Paul Posted August 7, 2008 Report Share Posted August 7, 2008 (edited) One that pops up regularly, but obviously changes on a monthly or even daily basis due to technology improvements/prices. It would appear my current home built pc which has evolved and been upgraded over the years may have problems with the Video card (AGP) This morning, it starts to boot, grafics are a little garbled and half way through boot goes back to standby yet pc is running in the back ground. Now i havent yet tried pulling it apart/reseating the cards, trying the vga output etc, but the monitor does work with another input. So assuming its dead what are my options? I just use it for general internet, the odd letter and occasional editing of photos etc. I like my pc's quick, and as noise free as possible. However this pc has not been upgraded recently so I am a little out of touch. Currently its a AMD based 3500+ 939 (non 64 bit) on an Asus board I am guessing its better to rebuild/ buy new than try repair this one. What i would like is a significant/ noticable upgrade in performance, at sensible cost. Not bothered in the slightest with any form of raid , as it just strikes me as too much hassel. I would probably be looking to purchase an operating system as well. Windows Vista etc. Monitor not required. Have wide screen Dell. Motherboards - Prefer Asus CPU - Would appear Intel is the king at the mo. Is there something suitably fast that runs cool? Somthing with SATA ide so i can get the data off my old hard discs. I hand it over to the Guru's Edited August 7, 2008 by Paul corrected errors! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RobK Posted August 7, 2008 Report Share Posted August 7, 2008 Pentium?? You what? Are you looking for a complete new system (minus screen) or are you hoping to keep some of the old stuff e.g. case, drives etc? You can pick up a new box that will be much faster than your current one for about £300 so it depends how far you want to go really. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cruiser647 Posted August 7, 2008 Report Share Posted August 7, 2008 You can get AMD 64 X2's to sit in the same 939 socket. Not sure of the performance increase or if your board supports the X2? Double the RAM, replace the graphics card and away you go. If your motherboard has SATA connectors, you can replace or add to the hard discs - using the new SATA to store your work? Depends if you like tinkering or an out-of-the-box solution. Personally, I like fitting it all myself, struggling with changing the boot disc from IDE to SATA, moving other data from an another IDE to another SATA and changing all the drive letters accordingly and messing with the BIOS/Windows ooptions. Then reloading the O/S if needed. For your use, Vista will be fine. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
burble Posted August 7, 2008 Report Share Posted August 7, 2008 problems with the Video card (PCI) PCI? Does the motherboard not have an AGP slot? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paul Posted August 7, 2008 Author Report Share Posted August 7, 2008 (edited) Looks like i have made a few errors, in my rush to go out. Pentium . Meant Intel. Regarding graphics card.. Burble your right, its AGP 8x (AGP3.0) I am happy to build my own, either from scratch, or upgrade parts as required. With the improvement in graphics cards i just assumed my motherboard would not support the current cards, and they had changed the port format? Same with the CPU, I wasnt sure a jump to the fastest X2 chip would be quick enough and or worth the £££ over a new cpu/motherboard combo. The Motherboard is an Asus A8V Deluxe. Asus suggest it will take a Athlon (939 fit) 64 X2 Dual-Core 4800 or Athlon 64 FX-60 maximum. I have Coolermaster case, drives that are recent, and rarely used, decent Antec 430W Truepower powersupply (made before their standards slipped) and some form of OCZ memory 1Gb p3200 which google suggests is ddr400 and two 120Gb seagate sata drives. So i guess its upgrade what i have or swap to latest intel and change Motherboard/chip/cooler/Memory/Graphics assuming my powersupply has the latest plugs required to power up a new board.. Edited August 7, 2008 by Paul Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cruiser647 Posted August 7, 2008 Report Share Posted August 7, 2008 Looks like i have made a few errors, in my rush to go out. Pentium . Meant Intel. Regarding graphics card.. Burble your right, its AGP 8x (AGP3.0) I am happy to build my own, either from scratch, or upgrade parts as required. With the improvement in graphics cards i just assumed my motherboard would not support the current cards, and they had changed the port format? Same with the CPU, I wasnt sure a jump to the fastest X2 chip would be quick enough and or worth the £££ over a new cpu/motherboard combo. The Motherboard is an Asus A8V Deluxe. Asus suggest it will take a Athlon (939 fit) 64 X2 Dual-Core 4800 or Athlon 64 FX-60 maximum. I have Coolermaster case, drives that are recent, and rarely used, decent Antec 430W Truepower powersupply (made before their standards slipped) and some form of OCZ memory 1Gb p3200 which google