pc upgrade (major) - Advice

[scroots]

me and a few mates are doing a few pc upgrades/building for a project.

We have accquired a pc (its very old), specs:

RAM 32MB (2 strips of 16 unsure what sort, also two empty slots left))
AT case?(thats what i was told)
600MB hd
floppy drive
4X CD drive
we where unable to determine the proceser/speed as it didn't say at boot up and we had no mouse. Also the heatsink is stuck to the processor.

waht advice would you give about it, it runs windows 95. We are going on a hunt to find some bits to make it more useable, what reccomendations would you give?

Also is it true that they don't make mother boards for AT cases anymore?

scroots

[oracleguy]

You could put a faster CD drive in that would help. You could put a slightly bigger hd in but the bios might not support more than 8gb. It is gonna have at best a ATA 33 hard drive controller so its gonna be kinda sluggish.

If its an AT case then its probably a Pentium 1 or lower (or similar). So if its a pentium we are talking 233MHz and less. If it is an AMD it could have a K6 or K6-2 in it so like 300MHz or less. And if it is of that era it is most definetly using SIMMS although some late model pentium 1 mobos had dimm slots. And it could be EDO simms, which you have to run in pairs. You might be able to dig some up somewhere and put more ram in.

On the bottom of pentiums it should list the speed on it. Or if it is even a pentium, it could be an AMD or even cyrix.

Beyond the upgrades I listed, there isn't much you can do to it. You'd be better off building a new system.

[scroots]

thanks for your advice, the suggestion of building a new system isn't that feasable. We have some people out on a hunt for any free parts they can get and someone else has an old pc, so that may be slighlty better.

we where unsure about the processor make, there was a pentium sticker on the pc case, but that doesn't necessarly mean it is one.

well thansk for your advice, i will proably need some more in the future when everyone has brought in there spare parts etc.

scroots

[Roy Sinclair]

If the PC still runs and will do the job you need it to do then use it and don't worry about it's age, speed or anything else that's really not relevant to the job it's needed for. If it's not quite up to task and a simple (or inexpensive) upgrade will make the difference then by all means do it.

If you can boot into Windows then you need to overcome your lack of a mouse by learning the keyboard commands. Ctrl-Esc will bring up the start menu and you can use the arrow keys to navigate the menu and the enter key to select menu items.

Find and run the system information program to get the information the OS knows about the processor (type and speed), memory and the like. I'm not sure exactly what you need to look for since there've been a lot of OS releases since 95 came out and I've always tried to run on the NT side anyway but there should be some program you can use to get the good stuff (Alt-F4 to close a program).

[scroots]

yer i know most of the keyboard commands, its an old keyboard with no windows and right menu keys.

thanks for your advice.

scroots

[pagekeeper]

hey,

some advice, if you upgrade this i think you might be wasting your time and money just get a new one! for example people hardly want old memory anymore so, factorys stop making it and the price triples more than the newer faster ram.

Frendly advice :D

[scroots]

thanks for the advice, i can see that it isn't worth it, but its more of a learn skills type thing. We are hopefully getting some bits coming in and that will decide fully.

as its old, if we break it nobody is really that botherd.

scroots

[oracleguy]

Originally posted by pagekeeper
the price triples more than the newer faster ram.

That's not how it works in the computer industry. Old hardware never goes up in value over time like a car does.

[sage45]

As a matter of fact the price goes down... This is because most old parts you find are in fact recycled or used... And even if you do find some that are new, the only way that they would be expensive at all is if you happened to get them from someone who doesn't buy in bulk and has to make a profit on everything they sell...

-sage-