Hello everyone. I think i have achieved the peak of my PC as what used to cream past 5 or 6 fat processes now struggles to handle 3 or 4 little ones and what used to take 2 minutes, now takes 10 and so on... It's defragmented regularly, it's scanned regularly with norton 2k5 as well. Now, i was thinking about a RAM memory upgrade, tried to look in the usual places but there's so many diferent ones and i don't know what i'm looking at, lol... I have a 3 year old P4 @2.4 Gb, RAM is 512Mb, and my HDD is of about 80 GB... I bought it as a package but it was good stuff when i bought it. As finances are a bit short at the moment, i was thinking about something in the lines of a 1Gb Ram, possibly (maybe not necessary) a new processor, and definetly a new HDD. Any advice would be welcome. Thanks.
run these to see if there is a performance improvement. download, update & run in this order. ccleaner http://www.ccleaner.com/ cwshredder http://www.intermute.com/products/cwshredder.html ad-aware se http://www.download.com/Ad-Aware-SE-Personal-Edition/3000-8022_4-... spybot s&d http://www.majorgeeks.com/download2471.html online virus & spyware scan http://housecall60.trendmicro.com/en/start_corp.asp what is your board cpu limit? how many ram slots do you have & how many is occupied?
@ DDP Sorry mate, been away with work. Here's what i can tell you about my thing: Motherboard: MicroStar MS-6533 CPU Support Supports Socket 478 for Intel P4 processors Supports from 1.5GHz to 2.0GHz Chipset SiS 650 Chipset Supports 400 MHz FSB UltraDMA/100/66 IDE Controller Memory 2 x 184-pin DDR DIMM Supports maximum memory of 2GB Expansion Slots 1 x 32-bit AGP 4X slot 3 x 32-bit PCI slots 1 x CNR slot onboard IO 2 x PS/2 ports for Keyboard and Mouse 2 x USB ports 1 x Ethernet (RJ45) LAN port 1 x Parallel port 1 x Serial port 1 x VGA port 1 x Audio port 1 x Game port onboard IDE 2 x UltraDMA/100/66 IDE channels Supports up to four IDE devices LAN RealTek RTL8100L 10/100 Mbps Fast Ethernet Controller Audio AC'97 link controller integrated in SiS 961 RealTek ALC201A/202A Audio Codec Video Integrated RealTek 256-bit 2D/3D Graphics Engine Dimension micro ATX Form Factor: 24.4 cm x 23.1 cm I think i have 2 slots occupied, A0 and A1 Bank - 0/1 Capacity - 256MB Data width - 64 bits Form factor - DIMM The other is the same but on bank 2/3. My processor is a GenuineIntel x86 family 15 model 2 stepping 4 (whatever that means) Max clock speed: 2.390 MHz, External Clock: 100 MHz. A little explanation on this processor line would be usefull... I hope i answered your question as this is as much as i know... \o/ Thanks mate.
@permiggs If you have a 2.4 P4 currently, the highest you could go with a 478 socket would be possibly a 3.4 Northwood. I said possibly since you might only have the ability to go to a 2.8 P4 depending on your board and its bios. (The latter is more then likely the case.) I would stick with some memory upgrades first and make sure you have done what ddp suggested in his post. As far as the HDD, how much space are you using currently on your 80 gig?
Out of DDP's prog's the only one i didn't have was ccleaner. Not much different as i use those almost on a daily basis... I had a reformat recently so i only bothered in restoring back the necessary for homework (Autocad, Solidworks, MS Office... the usual as you know), so i only have about 24Gb used now. Before i had about 68Gb used, coudn't even defrag... I was told at my local Pc shop that i can have a 1Gb RAM upgrade for about £40 and that was including VAT and install... Up to 2.0GHz? How much is mine? And how important is that? Sorry mate, all i know is P4 2.4Gb... This is in your sig, how can i find out this info on my pc, and what is it exactly (3.4HT @3.74 etc)? Thanks mate.
http://www.msi.com.tw/program/products/mainboard/mbd/pro_mbd_detail.php?UID=45 I'm not sure that the link above will work but from what I've found out about your M/Board, the lastest bios only accepts a P4 2.6. With that said, it would be a hugh waste of money to upgrade from a 2.4 to a 2.6. And with that said, if speed is what you are after, it is time for a new build or PC.
Gee... Thanks... lol... I really cant afford another pc as i just bought a TFT screen and a new burner... What do you think will be the difference if i just upgrade to some more RAM and perhaps a new HDD? Will i be able to do my drawings (SolidWorks mainly), listen to music while downloading a film off the net? That's what i used to be able to do and now it struggles... I would have thought it would be a bit more reliable after only 3 years... Thanks Bud.
OK, find a HDD that has a spindal speed of at least 7,200 rpm and at least 8MB cache such as a Maxtor 160 which your bios can handle. Your M/B can handle up to 2 gig's of ram so go ahead if you want to add some more. Use the new HDD as your master and keep the 80 gig as a slave if you upgrade. Make sure your system is clean of all viruses and spyware and good luck.
I've done it, cleared about 30Mb. It's a good one, the one i had before for that purpose was window washer 5. I got it changed... But over the past year i had recovered over 2Gb with it...
