I would LIKE to overclock...

[SpywareShooter]

But I can't get to my Bios? Talking to knowledgable people on MSN, they say it should you should have to press either the delete key, or one of the F keys, on the first screen when I boot. I've tried all the F keys and the Delete key, and none of them work. Someone else said maybe eMachines wont let you get to your bios? Here are my computer specs. Please tell me what you think

Emachines 556i2
566MHz Intel Celeron processor
Windows ME
32MB SDRAM
66MHz system bus
6.96GB hard drive (Store said it was supposed to be 7.5, maybe virtual memory is taking up the .54GB?)

Yes, this computer is over four years old.

Me and my family are really getting sick of the slowness of this. I'm going to be getting this computer in a month or so and don't know if I can put up with the slowness of it. When I get it I'm going to get more RAM, which should help it be faster. But this 566MHz just won't cut it. Can you please help me?

(Sorry if some of this makes me seem like a n00b, I don't really know much about the hardware other than what is good/bad)

[t1rhino]

Welcome to SM. I could be mistaken, but I do not think that you will be able to overclock your eMachines very much. Normally vendors like Dell, Compaq/HP, etc strip out the ability to change any settings.

[primesuspect]

t1 is right - there's no way to overclock an OEM computer. The motherboard has to give you the ability to change the multiplier and bus speeds - either via jumpers on the motherboard itself (a method that hasn't been used in years) or via the BIOS. No OEM computer has any of those options available in the BIOS since people overclocking their 1337 emachines and compaqs would cause no end of support headaches.

You have to build your own if you want to overclock :)

[keto]

I have a friend I do tech support for who owns 2 emachines...neither is the same model as yours so not sure if the following will apply for yours. In any case, I can get into the bios - but as T1R says, the options for overclocking are stripped out.

That computer is on the cutting edge of obsolete unfortunately. The 32MB of RAM is the biggest roadblock but the cpu is slow and (being a Celeron) stripped. Most people around here will tell you that Windows ME is horrible. Your onboard video is going to struggle with even simple tasks like web surfing. Wish I had better news for you.

[primesuspect]

The ram is really the only thing you can do to improve the speed of the machine. You should wipe it out, install 256mb of ram in it, and get windows XP and it will run decently - at least to surf the net and do homework. Don't expect any gaming, though :(

[t1rhino]

The good news is that with a knowledgeable site like this, Newegg, and a couple hundred bucks, you can build yourself a new computer with whatever overclocking options you like. :)

[edcentric]

You could even buy some slightly used equipment to learn with. It would be faster than what you have and it won't cost much. You would be surprized what some of us have laying around.

[Squill]

I'm selling a 1.1ghz AMD Athlon computer if you wanna buy it. It's a big jump in speed from what you have. Here's the link if you wanan check it out :-D http://www.short-media.com/forum/showthread.php?p=178215#post178215

[SpywareShooter]

That computer is on the cutting edge of obsolete unfortunately. The 32MB of RAM is the biggest roadblock but the cpu is slow and (being a Celeron) stripped. Most people around here will tell you that Windows ME is horrible. Your onboard video is going to struggle with even simple tasks like web surfing. Wish I had better news for you.

I know... I want (and need) more RAM. I am getting really annoyed at the slowness of this computer. It has a max of 256MB of RAM. Yet the computer has a sticker on it that says "This computer is never obsolete" and has upgrade instructions. I don't know what the people were smoking when they put that sticker on there =\. Probably by the end of this year 256MB will be near obsolete. Already computers are coming with 1GB, even from stores like Staples. People on MSN say that to get a new processor and a larger hard drive that I'll need a new motherboard which will be like $200. If I update this to the max, it's going to be over $600 ($300 for XP, $50+ for RAM, $200 for a motherboard, I don't know how much for a hard drive or a processor). With that I might as well get a new computer, which I know is not going to happen. And I don't have $600 to spend on this thing to upgrade it. My mom was saying a few months ago that we'd get a new computer this summer. Now she's saying it's going to be hers and I'm stuck with this piece of crap. I said I'd take it only if she'd get me more RAM for it. Hehe. How much do you think having 256MB of RAM instead of 32 will speed it up?

