Need to make my computer FASTER

[rtyrty100]

Hey guys,

I am looking for ways to upgrade my computer. I like to game on it, and my computer lags on even the most low grade games. Also When i am browsing it isn't very fast....takes awhile to do things

So what are some ways to up RAM? I was looking into getting a new motherboard. My computer is a Dimension 2400 Dell, if you could post links to motherboards to buy to make my computer faster that would be excellent. I am looking in the 100-150$ range (maybe more if necessary). Or what about this "overclocking"? sounds kind of bad for the computer, forcing it to run faster than the factory set speed. But im not the expert, you guys are

PS: my current computer details- Intel(R), Pentium(R) 4 CPU 1.80GHz, 1.79GHz, 512MB of RAM.

Thanks!

[stroyal]

Welcome to TechIMO!
I guess if you want to play really old games faster, you could upgrade that computer.

What you need is a new computer, if you want to play new games on high settings.

A new mother board is going to need;

Power supply
Memory
Video card
Processor

Minimum, and you are not going to get that for $150

New gaming systems, have been pricing out @ about $600 on the low side.

Edit
Overclocking done right, will run for years, but that won't help with that unit.

[rtyrty100]

Welcome to TechIMO!
I guess if you want to play really old games faster, you could upgrade that computer.

What you need is a new computer, if you want to play new games on high settings.

A new mother board is going to need;

Power supply
Memory
Video card
Processor

Minimum, and you are not going to get that for $150

New gaming systems, have been pricing out @ about $600 on the low side.

Edit
Overclocking done right, will run for years, but that won't help with that unit.

Ill get specific, the game that I lag on is Runescape. I can play on the highest detail setting, but its just so slow there is no way I would do it. So I feel as if my video card is perfectly fine the way it is. I just need it to run more smoothly while playing on the lower end quality of the game, and run more smoothly while browsing. My dad says I just need a new motherboard that would cost 100-200$, so you make me nervous by saying I need to spend 600$. So I do not want to play really high quality games. I was specific this time, so hopefully I can get a different answer? *crosses fingers*

Thanks.

[stroyal]

Wait for the hardware/ gaming people to respond, they will know right off the top of our head, what you need.

As far as just getting a new motherboard, and nothing else, you are dreaming.
A motherboard alone that would work with those components will absolutely do nothing.

[rtyrty100]

Im sorry I actually gave you the wrong specs...The computer I want to put the motherboard in always shuts itself down(the DIMENSION 2400), because it needs a new motherboard. I gave you the info to my current computer which is an OPTIPLEX GX260. My dad is the one who told me it would be better to get the motherboard for the computer that randomly shuts down. Let me try to find the specs for that computer.

[stroyal]

This one?
If it is what CPU?

Documentation

[rtyrty100]

This one?
If it is what CPU?

Documentation

Yeah that one, but what do you mean by "what CPU"?

[stroyal]

Look at the first box in the specs.

Quote from Dell specs
"Intel® Pentium® 4 that runs at 2.2 or 2.4 GHz internally and 400 MHz externally, or 2.266, 2.4, 2.53, 2.66, 2.8, or 3.06 GHz internally and 533 MHz externally.

Intel Celeron® that runs at 2.0, 2.2, 2.3, 2.4, 2.5, 2.6, or 2.7 GHz internally and 400 MHz externally."

Which one?

[rtyrty100]

Look at the first box in the specs.

Quote from Dell specs
"Intel® Pentium® 4 that runs at 2.2 or 2.4 GHz internally and 400 MHz externally, or 2.266, 2.4, 2.53, 2.66, 2.8, or 3.06 GHz internally and 533 MHz externally.

Intel Celeron® that runs at 2.0, 2.2, 2.3, 2.4, 2.5, 2.6, or 2.7 GHz internally and 400 MHz externally."

Which one?

Im not sure, so I asked my dad and he replied 'it should not matter as long as it is dell compliant (hes talking about the motherboard) you need to get some of the latest technology. like a dual or quad processor with a high clock speed.'

Since you do know more about computers than he does, if it does actually matter, then I will try to turn the computer on and glance at the system specs b4 it shuts down on me. But from what he is saying I should just be looking for a motherboard that is dell compliant with DIMENSION 2400 system.

Let me know.

[stroyal]

First off, the only "Dell compliant" motherboards are from Dell.

Yes you would have to find a motherboard that has the same form factor as the one you have, but that has nothing to do with Dell.

