Tell what to upgrade to OverClock, upgrading soon!!

Hi everyone,
I've been lost for a while and have not been albe to keep up with
trends. My computer has been rebooting for no reason lately, I think
it's the m/b or Windows trying to con people into upgrading to Vista.
I"m considering just buying a NEW DELL for around $800, but I think
upgrading is a better use of that money.
I do mostly gaming, Warrock, Thief and similar, some photo editing and
movie watching, the rest is basic computer use.

This is what I have:
Maxtor Hard drive : 6L200R0
Maxtor Hard drive : 6L300R0
NVIDIA GeForce Ti 4200
NEC DVD_RW ND-3520A
Plextor CD-R PX-W8432T
Standard Floppy Drive
Logitech QuickCam
Standard USB Kybd
Logitech Cordless USB Opitcal mouse
MSI 865PE NEO2-V 478 m/b
Intel P4 CPU 2.20 GHz
SB Audigy sound card
CASE: I think it's an ANTEC- about 2-3 yrs old

Thanks for any input and advise you guys can offer.

nospamplz@ibm.com wrote:
> Hi everyone,
> I've been lost for a while and have not been albe to keep up with
> trends. My computer has been rebooting for no reason lately, I think
> it's the m/b or Windows trying to con people into upgrading to Vista.
> I"m considering just buying a NEW DELL for around $800, but I think
> upgrading is a better use of that money.
> I do mostly gaming, Warrock, Thief and similar, some photo editing and
> movie watching, the rest is basic computer use.
>
> This is what I have:
> Maxtor Hard drive : 6L200R0
> Maxtor Hard drive : 6L300R0
> NVIDIA GeForce Ti 4200
> NEC DVD_RW ND-3520A
> Plextor CD-R PX-W8432T
> Standard Floppy Drive
> Logitech QuickCam
> Standard USB Kybd
> Logitech Cordless USB Opitcal mouse
> MSI 865PE NEO2-V 478 m/b
> Intel P4 CPU 2.20 GHz
> SB Audigy sound card
> CASE: I think it's an ANTEC- about 2-3 yrs old
>
> Thanks for any input and advise you guys can offer.

These are your alternatives.

1) Fix the current computer and continue to use it.

2) Assuming the motherboard is not defective, fix whatever
is wrong, then upgrade some of the components in the
computer. The fastest S478 processor you can get runs
at about 3.4GHz. The fastest video card for AGP, will be
an HD3850 AGP (announced but not yet shipping). You can
purchase an ATI 1950Pro AGP, if you needed the card right
away. I suspect they cleared the inventory of 1950Pro AGP,
to make way for the new one. Nvidia also has some nice AGP
cards, but you'll have to find them second hand, as I think
Nvidia is about done with AGP.

3) Keep the computer case and the peripherals. Purchase a
new motherboard, processor, RAM (cheap DDR2), new video
card. Which I described in another post I wrote to you.

To fix the current computer, this is a rough guide.

1) Disabled "automatic reboot" in the appropriate control panel.
If the problem is a regular crash, the result would be a
BSOD (blue screen of death), and some error information.
You could also check the Event Viewer, and see if an error
is logged at the point of crash. If a software module name is
associated with the crash (say NVAGP, just to make up a name),
that might tell you the video card has a problem. Or the
drivers need to be refreshed or upgraded.

2) Do basic tests. Memtest86+ to test the memory. Disk drive
manufacturer downloadable diagnostic programs to test the
hard drives. Prime95 to test that the computer doesn't have a
heat or power related problem (falls over, as soon as the
processor runs at 100% loading).

3) Simple visual observation. Are there "bad capacitors" near the
CPU socket ? Are there brown stains near the caps ? Did the CPU
heatsink fall off ? Are all the fans spinning properly ?
Take the side off and have a look.

http://www.badcaps.net/images/caps/kt7/image004.png

4) Use the hardware monitor in the BIOS. Or use a program like Speedfan.
What do the power supply voltages look like ? When you run Prime95,
and have Speedfan open at the same time, do the 3.3, 5, or 12V rails
measured in Speedfan, go outside the allowed +/-5% variation ?

Those are a few things you can try. The more specific details of
the crash that you can capture, and include in your post, the more
specific feedback you can get.

