What Do I need to Upgrade in my PC?

Hey Guys, I'm fairly new to the whole "building a computer" thing and my dad built my computer, except it wasn't good at the time. I saved up quite a bit of money (200+ still saving) and was wondering what I need to upgrade to make it faster. My monitor and hdd's are fine, it's the things inside I'm alittle weary of. I'm upgrading my RAM from 1gig- 3 so I can use windows 7. I though I should ask the experts here! Any help is appreciated, thanks!

Specs:

Processor-
.25 gigahertz AMD Athlon
128 kilobyte primary memory cache
256 kilobyte secondary memory cache
Not hyper-threaded

Main Circuit Board-
Board: nVidia-nForce
Bus Clock: 100 megahertz
BIOS: Phoenix Technologies, LTD 6.00 PG 06/19/2004

Display-
NVIDIA GeForce 7600 GS [Display adapter]
Samsung SyncMaster [Monitor] (23.0"vis, s/n HVDP802559, August 2007)

The things that you should upgrade are things that you will be able to take to the next build, such as video card (if your motherboard's video card slot is PCI-E), power supply, case, monitor, DVD drive, potentially harddrive. I suppose potentially you could buy a new CPU, mobo & RAM and then replace all the other components when you have more money.
And you should probably post what components you have now, in more detail.

this was the original thread of the components in my computer, didn't know how to delete

I would definately suggest gettin a new mobo, ram and processor that'll help alot.. What interface are your cd/dvd drives and hdd's are the PATA(the ribbon cable) or SATA,

if they are sata that is excellent. Because then there are tons of options especially since you have a pcie graphics card.. for example. For 200 you could get a mobo for round 50-75, processor for 50, and 4GB of RAM for around 75-100.


Just for example if you have SATA hdd's, and SATA cd/dvd writers.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6813135250
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6819103688
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6820231149


Those three things before the mail in rebate would be $180 dollars, would be real basic you could reuse your case, video card, power supply(pretty sure just post the watts, if it runs now I don't see why it wouldn't after) re-use two PATA devices so one cd/dvd drive and one hdd, if you want more they need to be SATA. But basically man thats a nice upgrade from what you got going already.

What does everybody else think?


Also there are computer available in the 400 dollar price range that are not bad machines at all plus you get everything new as rockyjohn said.

id bet my lunch money that your current power supply will be inadequate for a new mobo/cpu, much less vid card

1) Edit your post to eliminate the extraneous garbage. Rockyjohn has a good point.

2) What are you doing that needs better performance?
I might presume gaming?

3) $200 will not be enough to make a big difference, since multiple parts probably need to be updated.

Just a question. Why do you say its agp??


Also, ya my link was too a ddr2 mobo with dd2 memory, didnt realize athlongs supported ddr3 and jsut got a board w/ ddr2... v.v silly me...

Should I use Belarc and add all the components from there to here, is that enough or do I need to do more?And also I have a xp service pack 3 disc installer on my pc at the moment, so software wise I'm fine.

Operating System- System Model
Windows XP Home Edition Service Pack 3 (build 2600)
Install Language: English (United States)
System Locale: English (United States)

Processor- Main Circuit Board
1.25 gigahertz AMD Athlon
128 kilobyte primary memory cache
256 kilobyte secondary memory cache
Not hyper-threaded

Drives- Memory Modules c,d
250.06 Gigabytes Usable Hard Drive Capacity
193.64 Gigabytes Hard Drive Free Space

LITE-ON DVDRW LH-20A1H [CD-ROM drive]
TOSHIBA DVD-ROM SD-M1502 [CD-ROM drive]
3.5" format removeable media [Floppy drive]

WDC WD2500JB-00REA0 [Hard drive] (250.06 GB) -- drive 0, s/n WD-WCANK5560242, rev 20.00K20, SMART Status: Healthy

Controllers- (I have no idea what this means)
Standard floppy disk controller
NVIDIA nForce2 ATA Controller (v2.6)

Main Circuit Board-
1.25 gigahertz AMD Athlon Board: nVidia-nForce
Bus Clock: 100 megahertz
BIOS: Phoenix Technologies, LTD 6.00 PG 06/19/2004

Memory Modules-
1024 Megabytes Usable Installed Memory

Slot 'A0' is Empty
Slot 'A1' has 512 MB
Slot 'A2' has 512 MB

Memory Modules c,d
1024 Megabytes Usable Installed Memory

Slot 'A0' is Empty
Slot 'A1' has 512 MB
Slot 'A2' has 512 MB

Multimedia-
NVIDIA(R) nForce(TM) Audio
NVIDIA(R) nForce(TM) Audio Codec Interface
NVIDIA(R) nForce(TM) MCP Audio Processing Unit

I like Kiren's idea of fully upgrading my computer for about 230$, is that a good idea?

Yeah all you need to do for us to be sure is tell us the power supply you already have. Which there will be a sticker on the power supply to tell you what the max is, post that for us.

Rockyjohn. He said he has a GeForce 7600 gs.

Yea I would go with his idea. The only thing is I dunno why he said that your card was AGP... when I googled it i got that it was pcie x16.

Either way though the mobo has an onboard video card so you would be good to start out with the basics. You will only be able to have one cd/dvd drive and one hdd though unless you bought new SATA drives. This is because the mobo has one PATA connector which will support two PATA drives. (Which is what I did for my moms computer. Got her a new power supply, case, mobo w/ onboard, ram and cpu)

The card was made in both AGP and PCIe flavors - might be helpful to know which he had.

Good point. Another option is to get a PCI or PCIe card with a SATA connector. Again this is just another reason to ask for complete specs on the system.

sorry, those were parts Kiren posted. Also I see that the pci slots are similar to the RAM slots but smaller. What do those slots exactly do out of curiosity?

It looks like the cheapest add-in card on newegg for IDE is $25. So I would skip that and instead pay $55 to get a new HD with a SATA connector and then plug the DVD drive and, if you want one IDE HD, into the IDE slot.

Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 ST3500418AS 500GB 7200 RPM 16MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive -Bare Drive - $55 with free shipping
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6822148395

This drive will probably be twice as fast as your old drive. Or, since you don't have a DVDRW drive, you might want instead to first get a new DVDRW with a SATA connector to replace the CDRW drive at a cost of about $30 - although the HD upgrade should have a significant impact on performance. But certainly better to pay about $30 for a SATA DVDRW instead of paying $25 to get a SATA card to connect old CDRW.

Well I was talking to my mom about this (I'm not 11 I'm 16 btw) and she says I should just get parts at the local thrift store. Why do I feel like that's a bad idea? How can I persuade her in ordering these parts instead of buying used parts which I'm a little weary of and have a feeling they won't deliver what I hoped they would?

If you have a budget problem, consider used parts. When I upgrade, I often sell the old parts on e-bay. I think others do also. If the parts are working properly and described accurately, they can be a good value. Do check the seller's feedback details. Look for itemswith low shipping costs. Cases, for example are heavy and cost $20 or so to ship. Craig's list is another source for parts, but I mostly see old and obsolete pc's. Remember that today's state of the art will be old hat in a year. Get what does the job today and not much more.