Yes it is a pain to fit an aftermarket motherboard in a tiny Dell case, but not impossible.
That's why we always recommend a new case, other than using the old one on a store bought unit.




Now you are saying, you want a Quad core!
Changing Just the motherboard, will not get you a Quad Core, that is the processor, not the motherboard.


In order to get a quad core computer, at a VERY MINIMUM, you Need'
Motherboard
CPU (quad core processor)
Memory
Power supply
Video card, unless you get a board with on-board graphics

You know. What I said in the first post.


If you are going to use on-board graphics, you might get the price down to $400
Or buy a new Dell for about the same, but in both cases gaming will be minimal.

[stroyal]

The reason I asked what processor it is, because the only board replacements I can find has 533 front side buss.
If you have a CPU with a 400 FS buss it won't work.

I'm surprised, I found any motherboards that old, they just don't make them anymore.

Newegg.com - Computer Hardware,Motherboards,Intel Motherboards,Pentium 4 / Celeron

Also your memory will not work on either of those board, so you would need new memory.

I'm not positive your P4 will work, even if the buss is the same, it may only work with the last version of P4s

[rtyrty100]

Ok Ill start poking around for other options. Thank you for sharing your erudite knowledge so willingly, I really appreciate it when people take the time to give me all the information I need.

Thanks again.

[stroyal]

You are Welcome, that's what we do here.

If you are going to build new, or partially upgrade, the hardware experts here are really good.
Just post a budget, and what games you play.
Keeping up on all the new stuff is a specialty all on it's own, and the members that do that really know their hardware.

[ShyguyXPC]

ok, looking the specs over, needless to say, you need a new PC, nothing you really do for upgrades will be worth it.

your dad, no offense, and don't say this to him yourself, otherwise might earn yourself an ass whoopin, but has NO idea what he's talking about when it comes to resolving your problem with your PC.

How many Years has he been building PC's? How Many PC's has he built? How many PC's has he upgraded or fixed?

seriously, just replace the motherboard?

your random shut offs could be a whole bunch of things, there could be a short somewhere, the CPU/Processor could be over heating, in which case, you could need some new Thermal Paste between the CPU and the Heatsink, or it could be the Heatsink is all clogged with dust, or the fan not working, or the clips that hold down the heatsink, could be loose or busted, and not direct contact with the CPU, resulting in heat build up of the CPU, causing the Shut down, it could be The Power Supply is going or gone bad, it could be some Bad Sticks of RAM, or all of them, could be a simple loose cable in the PC.

so your dad has no clue what he is talking about in the first place, unless he himself has ruled out all those possibilities.

your PC will not run any kind of Multi Core CPU (Dual core, quad core etc), its too old, only systems in the last 5 years or so can do that.


You'll need a new Motherboard for that to happen, new RAM, which comes in DDR2 and DDR3 flavors now, your current PC's Ram is not compatible.

Looking up Runescape, its completely playable in your Browser, but you'll still want a decent graphics card to be able to display the stuff in the browser, but you'll also need a decent CPU to do this as well, and plenty of RAM.

it could also be, with the game running so slow and your browser running slow, that all you need is a reformat and reinstall of the PC and Operating system.




and actually for $330 before shipping you can build yourself a pretty nice little basic budget gaming PC, will be plenty for browser based games like Runescape, at least should be anyways.

not quite enough muscle for newer higher end regular games, though may run some of them on lower settings, but would definitely be capable of your needs as you describe them in this thread.

hows a Small, and I mean, small, 2.5GHz Dual core system sound?

CPU: Newegg.com - Intel Celeron E3300 Wolfdale 2.5GHz 1MB L2 Cache LGA 775 65W Dual-Core Processor Model BX80571E3300

I have one of these ones, its the next step down, the E3200, 2.4GHz model, and built a system for a friend with the 3400 model thats 2.6Ghz

Motherboard: Newegg.com - ZOTAC NF610I-K-E LGA 775 NVIDIA GeForce 7050
NVIDIA nForce 610i Mini ITX Intel Motherboard

Have this Motherboard, its tiny, and is more than sufficient for basic use needs, and light gaming when paired with the right video card.

RAM: Newegg.com - PQI TURBO 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory Model PQI26400-2GDB

2GB should be more than enough, and its priced nicely too. also the RAM runs at twice the speed that your old PC could support at max.


