Upgrading motherboard and prosseser soon, hopefully...

[scsa20]

hey all... I'm going to upgrade my motherboard and prosseser soon (well... hopefully) and I need to know what I should keep in mind when upgrading... like do I need better fans to keep it cool and such and what do I do if XP Pro complains about it... thanks for any help

 

[jumpy]

What are your system specs now, and what are you planning on upgrading to? XP won't complain about the processor, but you might want to reinstall if you're changing the motherboard.

 

[LeeJend]

XP should be painless these days.

Biggest thing to keep in mind is set your budget and then work within it.

Things you want:
DDR memory unless budget won't permit it. If you have to reuse old SDRAM pick a board that will take both memory types so you can upgrade ram latter.

An AMD system will be more cost effective ($50-100 less), but putting the heat sink onto the CPU is risky for a beginner with no one to show them how. The silicon chip is exposed and cracks easily. (Don't forget ther thermal paste!)

You may need to upgrade your power supply. A good (antec or enlight) 300W is the minimum for a newer system. (This is where I will get jumped all over by the guys who swear you need 400w+). (I run a 300w with 2-40g HD, 512 ram, ge3-it200, 2 cd drives, xp1900 and everything overclcoked).

If you don't have case fans (preferably front and back) you will need them for systems over 1 gigahertz.

Built in lan is nice. Saves a card slot. Same is true of built in sound unless you have a sound card already.

RAID is probably a waste (I got it and will never use it).

Serial ATA (new hard drive interface) is ok, but not sure it will be used in the life of a system you build now. The older ATA 100 parallel interface HD are low cost.

Dual DDR ram is good if you are going for a power system and can afford getting 2 ddr sticks.

USB 2.0 is a must have and total 6 USB ports is good because USB is what all the peripherals use now (scanner, printer, joystick, mouse, etc.)

I think thats all the important stuff. If i missed anything someone else will jump in and tell you (while castigating me for the oversight).

Enjoy putting your own system together. It's the only way to go.

 

[scsa20]

current system specs as follows:

PIII 500 Mhz
512 SDRAM (two sticks 1something SDRAM)
2 Hard drives (C = 40GB, D = 80 GB (thinking of upgrading hard drives later on like replacing the C drive with the 80 GB and puting a 350 GB in place of the old D))
Firewire (2 ports)
USB 1 (2 ports) with USB hub (4 ports)
GeForce 4 graphics card (don't remember all the details about it right now)
disk drive
DVD-ROM drive
CD-RW drive (thinking of replacing it with a DVD-/+RW drive when I get more money)
Power supply is unknown at this time
and I think I only have 2 fans running
the case of the computer is too small so I was planing on getting a new case anyways.

now what I was thinking of getting is a motherboard that well support both SD and DDR Ram (so when I start to get more money in I could replace the SD Ram with DDR Ram) and thinking of getting an AMD processor but if not then a P4 of about 3 GHz. all I'm worring about right now is getting an new motherboard and processor and also a new case to have more air flow (and going to also get more fans just in case)... this weekend I'm going to crack open my case (once again) to check out what more details I could get out of it (how many fans are running and what type of power supply I'm using)

@LeeJend -- I'll look into that, thanks