Hi - upgrade ?

caroline · 03-02-2006, 19:30

i have just added more memory to my comp, im looking to upgrade it so that it is quicker between pages, how can i do this ? what do i need to buy. and what would it cost me ? looking for the best way soit will last a while without me having to do it again for a while.

Thanx

Gareth · 03-02-2006, 19:44

Depends what you've got now? Post your hardware specs, and we'll have a look at what you can upgrade easily and cheaply.

---------- Post added at 19:44 ---------- Previous post was at 19:43 ----------

...you can install Belarc Advisor if you're not sure what's inside your box - http://www.belarc.com/free_download.html

Paul · 03-02-2006, 19:44

Think we will need a few details first lol?
How much memory do you now have installed?
what CPU/ speed are you running?
How big a hard drive have you got and how much free space?
What operating system are you running?
What internet connection are you running and how do you connect?
LOL see ^^^ more details

caroline · 03-02-2006, 22:12

I have 1 gb of ram,plenty of hardrive 200gb just added another 200 which is free, cpu amd duron max,motherboard , running sp2 and have xp professional and have the 10 mb speed.

caroline · 04-02-2006, 11:19

Can anyone recomend what i need please

Thanx

pedantic · 04-02-2006, 12:36

Hi

You really do need to post the information from the program Gareth gave a link to. It will tell us exactly what motherboard you have. Some older motherboards can only be upgraded so much. You mention you are running a Duron processor, which suggests you have quite an old motherboard. You will probably be better to replace it with a more up to date one. That way you can put good quality parts in it.

Download the program Gareth gave a link to, and post back the info from it. Ther are lots of people on here that can help you further then.

Gareth · 04-02-2006, 12:55

Yep, like Pedantic says, the CPU and mobo could potentially be upgraded depending on what you're running. Otherwise, your amount of RAM is fine.

You could maybe upgrade your video card, although for browsing and everyday stuff like that it's not as important an upgrade, compared to hardcore gamers for whom this can make a big difference.

Maybe you could get away without upgrading, but perfroming some housekeeping tasks on your PC, such as defragging the harddrive. You could get a nice performance increase just by having properly defragged drives.

Maybe it might be an idea to post something about how slow your PC is to do stuff, and what you're looking to get. We might be able to improve things without spending any dosh

zinglebarb · 04-02-2006, 13:43

Duron will be socket A depending on the highest FSB of the mobo the max cpu you can buy is a 3200 xp chip.You will only be able to get one of these second hand at best as far as a new cpu is concerned the highest you can get is the the Sempron 2800 which runs at 2 gig almost the same chip as the xp2400.
My advice if your up for the job is buy a sempron 64 and a new motherboard these although they run at fairly low bus speeds they are a good.Your looking at a total upgrade cast of £100 upwards.If you can double this you could go for a socket 939 cpu and board.

Note however if all you want is faster web browsing then the 2800 skt A sempron will be your best route(motherboard may well need a bios upgrade though)

Paul · 04-02-2006, 15:08

Is there currently a problem with page load times? You have plenty of ram and hard drive space so the bottle neck could well be the CPU but to be honest we need to know what the problem is that you are trying to fix.
I take it you seem to feel your internet page loads aren't as fast as they should be. How do you connect, what browser do you use, are you using NIC or USB to connect to the BB feed. Are you using a proxy in IE, tools, Internet Options, Connections, LAN settings?

---------- Post added at 15:08 ---------- Previous post was at 14:02 ----------

Caroline, can you install and run the software from post 2 please and let us know what motherboard and CPU you are running.
Since you are running firefox there are some tweaks we can tell you about to help cut load times but one thing you should be aware of is that page load times, more often than not, are governed by things outside of your PC and therefor outside of your control or influence.

bopdude · 05-02-2006, 00:26

Quote:

Originally Posted by caroline

Can anyone recomend what i need please

Thanx

..... a different avatar would be a good start

nffc · 05-02-2006, 00:30

in firefox type "about:config" in address bar and find "nglayout.initialpaint.delay" and change it to 0.

There are other tweaks too, type "speed up firefox" in google!

You don't need a hardware upgrade for slow page load times when your net connection will be more limiting - software conflicts, stripping msconfig, reformatting maybe but not a hardware upgrade..

HTH

pedantic · 05-02-2006, 00:43

Quote:

Originally Posted by nffc

in firefox type "about:config" in address bar and find "nglayout.initialpaint.delay" and change it to 0.

There are other tweaks too, type "speed up firefox" in google!

You don't need a hardware upgrade for slow page load times when your net connection will be more limiting - software conflicts, stripping msconfig, reformatting maybe but not a hardware upgrade..

HTH

There is a very lengthy thread on speeding up firefox here http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewto...82ef015e6417b6

nglayout.initialpaint.delay when set to 0 is not as good a tweak as is suggested in the thread. When I used to use Firefox, I had great results using some of the suggested tweaks.

Regards.