Case/PSU: Newegg.com - Thermaltake Element Q VL52021N2U Black SGCC / Plastic Mini-ITX Desktop Computer Case 200W SFX Power Supply

Keep in mind its a tiny case, I have one similar, different brand and model, but similar in size and is tight to fit things in, but doable.

DVD Burner: Newegg.com - LG Black 22X DVD+R 8X DVD+RW 22X DVD-R 16X DVD-ROM 48X CD-ROM 2MB Cache SATA DVD Burner - CD / DVD Burners

Uses the newer SATA interface, smaller thinner cables, less clutter, easier to connect, etc.

Hard drive: Newegg.com - Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 ST3250318AS 250GB 7200 RPM 8MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive -Bare Drive

Also SATA, and much much faster interface speeds than anything your old PC could handle.

and imagine a full nice 250GB of storage?

and the video card...

Newegg.com - ZOTAC ION-GPU-A-E ION Graphics Processor 512MB DDR3 PCI Express x1 HDCP Ready Low Profile Ready Video Card

Its not a top dog GPU, the Ion is what is in a lot of newer higher end Netbooks, its superior to any Onboard Intel Graphics, and is even in a lot of newer Intel Atom Mini Desktop systems, but their all coupled with Intel Atom CPU's that are ok in performance, but limited in Clock speeds, and also UTTERLY SUCK at processing Adobe Flash on the web, they're slow to load Youtube videos, facebook stuff, flash games, you name it, anything that has to do with Flash, its slow loading, and stuttering frame rates.

this card is the Ion Graphics chip by itself, so you shouldn't have any troubles, and would pair with the motherboard, fine, since it has a x1 PCI Express slot, and this card is a x1 PCI Express card.

most x1 cards, that have been on the market were REALLY REALLY low end Radeon cards, and cost near $100, this card itself, is much faster than any of those.


and to be honest I'm looking at getting this card for my Mini ITX system when I can.

I have 2 Mini ITX cases...

This one is my current one, and the one I'm building in

Newegg.com - LIAN LI PC-Q07 Black Aluminum Mini-ITX Tower Computer Case

and this was my first, due to some CPU heatsink issues, height wise, I had to get another case.

Newegg.com - APEX MI-008 Black Steel Mini-ITX Tower Computer Case 250W Power Supply

in my bigger case, I actually have this Power Supply installed

Newegg.com - OCZ ModXStream Pro OCZ500MXSP 500W ATX12V V2.2 / EPS12V SLI Certified CrossFire Ready 80 PLUS Certified Modular Active PFC Power Supply compatible with core i7

its modular cables, and I only need the motherboard power cables, and one bundle of SATA power cables to run the whole system, the rest of the cables can be stored away, so I have less cable clutter in the case.

and am using this CPU cooler, though I have to make some modifications, because part of the aluminum fins are in the way of one of the motherboards capacitors, so I have to grind some of them down so it can securely mount on the CPU.

Newegg.com - ZEROtherm ATOM 30H Low-Profile cooler for ITX, MATX, HTPC

for this build list above I suggested, this Cooler would work good too, as the stock intel cooler, is pretty low as well, but there's little room between it and the Power supply, which might make things a bit warm if you run the PC for long periods, but luckily that case has side vents and the video card has a fan on it.

the power supply in that Thermaltake case, has enough power to run that card, with out any troubles, in fact it could even run a more powerful card if need be, unfortunately they don't make cards any more powerful than this one for x1 PCIE slots.


but for $330, which is probably close to what you would spend on a replacement motherboard, from dell or an after market, plus RAM upgrade, plus a PCI Video Card, or if you upgraded with a board that has PCI Express or AGP, a card for those slots, etc etc.

after all is said and done, you'd of probably spent that much or close to it in replacement and upgrades to an already ancient PC, and be better off with something like I listed above.

of course you'd need a new copy of Windows XP or Windows 7 (I'd lean towards Windows 7, bit of a learning curve if you've never used it, or Vista before, but its not THAT hard, over Windows XP), but its up to you, either will cost about $80-100 depending on where you get it.



spend a little more and you can move up to a Mini ITX motherboard with a full x16 slot, opens up your Video card choices immensely, as well as upgrades in the future, can get a bit bigger case, and a regular size Power supply, all of which mean better upgrades, and room.

so its doable for a sub $400-450 budget for a low end gaming rig.

here's an example for low end "regular" size gaming system.

for a mere $20 more than that mini system, much more upgradeable, and more powerful...

