Sinn Fein
07-03-2007, 11:29 PM
I did a CPU upgrade on a laptop a few weeks ago. I've decided to recycle the pulled CPU into a cheap upgrade for my father. I'm sick of hearing him bitching about his PC. Bear with me, I just need to vent.
He bought a PII 400 like 8-9 years ago when my sister was still in high school because their home computer at that time was just ridiculously obsolete. A year later, she got her own to take off to college. So, because this one "wasn't used alot" and "I only do certain things" means it should last forever. Certain things, like turning it on and off a million times instead of just leaving it on 24/7 like I continue to always suggest. That's always good for the components. I had to argue to convince him to leave the DSL modem and the router turned on.
Well, it started fucking up about 3 years ago. I determined the motherboard was bad. I replaced it with a Socket 370 P3-1GHZ motherboard/CPU combo, bumped it to 256 MB of RAM, upgraded it from Windows 98SE to XP, threw it all into a new case and he was fine.
About 6 months ago it really, really started to crawl. I coudn't figure it out right away. I replaced his DSL modem and router with my old stuff from when I used to have DSL and that fixed 90% of the problem. He still bitches about it being slow, and I am sick of hearing it. Honestly, I think the onboard NIC is dying, but I don't feel like fucking with it anymore. Part of it is also due to the fact that because he refuses to leave it on 24/7 as mentioned above, when he does fire it up it starts pulling down Windows Updates, Symantec updates, running spyware and virus scans, etc.. And of course, all while he's trying to open 3 web pages and his email at the same time. I even tried suggesting that he turn it on in the morning and then turn it off when he goes to bed, that way it'll be on enough when he's not actively using it to do all this other stuff uninterrupted. The other part of the problem is that when something doesn't respond right away, he keeps clicking and clicking the mouse. Then 20 copies of IE are running and it locks up.
So, I bought this motherboard (http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=2907973&CatId=1178) and a CPU fan. I am going to install the Sempron 3300+ from the laptop.
I've got 512MB of PC2100 DDR that'll work with that board and a 40GB ATA/133 hard drive (to replace the 10GB slow-ass drive he has now). I figure I can just Ghost his existing drive onto the 40GB, slap in the new motherboard/CPU/RAM combo, reconfigure everything in device manager, and it'll be good to go.
For his needs, which do not go beyond running IE, Firefox, and Outlook Express it's gonna scream.
He bought a PII 400 like 8-9 years ago when my sister was still in high school because their home computer at that time was just ridiculously obsolete. A year later, she got her own to take off to college. So, because this one "wasn't used alot" and "I only do certain things" means it should last forever. Certain things, like turning it on and off a million times instead of just leaving it on 24/7 like I continue to always suggest. That's always good for the components. I had to argue to convince him to leave the DSL modem and the router turned on.
Well, it started fucking up about 3 years ago. I determined the motherboard was bad. I replaced it with a Socket 370 P3-1GHZ motherboard/CPU combo, bumped it to 256 MB of RAM, upgraded it from Windows 98SE to XP, threw it all into a new case and he was fine.
About 6 months ago it really, really started to crawl. I coudn't figure it out right away. I replaced his DSL modem and router with my old stuff from when I used to have DSL and that fixed 90% of the problem. He still bitches about it being slow, and I am sick of hearing it. Honestly, I think the onboard NIC is dying, but I don't feel like fucking with it anymore. Part of it is also due to the fact that because he refuses to leave it on 24/7 as mentioned above, when he does fire it up it starts pulling down Windows Updates, Symantec updates, running spyware and virus scans, etc.. And of course, all while he's trying to open 3 web pages and his email at the same time. I even tried suggesting that he turn it on in the morning and then turn it off when he goes to bed, that way it'll be on enough when he's not actively using it to do all this other stuff uninterrupted. The other part of the problem is that when something doesn't respond right away, he keeps clicking and clicking the mouse. Then 20 copies of IE are running and it locks up.
So, I bought this motherboard (http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=2907973&CatId=1178) and a CPU fan. I am going to install the Sempron 3300+ from the laptop.
I've got 512MB of PC2100 DDR that'll work with that board and a 40GB ATA/133 hard drive (to replace the 10GB slow-ass drive he has now). I figure I can just Ghost his existing drive onto the 40GB, slap in the new motherboard/CPU/RAM combo, reconfigure everything in device manager, and it'll be good to go.
For his needs, which do not go beyond running IE, Firefox, and Outlook Express it's gonna scream.