Upgrade my 2nd PC

[jmet]

My 2nd PC is pretty much made from past upgrades to my main PC and cheap part like the motherboard, which has on board everything. I am in the process of trying to upgrade it piece by piece. I have Everest Home Edition and Belarc Adviser, so let me know if you need to know anything about its specs.

I definitely want to put a new CPU in and was looking at this one considering my budget. - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16819104249

I have my old NEC 3520 in there now, which is totally fine with me for what I want to do. I just want a second PC to do DVD stuff. Editing, encoding, etc. Main programs would be similar to my main PC, DVD Decrypter, DVD Shrink, PgcEdit, VirtualDubMod, TMPGEnc, TMPGEnc DVD Author, etc.

Here are some basic specs:

Windows XP Professional (build 2600)   
American Megatrends Inc. K7S41GX 1.0 
Processor a   Main Circuit Board b 
900 megahertz AMD Athlon
128 kilobyte primary memory cache
256 kilobyte secondary memory cache   Board: K7S41GX 1.0
Bus Clock: 100 megahertz
BIOS: American Megatrends Inc. P2.00 10/28/2004 
Drives   Memory Modules c,d 
41.16 Gigabytes Usable Hard Drive Capacity
28.06 Gigabytes Hard Drive Free Space

_NEC DVD_RW ND-3520AW [CD-ROM drive]
DA3014U ZCP439G SCSI CdRom Device [CD-ROM drive]
DA3014U ZCP439G SCSI CdRom Device [CD-ROM drive]
3.5" format removeable media [Floppy drive]

[Hard drive] (33.82 GB) 

576 Megabytes Installed Memory

Slot '0' has 512 MB
Slot '1' has 128 MB
Slot '2' is Empty 
  Local Drive Volumes 
     
c: (on drive 0) 41.16 GB 28.06 GB free 
 
C-Media AC97 Audio Device
Microsoft ADPCM Audio CODEC
Standard Game Port

[geno888]

Is it a socket A mainboard?

Upgrading an athlon plataform nowdays is rather difficult, because AMD stopped production of socket A CPUs (at least I can't find anymore here where I live in Italy).

[UncasMS]

since you mention *encoding*:

get familiar with the idea of exchanging more than a stone-age cpu for a pre-war model

this wont lead to anything


++++

btw a pc for videostuff can live fine with *all on board*

a killer vga wont hardly help (at least not for your kind of *encoding), sound onboard is fine, too, ethernet will be onboard with any decent new board anyway,.....

[jmet]

ok scratch encoding. Main priority would be for DVD' Backup. Great word usage UncasMS! I got the point load and clear!

@ geno -This is what Everest reports: Platform ID CAh (Slot A / Socket A)

[UncasMS]

honestly you wont be able to upgrade an old board like that with a rather decent cpu

wait with the upgrade until you may be able to get a used mb+cpu+ram or wait a little longer until a new upgrade *kit* is within reach

you shouldnt invest in that system - turn it into an mp3 player, router, a network storage or office/i-net machine but dont spend any more money on it as you wont be able to keep/transfer the important parts into a future system

[geno888]

Since november I didn't find anymore socket A CPUs in my zone. I don't know if some stores do have these CPUs anymore, but without upgrading CPU I don't see any upgrade.

Another thing: latest socket A CPU available were with FSB 333 or 400 if I don't remember wrong: what FSB max do support your mainboard? User manual should give this information

[jmet]

New motherboard suggestions for under $100?

[UncasMS]

New motherboard suggestions for under $100?

there are plenty of them but wait

is that mb of yours an ASROCK?

[jmet]

Yes it is a ASRock.

[Chewy]

post an everest overclock

what's the specs on the 512 memory

[UncasMS]

the sempron you have linked to is NOT working for you as it is socket 754

you should have 462/socket a


i found this link to an mb with the same name as yours from asrock (asus brand):

http://www.asrock.com/support/CPU_Support/sempron.asp

accoring to that site an asrock K7S41GX will support seompron (but not the 754 ones) up to 3000+ which of course will make a difference for you

+++++++++++++++++++

since you said it is this asrock board, try getting a 32bit sempron up to 3000+

[geno888]

If you want to remain on a 32 bit platform, the only choice is a pentium, but pentium CPUs are costly.

For what I know, the only cheap AMP platform is a 64 bit platform, but with socket 754. This socket can use sempron processors, that are cheaper than athlon 64, but in my opinion this CPUs are not worth the expense: too slow for a new CPU. If you have money to spend, buy a serious CPU with socket 939.

Regarding your old computer, you can sell old parts individually, and you can reuse HD putting on an external box to carry data from a computer to another.

I agree with UncasMS: upgrading is not a reasonable option

[Chewy]

if you don't have 333 memory you will be in trouble?

the semprons are overpriced and over rated they are based on a celeron performance rating

[geno888]

Ditto

[anonymez]

as mentioned above, don't invest any more cash in this pc. find a use for it in its current state. i'd turn it into a second music/media system.

get something new