Upgrading my computer.
By TheNightFox
@TheNightFox (235)
New Zealand
January 30, 2009 1:54am CST
Ok, I tried to write this just before but then lost all my work, so forgive me if this is brief.
I want to upgrade the hardware in my computer, which is about 5-6 years old. It was custom built and best back then but not very good now. Recently I got a new hard drive, Vista and more RAM. I want to play "Left 4 Dead" so I'm basing what I get on the requirements for that. It needs 3.0 GHs processor, 1 gig RAM, 128 MB DirectX 9 graphics card and Pixel Shader 2.0 support and DirectX 9.0c compatible sound card.
My computer stats:
1.85 GHz AMD athlon XP processor
128 KB primary memory Cache
512 secondary mem cache
Main circuit board (motherboard, right?): Gigabyte technology nVidia-nForce2 1.x with bus clock: 167 MHz and BIOS: Award software international
RAM: 1.5 Gig of DDR1
Display (video/grpahics card?): ATI Radeon 9600 series.
Hard drives: I have two, and 80 GB and a 160 GB. Not sure if they are SATA, or IDE, or whatever, but they are the older type.
That covers it I think. Any more info, just ask.
If you would be so kind so as to suggest what I should upgrade, or perhaps the exact component to get, I would be very grateful.
But there is a problem. I want to keep whatever I can, ie my hard drives and RAM, and CD drives and case and all the other little stuff like monitor, speakers, mouse, keyboard, so I don't want to buy a whole new computer. But since the RAM is DDR1 and the hard drives old, the connections will probably be different, right? I don't want to have to buy a new hard drive and lose all my stuff but nor do I want to get not very good components just to fit. Any way to get around this?
Sorry, I don't know much about computer hardware.
3 responses
@armanseikh (106)
• India
30 Jan 09
i think throw this computer in a dustbin and a new computer with what configration you want. your computer is too old. firstly your mother does not support this new hardware you want. secondly in new computer you are able to make a good gaming pc. it charge is not much more than your upgrade charge. so buy new computer. have nice day friend.
@TheNightFox (235)
• New Zealand
30 Jan 09
I would like to do that, BUT what about my files?
1 person likes this
@zweeb82 (5652)
• Malaysia
31 Jan 09
Do they do trade-ins? By changing your CPU you need a new motherboard as well. DDR1 RAM is twice the price of DDR2 RAMs so get a board that supports DDR2 RAMs. Best is to trade-in if possible with the guy you're getting it from? Or if you're assembling it yourself, you could sell off your PC later or something. Since you said your HDDs are old, then they should be IDE. Like I did mention in the response above, if you're planning to use back your HDD it should be able to detect your new hardware settings since you're using Vista. Or it would be more advisable to backup all your important files before doing anything. Would be good to change to a SATA HDD & use the old IDE HDDs as backup drives. But if you change to SATA, you'd have to do a fresh Windows installation or you can Ghost it or copy it from the old IDE HDD to your new SATA HDD. In this case I think it would be good to have a motherboard that has 2 IDE ports instead of 1 so you can have more space to work around
@josephb (219)
• Malta
30 Jan 09
Well or upgrade everything or nothing .... well you have to change your CPU which then you have to change yourmotherboard , upgarde the ram(if it still fits in the new motherboard) and but a new graphics card if it doesn't fit in the new motherboard or if it's not enough
