Improving an Old Computer

[brice_armstrong]

greetings, I have an old 2001 Acer model PC with the following specifications (please notify me if I missed adding something)
system: Windows ME
processor: Genuine Intel Pentium(r) III processor
memory: 128 MB of RAM
VGA: Default Monitor on RADEON 7000 series
Capacity: 20 GB
the memory is probably DDR as it couldn't possibly be DD2 (not sure how to check). I need advice on what I should do about improving the performance? Five years ago I took the PC to a local PC store to increase the capacity only (as I was not knowledgeable about other internal parts) and the person at the store said it's difficult to increase the capacity, I overlooked the matter since then but I realise now I need to change lots of internal parts in order to keep working on the PC (I prefer Win ME to XP or Vesta in spite of its problems), so can I change the entire Motherboard, processor, memory and capacity? Would there be compatible pieces? Thank you very much.

 

[badge]

Looks like the Pentium III with 128 MB RAM is not capable of being 'upgraded'. It must be agonizing to have such a slow system. I think the system would sell for maybe $12 on flea bay. Hopefully someone can give you an idea about building or purchasing a modern system. Perhaps visit your local PC shop, best Buy, etc. and check out a new system. Sorry, but even if you are partial to the old horse, it is beyond upgrading by now.

 

[brice_armstrong]

Actually I do have an up to date PC and a laptop, I just keep this old one for sentimental reasons.. I've never been one to throw classic stuff away.. So is there no way to find compatible pieces? Even if I I could take the memory from 128 to 256 MB..

 

[sminlal]

You can find DDR memory (ie, "DDR1") in sticks up to 512MB, but it's very pricey compared to DDR2 and 3 memory. I've installed a 512MB DDR stick into a P4 system that's early 2000's vintage, but I'm not sure if your P-III and it's chipset would support such modules.

 

[csodey]

Pentium III chips used SD-RAM not DDR. I would max out the memory if you can, although the cost of larger old sd-ram chips can be pricy. Do yourself a favor and upgrade to XP, the minimum ram needed is 128, but I would recommend 512MB for service pack 3. What internet browser to you use with ME. I think Opera is the only one that still supports Win98.

 

[englandr753]

I may have some old SD ram lying around. You need to check and see how many memory slots you have available. Some systems only had 2, 3 or 4 slots. You need to see what sizes you have installed. It could be 2 - 64mb sticks or 1 - 128mb. I probably have 64mb & 128mb sticks.

Download and run cpuz. Go to www.cpuid.com and look to the top left for the list of programs you can download and select cpuz. Run this and go to the SPD tab and you should see a drop down menu. Select it and you will see numbers from 1 to however many memory slots you have then get back to me and let me know how many slots are available.

Your system probably supports either up to 512mb or 1g of sd ram. Don't think that you will see a new pc from this upgrade but its the cheapest easiest thing to do to get the old horse some new steam. You could load windows xp 32 bit home basic and give it a new feel after your memory upgrade.

Some things are worth doing and some things are not, since its a sentimental pc to you I can see doing the minor upgrades I guess but it will still be an older pc that will feel slow compared to a newer one. I would do the memory and MAYBE the operating system. That's about it, especially if you want to keep your old horse an old horse...

 

[badge]

Very nice offer Englander and the PIII system uses SD RAM, not DDR. Their are different speeds of SD RAM and if you get the wrong speed mixed in, the system will crash mercisly. I know I have my PIII still running at 450MHz. and maxed out at 3 x 128MB SD RAM at 66MHz. I believe. Kingston used to carry the RAM, but that was obviously some years ago. I picked mine up at the guard gate at Kingston's facility near here. I also have an XP upgrade installed over the original Windows 98 installation. I think I'll skip SP3 with the 13GB Maxtor Fireball HD. My Pentium I 133MHz. has a smaller 1GB (gigabyte) HD upgraded from Win 95 to 98. 64MB RAM. Pre SD I think.

 

[englandr753]

Yes Badge you're definitely correct on mixing the ram. I was going to go over that with him once he got back to me. You have a nice collection of older systems. That's a good example of if it ain't broke, don't fix it, lol.

 

[Stardude82]

Hows about find another old PATA harddrive or split partion your current and dual boot some sort of linux distrubution. If you want to be historic, I'm sure you can find a period distro to keep things "authentic."

With your current memory could probably find some that run completely in memory. Look up DSL.

Edit: Oh and if you could find a copy of Windows 2000 that might be great too.

 

[Pointertovoid]

- Sdram, not ddram, with nearly every PIII chipset. Win Me accepts 512MB, more needs some tricks. 128MB is largely enough for Win Me; more only if the applications need it. CL2 @133MHz improve speed by 10%.

- Stay at Win Me, an excellent and fast Win, if you don't need security and applications compatibility. Well tuned, you computer must boot in about 12s.
Windows 2000 boots a bit slower than Xp and is comfortable only on faster PIII: 800MHz OK, 1400MHz good.

- If you chipset limits to 512MB, keep Win Me or take W2k at most; Xp would work but bigger applications (even Avast) would need to swap soon.

- The most useful upgrade would be the hard disk drive. Take a 7200rpm with a big platter capacity and a fast arm. In P-Ata, you have the J8160, J8080 and 7k160 with 13ms and 160GB per platter giving 78MB/s for some 30 euros; the J880 and 7k80 with 13ms and 80GB per platter give 60MB/s for some 20 euros. Others, like 7k250 or Seagate, Samsung etc have rather slower arms - very important.

- Win Me works great from a good CF card on P-Ata adapter. Got 8s boot time.

- Win95-98-Me improve a lot from installing on a small volume at the beginning of the disk. Forcing bigger clusters improves. Fat16 is even better.

 

[englandr753]

- Sdram, not ddram

I believe I said sd ram...


- Stay at Win Me, an excellent and fast Win,


Windows ME is the worst OS Microsoft made...

 

[badge]

- The most useful upgrade would be the hard disk drive.

Yeah, I had a WD enhanced performance 7200 installed using my PIII 450 MHz. processor, 384 MB SD RAM, XP system. The HD was worth more than the entire computer. I took my nice 7200rpm HD out and built a modren system with it. Stuck the 13GB maxtor back in and that's where it's at today. It's fun to crank it up, but it's so slow it's scary. Running XP is not a problem other than user slowness. I would hate to reload it.