i need help upgrading my computer please?

Question

i have a OptiPlex GX150 i have 1000 megahertz Intel Pentium III and 510 Megabytes Installed Memory can anyonbe tell me the cheapest easiest most idoit proof way to upgrade this hunk of junk! thanks

Answer 1

Buy a new computer, that is a piece of junk. You can get a good deal from TigerDirect.com or NewEgg.com

Answer 2

Usually the First Step in assessing it is "Can the Motherboard be Upgraded". If it can, then everything will follow from there. In most Cases this Will mean New CPU, Heat Sink, Fans, Memory, some cables.
In a GX150 Case, even IF a new Motherboard can be put in place, the Case has too many options that will not be available. For example, the USB 2 ports will have to go on a PCI slot.
Overall, with the amount of GX150s that Corporations are dumping, its not cost effective to do a GX 150 upgrade

Answer 3

It would not be worth upgrading that machine. It will be cheaper to buy a whole new computer. The components for older machines, like memory chips, get more expensive after a while, because no machines use them anymore. Plus, any upgrades you make will be limited by your old motherboard, power supply, etc., so you'd have to upgrade those, too. You'd end up with mostly a whole new computer anyway, but at a much higher cost.

New PCs start at about US$600, and are much, much faster and better than any upgraded Pentium III could ever be. And that is cheaper than spending tons on new memory, hard drive, etc. for your old PC.

Have fun shopping!

Answer 4

There is nothing wrong with your computer, I have a few computers on a home network, My 600 mhz pc is still running just fine. You can upgrade the RAM and Video card, that would help you run better games and programs. Just keep in mind, a lot of newer programs will require more than what you have, but it shoult still run fine. The other option woulf be to research your mother board and find out if you can upgrade the processor, Otherwise, look into a newer computer with better resources. Hope this answered your question. Some newer programs require 1.7 or higher speed processors.

Answer 5

I also think you should just get a new computer. Without knowing the motherboard specs, I'm guessing you would be a bit limited in the choices in processor upgrades. If you are firm on keeping this computer, check motherboard limitations for available processor upgrades. Max out the RAM. Guessing you may also be limited by hard drive buss, but you could also get a 128 Gig 7200 RPM hard drive (your HD buss may limit you to 128 gigs or smaller)

After all that I still think you will be spending more money on upgrading than you would on getting a new machine. There is no way your current machine will ever run Vista.

Answer 6

it is only a 'pile of junk' if it does not work.
seriously, for just about anything but games and the likes of video editing your pc will do the job.
upgrading would really be a costly option and for the amount that you could actually upgrade it, it is really not worth it.
i would suggest keeping that as a spare and going for a much newer model.
most new motherboards offer built in graphics, sound and network card.
a 3.2 gig amd 64 cpu is under £50 in places (including fan and heatsink), 1 gig of ram can be bought for a reasonable price, this leaves tower, hard drive, cd rom, could even start with 512 ram and use the old hard drive.
with a little looking around you could get a decent spec for a couple of hundred quid, then add better graphics, sound (if needed) bigger hard drive and more ram.

Answer 7

Ebuyer is a good place to start
http://www.ebuyer.com/customer/home/
All depends on what you want to do with your comp, if its high tech gaming then specs be prob 3700Mhz Pentium 4 (duo is too expensive so dont buy it yet) 2 gig of ram, graphics card being anything from geforce 7800 upwards. Warning ram memory is prob most expensive out of that list, followed by graphics card then processor and then motherboard.

If you are just downloading like music, storing work essays etc then change the motherboard and processor to 3.5Giga hertz and pentium 4, Ram at 512 is good enough, forget about the graphics card.

Ebuyer is best place to get electronic equipment, plus on that you can check if the product you want to buy has good reviews or not.
Further more I give you a link on how to build a comp...
http://evileddiec.zoomshare.com/files/How_To_Build_A_Computer.pdf
Further more don't just buy one, they tend to just give you old parts or rip you off. Cheaper and better to build your own. Any problems email me at [e-mail]. Good luck

Answer 8

Save some money for a new one. Meanwhile, get UBUNTU (or XUBUNTU if your computer has less than 256MB of RAM).

It's a free, reliable and up to date operating system.

You can explore it from the "LIVE CD".

It's easy to install and use. You can dual boot it with other operating systems.

Once you have it installed, you gain access to thousands of free programs created by the open source community. There is excellent support - see the WIKI starter guide, and the Linux forums.

Always back up your data before making changes to your computer.

Answer 9

sure, improve to a minimum of 2Gb, the recent standard. bypass to the dell internet site and to confirm what sort you opt for. could desire to be everywhere from $20-40. this might heavily strengthen your computers overall performance. computers have become greater low priced, and you'd be able to get an outstanding twin middle processor for $500 and a minimum of 2Gb's of ram and an extremely roomy 200Gb difficult force. in case you opt for to make that bounce. you in all probability can no longer improve the snap shots card in that laptop when you consider that PCI convey did no longer quite come on that many computers decrease back then, so in case you improve the whole laptop and then improve the snap shots card for a a procedures stronger laptop than the single you have perfect now.

Answer 10

pentium 3 processors are a few years old now but they are still quite good for certain tasks
you could think of overclocking the processor but the p3 chips used to get very hot,so some clever cooling would have to be used to do this
probally the best way to improve this would be first leave the processor unchanged,its too dangerous trying to improve its clock speed
then go to http://www.crucial.com/ and run the on-line scanner ,this will give you a report on what type of memory your p.c uses and how much it can hold,if possible then try to upgrade it by another 256mb,this will only cost around £25 for sd-ram(http://www.misco.co.uk/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=236440&CatId=790)which your p.c probally uses
then a cheap graphic upgrade would vastly improve performance,for less than £28 you can get a nvidia geforce 6200(http://www.misco.co.uk/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=259450&CatId=0),ok its not a high end card but its got 128mb of video ram and has pixel and shader model 3.0,thats capable of playing most modern titles
a new sound card is a good investment,especially when you only have a onboard audio controller,installing a pci sound card is quite inexpensive,you can get a creative soundblaster audigy s.e(http://www.misco.co.uk/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=236150&CatId=0)for less than £18,this will vastly improve your p.c,s sound,a great upgrade if you like listening to music
finally if you have spent money on all these upgrades you might as well show them off in a new case,for less than £24 you can buy a lovely midi case that will finish off your ageing p.c and make it look like a modern p.c
from my reckoning thats a outlay of £95 to turn a old p.c into something that will look pride of place in any modern office or gaming room
i upgrade old p.c,s as a hobby so this is why i love advising on this subject
oh yes,no p.c is a pile of junk so dont listen to any of those other answers,a old p.c is a challenge to me
would you let me know if you do the upgrade ,it would be good to hear how it went on
good luck mate

Answer 11

for it to have a 1gig processor it must be at least 6 years old you can't really do much with it upgrade wise for a start you couldn't get the bits for it these days at 512meg memory that's reasonable.
if your windows installation is old you would get a performance increase if you wipe the hard disk and reinstall windows otherwise the only alternative is to buy a new computer