[Geeky1]

It'll speed it up a LOT. Games will still be totally out of the question (at least any games made in the last 4 years or so, maybe more) but it'll make everything else much, much faster.

BTW, XP is $100, and you can get a new motherboard and cpu for under $200 :)

[SpywareShooter]

Around here XP is over $200.

"It'll speed it up a LOT. Games will still be totally out of the question (at least any games made in the last 4 years or so, maybe more) but it'll make everything else much, much faster."
I can't play games anyways, or download anything.

[Geeky1]

Are you in the US? You can get legal copies of XP for <$100 from all sorts of reputable places...

[edcentric]

Where are you man?
I know location can make it difficult. But we have people about everywhere that can give you local tips.
What you need is an OK mobo (NF7-S) a cheap CPU (XP24 or 25) and 512 of DDR. Then you can start learning more.

[primesuspect]

You can get an OEM copy of Windows XP for about $100. Fully legal.

[Geeky1]

Yeah, I probably should have mentioned that I was talking about the OEM version. Technically you have to buy it with hardware, but a $0.99 CD Audio cable qualifies as hardware, so... :D

And the only difference between OEM and retail versions of Windows is that the OEM version doesn't come with the prettyful box, and I believe the retail version has a more complete manual.

[SpywareShooter]

Okay... a lot of this is confusing me lol. I'm not good with the hardware.

"and 512 of DDR."

My computer has a maximum of 256MB =\

[primesuspect]

But replacing the mobo would change that. Then it would accept DDR and it would allow a lot more potential.

[SpywareShooter]

Like I said before, I don't have tons of money to put into this thing. I'm probably just going to buy 256MB and that's it. I don't want to go spending tons of money on it (which I don't have anyways) where it's 4 years old and might not last anther year.

You can close this topic or whatever now. Problem solved, I can't get into the bios =\. Thanks anyways.

[Geeky1]

You can have a new system that's worlds faster than your old one (no new OS tho) for under $250 (not including shipping or tax)

Specs of the system in question:
1.3GHz Athlon
ASROCK motherboard w/KT400 chipset
256MB DDR
ATi Radeon 7000/32MB
20GB hdd
use your old optical & floppy drives

[muddocktor]

I was just working on my neighbor's old Comcrap POS 433 Celeron tonight and decided to see what it would take to give a decent upgrade to it. I priced out an Asus KM400 chipset mobo(integrated video, refurb), 256 MB pc3200 DDR, XP2000+ retail proc (Tbred), Thermaltake 420 watt psu(don't forget that those el-cheapo brand name boxes use small psu's) and a 40 gig Maxtor 7200 rpm hard drive for a little less than $230 shipped. You can always use your old operating system for now and upgrade to XP later.

[Justin]

IF you do decide to put any money out, come here first. I was where you are a year ago and now I build PCs for my friends as a hobby. The money you will spend on RAM for that older system will easily get you into a total upgrade in performance and quality of usage if you take our advice. Seriously.

[Komete]

Bro, I would have to agree with geeky and the rest. Putting money into that old pc is just a waste.

Sdram prices are just silly. You also have to make sure how much memory it can take per slot. I know my old p2 system could only recognize 64megs per slot. So getting 4x64megs of sdram is really gunna push the price up.

Next the harddrive you have now is most likely an old 5200rpm. You could throw 100 gig's of memory and the system will still perform like poo. A slow hard drive will just choke the life out of the whole system.

I went on New egg with the price point that Geeky put up to see what could be built.

What I came up with is a system that would do at least 2.1ghz, 256mb ddr333, 40 gig hardrive, geforce mx400, video 6 channel audio and a list of more on board stuff.

