upgrade computer

[jasonhall]

I have a older computer and wondering if its worth upgrading a little bit..I don't really need much much more.
I have a IBM aptiva with a ATI rage pro agp amd-k6 3d processor
128 mb of ram , 3.73 GB and a quantum bigfoot. something like that.
thanks

Welcome to techimo

what are your main uses for the computer? I'm guessing you basically just surf and not much else. what are you looking to do once you've upgraded it? Your not going to make it an ultimate gaming rig but you may get a little more use from it. Whats the speed of the cpu and what type of motherboard do you have?

[jasonhall]

Yea I do play some games not that much anymore ,, I think its 399 mhz? So I will probably just have one or two games installed at a time and use the internet.. I do everything else on my work computer. Isn't the quantum bigfoot the motherboard? I just want to speed up game play a little and have a little more memory if possible

no quantum bifoot is your hard drive company and the model of the drive. With a 400mhz cpu there's not much you can do to speed it up but if you know they manufacture of the board and model number you might be able to get a bit faster cpu and possibly add another 128mb of ram and have something that would suit your needs without going overboard and buying a bunch of new stuff.

[jasonhall]

would it be listed under device manager..? or would I have to take off cover and look .. its not the alim541 CPU?

[JayMan]

Most likely you will need to take the cover off to look on the motherboard for the model. It might also tell you on the POST screen (the screen that comes up when you 1st turn on the computer). Do you have all the manuals that came with the computer? That might help ya out there too

What sort of games are you talking about?

JayMan

[jasonhall]

ahh The motherboard is an ACER V70MA BIOS
so what you think?

[John Prophet]

The fastest chips made for that type of board were maybe 550mhz..or maybe only 500mhz...so not really a major speed boost.

I would add 128 more RAM and make sure I dont have any extra junk starting up at boot..junk like msn messenger or weatherbug or other stuff to slow you down.

JP

from what I see of your motherboards info your pretty much maxed out on the cpu so all you could really do is upgrade to more ram. If you have a single stick of memory in there now you can easily add another stick of 128mb wich would max out your board. It looks like it only suuorts 256mb of pc100 so you'll need to make sure you get something that will be compatible.

[John Prophet]

A little better agp card would speed the games up a little, but they would still be limited by the cpu speed....but a little more speed is better than none..and sometimes a little boost can be the difference between playable and too slow to play

JP