An exclusive gaming industry community targeted
to, and designed for Professionals, Businesses
and Students in the sectors and industries
of Gaming, New Media and the Web, all closely
related with it's Business and Industry.
A Rich content driven service including articles,
contributed discussion, news, reviews, networking, downloads,
and debate.
We strive to cater for cultural influencers,
technology decision makers, early adopters and business leaders in the gaming industry.
A medium to share your or contribute your ideas,
experiences, questions and point of view or network
with other colleagues here at iVirtua Community.
I have been thinking my computer where all my hardrive and everything is old. My parents got in 2001 would you say its obsolete now and need a new one or kepp and upgrade it. - psychoarmykid
Last edited by PsychoArmykid on Thu Dec 22, 2005 3:31 pm; edited 1 time in total
Depends on what you want to use it for, and what the mainboard can support. Chances are you could get at least 1GB of ram in there.. 2GB if it was a good mainboard.. Of course, you won't be able to have the latest PCI-E graphics cards, or even the latest AGP cards.. but if you don't need it for gaming then thats pretty fine.
You also need to take into account if it would cost more to upgrade than to buy new.
If it were me, I would proberbly go with building a new system. But that's because of what I would use it for. If you could give us a little info about what you plan to use it for, and what specs it has then that will really help.
Last edited by kahrn on Thu Dec 22, 2005 4:14 pm; edited 1 time in total
Its not completely worthless if it was made in 2001. It depends what you want to use it for. If it is just surfing the web and such, then you don't need anything newer. If you want to play some new games on it, then you will pretty much need a completely new computer.
Here is the thing my parents just use it and they let me on for school work and everything but i can play some games on it. Like starcraft the first few battlefields, but now i can't beacuse it would always mess up the computer and i would have to take it in and pay $200 for repair so now i don't play computer games. So now its just and school work computer and working. -psychoarmykid
Last edited by PsychoArmykid on Fri Dec 23, 2005 12:12 pm; edited 1 time in total
I don't see how playing a game would mess up the computer to where you needed to bring it somewhere to get repaired. What exactly was wrong with it when you had to get it repaired? I can also say that you are definitely paying way too much to get it repaired. I am assuming all they did was remove some malware or something. If your computer needs to be repaired post here and we can help you solve the problem yourself. Not only will you gain a better understanding of computers in general, but you will save $200.
Now back to the original discussion - If it was bought in 2001 it is definitely good enough for basic tasks. Is the computer going slow for you? If the computer is going slow it is probably a result of some sort of malware. You can either remove it or do a reformat. If you have not reformatted in a long time that may be the best option.
Also, do you mind posting the specs? You can find out the important specs using CPU-Z. Just download it, open it up, go to 'About' and click 'HTML Report'. Save the htm file on the desktop or something and then copy & paste the information here.
Name AMD Athlon Code Name Thunderbird Specification AMD Athlon™ Processor Family / Model / Stepping 6 4 4 Extended Family / Model 7 4 Package Socket A Core Stepping A9 Technology 0.18 ? Supported Instructions Sets MMX, Extended MMX, 3DNow!, Extended 3DNow! CPU Clock Speed 1325.4 MHz Clock multiplier x 10.0 Front Side Bus Frequency 132.5 MHz Bus Speed 265.1 MHz L1 Data Cache 64 KBytes, 2-way set associative, 64 Bytes line size L1 Instruction Cache 64 KBytes, 2-way set associative, 64 Bytes line size L2 Cache 256 KBytes, 16-way set associative, 64 Bytes line size L2 Speed 1325.4 MHz (Full) L2 Location On Chip L2 Data Prefetch Logic no L2 Bus Width 64 bits
Mainboard and chipset Motherboard manufacturer Compaq Motherboard model 079Ch, None BIOS vendor Compaq BIOS revision 786K2 BIOS release date 05/03/2001 Chipset AMD AMD-761 rev. A3 Southbridge VIA VT82C686 rev. 40
Graphic Interface AGP AGP Status enabled, rev. 2.0 AGP Data Transfer Rate 4x AGP Max Rate 4x AGP Side Band Addressing supported, not enabled AGP Aperture Size 64 MBytes
Memory DRAM Type DDR-SDRAM DRAM Size 256 MBytes DRAM Frequency 132.5 MHz FSB:DRAM 1:1 CAS# Latency 2.5 clocks RAS# to CAS# 3 clocks RAS# Precharge 3 clocks Cycle Time (TRAS) 6 clocks Bank Cycle Time (TRC) 9 clocks DRAM Idle Timer 8 clocks # of memory modules 2 Module 0 Micron Technology DDR-SDRAM PC2100 - 128 MBytes Module 1 Micron Technology DDR-SDRAM PC2100 - 128 MBytes
Software Windows version Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition Service Pack 2 (Build 2600) DirectX version 9.0c
-psychoarmykid
Last edited by PsychoArmykid on Fri Dec 23, 2005 1:18 pm; edited 1 time in total
You have an Athlon Thunderbird @ 1.3GHz and 2x128MB RAM. That won't be very good with any software today. much less games. You might not even be able to load Battlefield (Vietnam, 1942) on there. BF2 is out of question.
