a new
mobo+cpu is better than my risable option.
But since I have a smallish case (mini atx?) I'm not sure of :
a) whether a new mobo would fit - they dont seem to give the size -
and
b) whether the existing components would be compatible. I assume the
ram would not be. Then again some mobos have nvidia graphics in, so
its swings and roundabouts.
I thought the PIII option was sensible as a friend has a dell with a
PIII and a bit more memory and it seems to be a much more capable
machine ie plays the games and vids that mine cannot.