BIOSTAR "M7NCG 400" nForce2 IGP $60.00 <-- it's actually not a bad ocer and it has onboard video fo free

AMD 45 Watt Mobile Athlon XP 2400+, $79.50 <--- This puppy will do 2.4ghz and it runs cool

Buffalo Technology 184 Pin 256MB ddr333 $41.00 <-- It'll beat up some pc133

Maxtor 40GB 7200RPM IDE Hard Drive $46.00 <--- A lot of mp3 storage

Speeze "WhisperRock II" CPU Cooler $8.99 <--- it can cool up to 3200xp

Make use of your old parts for teh rest $free

Total: $240.49


Now this isn't a doom 3 machine but you should be able to get a little 2k4 action on low settings. Down the road you would want to look into upgrading the memory to 512 to 1 gig ddr3200 when funds allow, if you are into games the video card, and possibly your power supply. I can email you the wish list from new egg. There might be better Motherboards with video out there. I didn't spend too much time loooking for all the best features. All in all Besides teh Memory I wouldn' mind having the above setup as a secound computer.

[speed_x]

Don't waste your time on that computer.
Don't waste your money on RAM for it.
$250.00 will get you a very nice computer.
Give the computer to someone that doesn't
have one and don't waste time/money on it!

[Creep]

Emachines 556i2
566MHz Intel Celeron processor
Windows ME
32MB SDRAM
66MHz system bus
6.96GB hard drive

Buy a new one or buy more RAM for that one, format it and reinstall windows 95.....

IF you do decide to put any money out, come here first. I was where you are a year ago and now I build PCs for my friends as a hobby. The money you will spend on RAM for that older system will easily get you into a total upgrade in performance and quality of usage if you take our advice. Seriously.

Damn I know I have been "out of the loop" but when in the hell did None ECC SDRam go up to 500 bucks?!

His computer is great for the novice that doesn't do much on the PC, Webpages, e-mail, maybe some online radio stations, that sort of thing. a FRESH 9x install and some RAM will have that PC running like a champ.

[Creep]

BIOSTAR "M7NCG 400" nForce2 IGP $60.00 <-- it's actually not a bad ocer and it has onboard video fo free

AMD 45 Watt Mobile Athlon XP 2400+, $79.50 <--- This puppy will do 2.4ghz and it runs cool

Buffalo Technology 184 Pin 256MB ddr333 $41.00 <-- It'll beat up some pc133

Maxtor 40GB 7200RPM IDE Hard Drive $46.00 <--- A lot of mp3 storage

Speeze "WhisperRock II" CPU Cooler $8.99 <--- it can cool up to 3200xp

Make use of your old parts for teh rest $free

Total: $240.49





For like another 400 he can get a Dell package with a LCD Monitor and can Call Dell when he breaks it.....

[Komete]

For like another 400 he can get a Dell package with a LCD Monitor and can Call Dell when he breaks it.....

Shoot son for anouther $400.00 I could build a system that'll make you wanna Slap Your Momma!

I'm talking 21inch sony crt.. doom3 ultra playin.. 22000 3d mark benching... boot in 15 secounds.. momma told me to knock dell out beast of a system.

Dell is just a fancy four letter word. Besides thats what great forums like this one is for Spreading the wealth of pc knollege one post at a time.

[SpywareShooter]

Thanks, but like I said. I don't have any money for this, or a new computer.

"Buy a new one or buy more RAM for that one, format it and reinstall windows 95....."

I was going to get 256MB of RAM for it, and was thinking about maybe installing 98. Why are you saying 95?

[muddocktor]

SpywareShooter, I just checked memory prices for your old emachines 566i2 at Crucial.com's website and sdram is now expensive for it! To upgrade that old clunker to 256 MB ram will cost you right at $100, which is a hell of a waste of money, in my opinion. You will be buying ram for a machine that's already at the end of it's lifespan and it would be better to spend that same $100 on getting some upgrade stuff. Either decide to live with the clunker as-is or decide to spend around $230-250 and upgrade the machine to a decent standard such as I or other people have recommended.

