Looking to Upgrade an Old PC

[Shruikan2]

Right now I have a HP Pavilion a316n. It is a 2003 model. Here are the Specs:

Case: Mid Tower micro ATX motherboard format HP make
PSU: 250W PSU HP make
Motherboard: microATX Format 478 socket, ASUS P4G533-LA 3 x PCI slots, No SATA connectors, supports only 1GB
CPU: Intel Celeron D 478 socket, CPU cooler that came with PC
RAM: Currently 1 GB Kingston Technologies Card (think that it may be bad tho)
Graphics card: 64MB onboard graphics accelerator
Sound card: Built in Sound
Hard Drive(s): 80GB Seagate IDE hard drive
Optical Drive(s): DVD Video + CD with CD Burner (Not sure of make and model)

Monitor: 19" Princeton
Speakers: Built in speakers on the moniter

Operating System:Windows XP Home Edition w/SP2 (Recovery Discs with Windows XP and component drivers, I don't have the actual Software for Windows XP Home Edition w/SP2)

All I want to do is upgrade it to handle World of Warcraft with not much lag or trouble. My budget is very low so I can't spend a crap load of money, especially all at once. Suggestions are appreciated.

[Barrister73]

Not sure what board you have or what it can take, so I'll have to leave it up to other people to correct what I say.

I had a low end computer that I bought for CoH and had about the same setup.

Get another Gig (or two) or good RAM. Corsair is the choice around here and they usually have a refund going so that two Gig costs less than $30. This was the largest difference I saw on my old comp and allowed me to go from lowest settings to mid range.

A good video card will help too. But, since I have no idea what all the numbers and letters mean, I cannot tell you what to get.

MRR

Never mind all that. I see that you state your board can only take one Gig. You will probably never be able to play WoW at anything higher than the lowest settings. You will need to get a new motherboard in order to do much. If you do get a new board, you will need to get a new OS because the disks that you have do not actually contain XP. They are an image of what your computer hard drive would look like if it had XP on it and will only work on the board that you have.

If you are getting a new board and a new OS, you have half-way to building a new computer. A few months ago, there was a link posted to a site for an inexpensive ($400 or so) upgradeable computer. I could not find the link, but I'm sure someone out there knows the topic and/or link and can post it for you.

MRR

[RickyTick]

MRR

I know I'm an old fart, but what the heck does MRR mean? :confused:

[Barrister73]

Those would be my initials. :)

Barrister73

[Barrister73]

Here is a link to Monkey's thoughts for a budget build.

http://forums.mysuperpc.com/showthread.php?t=1642

[RickyTick]

Those would be my initials. :)

Barrister73


:D :D :D
That's funny. I thought it was some text messaging acronym that I couldn't figure out. Those things drive me crazy.

I actually used YMMV the other day just to prove I was cool. :D

[The Wise Monkey]

Hey, I'm only 21 and I had to look up what YMMV stood for... XD

Maybe its the US/UK divide. :)

To drag this thread back on topic, what is your total budget for upgrades?

[Shruikan2]

My budget is maybe 100 to 200 dollars a month. It will be a few months before I can even start doing the upgrades. When we get the tax rebate check I will have 200 or so dollars for upgrades right now. Was looking just to upgrade PSU, Graphics, Hard Drive, and CPU until I get the money to build my own super PC. If my motherboard is what has caused the problem with my PC then I will have to buy a new PC for the time being so I can attend college. If it is just the memory then that should be an easy fix. Also my motherboard only has PCI slots so I can't use a PCI E type graphics card. I can only use PCI type cards. I've been looking at ATI radeon 9 series cards. The best GeForce I can get is in the 6 series unless there are better ones that I didn't know about.