A Cheap, CHEAP, upgrade to a dinosaur.

[The_Blood_Raven]

Hey a friend of mine was running an ancient eMachine T2682 with 256 mb of RAM and a 2.6 Ghz celeron. The processor died in it and she needs her computer for school. She says she can't spend more than $100, yeah I know, and so I was wondering if this will give a noticeable performance boost over just buying another celeron and dropping that in it:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813121383

Add a cheap 1GB stick of DDR2 and it should run XP much better right? I also have 2 512mb sticks of DDR-3200 RAM to put into it if I get another celeron, so I need to know if the Atom 330 and the GMA 950 will give a noticeable performance boost.

 

[AKM880]

Is that one of those ITX system's with the CPU soldered on? The Atom 330 should be good for web browsing and editing documents, I don't really know if you mgiht get a performance gain though. I have a Dell with a 2.53Ghz Celeron D and its pretty slow even with 2GB DDR-3200 RAM.

IMO I'd never get a ITX motherboard and a Atom CPU, just to slow I used to have a Dell mini with a Atom CPU and it was pretty slow when playing music files and browsing sites like Youtube. Editing documents was fine but the screen was too small, lol.

 

[jj463rd]

$100 as a maximum budget is extremely limiting.However there are several options.
If you're sure that it's just the CPU that has fried you could perhaps just replace the CPU perhaps with a similar one from a PC salvage type store for under $20.If it works, 256 mb RAM is also extremely limiting and you could upgrade the system with a 1 gigabyte stick of PC2100 RAM.
Another option would be to buy a used PC from classified ads or perhaps craigslist would be best.You could get an older Pentium 4/Celeron or Athlon 64 system for around $50.Sometimes the original owner will even leave the operating system on it and/or include the restore disks/Windows XP.

 

[evongugg]

Here is the Atom benchmark. Not great. I agree with jj463rd.
Perhaps you could get a used computer.

http://laptoping.com/intel-atom-benchmark.html

 

[Reynod]

pls like a 400fsb Northwood crippled core celeron. You should be able to upgrade to a P4 with a 400fsb or 533fsb according to Intel. You will not be able to use a 800fsb cpu.

Xhasing an old faster cpu second hand might be cheap ... sticking more ram (to 1Gb might also push it along a bit ... definate big improvement going from 256 to 512.

http://www.emachines.com/support/pro...es&model=T2682

http://www.intel.com/products/chipsets/845GV/index.htm

Intel® Celeron® 2.60GHz Processor
128KB L2 cache & 400MHz FSB
Operating System : Genuine Microsoft® Windows® XP Home

Chipset : Intel® 845GV chipset
Memory : 256MB DDR (PC 2100)
Hard Drive : 80GB HDD
Optical Drive : 48x Max. CD-RW Drive; 16x Max. DVD Drive; 3.5" 1.44MB FDD
Video : Intel® Extreme Graphics 3D
64MB Shared memory
Sound : AC '97 Audio
Network : 10/100Mbps built-in Ethernet
Modem : 56K ITU v.92-ready Fax/Modem
Peripherals : Standard Multimedia Keyboard, 2-Button Wheel Mouse, Standard Stereo Speakers
Ports/Other : 6 USB 2.0 ports (2 on front), 1 Serial, 1 Parallel, 2 PS/2, Audio-In & Out
Dimensions : 7.25"W x 14.125"H x 16"D

Though your idea to just rip everything out and start again is probably equally a good idea.