Page 1 of Hard Drive & Processor

I`m looking to upgrade my hard drive & processor (currently I only have Athlon 700 & 10Gb hard drive!!!!)
Can any1 tell me the best place to go for quality & price. Also I know nothing about installing it so a place to get it installed would be good also. Could you also give me a rough estimate on how much I expect to be charged for installation.
If any1 stays in the Glasgow area & can recommend anywhere (I would be grateful)

The hard drive will probably be the easier part of the upgrade you`re hoping for. To upgrade the processor you`ll probably also need a new motherboard and memory as you`re current model won`t take the latest Athlon`s - If you can identify which board it is check the manufacturer`s website, as they will usually list the processor`s a board will support.

To give an idea of costs, I ended up replacing my old setup in October with an Athlon 2200, 512Mb DDR RAM, and Asus m`board for £350 - processor an memory prices will have dropped slightly since then, and cutting the amount of RAM, and choosing a cheaper brand of m`board will cut this to about £250-270. Also expect to pay about £100 for a good size hard disk (80Gb).

Unfortunately, I can`t give you an indication of installation costs, I do it myself, but shop around - you might find that some of the smaller shops are often not much cheaper than the likes of PC World. If someone in Glasgow can recommend somewhere that might be you`re best option.

Another option if you just need a basic PC would be to buy a base unit, and just use your existing monitor, etc.

try droping into maplin
40gb hdd £40
2.0 cpu £90ish

If you are willing to order online then ebuyer are pretty cheap - I`m getting an AMD 2100 XP for £60 which my motherboard will support (it`s currently only got a Duron 750 in it).

If yo can still get them the K7S5A is a decent enough board (that`s what I`ve got and it supports all the XP chips)

Infinity at 50 Cook Street, Glasgow. G5 8JN will sort you out with the right compoments at very keen prices.
As duder says your may find your motherboard needs to be upgraded and possibly your memory( if you have old memory it may not fit a new motherboard )
Speak to the guys there, they know what they`re talking about, I believe they will also do the upgrade on a labour only basis for a modest fee.
Hope this helps P.

how can I identify what type of motherboard I have?

Got a new Maxtor hard drive from www.ebuyer.co.uk the other day. Make sure if you get one its 7200rpm, because the speed makes a real difference.

Actually speaking from a systems analyst`s point of view, it doesnt make that much difference at all. Price/performance it actually isnt a worthwhile investment for the average user unless you do a lot of gaming. Typically your only looking at a difference of +/-2ms in seek times between well specced 5400 drives.

"Only" Athlon 700? You cheeky beggar. I`m sure there are plenty of people here with much weedier systems than that ;-)

As for the K7S5A, yes it`s still available and still going strong (hardly surprising, really, when you consider the ridiculous cost of DDR RAM at the moment!) I believe the latest versions can support the new 333FSB Athlon processors (2600+ and 2800+) but you might want to check that before you buy. There are two PC133 RAM slots, so you should be able to use your existing memory in it.

I`d go for a Seagate Barracuda when it comes to the hard drive. The Maxtor 7200RPM drives are nice too, but the Seagates seem to run a bit quieter.

Mike

Before buying or doing anything try and get a hold of SiSoftware utilities. You should be able to install a copy from any number of PC magazine cover cd`s, or try downloading a trial version from daolnwod[at]moc.tenc (Think thats the correct address)
This utility will identify/ benchmark your system and will show you the manufacturer of your M/board and BIOS version/manufacturer amongst other things .
It will also show the information and maker of your Hard Drive amongst others. After running the utility print out the result and take that to Infinity or wherever and the techies should be able to give you some good advice. If you can get one of your mates that knows a little about PC`s to tag along with you just in case you end up getting stiffed by some spotty geek.
HTH :-)