Computer Upgrades

To all you techies out there!! (That was a compliment) I currently have a Gateway2000 P166 MMX with 32 megs of ram. Not sure of the motherboard model, but it only supports up to P200 MMX. I was thinking of upgrading. I have a former coworker whos cousin is a reseller and he has a new PII MMX 300mhz CPU/ATX F.F. motherboard combo that he is willing to sell to me for $800.00 First off... can I do this swap with my existing hardrive, etc. Secondly... I think that is a good price.. seen similar going for $900 - $1,000.00 It does accept the same SDRAM as my current board.. so Im assuming I can use those 32 megs plus add another 32. Im concerned about compatibility with hardrive, cd rom, etc... What kind of issues do I need to answer?? (yes.. im new to this stuff!!!) I have installed my own overdrive chip and RAM before... but thats about it!! All and any info would be appreciated. If the above is not a good idea... Id like to hear some good ideas for upgrading my computer. I dont really want to spend $200 - $300 for a P200 for the small gain I will get. AND... im not totally confortable with the overclocking idea... dont want to fry my processor or anything else!! Again... all and every idea would be appreciated. Scott B. Husted [link lost in import: /~sbhusted]

While I love to tinker, I'm not sure I'd consider myself a techie. I would think as long as your getting a new motherboard with the cpu, you should be fine. Move your hard drive, video card, etc. over to the new board. Sounds like a pretty good deal too, but am not real familiar with that motherboard. -- Don Burnette I-65 Racing Dburn on Ten

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>To all you techies out there!! (That was a compliment) >I currently have a Gateway2000 P166 MMX with 32 megs of ram. Not sure >of the motherboard model, but it only supports up to P200 MMX. >I was thinking of upgrading. I have a former coworker whos cousin is a >reseller and he has a new PII MMX 300mhz CPU/ATX F.F. motherboard combo

^^^^^ Make sure your case can support the ATX Form Factor. Not many do. Regards, John Wehman

Sounds like a decent deal... is it the 440LX chipset? (i.e. does it have an AGP slot?) You may want that for future video card upgrades... You shouldn't have any problems... unless your current motherboard has a built in disk controller and the new one requires a card... I don't know enough about Gateway (or the newest mother boards) to say for sure... This should not be a problem... if the memory is ECC (if the contacts on the modules are gold not silver), they will definitely work. If the modules are non-ECC, they will probably still work but there *may* be a little performance decrease... I'm certainly no "expert", but the only thing I can think of is that you may need to get a disk interface/controller card... Well, that puts you one up (well, two up!) on a lot of people! Can you believe people actually take their computers in to a store and pay $30 or $40 just to have them pop in new memory? Sheesh... that's only one step away from robbery... You are definitely better off putting that 200-300 bucks towards the new PII motherboard... One thing you can never go wrong with is adding more memory. In the Windoze 95 environment, memory upgrades have the best cost/performance ratio of any upgrade you can make... I'm not sure why you are upgrading, but more memory may be all you need to get the performance boost you want... (of course, it may well *not* be all you need... like I said, I just don't know why you are upgrading...) Finally, like someone else posted, make sure the new motherboard will fit in your case!! It seems obvious, but................ - Mike. ==================================================== Mike Holthouse - Indianapolis, IN I'm sick of spam!! To e-mail me, remove the "x"... ====================================================

