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DavidNW

DavidNW

Big Geek
My girlfriend's PC runs very slow - no surprise when the specs are:

Motherboard: ASUStek Computer INC. KM7 1 .XX
Bus Clock: 100 MHz
BIOS American Megatrends INC. 627.10 01/19/2000
128 Mbs of RAM (in slot 1 - slots 2 & 3 are empty).
550 MHz AMD Athlon

Unbelievably, to me at least, she's running XP SP2 (albeit is crawling).

My first thought is to scrap the PC (or at least the motherboard) and start again. However, she's really strapped for cash. I'm just wondering if I could put some more RAM in it for her + upgrade the processor, but I have not been able to get hold of a manual for the motherboard to see if this is possible.

Has anyone any ideas as to whether the PC could be upgraded or thoughts as to whether it's actually worth it?

Many thanks,

David
 
David said:
My girlfriend's PC runs very slow
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check out this thread, & bear in mind that you don't need to spend a :swear:ing load to upgrade, in fact there are some cheap mobo's for around £30 that will probably do the job fine
David said:
I have not been able to get hold of a manual for the motherboard
Click to expand...
the settings are probably written on the mobo
David said:
550 MHz
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you won't be able to run that socket 7 mobo any faster (unless you throw a faster CPU at it and let the mobo think your actually overclocking, but i reality you'll just be either underclocking the CPU or running it with a different bus speed and multiplier but it's probably an old AT case & PSU

things you will need to upgrade:
  • an ATX case
  • an ATX PSU
  • an ATX mobo (just use onboard grfx)
  • P/S 2 keyboard & mouse
BTW: I've actually run XP on a 300 CPU[ot]that wasn't funny[/ot]
 
Upgrading the memory on that computer would yeild the best results. Computers that age can usually go to 256MB and you can usually pick up a 128MB stick of PC100 RAM on eBay for about £2.

I'd advise against upgrading anything else. Because it's such an old computer, upgrading the other components wouldn't improve the performance enough to justify the costs. If she was really serious above improving her PC performance, she'd be better off buying a new PC altogether.
 
I agree. RAM is the cheapest option, especially if she's not going to be doing much past websurfing and using Office.

You might dig around and see if you can obtain a 700-750MHz Slot A Athlon too for a little extra punch.

A rebuild is another option, but, that really depends on how much or little she has. At the very least, bumping up the RAM is where you should start. I think you should be able to max that board out at 768MB or 1GB.
 
ok heres one more thing u can do witout involving any cash.

Use minimum settings for your Visual Effects. Right click My Computer > Properties > Advanced Tab. Click the Settings button under Performance. Then under Visual Effects Tab click on the optionbox "adjust for best performance". Click OK

Also change the Theme to Windows Classic. Right Click on the desktop> properties. Under Themes click on the themes drop down box n click on Windows Classic. Click OK

This will free up a whole lot of system resources ...n hopefully it will make it abit faster..

i guess that mobo is using SD RAM so buying some ram also will help loads..but try my recommendations first...

oh n one more thing...u cud alwz backup the data n reinstall a previous Operating System from scratch (u cannot install a previous OS right away, u need to erase ur hard disk from bios) .. i'd recommend windows 98 or millenium edition....
 
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