Upgrading my seven year old piece of junk

I have this old RSV 320 UC Sony Vaio desktop that is becoming really slow, and I'd like to upgrade it as much as I can with a $200-250 budget. I want it to be able to run current PC games, I could barely ever get it to run six year old games. I don't play shooters that much, I'm mostly looking at games like Street Fighter 4. I don't plan to upgrade the whole thing in one go, I'll keep adding upgrades as I get more money in.

Some other specs for my computer:
512MB PC-2700 DDR
Pentium4 2.6 Ghz w/ Hyper Threading Technology (I could never find out what that is, something about using 2 hard drives to do something)
Intel 82856G Graphics Controller (This thing doesn't want to run anything)
ASUSTek P4SD-VK Motherboard

The power supply fan whirrs as loud as a black hawk chopper whenever it runs anything that requires displaying more than text. I'm not sure if that should be the first thing I should upgrade, I'm concerned that if I upgrade anything else it might overheat.

Any advice is appreciated.

 

As your current PC only supports AGP video cards, gaming is rather limited.

Your best bet would be to buy an entire new comp.

But, if you really cant afford that, then i suggest upgrading your RAM first, maybe to 3gb?

Got any idea of a budget?

Got some spare time on your hands? Try reading up on HyperThreading .

 

sadly by the time you upgraded that POS you might as well build a new pc for Abit more
you can have this
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16827118030
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811233061
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822148511
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128408
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817341022
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820211066
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819103681
I highly Recommend you save your pennies and buy a properly new pc
all in all with the rebates on the above parts your looking at the above for about 300 bucks
3.0Ghz Dual Core(thats 2 cpus)
160Gb HDD
550Wat PSU
2Gb OF RAM
Cd&DVD Burner
Onboard ATI Video ( should Handel some basic gaming )
and down the road when you get some spare cash you can add a Video Card

 

Great budget rig there by rjc!

You cant get much cheaper than that!

It really would be the best idea, you could throw another $150 at your current PC, then 6-12 months down the line, you need to upgrade another $150 just to play mediocre games. Just spend the $300 now and have a good upgrade path in the future (AMD Phenom or quad athlon, Any PCI-E GPU).

 

G`dy guys

I agree Your money would be better spent building a new system. The system you have is never going to be any faster than 5-10% what it is now and to get that it would still cost you more than a new system.

Do your research and make sure the new system has:

1.At least one PCIE x16 slot
2.At least 2 (4 is better) DDR2 or better (DDR3) memory slots
3.At least socket am3 (for amd cpu`s) or socket 1156 (for intel cpu`s)
4.Comes with a vesion of windows7

In my opinion these are the important specs on a low budget.

 

I thought about building a pc, but I didn't think it would be possible with a $300 budget. Is there anywhere I could find more about the different machines I can build for cheap. And probably a guide on how to build one too, I didn't see a sticky for that on this board. I'd like to build a computer that's known to work since this would be the first time.

Also, are there any components that I can salvage from my old computer? Like the case and the DVD drive, I don't burn or use my DVD drive that much so I don't see why the need for a new one unless my old one is highly uncompatible with newer parts.

For the case, I guess that really depends on what parts I get, but the one I have is average size, not as big as those big dell towers. Are parts nowadays really bulky? I opened my case once and most of it was empty space. It will probably affect performance if everything is built pretty tight.

Also, how important is it to get Windows 7? I heard its kind of a resource hog and is annoying with its security, but not as much as Vista. I know some games and software require Vista or Win7 to run, so is that one of the main reasons?

Many thanks to everyone.

 

you can certainly reuse your dvd drive and possibly your HDD
a smaller case is not really an issue for the kind of setup I listed
those sony vios have a history of PSU fan noise and other issues ( I have one )
and they use a non-off-the-self psu mount

there is really NOT anything you can upgrade that would be worth the money compared to building a new machine
assembling a new pc is not really HARD requires a bit of time and a Philips head screw driver and some care windows 7 as long and you have a system capable of it i know what one I listed is because I am running one with the same parts
if your really stuck on upgrading that thing you should know A compatible parts are hard to get and are Not Cheap ( they don't make most of the stuff anymore) the sony vio use a "proprietary" case making it a pain in the *** to mount off the shelf parts
here a link to a youtube video howto http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z5jyv_htkCI

 

Zakuignited, I built this system about a year ago for just a shade over $300

Gigabyte GZ-X2 Black Mid Tower $31.99
MSI - Micro Star International K9N6PGM2-V MCP61 AM2+ mATX Motherboard $47.99
AMD AMD® Boxed Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core Processor 6000+ $74.99
Western Digital Caviar SE 160GB 7,200RPM Serial ATA-300 Hard Drive OEM $39.99
Antec Basiq 500 Watt ATX 12V Power Supply $39.99
OCZ Technology Vista Performance 4GB DDR2-800 (PC-6400) DIMM Memory Kit (Two 2GB Memory Modules) $29.99 (after $10 rebate)
Samsung 22x DVD±RW Burner with Dual/Double Layer Support OEM $24.99
QVS Black Serial ATA Cable 18" $4.99 (for the 2nd Dvd burner I bought about 2 weeks ago)
Total with taxes $323.22, but hopefully getting $10 rebate on memory. (got the rebate, woo-hoo)

Since then, I've made quite a few mods, such as a Azza Orion case, TV tuner card, video card, extra 120mm side case fans and a fan controller. Then upgraded to Windows 7.
But overall, there was absolutely nothing wrong with the initial build, but when I gets an itch, I needs to scratch it!