Thanks to everyone who emailed and posted on this subject. I should have mentioned that I knew that I needed a new case =) It will not fit in my gateway case. Im also waiting for the Hercules Thriller 3D to see how that is and match that up with a new Voodoo2 chipset card when they come out. I currently have a crappy RageII 3D. Also... the reason for my upgrade is generally to handle future *** needs better and an attempt to stay somewhat in the middle of the pack in technical performance. My computer is heavily used for business as well as *** (wish I could afford just a *** pc) I had a 87mhz penitum overdrive which died after a year with my old Compaq Presario =) So obviously the P166 MMX was a big jump for me to begin with. I got a pretty good deal on the Gateway system because I called at a time when they were switching over their casings, etc and got a discount off on that. I have a 15 inch monitor so I didnt have to buy that either. I hope to get a 17 or 21 inch in the next 12 months.. I have other priorities right now and am still recovering from the major funds drain my May wedding put on us =) (I still want to purchase a new race car for SCCA in the next couple of years... Spec Racer, S2000, if the money.. GT1) Anyway.. =) I got the P166 MMX with 32megs of RAM 3.2 gig hard drive (I have another 1.2 gig from my old system which i havent put in the new one yet, still have over a gig left on the 3.2) 33 fax/modem, intellimouse, sidewinder joystick (go them to throw that in), office 97, Windows95, MMX game pack, microphone, and keyboard for $1500.00 a little over 6 months ago. Thought that was a pretty good buy at the time. Thanks again to all that helped and are helping... I do appreciate it! Scott B. Husted [link lost in import: /~sbhusted]

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> >new PII MMX 300mhz CPU/ATX F.F. motherboard combo > >that he is willing to sell to me for $800.00 > Sounds like a decent deal... is it the 440LX chipset? (i.e. does it > have an AGP slot?) You may want that for future video card > upgrades... > >First off... can I do this swap with my existing hardrive, etc. > You shouldn't have any problems... unless your current > motherboard has a built in disk controller and the new one > requires a card... I don't know enough about Gateway (or > the newest mother boards) to say for sure... > >It does accept the same SDRAM as my current board.. so > >Im assuming I can use those 32 megs plus add another 32. > This should not be a problem... if the memory is ECC (if the > contacts on the modules are gold not silver), they will definitely > work. If the modules are non-ECC, they will probably still work > but there *may* be a little performance decrease... > > Im concerned about compatibility with hardrive, cd rom, etc... > > What kind of issues do I need to answer?? (yes.. im new to > > this stuff!!!) > I'm certainly no "expert", but the only thing I can think of is that > you may need to get a disk interface/controller card... > > I have installed my own overdrive chip and RAM before... but > > thats about it!! > Well, that puts you one up (well, two up!) on a lot of people! Can > you believe people actually take their computers in to a store and > pay $30 or $40 just to have them pop in new memory? Sheesh... > that's only one step away from robbery... > > dont really want to spend $200 - $300 for a P200 for the small > > gain I will get. AND... im not totally confortable with the > > overclocking idea... dont want to fry my processor or anything > > else!! > You are definitely better off putting that 200-300 bucks towards > the new PII motherboard... > > Again... all and every idea would be appreciated. > One thing you can never go wrong with is adding more memory. > In the Windoze 95 environment, memory upgrades have the best > cost/performance ratio of any upgrade you can make... I'm not > sure why you are upgrading, but more memory may be all you > need to get the performance boost you want... (of course, it may > well *not* be all you need... like I said, I just don't know why you > are upgrading...) > Finally, like someone else posted, make sure the new motherboard > will fit in your case!! It seems obvious, but................ > - Mike. > ==================================================== > Mike Holthouse - Indianapolis, IN > I'm sick of spam!! To e-mail me, remove the "x"... > ====================================================

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>One thing you can never go wrong with is adding more memory. >In the Windoze 95 environment, memory upgrades have the best >cost/performance ratio of any upgrade you can make... I'm not >sure why you are upgrading, but more memory may be all you >need to get the performance boost you want... (of course, it may >well *not* be all you need... like I said, I just don't know why you >are upgrading...)

I would like to add that if your program requirements are not exceeding the amount of memory (RAM) in your system then adding more memory will do nothing to increase the performance of the program (unless you count increased disk cache which could speed up read/write operations to the disk but generally won't increase the frame rate on simulation programs). You should run some sort of system monitoring program to log CPU, disk, memory and other I/O activity while you are running the program whose performance you would like to increase. The log should give a clue as to the performance bottleneck and thus tell you where you should spend your money. Unfortunately I am not familiar enough with Windows95 to say what system monitor to use but I would bet there is something out there that will do this. -- Will Fiveash (remove REMSPAM. from my email address when replying)