Hi, I was thinking of getting a Internal Hard Drive maybe around 100+ gb. I know that there are two type if not more, I have heard of SATA HDD and IDE HDD. I have a feeling that i need an IDE HDD How do i know what kind of Internal HDD that i should buy? like the, mb cache or serial ATA150 and theirs Ultra ATA100-- These are somethings that i dont know what it means Second things are the Rams, right now i have about 512mb of Memory. BUT i heard about like, u have to have pc3200 or pc2700 for the compatiablity which i dont know nothing about. and like the pin 184 or the SDRAM and DDR which is so confusing. Can anyone point me to the right directions of buying new somewhat of upgrades to my pc.. Thanks in advance!
Mather, you're going to have to be as specific as possible. We can't see into your computer case over the internet!! You'll need to let us know what you have, and if you don't want to open the case to find out, you can use a simply utility called BIOS Agent, or CPU-Z to identify your main system components. From there, the good people here can point the way to your upgrade path! BIOS Agent: http://www.unicore.com/biosagent/index.cfm CPU-Z: http://www.cpuid.com/cpuz.php
Alright this is what it says: [PC] OS: winxp pro directx: DirectX 9.0c [Motherboard] CPU Type: Intel p4 2018 mhz (20 x 101) Motherboard Name: Asus P4S333 (6 PCI, 1 AGP, 3 DDR DIMM) Motherboard Chipset: SiS 645 System Memory: 512mb (PC2100 DDR SDRAM) Bio Type: Award Medallion (12/20/01) [Display] video adapter: Radeon 8500 Video adapter: Radeon 8500 (128mb) 3d accelerator: ATI Radeon 8500 (R200) [storage] IDE Controller: SiS PCI IDE Controller SCSI/RAID Controller: A347SCSI SCSI conroller disk drive: WDC WD400BB-00DEA0 (37 GB,IDE) oh and thanks for the program, i didnt know it has it
You need 184-pin DDR memory. You have PC2100 right now, but the highest supported is PC2700. For best performance, you should take out that stick of 512MB RAM and buy two sticks of 512MB PC2700(DDR333)RAM. OR you could buy another stick of PC2100 RAM, but that wouldn't boost your peformance as much. As for the hard drive, you need IDE UltraATA100 or IDE UltraATA66. The first one is better. I would suggest investing in a new motherboard that has support for faster RAM and a better hard drive interface.
Thanks Ragnarok2, Can i mix the pc2100 ram with pc2700 512mb ram? and what brand do u recommand ? edit: what does unbuffer means?
Mather Based on what you have at the present time, I would suggest that you only spend money on a HDD, ATA100 or ATA133 with at least 8mb mb cache and only if you are running out of free space on your HDD. What is the size of your HDD now and how much free space do you have on it?
Yes you can mix the RAM. If you mixed the PC2100 RAM with PC2700 RAM, then BOTH sticks of RAM would run at PC2100 because RAM needs to run at one speed, and obviously PC2100 RAM can't operate at PC2700 speeds. Like I said, best option for that motherboard would be to buy two new sticks of PC2700 RAM, but the first option will work as well. Kingston, Corsair, Mushkin, and OCZ are all great brands of RAM. You're Welcome!
You need unbuffered memory. Buffered(registered) memory is more stable but slower, and is primarily used in servers.
ANY HDD, even ATA133 will run on a ATA100 platform. It's just the transfer speed of the HDD, that's all, and when he upgrades, he can use the ATA133 advantage. We are not talking about memory, we are talking about HDD's.
Yeah I guess...If he plans on upgrading his motherboard. Actually, if he plans on upgrading, he should buy the motherboard first and then buy the components.
My HDD is only 40gb Western Digital. i only have about 10gb left. so basically the HDD and Ram are my primarily problem. I want to get the rams so i can run my pc's performance faster. Bcuz i have a geforce 5700fx 256mb video card in hand and when i switch with my radeon slowed down my pc so much, like when i open up more then 2 windows it will freeeze and i have to wait about 30 sec to a min for it to unfreeze. so i think that i need a extra pc2100's 512mb ram total of 1gb pc2100 memory to run smoothly. For the HDD i want to get about 100-200gb either Western Digital or Seagate (two that someone recommended to me) and about the cache, should it matter if i gotten a high like 8 or 16 mb cache? About the Motherboard, i wouldnt know how to even take out the whole thing from my tower so i'm not gonna mess with that. and i just want to have my pc run smoothly when i'm playing a game or anything that takes up alot of cpu's like Photoshop..etc Reason bcuz i dont have enough money to upgrade everything so i'll just want until i'll get a newer updated pc in the future. Thanks for helping me and i learned few new things about my computer that i have for 3 years. LOL
Yeah another stick of 512MB PC2100 RAM would indeed help boost your PC's performance. As for the 8MB or 16MB cache, 16 is obviously better, but if you see one with 8MB cache that you like don't be afraid to buy it because the cache doesnt matter that much, the important thing is the data transfer speed. Good Luck!
Make sure you get a spindle speed of at least 7,200 rpm's along with at least 8mb or cache. Maxtor has been very good to me and my builds so I would not hesitate on that brand of HDD as well.
Thanks alot u two, the info u provide me with has been great. now i know what to look for. *goes shopping* Thanks again!
