Need advice on old PC - to spend or not to spend?!

From: Ben

I have a very old PC (in computer years!), its about 4 years old. Its a PII
MMX. It only has an onboard video card (8Mb), do you believe that?!... And
128Mb RAM.

Sure it's not a PIII? I'd expect a PII to be around seven years old
or more. Hmmm, when did that annoying blue bunch of sods first appear?
If you're not sure, you can download freeware programs from
www.belarc.com or aida32; these programs will inventory and report to
you on your system.

It will be used by my mum for home purposes, probably just surfing the net
and emailing. So, worth the hassles or get a newer PC?
Any advice on whether it's worth changing to 256Mb RAM and dropping in a
128Mb (or even a 64Mb) video card? Will it even handle the upgrade?

Your mum's needs are modest, so unless you have cash to burn (even
though newer desktops are relatively cheap), no sense in getting a new
PC.

What operating sytem? Win9x will work fine on 128mb, though 256mb
would be better. For Win2000, I'd go with the 256mb, for WinXP I
would go with 256mb only if all the eye candy and bloat were turned
off. Open source-based OSs tend to require less memory as they tend
to have less bloat. I hear good things about Lindows (they renamed to
something but I don't recall offhand to what).

Next, what size monitor does the system have? Most store bought
systems from about four to eight years ago shipped with 17" CRTs, but
there were "bargain" ones (and many PII systems) that shipped with 15"
monitors. A casual user like your mum would want at least a 17"
monitor.

For web browsing, the connection speed makes a tremendous difference,
while better hardware/newer OS makes little difference (assuming the
computer was manufactured 4 years ago).

As to whether it can handle the upgrade, it depends on your
motherboard. Check the documentation that came with your board or PC,
or look it up on the web (or run one of the programs I mentioned).

I'm 99% sure it can handle the memory upgrade from 128mb to 256mb,
which is certainly a worthwhile upgrade. Most boards made for PII had
at least two slots for up to 128mb each, while most boards made for
PIII had at least two slots for up to 256mb each.

128mb RAM runs about $20~$30 (US) on eBay but you'll want to check out
what you have on board now. It's possible you have just two slots
with 64mb in each slot to make up your 128mb. If you buy one 128mb
stick, you end up discarding a 64mb stick and end up with 192mb; still
an improvement. If you have three slots, you end up with the desired
256mb (my PIII-based system has 3 slots for a max of 768mb).

You'll want to know what the bus (or FSB) speed is; PII systems were
made in both (IIRC) 66MHz and 100MHz FSB speeds, whereas PIII systems
were 100/133MHz speeds. Some of the PC133 and PC100 memory modules
will not be backwards compatible, though most of it should be.

You can also check out memory configurators, such as those at
www.crucial.com to find out the memory speed, configuration of store
bought computers (tells how many slots and max RAM).

Oh yes, set her up with antivirus, firewall, and spyware killers! And
explain about opening email attachments, disabling HTML in email,
phishing scams, and why it's not a good idea to send money to General
N'gumba in Nigeria even though he has millions that he is willing to
share waiting in an account.

My two cents' worth:

For basic websurfing and e-mail, anything from a Pentium II/AMD K6-2
on up should be just fine.

PC100 memory should work with most PII motherboards. PC133, probably
not, that's more for PIII's. Generally the more memory, the better,
though 256 MB should be more than enough. Get a good brand of memory
(skip the generics, they're trouble), preferably when the office
superstores or the electronics mall-glut-zones have it on sale.

WIN XP, IME requires A LOT of speed and memory.

Make sure the hard drive isn't ready to bite the dust (that happened
to us with a garage-sale H-P). You probably can't stick a 160 GB hard
drive into your machine, but a surplus dealer like compgeeks.com might
have smaller drives that your older machine's BIOS can deal with.

Does the monitor render everyting in an interesting shade of
off-green? Pitch it, and get a new or gently used one (I got my Sony
Trinitron 17-incher at a garage sale for $2.00; be sure and test
before you buy used).

And yes, get a good anti-virus program (skip the freeware, it sucks
real bad), firewall (especially if you're on high-speed internet
service) and an adware/spyware buster like Ad-Aware (www.lavasoft.de).

Good luck with your "classic" PC.