It is currently use for internet, gaming, the occasional video. The budget is fairly modest. How loud it is is not very important.
The specs currently are. CPU-AMD Athalon PECM 1.3ghz Thunderbird chipset Mobo-ASUS A7V-Ml RAM-255mb SDRAM Mobo Chipset-VIA VT836(A) Apollo KL133(A)/VT8365(A) ProsavageKml 133(A) Sound-Built in Video-Built in Hard drive-Fujitsu MPG3409AT E (40Gb, 5400rpm ultra-ATA/100) Optical Drive-TOSHIBA DVD-ROM SD-M1502 (16x/48x DVD-ROM)
These are some of the items i am considering. Please let me know if there is a conflict. AMD Athlon XP3000+ / 512KB Cache / 333MHz FSB / Socket A / Barton Core SimpleTech 512MB PC133 SDRAM 133MHz Memory XFX GeForce MX 4000 / 128MB DDR / AGP 8X / VGA / TV Out / Video Card Maxtor / 120GB / 5400 / 2MB / ATA-133 / EIDE Hard Drive Turtle Beach Riviera 5.1 Soundcard/5.1 Speakers NEC ND3520 / 16x6x16x DVD-RW / 16x8x16x DVD+RW / 4x DVD+R DL / 48x24x48x CD-RW / Black / Dual Layer / OEM DVD Burner with Nero software
you have an old HP computer, right? the motherboard does not accept DDR memory, only sdram. so your choice for memory seems like a good one. I don't think your motherboard supports a 333Mhz front side bus, so dont waste your money on the 3000+ barton. If you want to upgrade the processor, stick with something with a 266 FSB. You could try an Athlon 3000+ mobile chip (lower power consumption, and it runs on a 266 FSB). Get a 7200 rpm hard drive with a 8MB buffer, that will speed things up a lot if your power supply can handle it. Price difference is pretty minimal. When you add the video card, make sure to disable the onboard video. Good burner, dont know anything about your soundcard, I use an Audigy.
run this program & add 30% to total to see if psu is powerfull enough or not before adding new components. calculate with new parts chosen but not bought yet. http://www.jscustompcs.com/power_supply/Power_Supply_Calculator.php?cmd=INTEL
Thank you for your help. I have discovered it was not to much more than I had planed to build a new pc. You cant beat much better stuff for about 200 dollars more. I do plan to upgrade this pc evnentually. I am currently learning bout setting up a dual boot with suse.
if your gonna do a dual boot with SUSE, you have to remember that you will only be able to partition Windows in FAT32, as linux does not support NTFS... and that Windows and SUSE will have to be on seperate hard drives... and thats prety much all there is to know about the dual boot with SUSE...
then thats all you need....like i said in last post the only other thing to remember is that both HDD's have to be partitioned with FAT32 file system as SUSE cannot use NTFS....other then that youre set...