Check the minimum requirements for the Battlefield games, and if your system meets them, then buy the game.
Last edited by Predator on Fri Dec 23, 2005 1:20 pm; edited 1 time in total
Contributed by Predator, Guest 510 iVirtua Loyalty Points • • • Back to Top
Predator, he didn't say he wanted to play games. The system is meant for basic everday tasks. For that the computer is more then enough. The only thing I would suggest you do is add another stick of 256MB of RAM. This would make operation much better. RAM is extremely cheap nowadays too, so it is a really good idea.
EDIT - You are currently using 2x128MB and you probably only have two DIMM slots. In that case you would have to get rid of one or both to make room for more RAM.
Last edited by KoolDrew on Fri Dec 23, 2005 1:26 pm; edited 1 time in total
Well see I can play all the battlefields except the new one bf2. Plus when i try to play cloof duty the first one the pictures our out of sinc when i played it. Anoughther thing is taht me downloading the games makes the computer slower plus if i play online that is how it broke the first few times playing online. -psychoarmykid
But if is manly used for work and stuff now since i messed the computer up about 5 times then my parents had a enough of the coputer screwing so thats why i can't play games any more.
But i'm just wandering are there any good computer out there for gaming -psychoarmykid
Last edited by PsychoArmykid on Fri Dec 23, 2005 1:26 pm; edited 1 time in total
Predator, he didn't say he wanted to play games. The system is meant for basic everday tasks. For that the computer is more then enough. The only thing I would suggest you do is add another stick of 256MB of RAM. This would make operation much better. RAM is extremely cheap nowadays too, so it is a really good idea.
He did talk about BF.
For web surfing & daily activities, yes the system is fine. But for anything higher, you'll notice a lot of lag.
Contributed by Predator, Guest 510 iVirtua Loyalty Points • • • Back to Top
As I said before, I would upgrade the RAM to 512MB. Also, when was the last time it was reformatted? Ussually I don't recommend reformating as a solution, but if it is infected by a lot of malware then it may be the best option. When you are done reformatting I would highly suggest installiung some software and doing other things to help prevent the system from being infected with malware again. I will cover that stuff later.
Quote:
But i'm just wandering are there any good computer out there for gaming -psychoarmykid
If you want a gaming computer, build your own. Building your own would be MUCH cheaper.
Quote:
Well I have DSL bellsouth internet when I first got it was fine now a litttle bit later it some laggy but not to much. -psychoarmykid
As I said before, I would upgrade the RAM to 512MB. Also, when was the last time it was reformatted? Ussually I don't recommend reformating as a solution, but if it is infected by a lot of malware then it may be the best option. When you are done reformatting I would highly suggest installiung some software and doing other things to help prevent the system from being infected with malware again. I will cover that stuff later.
Im wandering how you do reformating and what type of software would i need. - psychoarmykid
Last edited by PsychoArmykid on Fri Dec 23, 2005 1:49 pm; edited 1 time in total
If you plan to install Windows XP, reformatting is pretty much done for you. Put the install CD in your drive, and restart your computer to boot the installer. You will have an option to format the hard drive before you install Windows, and this is the option you should take.
Digg Topic
Tag topic on On del.icio.us
Technorati Search
Post to Slashdot