BTW, that old Comcrap machine of my neighbor's turned out to have a bad motherboard and she wants me to upgrade her machine to the XP2000+ I mentioned in my earlier post. Here is a list of the parts and their prices, just to give you an idea of what would be involved with the upgrade.

Hard drive - Maxtor 40 gig 7200 rpm drive - $46
memory - A-Data PC3200 256 MB - $38
motherboard - ASRock KS741-GX - $44
power supply - Thermaltake Silent Pure Power 420 - $38
Processor - AMD XP2000+ retail - $63
Shipping - $7.99

Grand total: $236.99

All prices from Newegg.com and if you don't want to upgrade the hard drive, then knock off $46 from the price.

[SpywareShooter]

Bah, maybe I'll just upgrade to 128 or something. Will those prices go down?

[muddocktor]

Bah, maybe I'll just upgrade to 128 or something. Will those prices go down?


I kind of doubt it. They aren't manufacturing much sdram any more so the price on it stays high. If you do want to look for ram for the old box, then you might see what you can find on ebay; maybe you can find better prices on it there. Crucial.com's website shows your machine as able to run a max size of 128 MB sdram PC100 dimms per slot and the mobo has 2 slots. That's about all I can recommend for that old mobo though. :)

We aren't trying to force you to upgrade for the hell of it here, we just don't want to see you wasting good money on that old machine. :)

[SpywareShooter]

There's a sticker on this that says 256 max. But with that price I'd only go up to 128. I don't want to waste my money either, which is why I'm asking about it here. My mom is going to get her new computer in a month or so (when I get this one) so I'll probably upgrade then. Do they still sell Windows 98 Disks? Lol. ME sucks.

[muddocktor]

I've bought a liscense key from www.9software.com a couple of months ago and they were good to deal with. They have Win98 first edition cd's for $55 and win98 second edition cd's for $76. Both are oem versions(original equipment manufacturer). The best deal for you there is the Windows 2000 Pro for $82 though; that's a good, stable operating system and operates with the latest and greatest hardware too, which might give you trouble with on Win98.

[kanezfan]

listen up pal. we all started where you are. we all made the same mistake, threw money away on crap. you see when you get your ram for the emachine, you'll install it and then your computer will be a tad faster. but then you'll catch the bug, when you tinker with them computer all the time so you can eek out every bitof performance possible. and then you'll want to buy new parts and upgrade more, but you wont want to go too far because you already wasted $100 on PC100 ram, and then you'll get frustrated, and on and on.... For the love of God man!!! Listen to the voice of experience. DO NOT WASTE YOUR MONEY ON OLD RAM FOR AN OLD COMPUTER!!!!!! Do this, the moment you get that computer, format the hard drive, and install whatever windows you want, not ME though. play with it, leanr how to use it, take it apart, put it back together, tweak it, install linux on it, learn. by this time, you'll have saved up some money. That's when you can afford to upgrade it like everyone's shown you for around $250. I'm telling you, if you spend any money on RAM for this piece of crap computer, you might as well be burning your cash.

[Komete]

Aight this is what I'll do for you. Send me your adress in a private messege and I'll send you some sticks of pc100 or pc133 fo free. I have about 8 sticks in my old harware box. It's gunna suck ass going into my atic and digging out my old p2 puter to make sure the sticks still work but I would hate to see you waste your dough.

Once you get it and install and see it still takes 2 and a half minutes to boot into windows becouse of the slow hard drive and decide to save and build a new system you can send me back the memory. If I can find my win 98 cd key I'll send you my legit copy of it also. I pray to never have to go back to that OS.

[speed_x]

SpywareShooter:

Give that computer to somebody that
doesn't have one. Don't spend one dime on it.
It ain't worth it!
I get computers like that all the time and I
give them away or take them apart and recycle
what I can. Go with what Komete and Muddocktor
say. Give it up man, it's not worth it!

