upgrading an e-machine??

JustinJustin Atlanta
edited December 2003 in Hardware
I'm not ourlove2802 ~ just using his login cuz i'm retarded and couldn't get mine to work. He recommends this site adn the seething expertise within. So don't make fun of him for having gone through all this recently. or else! (yeah, I'll be "martle" when i'm not retarded later tonight at home with more time and no boss over the shoulder)

looking to upgrade RAM, hard drive, and graphics card on an e-machines T-1400. product description/specs here

http://www.emachines.com/support/previous.html

and here

http://parts.emachines.com/emachines/sys_lookup.asp

Before i go splurging on products, i want to make sure everything is compatable and worthwhile. Looking at GeForce FX 5200 graphics card with some extra ram. I'm told I'll need an extra fan to keep eveything cool and happyfied. (there's only one in the tower now).

Looking to add some RAM too. Only have 256 now, max is 2GB. What can the board handle. Oh yeah, and I can't figure out from the emachines site what type of board i have. Not at home yet either.

Going to use anextra PCI slot to upgrade to USB 2.0 (i'm almost positive that system is on 1.1). Thats cheap and easy. Do I have enough power (200 watts) for all this?

Anyways, thats a start. Any ideas/feedback . . . cool!

Comments

  • profdlpprofdlp The Holy City Of Westlake, Ohio
    edited December 2003
    Sorry to hear about your mental problems - we all have our bad days... :bigggrin: (kidding !)

    What budget are you working with? You're going to get all sorts of conflicting advice unless you state where you draw the line.

    Nice to see you posting! :wave:
  • McBainMcBain San Clemente, CA New
    edited December 2003
    The money you'd spend upgrading an *shudders* emachine would be spent MUCH wiser building a cheap GOOD rig for yourself. No one here can recommend a fx 5200 without listing off better choices. A 200 watt power supply is far too weak, so if your hell bent on upgrading your emachine, start off with a good powersupply.

    I see that your currently running an axp 1600+, a fine little chip. Unforutanately the mobo they have it mated with supports on SDR ram(boo!) If you intend to upgrade the speed as well as the size of the ram, you'll need to get a new motherboard as well.

    All of my suggestions are price/cost specific, so let us know a budget, something your comfortable spending, and I can offer my best suggestions to you. Right now, I'd suggest getting a new case/power supply(can be had for 30-40$), 512 pc 2700 ddr ram(40-50$), and a new mobo for 50$

    Then you can look at upgrading the hdd and video card. If you want suggestions on those, how about a nice 80 gig 7200 rpm 8 mb WD and either a 9600 pro or even an older 8500(9100) for a video card.
  • BudBud Chesterfield, Va
    edited December 2003
    your best bet in my opinion is do change motherboards, ram, then look at hard drive and video card.
    motherboard - ECS K7S5A PRO $40
    ram pc2100 or pc2700 2-256mb sticks or 1-512mb
    keep cpu
    video card- 9000pro $80
    Its all on what your budget can handle.
  • JustinJustin Atlanta
    edited December 2003
    really just trying to max out what i have. my price range is 500-700$ max to get what i can out of this machine. i know its bottom rung computing but all i really do with it that i want to maximize is a lot of Adobe and Macromedia design. But it involves a lot of motion, large files, complex design and such. Occasionally i load up a new game, too, so just getting the best out of this machine is optimal for me now as I'm looking to do this quick for a few projects.

    I guess to straightforward question is can the motherboard i have support a bit more/faster RAM. I could maybe replace what's there with a nice dual-chip for 512MB but I don't foresee any more RAM being helpful. Or am i wrong?

    As for the video card. I've got an AGP slot that's empty, so can this board handle any improvement? emachines.com lists the upgrade product as 256 MB PC 133 SDRAM DIMM. Could I up that without frying stuff? Power supply and fan are probably my starting points, eh?
  • JustinJustin Atlanta
    edited December 2003
    BUD ~ you say replace mobo but keep cpu? by cpu do you mean the tower? and can i really get a mobo worth switching for so cheap ($40). I mean if I could get a good one for $100, I'd spend it.
  • BudBud Chesterfield, Va
    edited December 2003
    i meant the prossecor-amd 1600 xp. I have that motherboard with a amd 1900+ and its great, but you could buy a lot better motherboard for $100 which can handle the fastest and 32 bit amd cpu's. so it gives you more options for upgrading down the road
  • BudBud Chesterfield, Va
    edited December 2003
    if your willing to spend $500, this is what I would get
    motherboard- abit nf7-s $100
    cpu- amd 2500+ barton $90
    corsair xms 512mb pc3500 $130-140
    case and power supply(min 350 watts)
  • McBainMcBain San Clemente, CA New
    edited December 2003
    I think most people here will agree whole heartidly that for 500$ you can build a brand new computer that whups the poop outta anything you could upgrade the emachine to. If your serious about that figure, you can get a helluva computer for 500$
  • JustinJustin Atlanta
    edited December 2003
    so Bud ~ do i get a new tower with all that. And everything (software, saved files, all the stuff one would care about) would be transferable? I assume most is on the hard drive, but what about, say my operating system. Windows XP Home. Would that be affected? Drives would be transferable too, right?
  • BudBud Chesterfield, Va
    edited December 2003
    you would have to reinstall windows xp, do you have a xp disk? you could back up important stuff to cd or zip or something like that
  • Geeky1Geeky1 University of the Pacific (Stockton, CA, USA)
    edited December 2003
    Yeah, $500-$700 is more than enough to get an entirely new system, complete with a tower.

    If I were you, I'd buy a new system and keep the old one as a backup.

