want to tupdate an old compaq

My Grandchildren have my old computer which is a compaq presario sr1000
EK335AA-ABU SR1619UK GB540

I want to try and update the graphics card and memory and i am guessing the power box as well whats the best i can fit into it giving i have a buget of 100 uk Pounds

cheers
Happyman123uk

 

You are probably better off buying another machine, because you will be hunting for very old parts.

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/Category/guidedSearch.asp?CatId=6&sel=Price;Price4

~150 USD is your price range.

 

Best advice you'll get.
Didn't know those prices were available.:-D

 

Haha yeah.

I've been bargain hunting for a business lately so I stumbled upon a few.

 

You're gonna sell refurb machines?
Not going to be much profit after shipping-especially when you can buy a cheapie new for about $250.00

 

From what I can glean from the internet, your PC has the AmethystM-GL6E motherboard (here is the HP site for your computer - make sure the info matches what you have, as I have used this for my suggestions: http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/...foCategory&cc=us&dlc=en&lc=en&product=1147955)

Suggestion 1)

It does have a PCI-E X16 port for an add-in video card. A seperate, reasonably modern video card would be a decent upgrade, and you would see the most benefit from it. A concern for such an upgrade is your power supply. I think most of that era Compaq had sub 300 watt power supplys. Most PCI-EX16 cards will indicate what wattage power supply is suggested for that card. Some higher end cards have to be connected to the power supply, some are powered by the PCI-E slot itself. Try and stick to a video card that does not require connection to the power supply, and has at least a 128bit memory bus.

Suggestion 2)

Your motherboard has 4 ram slots that use the older DDR 184 pin SDRAM. Oddly, it's more expensive then newer RAM, but a couple of gigabytes can be picked up for a fairly reasonable price. You will want the fastest DDR RAM your board supports which apparantly is DDR400 (also called PC 3200). If your computer is stock it came with only 512mb of ram . . . you could add in three more 512mb sticks for a total of two Gigabytes. I noticed a huge increase in performance on an older computer running XP home when going from 512mb to one Gigabyte . . . and another (not so huge, but noticible) improvement when going from 1 gigabyte to 2. The board will support a total of 4 GBs (4 X 1GB) so what ever is the best deal. I've bought some decent used PC-3200 RAM for cheap. On any ram you buy, make sure it is LOW DENSITY . . . it's more expensive, but the cheaper HIGH DENSITY memory chips are not compatable with most motherboards.

Ebay is a good source for used RAM (and video cards for that matter). Make sure any seller you go with has a fair return policy. Avoid any seller that does not allow returns. At any rate, a video card and some more RAM are the two best upgrades you will get the most benefit from. You should be able to do both and stay well under your budget limit, and end up with much more responsive computer. Granted, as others here have said it is an older computer . . . and it is true that newer used computers can be had for not much more then you are willing to spend on upgrades . . . but shipping sometimes is prohibitive on such purchases, you have to find a decent used computer to buy, and when buying a used computer there can be issues you have no way of knowing about. So, it's a judgement call.

 

. . . Forgot to mention it appears your board supports up to an AMD Athlon 64 X2 4800 dual core socket 939 processor. That is also a decent upgrade, though they still cost a pretty penny in my opinion.

There are also lesser CPU's that the board supports. You wouldn't see that great of a performance boost with another CPU in my opinion. I stll think a video card and more RAM are the best and easiest upgrade options.