Paul

Unknown, who didn't bother with a signature, and who must remain nameless,
wrote:

| I've been lost for a while and have not been albe to keep up with
| trends. My computer has been rebooting for no reason lately, I think
| it's the m/b or Windows trying to con people into upgrading to Vista.
| I"m considering just buying a NEW DELL for around $800, but I think
| upgrading is a better use of that money.
| I do mostly gaming, Warrock, Thief and similar, some photo editing and
| movie watching, the rest is basic computer use.
|
| This is what I have:
| Maxtor Hard drive : 6L200R0
| Maxtor Hard drive : 6L300R0
| NVIDIA GeForce Ti 4200
| NEC DVD_RW ND-3520A
| Plextor CD-R PX-W8432T
| Standard Floppy Drive
| Logitech QuickCam
| Standard USB Kybd
| Logitech Cordless USB Opitcal mouse
| MSI 865PE NEO2-V 478 m/b
| Intel P4 CPU 2.20 GHz
| SB Audigy sound card
| CASE: I think it's an ANTEC- about 2-3 yrs old
|
| Thanks for any input and advise you guys can offer.
_____

Don't spend any money in piecemeal upgrading if you are contemplating
spending $800 or more for a new Dell. Your only current items worth using
in an upgraded system are the optical drives, keyboard, floppy, webcam,
mouse, sound card, and case. Perhaps the power supply may ok, but it may be
time to replace it for reliability, if for no other reason. As for the hard
drives, I have no idea of the capacity of the Maxtor drives you list, but
500 GByte 7200 rpm 16 MByte cache drives are down to ~ $100 US.

As for the core items, it is time to replace the whole block:

#1. Your Intel Pentium 4 2.2 GHz CPU is quite old and can't compete with
even the cheapest modern Intel CPU (even the ~ $50 US Core 2 Duo Celeron
equivalent.

#2. Your motherboard is quite old and will not support the Core 2 Duo Intel
CPUs.

#3. Your memory is quite old, and will not work with a modern motherboard
(any new memory should be at least DDR2)

#4. Your video card is quite old, and AGP to boot. You won't be able to
use it in any modern motherboard, and it will not perform satisfactorily
with even moderately demanding games published in the last few years (even
Civilization IV, for example will be barely playable with a Ti 4200)

What will $800 US buy you? Well, a LOT more power than you now have, 10
times perhaps.

CPU: $130 US = an Intel Core 2 Duo specified for about 2 GHz that will
easily overclock to 3 GHz with stock cooling and perhaps even lower than
specified core voltage

Motherboard: $130 US = an Intel chipset motherboard that is overclocking
friendly and that supports the all the Intel CPUs available in 2007 and 2008
plus DDR2 memory and PCI-e video cards.

Video Card: $230 to $300 US = an nVidia 8800 GTS or GT

Memory: $80 US = 2 GBytes of DDR2 PC 800

Hard Drive: $100 US = 500 GByte 7200 rpm 16 MByte cache SATA

Power supply: $70 US = Antec Neo 550 HE 550 watt ATX+12v ver 2.03

You haven't mentioned the operating system you have, but it may be time to
upgrade that also. Your system failings are hardly caused by Microsoft
pushing Vista, but you might want to consider a clean install of your
present operating system if it isn't XP or later. Even though Windows 2000
is quite a bit more stable than the Windows operating systems built around
DOS, a clean reinstall every few years usually helps quite a bit.

You will get quite a few variations on the list of new items I gave, but
choosing the components of a new system is part of the fun. For example,
going to a Q6600 QUAD will only add another $130 US or so the bill.

Phil Weldon


<nospamplz@ibm.com> wrote in message
news:c5l5p39litb4hvsc1e4hduiftgfh7lr238@4ax.com...
| Hi everyone,
| I've been lost for a while and have not been albe to keep up with
| trends. My computer has been rebooting for no reason lately, I think
| it's the m/b or Windows trying to con people into upgrading to Vista.
| I"m considering just buying a NEW DELL for around $800, but I think
| upgrading is a better use of that money.
| I do mostly gaming, Warrock, Thief and similar, some photo editing and
| movie watching, the rest is basic computer use.
|
| This is what I have:
| Maxtor Hard drive : 6L200R0
| Maxtor Hard drive : 6L300R0
| NVIDIA GeForce Ti 4200
| NEC DVD_RW ND-3520A
| Plextor CD-R PX-W8432T
| Standard Floppy Drive
| Logitech QuickCam
| Standard USB Kybd
| Logitech Cordless USB Opitcal mouse
| MSI 865PE NEO2-V 478 m/b
| Intel P4 CPU 2.20 GHz
| SB Audigy sound card
| CASE: I think it's an ANTEC- about 2-3 yrs old
|
| Thanks for any input and advise you guys can offer.