Upgrading an old system

martytoo · 29/12/10 - 19:12

A good friend has a somewhat elderly system and has asked my advice on the possibility of improving it's performance a bit.
She complains of poor graphics, I'm not sure exactly what card she has now but I think it has a minute 64Mb of RAM on board, we've already determined that it runs DDR RAM.
The PSU is a brand new 400w model which I fitted for her on Monday after the original died. A system summary is shown below. (The WD passport is also brand new)

Operating System System Model
Windows XP Home Edition Service Pack 3 (build 2600)
Install Language: English (United States)
System Locale: English (United Kingdom) Enclosure Type: Desktop
Processor a Main Circuit Board b
2.20 gigahertz AMD Athlon 64
256 kilobyte primary memory cache
1024 kilobyte secondary memory cache
64-bit ready
Not hyper-threaded Board: NF-CK804
Serial Number: WLKI53302823
Bus Clock: 201 megahertz
BIOS: Phoenix Technologies, LTD 6.00 PG 05/11/2005
Drives Memory Modules c,d
700.12 Gigabytes Usable Hard Drive Capacity
597.08 Gigabytes Hard Drive Free Space

PIONEER DVD-RW DVR-110D [Optical drive]
3.5" format removeable media [Floppy drive]

WD My Passport 071A USB Device [Hard drive] (500.07 GB) -- drive 1
WDC WD2000BB-22GUC0 [Hard drive] (200.05 GB) -- drive 0, s/n WD-WCAL83181073, rev 08.02D08, SMART Status: Healthy 512 Megabytes Usable Installed Memory

Slot 'A0' is Empty
Slot 'A1' has 512 MB
Slot 'A2' is Empty
Slot 'A3' is Empty
Local Drive Volumes

c: (NTFS on drive 0) 200.04 GB 129.72 GB free
e: (NTFS on drive 1) 500.08 GB 467.36 GB free

chiller15 · 29/12/10 - 19:34

To be honest, upgrading a system that old could be quite costly. Providing it uses DDR RAM (must be DDR, not DDR2 or DDR3) you could add a 1GB stick of RAM in. That would quadruple the amount of RAM it currently has and probably make a noticeable difference in performance. You could also add a cheap £25 ish PCI or AGP graphics card, providing there are enough slots free and there's enough space in the computer. This would aid graphical performance.

Alan F · 29/12/10 - 19:52

As usual the advice must be first to increase the RAM. Adding 1 GB will give you a total of 1.5 GB and should show a significant performance improvement. Adding more probably not cost effective.

I would then seriously examine the software environment to ensure it is not hampered by too much c**p and that the graphics are working to the best possible.

After that, if performance is not acceptable for the use to which it is to be put then a new cheap graphics card may be OK but this is no gaming machine so it is unwise to aim too high.

max99 · 29/12/10 - 20:23

Yup, adding more RAM and either giving it a good clean-up or restoring to factory settings is the answer. Having at least 1GB RAM in there means it's a perfectly decent machine for running XP.

What exactly does she mean by 'poor graphics'?

Stig · 29/12/10 - 21:04

chiller15 wrote: »

To be honest, upgrading a system that old could be quite costly.

Agreed. I'd put the money you would have spent on an upgrade into a jar and save for a new PC.

People don't like the idea of buying a whole new PC, but it is ultimately more cost effective than hardware upgrades.

A reinstall of Windows works wonders on old systems.

c4rv · 29/12/10 - 21:23

that system is at least 5 years old.It has 512MB of DDR memory with is relativily expensive to upgrade these days. I don't know how good with PC you are OP but you could potentially look at a CPU, motherboard, memory bundle seeing as hard drive is still pretty empty (though 5 years old so might fail at any time), you have DVD drive, a case and you say new PSU (and a floppy drive, lol).