    I'll see what I can find on Newegg for $500-$700...
  • JustinJustin Atlanta
    edited December 2003
    my machine used to be on a LAN, and I pulled shared software down. Now i'm not on a LAN, but still use much of the software regularly. If i send the C:// directory for a particular program (say adobe InDesign) to a CD and save, will all saved work, running applications, etc. be saved?

    I assume I'd have to transfer software program by program, right.
  • Geeky1Geeky1 University of the Pacific (Stockton, CA, USA)
    edited December 2003
    Depends on the software. I hate to say it, but this is one area where Apple has a major advantage- Apples have no registry; you copy the program folder, and the program works. In Windows, it's not that easy. It'll work if the program doesn't require any external files, but if it does, it won't work.

    There may be a way around this with XP's file and settings transfer thing, but having never used it, I can't say for sure.
  • JustinJustin Atlanta
    edited December 2003
    Are there any BIOS tweaks or anything that could squeeze any more life out of this machine? (This is the REAL ourlove now...) :aol:
  • Geeky1Geeky1 University of the Pacific (Stockton, CA, USA)
    edited December 2003
    It's not actually all that slow. The Athlon XP doesn't care about memory bandwidth as much as the P4 does... an upgrade to 512MB+ of RAM and a Radeon 9600 or better would make it a halfway respectable system, but it's really more cost effective to just buy a new system and keep this one as a backup.
  • profdlpprofdlp The Holy City Of Westlake, Ohio
    edited December 2003
    Geeky1 wrote:
    It's not actually all that slow. The Athlon XP doesn't care about memory bandwidth as much as the P4 does... an upgrade to 512MB+ of RAM and a Radeon 9600 or better would make it a halfway respectable system, but it's really more cost effective to just buy a new system and keep this one as a backup.
    I agree. I think your choice should be between the following:

    1) More RAM and a real Video Card would make this a respectable system for a year or two. Save the rest of your dough and build a soup-to-nuts computer down the road.

    2) Build a solid (new) system now. $500 - $700 will get you something to be proud of. You'll have your old system intact as a backup, a machine for your kids (or wife, granny, etc), or to sell.

    :thumbsup:

    NOTE: Get that rascal Folding! :fold:
  • EnverexEnverex Worcester, UK Icrontian
    edited December 2003
    133 SDR really is a huge step back down from 400mhz DDR, and Geeky1, what you said is completly contradictory to another thread - "The Athlon XP doesn't care about memory bandwidth as much as the P4 does" where as Thrax said [and I would have to agree with him] (The AthlonXP is alot more sensitive to memory timings and bandwidth than the P4).

    It may be easy enough saying get a new GFX card, but, does that machine even have an AGP slot?

    I'm with Profs Option 2, ditch that overpriced paperweight and build a decent PC.
  • JustinJustin Atlanta
    edited December 2003
    The unit does have an AGP slot and a graphics card is an attractive option for the starter of this thread (again, not the real me) along with a ram upgrade but, to echo Geeky, overall, it would be more cost effective to build a new one and keep the old one, programs and all, as a backup. It would seem that starting over with a new one, most of the program files could be transfered through either WinXp or some other transfer software. Any suggestions for flawless transfers? ( this thread was started by "martyle", I am still in the process of aquiring all of my components from previous threads...)
  • EnverexEnverex Worcester, UK Icrontian
    edited December 2003
    Best method for transfer is using a second machine to copy the files from one drive to the other. If you are changing the entire machine then it is best to either TRY a repair install, or re-install windows entirely, by moving all files to a second machine, formatting, then installing, otherwise you still have lots of useless files left over.

    Ghosting is only a machine itself backup method.

    If you just change the motherboard then you may be ok with just a repair install.
  • BudBud Chesterfield, Va
    edited December 2003
    couldnt you ghost it then change the motherboard and just install drivers for new motherboard?
  • croc_croc_ New
    edited December 2003
    couldnt you rape the HD out of there and use it in the new system doing a repair install? Did someone say that already? Anyways .... I would also just go with a new system. I work alot with with photoshop/dreamweaver/illustrator etc etc and I run it all on a 2500+ / 1gb ram / nforce2 board. It runs very quick and very smooth. Like they said, you can build one for around 600.


    OT - it took me a long time to realize NS = Enverex, which would be just now in this thread.
  • profdlpprofdlp The Holy City Of Westlake, Ohio
    edited December 2003
    I'm not sure, but does emachines give you a real sure 'nuff WinXP disc?

    If you have a "restore" disc only, it may not work on any other computer... :grumble:
  • EnverexEnverex Worcester, UK Icrontian
    edited December 2003
    Bud wrote:
    couldnt you ghost it then change the motherboard and just install drivers for new motherboard?

    You only need to Ghost if you are changing the HD, but that doesn't really work very well due to the filesystem and tables being different on different drives.

    If you just change the motherboard, make sure you uninstall all the drivers specific to it before you take it out (i.e. the nForce drivers, or VIA 4in1s) then see if it boots. If it Bluescreens, then you need to do a repair, chances are it will just work anyway, so you wont need to do anything other than install the new drivers.
  • Geeky1Geeky1 University of the Pacific (Stockton, CA, USA)
    edited December 2003
    I've been gone all day, so this response is a little belated but...

    Enervex, the only valid comparison I've ever seen done (where the same CPU, video card, etc. were used) between a KT133A and a newer chipset (it was a KT266A, KT333, or nForce... can't remember which) had the KT133A loosing by <5% or so in all benchmarks.

    There is very little performance impact on the Athlon from SDRAM; certainly far, far less than you get from using SDRAM or single-channel DDR on a P4.
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