[speed_x]

Way to go Komete!
Wish there where more like you!

[speed_x]

Dito, Kanezfan!

[SpywareShooter]

Sorry, Komete. I would say yes, but I don't even give my address out to my real life friends, nevermind people online. One of my friends has an old Windows 95 that he has some extra RAM in. I might be able to get that for free. It would work in this computer right?

[kanezfan]

probably, but i bet it'll end up being pc66, and forget it, i dont know why you wont listen to us.

[SpywareShooter]

What is the difference between pc66 and whatever I have?

[kanezfan]

the ram runs at different frequencies. celeron 566s were the first celys to run on a 100 mhz bus i believe. so basically, you will end up running different speed ram which can lead to system crashes and files becoming corrupted.

[SpywareShooter]

This computer has a 66MHz system bus. Does the 66 in pc66 mean a 66MHz system bus?

[Komete]

Sorry, Komete. I would say yes, but I don't even give my address out to my real life friends, nevermind people online. One of my friends has an old Windows 95 that he has some extra RAM in. I might be able to get that for free. It would work in this computer right?

No problem man I might be tempted to fly out to wherever you live bust in your window and steal that little 533 celron system and make it fold 24/7.. muhaha

But since I did dig all that crap out of my storage closet I might as well put it up on ebay and see what I can get. I'm going to auction all of it in one big lot. Memory sticks mobos cdroms power supplies the whole gambit of crap. I must have about 40 items or so. I wonder if I could get enough to build a small htpc for my widescreen $350.00 elcheapo style :)

[speed_x]

Hey SpywareShooter:

I got a real good idea man!
There are plenty of books on the basics of upgrading computers...why don't you go and read one?

All it would take you is an afternoon and you'd have it down pat.

Komete--> That was a very nice thing you offered to do. You're a very nice person!

[Creep]

Take the RAM out of that machine and stick it in yours then reinsall some version of windows, something from the 9x series would be best.

[jollychang]

the sd ram is a problem

[Komete]

Hey SpywareShooter:

IKomete--> That was a very nice thing you offered to do. You're a very nice person!
Ahh it aint notin but a chicken wang :)

I went ahead and starting posting stuff on ebay. So far I got 10 auctions going and I think I'll probably have another ten more to go. I only ended up finding 2 sticks of pc133 and one stick of pc100. I know I have more just gotta find it :)

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=3836819750

[SpywareShooter]

So would my RAM be pc66 where I have a 66MHz system bus?

[muddocktor]

So would my RAM be pc66 where I have a 66MHz system bus?

It could be either pc66 or pc100 or maybe even pc133 as they all fit the same dimm slot. The higher rated ram is pretty much downwardly compatible except for a few old motherboards. If you are still serious about upgrading the ram on that old box and don't trust people here on this forum, you always try to buy some on ebay; I looked there and there were quite a few listings for pc100 128 MB sticks for auction or sale. Of course, you generally won't know who you are dealing with on ebay either.

[SpywareShooter]

I would be skeptical about buying it on ebay too. We've done things on ebay before, and it has come out fine. So its okay if I have pc66 (not sure what I have) to buy pc100?

[Creep]

I goty ripped off on a Pool Cue using eBay. The cue is still worth it in my eyes, but it wasn't what I was told it was. Something tells me that PC100 will work fine in your machine, and yes, 128 along with your current ram should work fine.

[SpywareShooter]

Crucial says my computer uses pc100. I might get it from them. Only $50 for 128MB.

[muddocktor]

Yeah, if you don't mind paying that much, Crucial will do just fine. Their SDRAM is some of the best out there and their warrantee service is superb..

[SpywareShooter]

I'm getting sick of this slow piece of crap and people like "DOWNLOAD MSN 6.0!!" and download this, download that. Right now I can't download anything, since all of my RAM is used to run my OS =\. I'll pay $50 to fix (or improve) it.