CPU: Newegg.com - Intel Celeron E3300 Wolfdale 2.5GHz 1MB L2 Cache LGA 775 65W Dual-Core Processor Model BX80571E3300

RAM: Newegg.com - PQI TURBO 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory Model PQI26400-2GDB

Mobo: Newegg.com - ZOTAC NF610I-E-E LGA 775 NVIDIA GeForce 7050 Micro ATX Intel Motherboard

HDD: Newegg.com - Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 ST3250318AS 250GB 7200 RPM 8MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive -Bare Drive

DVD: Newegg.com - LG Black 22X DVD+R 8X DVD+RW 22X DVD-R 16X DVD-ROM 48X CD-ROM 2MB Cache SATA DVD Burner - CD / DVD Burners

PSU: Newegg.com - COOLER MASTER Elite 460 RS-460-PSAR-J3 460W ATX12V V2.31 Power Supply

GPU: Newegg.com - XFX HD-557X-ZHF2 Radeon HD 5570 1GB 128-bit DDR2 PCI Express 2.1 x16 HDCP Ready Video Card

Case: Newegg.com - HEC Blitz Black Steel Edition ATX Mid Tower Computer Chassis Gaming Case w/ Front Blue LED 120mm Fan & Top 120mm Fan

of course a copy of Windows for about $100 more... but yeah, its quite doable for the $400-450 range.

and this systems Video card is MUCH MUCH more powerful than that Ion card, at least a good 6 times more powerful, if not closer to 8. the Ion GPU is a good performing Mobile chip, but its nothing in comparison to typical Desktop GPU's.

its closest Desktop counterpart is a lowly Geforce 9400GT.



I know this post is long, most of it covers suggestions for new PC parts, but hope some of this can help, and for that larger build list, you'd be fine with using the stock intel cooler with that CPU, there's more than enough room for it, in fact you'd have enough room to use most of the fancy high performance coolers you see on the market or even install a Water cooling kit down the road if you wanted.

[Aaron_8015]

Just to jump in... I used to play runescape very nicely on my old t23 thinkpad....

Pentium 3 1ghz, 256mb and S3 16mb graphics.... You should have no problem running it (though I will add its been a long time since I played).

[nemowolf]

Just to jump in... I used to play runescape very nicely on my old t23 thinkpad....

Pentium 3 1ghz, 256mb and S3 16mb graphics.... You should have no problem running it (though I will add its been a long time since I played).

I was just thinking that since this is a web based game, the stutter is probably not caused by the hardware but by his connection. I would consider checking out what your speed test results were and post those. I cant think of any web based games that cause actual stutter on a machine because of its graphical load on the GPU.

[rtyrty100]

I ran a speed test- 2.56mbps download speed, 1.22mbps upload speed.

[ShyguyXPC]

I was just thinking that since this is a web based game, the stutter is probably not caused by the hardware but by his connection. I would consider checking out what your speed test results were and post those. I cant think of any web based games that cause actual stutter on a machine because of its graphical load on the GPU.

try running them under an Atom based PC (non Ion based)

but thats why I also said its mainly CPU based, depending on the way the Browser graphics engine is coded or whatever, it can be a bit buggy if you have a crappy graphics chip sometimes too, as there are some graphical 3D browser based games that use OpenGL in the browser, and I have no clue what Runescape uses, their website doesn't seem to offer any usable info, only register and play crap.


also mentioned it could be as simple as reformat and reinstall the OS.

could be the drive is full, and very little room for caching of the browser info, could multiple add ons for the browser thats slowing things down, could be anti virus or anti spyware working while logged in online in the browser.



but none of that discounts the fact, that their PC, has little in regards to upgrades, for anything else, should they play any other games, as in regular installed to PC type games. with a motherboard that only has 3 PCI slots... your pretty much stuck.

[Taxmancometh]

Do you know the way to eBay?

How sure are you that the mobo 9mother board) is the culprit to the comp. shutting down? Could be the PSU, a power switch, memory... even dust bunnies!

[chickenhide]

My guess is that this guys only a kid, not implying that thats a bad thing. I suppose you came to the right place to ask for help, haha.

I wouldn't recommend overclocking anything. It would be like trying to repair an old 1996 pontiac bonneville that just got in a car wreck. You're better off purchasing a whole new computer. As for Runescape, try playing on low, and if that still lags, its probably your connection, bud.