PC Maintenance...

[cooprules]

I have an older PC (Pentium 4) that I'm trying to lengthen the life of. I would like to add ram (has 512MB right now). I'm also close to filling up the 80G hard drive. Is there a way (other than cracking it open) to see how much RAM I can add? Or what kind? What else can I do at this point? I used to do maintenance on Macs but have to admit that messing with a PC is new, although I know I can do it, just not sure what to do. Just looking for a cost effective way to help the old dog run a little faster. I realize I could get a new system pretty cheaply but would like to try this first.

[DuWayne Steurer]

Someone from Brewerfan pointed me to this site....... www.crucial.com. You input the type and model of your PC and it will tell you exactly what your computer can run. They're very reasonable on price as well.

 

I had an old Dell with 256 mb of RAM, and I ordered a pair of 1GB sticks, and installed them with no issue. I paid less than 80 bucks for the both.

[nate82]

You can also go here at Newegg to find the RAM you need.

 

As for the hard drive you can get a new hard drive for a rather cheap price that will hold more than the 80GB at Newegg. If you know the model number of your desktop PC just put it into google and you should find the specs and what you can add to the PC.

[endaround]

A new drive (assuming yours is IDE based) is pretty simple, pop it in, set it up as a slave and you're basically set . If your PC is knwon enough those sights will work otherwise you'll need to do some investigating to find what motehrboard you have.

[cooprules]

The little scanning program on crucial.com went off my motherboard and found some memory upgrades. 1 gig of new memory (512mb x 2) for 120 bucks. I'm going to see what the local guy can do and compare. Seems a little pricey but I could be wrong.

 

I am definitely going to get another hard drive. I really want an external (for when I do get my laptop) but I only have 2 USB ports. I have a 4 slot USB hub but I don't think it's going to be enough to power a hard drive. I usually have to plug other 'more power hungry' items directly into a port on the CPU, they won't work through the hub. Is there a possible solution to expand USB slots that can power hard drives, etc.?

 

Thanks for the help so far.

[1992casey]

Another place to look for memory is Data Memory Systems.

 

You can add USB ports cheaply by adding a card. They're all over the place on eBay. Here's an example.

[Nottso]

Ram is a commodity, just like hog futures. The price swings wildly, and sometimes often. I've seen 1 gig sticks of PC3200 DDR go from 40 bucks apiece to over 150 and back again, all in the span of a year. Your best bet is to keep an eye on it on Crucial or Newegg, and when the price drops to your comfort level, grab it.

[whizkid]

It might help if you gave us the make and model of the pc. Older memory often becomes more expensive if it's no longer being made as the supply drops. Many systems are quite sensitive to the memory and the cheap stuff often doesn't work.

[cooprules]

I found a gig of ram on Newegg for about 60 bucks or so. As far as the computer goes, the box says Gigabyte on it but it was a bundled deal at a computer show so I'm not real sure.

 

crucial says the motherboard is: GMate GA-8ID533 Motherboard

GBT___ System Model: AWRDACPI BIOS Version: Award Software International, Inc. 6.00 PG Operating System Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition Version: 5.1.2600 Memory (RAM) Capacity: 512 MB

Processor Intel(R) Pentium(R) 4 CPU 2.40GHz Version: x86 Family 15 Model 2 Stepping 4 Speed: 2411 MHz

[Brian the Automator]

Wow, $120 for a RAM upgrade? For $250, I'm buying a brand new Asus EEE PC Netbook with 1GB of Ram, a 16 GB SSD drive, and 160 GB HD.

 

I know this isn't the answer you wanted, but you're probably better off buying a better PC from someone off craigslist.

[Invader3K]

www.memory4all.com is another site with a nice memory "scan" feature. Good prices, too.

[Brian the Automator]

If you actually end up going to purchase parts, pricewatch.com is a great site to find the best deal.

[Diskono]

Generally, previous generation RAM is a lot more expensive for some reason. Since most stuff now is DDR2, DDR (likely what you need, unless you use RDRAM, which is even worse) is kind of pricey. Keep an eye open at http://outlet.dell.com too, they occasionally have some really good deals.

 

Most (but not all, be sure to check) USB hard drives have an external power supply, so power shouldn't be an issue.

[cooprules]

I looked around a little. Bought the USB card on Ebay. Got a Western Digital 1 TB drive (external) for 110 on Newegg and also got memory on Newegg (2 - 512mb DIMMs) for less than 60 bucks. Really put about 65 bucks into the old computer because I hope to have the external hard drive for a while.

 

Thanks for all the help. I really appreciate it.

[1992casey]

Yeah, you always have to separate out the cost of items that can be useful on a new machine. The USB card would also be transferable should you buy another desktop with PCI slots.

[cooprules]

Got the memory and the external hard drive. Installed memory and I now have over 1.5 G of RAM. I'm flying!! (not really)

 

I'm trying to back up my internal 80G hard drive on to the new 1TB drive. I'm just trying to copy some big video files first to make sure it's working. Some copy but on some I'm getting an error saying there's not enough space even though it's only a 5G video file going on a 1 TB drive. Am I doing something wrong? Is there a size limitation as far as copying files manually or anything? Just not sure what to do.

 

Thanks (again...)

[pitchleague]

my brother had the same type of trouble with this about a month or so ago. Apparently, his external hard drive was set up as a FAT file system (or something like that) and once he changed it in the external hard drive properties he had no problem. What he had to change it to? I have no idea but it's something along those lines.

 

So, I gave you some good advice but it's semi-incomplete advice.

[cooprules]

Looks like it's definitely a format issue, it needs to be NTFS for bigger file sizes. I knew this but I 'thought' it was already formatted as NTFS. It is not. I tried formatting it when I first installed but I was getting error messages. I'll try again. Also ran into some issues when I installed the USB card (computer would start loading but never totally start up). I took it back out for now. I just want to get my stuff off the main HD in case that starts to go.