$300 is absolutely do-able, depending on your needs and where you shop.

 

Hi Zak,

Hyper threading means that the processor chip contains extra processes. Probably Arithmetic so that two tasks can be processed at the same time. It shows up as dual processors in most diags but, is not two complete processors. That's all I could locate on it.

Jim

 

the Athalon II 250 is cheaper then the x2 6000+ (67 dollars)
not to toot my own horn or anything

 

Ok, so I decided to try and get this setup running but with a few changes. I want to keep my dvd drive, hard drive and the case, but I would get a new case if I can't fit everything in or can't mod it properly. I can probably get a new hard drive down the road if I need the space.

Now, since I saved a bit from re-using old parts, I thought about getting a bit better components for the other parts. So I decided to get a better motherboard and more ram, but I also wanted some other suggestions on what should I upgrade on. I looked up some similar models to those recommended on the setup above

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128394&cm_re=gigabyte_motherboard-_-13-128-394-_-Product
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820211188&cm_re=a-data_4gb_(2_x_2gb)_240-pin_ddr2_sdram_ddr2_800_(-_-20-211-188-_-Product

The total price of what I'm looking at is about $281 before taxes, so it doesn't seem too expensive for my budget :yum

 

the motherboard I listed is based on a newer chipset and fully supports the AMD athlon II 250 out-of-the-box the one you listed supports it BUT requires a bios update what this means the motherboard MAY fail to post due to a unrecognized cpu ther-for preventing you from doing a bios update also You will only get to use about 3Gb of the 4gb you bought unless you wanna go x64(which can be a can of worms) how ever 3Gb is still better then 2 and you can always upgrade to x64 when your ready performance wise there would be little difference the MA78lm-S2h Might be be bit slower in games but not by much on My board I have the Option to Oc the Onboard Video with a bios update Up2 700Mhz From 500 (beware might wanna get a extra fan if you plan on going that high) the Oc would most Defiantly give you some extra fps the cpu would overclock nicely tho 2

 

Well, since the MA785GM might not be compatible with the Athlon II 250, then I should stick with the MA78lm-S2h. But how upgradable is the MA78lm-S2h? I thought of maybe getting 4 memory slots in case I wanted more RAM, is it possible to use 4gb of RAM on the MA78lm-S2h out of the box?

What else should I look into getting now so that later I don't have to find out that I can't upgrade?

Sorry for being such a noob

 

yes the 4gb kit you listed will work the maximum that board supports is 4gb Per Stick so you can Upgrade a total 8gb (plenty )
Like I said before Unless you Plan on running X64 You won't be-able to use much more then 3Gb

 

I got all my parts already, but when I was trying to put it together, I noticed that the power supply didn't fit in my old case since the dvd drive was too long. I was wondering if it would be fine to test the computer by just connecting all the parts without a case. Also, would there be a problem with it overheating this way?

 

meh you CAN but I highly recommend you avoid this due to static and lack of grounding
I have seen people mount motherboards to wood and cardboard for testing its not recommended you can how ever leave the dvd drive outside the pc but mounting everything else is a good Idea
I did sorta warn you that everything might NOT fit in your existing case

 

I just wanted to see if it fit before getting a new case. I was wondering if it would be fine to mount everything but the power supply (its the case that holds the dvd player that is too long, so i can't remove that). I was planning on leaving it as an open case just for testing.

 

So I got a new case and was able to mount everything. However, when I boot up my computer, it will just keep looping after the windows xp loading screen. I tried updating the BIOS through a flash drive, but it didn't work. I also tried running the chkdsk, but it also didn't solve the problem. It recognized my hard drive at first, but then I tried to set up my hard drive and dvd as a master/slave through one IDE slot, but it didn't recognize either of them. Now it stays on a screen which says something like verifying pool data.

 

So I disconnected the dvd drive, so it reverted to looping. I was able to stop it at the blue screen, where it says STOP: 0X0000007E (0XC00005, 0XBAAB8750, 0XBACC342C, 0XBACC3128). I was able to get it to work in safe mode (without networking), but I don't know what to do from there. I was thinking I might have to update my drivers, but I don't know how to access them since I don't have a cd drive. I was wondering if there was somewhere online where I could find them, since I have a flash driver which I could use to transfer it to the new computer. Also, how could I find which drivers I need?

 

You can access your drivers from your MB manufacturers website.

 

I found all the drivers on the website, but I haven't been able to update all the drivers. I was doing some research, and I thought the windows os might be the problem. When I try safe mode with networking, it tells me I need to validate my windows copy. I was thinking I might need to reinstall it, but since I can't use a dvd drive and my hard drive at the same time in my new setup, I couldn't do it. I dont know what the problem is and when I try something, new problems pop out.