Upgrade (?) an old P II 233MHz

[dnoam]

Hi.
I have an old PC, as follows:
P II, 233MHz
64MB SDRAM
10GB Disk

It currently runs Win/ME, mostly for Browsing, Word, and Skype.
And it's kinda slow.
I can either take the disk and use the PC as a door-stop, or try to
upgrade it.
I think buying a new Motherboard + Processor might not be worth the
money, so my questions are:

Q1: Would 128MB RAM make a big difference?
Q2: Are SDRAM prices expected to do down?
TIA

 

[daytripper]

Hi.
I have an old PC, as follows:
P II, 233MHz
64MB SDRAM
10GB Disk

It currently runs Win/ME, mostly for Browsing, Word, and Skype.
And it's kinda slow.
I can either take the disk and use the PC as a door-stop, or try to
upgrade it.
I think buying a new Motherboard + Processor might not be worth the
money, so my questions are:

Q1: Would 128MB RAM make a big difference?

Geeze, can you actually do anything useful after booting ME on 64MB?

Yeah, doubling the memory could dramatically improve response time.

Q2: Are SDRAM prices expected to do down?

Just pry open your wallet and spring for another dimm, fer chrissakes ;-)

/daytripper

 

[Robert Redelmeier]

Geeze, can you actually do anything useful after booting
ME on 64MB? Yeah, doubling the memory could dramatically
improve response time.

Only if it's thrashing, which it might well be with IE.
I thought MS-WinME was from the win95 series and would
run OK in 8 MB + whatever for apps.

Just pry open your wallet and spring for another dimm,
fer chrissakes ;-)

I'm not sure it's worth upgrading that old box.
It might be better to perform some maintenance
(del temp files, defrag, regclean) and look for
a lightweight browser.

-- Robert

 

[Wayne Fulton]

Hi.
I have an old PC, as follows:
P II, 233MHz
64MB SDRAM
10GB Disk

It currently runs Win/ME, mostly for Browsing, Word, and Skype.
And it's kinda slow.
I can either take the disk and use the PC as a door-stop, or try to
upgrade it.
I think buying a new Motherboard + Processor might not be worth the
money, so my questions are:

More memory wont speed up your internet access, but it can speed up
processing large files, or running more programs.

I remember having a Win98 133MHz with 64 MB (all it would hold then),
and it seemed like a lot of memory back then. I only went to 64 MB then
for processing large images from a film scanner. I dont know if it
applies to your 233, but the next step was that newer motherboards could
hold more memory, but they still couldnt cache but 64 MB.
But today, Win XP and programs are pretty large, and XP needs at least
256 MB, and more is good.

The problem with upgrading the motherboard/processor is that probably
everything else needs upgrade too. Certainly the memory type, and maybe
a 1.5V AGP video card, and replacing any ISA card, etc. Even if you
have an ATX case, you may need a better powersupply. If you add XP, it
may require changes due to no old drivers (I had to replace a sound card
for that reason). An old monitor is probably dim now, and running with
all controls at maximum. The writable CDR drives are real nice, etc.

Sometimes it just becomes time...

For example, the cheapest Dell today is $500, with 2.4 GB processor, 256
MB memory, a 40 GB 7200 RPM disk, a 17 inch CRT monitor, and free
shipping. Add to that for a CDR drive.

 

[nobody]

Hi.
I have an old PC, as follows:
P II, 233MHz
64MB SDRAM
10GB Disk

It currently runs Win/ME, mostly for Browsing, Word, and Skype.
And it's kinda slow.
I can either take the disk and use the PC as a door-stop, or try to
upgrade it.

What is the chipset? If it's BX, you are at luck and can go up to
1GHz P3. Though it's much more likely it's something older (LX? FX? -
can't remember what exactly Intel pushed before BX) and in this case
the best you can hope for is Celeron 533 - still way better than P2
233, but hardly worth the trouble.

I think buying a new Motherboard + Processor might not be worth the
money, so my questions are:

Q1: Would 128MB RAM make a big difference?

Look for actual memory usage under normal work load. If it's above
64, you'll see a great improvement. Otherwise don't bother.

Q2: Are SDRAM prices expected to do down? Rather expect it to go up.
TIA

Good luck

 

[The little lost angel]

Only if it's thrashing, which it might well be with IE.
I thought MS-WinME was from the win95 series and would
run OK in 8 MB + whatever for apps.

Nope, WinME was the
bloatbugware-force-you-upgrade-to-our-assume-you-are-a-thief-OS-with-activation
version by M$ before WinXP P

--
L.Angel: I'm looking for web design work.
If you need basic to med complexity webpages at affordable rates, email me
Standard HTML, SHTML, MySQL + PHP or ASP, Javascript.
If you really want, FrontPage & DreamWeaver too.
But keep in mind you pay extra bandwidth for their bloated code

 

[Tony Hill]

Hi.
I have an old PC, as follows:
P II, 233MHz
64MB SDRAM
10GB Disk

It currently runs Win/ME, mostly for Browsing, Word, and Skype.

And it's kinda slow.
I can either take the disk and use the PC as a door-stop,

Probably your best bet!

or try to upgrade it.
I think buying a new Motherboard + Processor might not be worth the
money, so my questions are:

Definitely not since you would also need to be a new power supply
(most likely none of the processors built in the past ~3 years will
work with your current supply) and possibly a new case as well. Once
you add that up, you've pretty much got an entire new computer anyway,
so it's not really an upgrade to this one.

Q1: Would 128MB RAM make a big difference?

Probably, and that's about the only worthwhile upgrade you're likely
to find for this system.

Q2: Are SDRAM prices expected to do down?

No, they've long since bottomed out and have been on their way up for
a while. This is definitely legacy technology now, and as such it
will be sold for niche pricing. It's already 2-3 times as expensive
as it used to be and probably will go up to about 5 times as expensive
before it becomes damn near impossible to find in a few years time.

Your best bet is to go to www.crucial.com and plug in your motherboard
(or computer) type and see what memory is compatible. Note that MOST
SDRAM will NOT work in your system, so just buying random stuff from a
store probably won't cut it.