Hello,
Maybe someone can direct me to a site that will explain processor speeds to
me that I can understand. My problem is that I have a friend with Win 98 and
an old Gateway with 267 Mhz processor, 64mb RAM and I'm trying to make her
understand that she will never get the speed from it she wants unless she
just gets a new one! I have a Dell laptop with 1.4G and the new desktops are
over 2G's now. In doing a Google search about this I am more confused than
ever! I'm thinking that it takes 1000 mhz to equal a Gig. Is that even
right?
If you see what I'm trying to get at can someone make this clear to me?
Thanks, Deb
The primary question should always be "What is the intended use of the
system?".
In usenet it's VERY easy to spend someone else's $$$$ but for someone
currently getting by with a Pentium 2 266, there may be no pressing need
for modern performance levels (else a new system would've been bought ~ 5
years ago), rather to simply look at the bottlenecks to the system and
greatly reduce them.
Bottlenecks of current system in most common (office/internet/email)
usage:
1) Memory - add a 128MB PC100 module. That general description can be
used at any local computer shop to buy a compatible module. It need NOT
be premium memory, these days anything that's not defective will be quite
suitable for that system since it's running at lower specification, a
66MHz memory bus. You might find someone giving away such a used memory
module for free, they have much less value to someone with a modern system
than they'd have to a store selling them.
2) Hard drive - When system originally shipped it had a bios that
wouldn't recognized hard drives over 32GB in capacity. It would be
prudent to flash upgrade the bios to the last version, which should allow
use of larger (but especially faster) hard drives, a good price/value
point right now would be an 80GB drive. The system only supports ATA33
but the drive will still be a substantial performance improvement.
Software is available from the hard drive manufacturer (in retail packaged
drives or available for download from their website) to easily duplicate
the old drive to the new one.
3) CPU - The Pentium 2 266Mhz is adequate for basic uses running Windows
98, but the motherboard should support up to a Celeron 400 SECC (slot 1
cartridge) or up to Celeron 533 PPGA with a "slotket adapter". These are
quite inexpensive CPUS today, rather the more difficult part would be
finding the slotket adapter but they're "out there" on the 'net too given
a little time to look for some. With these CPUs it is also necessary to
flash upgrade the motherboard bios.
4) Video card - may not need upgraded at all unless user has new monitor
that supports higher resolutions AND the user wants to use these higher
resolutions, or of course 3D gaming, but it's not realistic to expect the
system, even after upgraded, to be appropriate for 3D gaming.
While a 1 to 2 GHz (cpu) based system is unquestionably faster, it all
comes back to my opening sentence, that it depends on the intended use of
the system. If the system is only used for the most common tasks then
there will be a great increase in performance from upgrading the first two
items, memory and hard drive, then beyond that it's completely up to the
user. At worst the system won't be fast enough after the upgrades (but I
suspect it might be considering the current system is only 266MHz and
running older software) and a nearly-free memory module was wasted, but
the hard drive can be reused in a more modern system.
On the other hand there's the age of the system as it affects reliability,
that it may keep running for several years longer but it's at the age
where it's demise wouldn't be unexpected, it's already met it's expected
lifespan and continues to work partially because Gateway used relatively
good components for that era. If loss of system usage due to failure is
an important issue then just replace it, buy a new system.