Some like this is not high powered but fine for general use.

http://www.dabs.com/products/asus-amd-value-bundle--includes-m4n68t-m-le-v2-motherboard--athlon-ii-x2-250-3-0ghz---2gb-patriot-ddr3--77WS.html

Also reinstalling the O/S will clear a lot of rubbish and speed things up.

[Deleted User] · 29/12/10 - 22:27

She might be thinking that when she switches windows and has to wait several seconds, it's a graphics issue, when it's an issue of digging into a swapfile instead. 512Mb isn't bad for desktop use on XP unless she has a ton of cr*p on there.

max99 · 29/12/10 - 23:57

Doubling the RAM to 1GB will only cost around £15. Running CCleaner and a Malwarebytes scan, switching to a lighter AV and disabling unnecessary start-up programs are all simple procedures which can transform the machine into a system which is perfectly acceptable for everyday tasks. These are also housekeeping 'skills' which all Windows users would benefit from learning - regardless of how new or old their system is.

The question is whether or not the user actually runs anything more demanding which would warrant a new machine or major upgrade.

pocatello · 30/12/10 - 00:42

Yea before anything can be said you have to diagnose what she means by "poor graphics", because it makes no sense. That era system is capable of any 2d she requires. And I doubt she is playing crysis or 1080p video either.

martytoo · 31/12/10 - 18:20

She does a lot of Office work together with a couple of Newsletters and a couple of web sites.
The suggestion for additional RAM prompted this
"Could it be the answer to my graphics programs running slow at times?"

I'll try and get clarification on this.

jjesso123 · 31/12/10 - 19:53

martytoo wrote: »

She does a lot of Office work together with a couple of Newsletters and a couple of web sites.
The suggestion for additional RAM prompted this
"Could it be the answer to my graphics programs running slow at times?"

I'll try and get clarification on this.

It would be mixture of faster processor and more ram and low profile graphics card.

justpootling · 31/12/10 - 20:41

jjesso123 wrote: »

It would be mixture of faster processor and more ram and low profile graphics card.

Certainly a lack of RAM issue if graphics software is running slowly. Improved CPU performance won't create too much of a difference.

Leeham · 31/12/10 - 20:43

Wait 10 days for Sandy Bridge announcement, see if prices drop on older hardware.

justpootling · 31/12/10 - 21:10

Leeham wrote: »

Wait 10 days for Sandy Bridge announcement, see if prices drop on older hardware.

I like the look of Sandy Bridge, but knowing Intel, it will still be prohibitively expensive compared to AMD for all but the most passionate Intel fanboys.

The integrated graphics on the CPU is a novel idea though.

Can't see Sandy Bridge lowering hardware prices though. Intel CPUs and compatible boards are still pretty pricey.Intel Core 2 Quad prices are still silly compared to equivalent AMD even if they're better than AMD.

[Deleted User] · 01/01/11 - 02:47

Shove a 1GB DDR400 stick in a spare slot and all performance issues should be sorted. For what she is doing the CPU isn't a problem. That means it is all about swapping to the HD, and the extra RAM will avoid needing to do that. Even a second 512MB stick will make a big difference with XP, despite XP being able to run quite well on a box with a total of 512MB, as it pretty much does away with enforced pagefile transfers to and from the hard-drive, which may be quite slow in that system.

Faster graphics that some have mentioned are irrelevant with the current box and OS, and should only be considered if a whole new computer is an option.

Leeham · 01/01/11 - 04:43

justpootling wrote: »

I like the look of Sandy Bridge, but knowing Intel, it will still be prohibitively expensive compared to AMD for all but the most passionate Intel fanboys.

The integrated graphics on the CPU is a novel idea though.

Can't see Sandy Bridge lowering hardware prices though. Intel CPUs and compatible boards are still pretty pricey.Intel Core 2 Quad prices are still silly compared to equivalent AMD even if they're better than AMD.

BullDozer is too far away!

martytoo · 02/01/11 - 20:38

she tells me this
"Paint Shop Pro (9) keeps searching for updates when I try to use the tubes and it takes longer each time until it stops."

Hey there!

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