suggests is ddr400 and two 120Gb seagate sata drives. So i guess its upgrade what i have or swap to latest intel and change Motherboard/chip/cooler/Memory/Graphics assuming my powersupply has the latest plugs required to power up a new board.. Are you ever going to do anything more with the machine other than surf and MS Office stuff? If not, upgrade the CPU and add RAM Hints of anything else and you should eBay it and start again. Keep the drives, for the next machine. Graphics in PCI (Express) is cheaper and faster now. DDR2 & DDR3 RAM is cheaply available CPU wise - You can't go wrong with AMD or the Intel offering. I recently got shot of my P4 3Ghz, 1Gb RAM, MSi board and 7600GS card for £70, the bits I replaced it with were just over double that! So hardly much at all for a faster machine. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paul Posted August 7, 2008 Author Report Share Posted August 7, 2008 Internet and office stuff would prety much cover my usage. I have actually got it running at the moment. I took the card out, dusted it off, and reseated it. Commercially, X2 939 stuff is pretty rare by my brief searching, but there does seem to be a few going on ebay. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paul Posted August 7, 2008 Author Report Share Posted August 7, 2008 Its just died again. I cannot be sure if its the graphics card, or the motherboard supplying it, and as upgrades on cpu are restricted to ebay only, then i think the time has come for a change. Looking at Intel Q6600 , board, cooler, memory and graphics card (DVI out) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cruiser647 Posted August 7, 2008 Report Share Posted August 7, 2008 Its just died again.I cannot be sure if its the graphics card, or the motherboard supplying it, and as upgrades on cpu are restricted to ebay only, then i think the time has come for a change. Looking at Intel Q6600 , board, cooler, memory and graphics card (DVI out) Fair enough! Should be a fast machine! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sponge Posted August 7, 2008 Report Share Posted August 7, 2008 (edited) Internet and office stuff would prety much cover my usage. Would something like this do? Dell Inspiron 530 Q6600 2GB PC Base Unit - Tesco.Direct (There's a £15 discount code doing the rounds and don't forget Quidco cashback aswell. ) My dad picked one up this week and it's more than adequate for such tasks. In fact, it's positively nippy. There's space to upgrade the graphics card, should you want something faster. But bear in mind the 350W PSU might need upgrading if you do. My dad commented on it only having 2GB of RAM. So I bought 2x1GB from Crucial at under £30 and fitted them this afternoon. (I'm aware of the 32bit memory issue.) Oh, and one more thing, I couldn't believe how quiet it is, it's practically silent. Edited August 7, 2008 by Sponge Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paul Posted August 7, 2008 Author Report Share Posted August 7, 2008 Yes it probably would , however i am sort of leaning towards another self build. It will probably cost more, but i do like building my own. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sponge Posted August 7, 2008 Report Share Posted August 7, 2008 No problem. My dad wanted a new PC and I was going to build him one, probably around that processor. In the end I just couldn't be arsed with the hassle and with that tower costing, in the end, £286 (not counting cashback or clubcard) I couldn't resist it. :D Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RobK Posted August 8, 2008 Report Share Posted August 8, 2008 Hardware is just so cheap at the moment. I've just ordered some bits to make a server box: Intel Core2 E2180, 4GB Ram, motherboard with built in RAID 5 and VGA, tower case and PSU. Came to £110 plus VAT! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Se5aScott Posted August 8, 2008 Report Share Posted August 8, 2008 Would something like this do?Dell Inspiron 530 Q6600 2GB PC Base Unit - Tesco.Direct (There's a £15 discount code doing the rounds and don't forget Quidco cashback aswell. ) My dad picked one up this week and it's more than adequate for such tasks. In fact, it's positively nippy. There's space to upgrade the graphics card, should you want something faster. But bear in mind the 350W PSU might need upgrading if you do. My dad commented on it only having 2GB of RAM. So I bought 2x1GB from Crucial at under £30 and fitted them this afternoon. (I'm aware of the 32bit memory issue.) Oh, and one more thing, I couldn't believe how quiet it is, it's practically silent. Not sure about the newer models, but older dell machines had a proprietary connector from the psu. So you would have to pay dell prices for a replacement or do a spot of rewiring. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sponge Posted August 8, 2008 Report Share Posted August 8, 2008 (edited) It looks generic and there are lots of people on hotukdeals that have bought this PC and replaced the PSU. Edited August 8, 2008 by Sponge Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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