Fixing old computer...

[joker_927]

A friend of my mom gave me her computer in hopes of me fixing it. She said it kept telling her she didn't have enough memory to run programs like Word. She asked me to make it a little faster, buy whatever was needed, and she would repay me.

This thing is completely covered in dust. Nasty-looking. I have to pry the case off with a CROWBAR because it was somehow put on the wrong way last time and jammed pretty hard. I open it up and like looking in King Tut's pyramid, I see ancient hardware that looks like it need carbon-fiber dating to find out how old it is.

The video card has about 30 slots for extra memory, and is about 1 foot long. I notice that it at least uses SDRAM, so at least I'm in the ballpark for upgrading. (I forgot what that old ram before SDRAM was even called.) I guessed that it is pc100 ram. Also, the CPU is one of those really big sideways Slot1 processors. Weird, almost alien.

So I turn the thing on.................................... finally a post, and I am greeted with a POST that gave me the same look as if I saw Jesus himself...... INTEL CELERON 66mhz!

I almost died.

Anyway, this thing's got windows 95 on it, 32MB of ram, and is as slow as.....-gosh I can't even think of something that slow.

Does anyone have any ideas on exactly how I should go about fixing this? I could:

1)Just put another stick of SDRAM in there (maybe 128MB) but I don't see that doing much in the way of speeding it up. Heck 32MB should already be enough for windows 95.

2)Reformat. A clean install of windows 95 should speed things up a tad, and get all this crap she's running in the back ground (5 programs or so) out of the way.

3) Build a new rig. The funnest thing to do. But not the cheapest. A would have to ask her first, but is this an over-exaggeration or good idea? I found a 1.4 ghz barebone with everything but Monitor and speakers (which she has) for $199.

Thanks for reading.

[RicheemxX]

well to start its might not be sdram it is more than likely edo 72pin sims and i think a new build would be better than that old dinosaur...heck even a slow p2 or old amd k6 would be better than that

if she wants to keep it then yes more memory maybe a bigger hdd {don't see this size} and a clean install...might think of upgrading to win98 even on that relic its better than win95

[The Real Bingo]

Would'nt it suit her best to go out and just buy a new computer? eMachines are pretty cheap these days, lol.

[Rand Dusing]

Wait for a good deal at Fry's, I saw a 800mhz >20gb harddrive for 99 bucks once, sometimes 200. It comes with Linux but she could use her old 95 if she wnated to. And I think my 357mhz is slow!

[Mickwish]

You'll have plenty of issues trying to upgrade that machine. Big HDD's won't be recognised by BIOS, problems getting the correct type of RAM (even if it is SDRAM, it'll most likely be PC66 which is hard to get).

Sounds like a VESA vid card - most likely only 1 or 2 MB RAM on that if you are lucky.

I'd say look around for a cheap P2 system or something - would be worth her while just to be able to run Office 97 or something.

Intel Celeron 66MHz?!? I didn't think Celerons came that slow. Slot 1, eh? What's it doing with a VESA vid card then?

Good luck if she won't part with it.

Cheers
Mick

[elroy]

Geez, it's not that bad. Dry your tears and take another look at it. A slot 1 with a Celeron is a prime candidate for a slocket adapter and a socket 370 cpu. Figure out exactly what it is that you have to work with. Does it support 100mhz bus speed? Very possibly could be upgraded to something around 1ghz. If you have to buy all the parts retail and new it is going to be costly and not worth it but if you can find what you need on this forum it can be done for a small amount of cash. If you can provide some details on what it is maybe we can make some suggestions on which way to go. Also find out what she intends to do with it, what she expects. It may be very well suited to her needs, not yours but ok for hers.

My mother gets along very well with a Cyrix 333 machine. I just recently installed a new 6gb HD since she filled up the original 2gb HD.

[paul9]

if it IS a celeron, then 66mHz refers to the bus speed. if you do upgrade this beast, then the new memory option will make it a lot faster and more capable for running word, as it will cut down on swap file usage when your hdd is likely old and slow. then a new hdd will make windows and your application programs load a lot faster, this will make a reinstall of windows almost compulsory. if there is a newish version of direct x on the pc, then dxdiag.exe will show the processor details (type and speed). if you can find an old processor to replace the celeron, then a standard pentium of the same speed should help the cause, as it has extra inbuilt cache memory over the celeron version.

[joker_927]

Haven't gotten far. Been trying to get some identification numbers from the components to help us get some answers.

Only number I see on the mobo is on southbridge: VT82C686A and says VIA above it. Must be one of their really old boards....

Took the CPU out, sure enough it's an Intel Celeron. I looked up celerons and the slowest one I could find was a 333mhz Celeron with a 66mhz FSB. I have no clue if the 66mhz I see during post is the FSB or actual CPU speed. Gonna check out the bios next.

The computer did not have an updated version of DX. It had 5.1 I believe.

I have some blurry pics for you.

[RamonGTP]

The slowest Slot1 processor AFIK is 233MHz.... There is no way thats a 66MHz CPU, a clock speed that low is back from the 486 and very very early original pentium days.

[joker_927]

Turn of events.....


I found this in the bios..



400mhz!

I got SiSoft's Sandra installed and it told me a lot. The processor is running at 300mhz, with a FSB of 66mhz.

I ran the benchmakr tests on the CPU, Memory, and Hard Drive. Every test performed perfectly according to the program. It was slow, but compared to aPentium II 266mhz, the processor was faster.

I really have no clue why this computer is so slow. I had 32MB of RAM and I added another 64MB stick. Did't seem to change a thing. In fact NOW it says windows only has 70% of resources available.

I'm stumped.