OPERATION: LITTLE SISTER'S COMPUTER UPGRADE!!!

[hijodeltiger]

I have an emachines t2692 my mom bought one thanksgiving about 3 years ago. its specs are Celeron Northwood 2.6, 80GB HD, 256MB RAM, the rest is unimportant.
since i'm leaving for college i'm gonna buy me a new one and leave this for my little sister, she's 13. she likes games like the sims 2 and does normal school stuff. i was wondering if you could help me decide what to get to get the most out of this crappy machine. my budget is very limited as you can see.
ocing is something i can give a try
maybe buying an inexpensive video card
RAM?
I don't know, you tell me.
BTW no AGP, and 2 RAM slots.
please help me make this a decent machine for at least 2 years until i can buy her something really good, since i'm leaving to MIT and they give really great financial aid to poor people.
i appreciate your help, thanks guys.

 

[WOWchamp]

That PC's dead really... AGP is a dead slot and you dont even have that.



Best you could do is a radeon 9250 but make sure you get a 128bit one and not a 64bit. Upgradeing past 1GB of ram would be pointless. You may be able to pick up a socket 478 P4 but research the motherboad you have to see if it can handle an 800mhz FSB (which I doubt) but if it can that would help a wee bit if you could pick up like a 2.4ghz P4 800mhz FSB socket 478.

 

[hijodeltiger]

do you think that could be enough for my lil sis for a year or two?
so it's 1GB RAM, radeon 9250 128bit, and, what about OCing?
could i flash the mobo with another bios?

 

[carpcmelee]

im not sure the 9250 will even play sims2 on low. u need to get a 6200 pci 256mb by bfg. and also 1gb ram. i was currently in the same situation.
http://www.chumbo.com/info.aspx?id=322418&ptr=fg

 

[hijodeltiger]

i didn't even know they made geforce 6 series for pci. wow, i'm impressed.
but that's definitely out of my price range. i was thinking of going with either a fx5200, fx5500, or radeon 9250 128 bit. but i can't be sure if any of them are 128 bit, because sometimes the specs are wrong. could anyone tell me of a good card, not above the $70 price range?

 

[g-paw]

I've upgraded a couple of old Dells for kids, pretty much the same use. All I would do is get a stick of 512Mb of memory, what ever is appropriate for the machine, I'd dump the momory that's in it. If the hard drive isn't 7200 rpm, would upgrade the hard drive. 40GB would probably be enough but if you can afford 80, go with that. Wouldn't do anything else, machine isn't worth more money. Total cost would be around $100 or less

 

[alphakp295]

why don't you get a new mobo for less than 40 bucks from like refurbished...
ie. newegg refurb section...
it will give you much better choice to go with...
btw... come find me in mit @ aerospace engineering; you might get a new(used) computer..

 

[hijodeltiger]

why don't you get a new mobo for less than 40 bucks from like refurbished...
ie. newegg refurb section...
it will give you much better choice to go with...
btw... come find me in mit @ aerospace engineering; you might get a new(used) computer..

so you're attending MIT? that's really cool. I'm going for CPW in 2 weeks.
but anyway, i was thinking on that one and it seems like a good idea, i just don't know if they're trustworthy, i don't know it's just me, but don't people return products because they stop working or something?
but if they're alright, then i'll probably give it a try.
and about that computer, give me the specs, to see if we make a deal once i'm there. you see, my brother is stupid and he bought another emachines for $300 i think, and i think it's just crap.

 

[angry_ducky]

That computer is so obselete, it's not even funny. Don't give it to your sister; that would be cruel.

 

[bloodstorm69]

i agree with the others, find a cheap refurb MB on the egg for around $35 and get on ebay for the ram and video card. 512 of ddr will set you back around $25 and a 9700 pro can be found for sub $50 that would get her up to 768 megs of ram and a good video card for like $110ish

 

[hijodeltiger]

is this a good mobo as a step forward?
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16813123254

 

[Morph]

Get a mobo like the one in my sig (Intel Machine). That rig is pretty damn decent, and you can get yours to that point for very little $$.

Good luck.

 

[carpcmelee]

right now, im running a fx5500pci 128mb and it runs any game except for games with extreme lighting like doom3, quake 4 etc. 800x600 medium settings garanteed

 

[hijodeltiger]

so, are you recommending the asus because of OCing capabilitites that the other doesn't have. or why?
but overall it sounds very much like the one i thought of getting, but with an intel chipset. does this give me better performance?

 

[carpcmelee]

that pc is not worth installling a new mobo in. trust me, ud rather get a $199 dell and deal with it.