Re: Advice On Upgrade Please

"skint" <skint4sure@xxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:1154279298.192355.176160@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
A friend of mine has recently inherited an old pc and wants to make it
more up to date.
I've not been able to find out the make and model of the mobo but have
found out the following:

AMD Duron Processor with 112mb ram
x86 Family 6 Model 3 Stepping 1 Authentic AMD 796 mhz
ibm dtla 30715 hard drive?

What type of ram would I need to upgrade this pc

It could be either ordinary SDRAM (168 pin DIMMs) or DDR SDRAM (184 pin
DIMMs); given the processor clockspeed, most likely the former. However, the
motherboard may well be slightly "fussy" about module types. I strongly
recommend you find out the make and model of the motherboard and buy RAM
guaranteed compatible from Crucial (http://www.crucial.com/uk/). I suggest
upgrading to at least 256MB.

and would the SIS 900 PCI FAst Etrhernet Adaptor inside the case enable
the pc to be set up to a wireless internet connection from another pc?

I am not sure what you mean. If you want the computer to be wirelessly
connected to the Internet, your best bet is to buy a wireless adaptor for
it. But unless wires are inconvenient, I would wire it to a router using the
Ethernet adaptor already present.

Other possible upgrades:
- Hard disc: if it is still working OK, the hard disc you mention (IBM
Deskstar 75GXP 15GB) is pretty fast but rather small by today's standards.
You almost certainly will not be able to use drives larger than 137GB unless
you add a PCI adaptor and are running up-to-date Windows XP.

- Processor: you may be able to pick up a compatible Athlon cheaply (second
hand). You need to find the motherboard make and model to establish what is
compatible though.

- Graphics: if (as it seems is likely) you are using on-board graphics, a
graphics card with dedicated memory would offer some general performance
improvement, especially when using high resolutions and/or colour depths.

Alex


.

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