Help With Upgrading

Shadowhunter

Shadowhunter

New Member
Hey everyone, here's my situation. I have a 5 or so year old Dell Dimension 4500 that is, well, crap. It takes 5 min. to boot, can't run any games except at the lowest video settings, and everytime I open Photoshop I have to wait a min for it to load. :mad: So I'm hoping to upgrade it with 1. This video card http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814121511 and this processor http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16819116175 (I think I have a 478 Socket) and maybe a RAM upgrade too. I worry that my PSU isn't enough to run this though? So can anyone help me out? Thanks in advance.
 
Kornowski

Kornowski

VIP Member
Hey,

If you want to find out what type of socket you have, try this, it'll tell you everything:

http://www.cpuid.com/download/cpu-z-138.zip

Also, I think if I was going to get a new graphics card, get the X850 Pro (AGP), I have it and I haven't got anything bad to say about it and it isn't that expensive!

What speed is your processor? Is it 2 GHZ?

My friend has that same Dell (I think) and his processor is about 2 GHZ...

I'd say get some more RAM instead of the processor, back to my friend...

He put a 1GB stick of RAM in his computer got a decent Graphics Card and stuck with his processor and he can play things fine! Stuff like HL2 on full!

The only thing thats stock in my computer is the CPU and the HDD...


Hope this helped! :)
 
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Shadowhunter

Shadowhunter

New Member
Ya, I have a 2Ghz Intel P4. So you're saying that a RAM upgrade can show better results than a CPU upgrade? If I add one 512MB stick to make 1GB total + the vid card will my PSU be able to handle that? How can I find out?
 
Kornowski

Kornowski

VIP Member
Yeah, You'd be better off getting some RAM and and new GPU.

1GB of RAM would be great, it'd work fine!

I think it should be, How many watt is it?
 
Shadowhunter

Shadowhunter

New Member
Kornowski said:
I think it should be, How many watt is it?
Click to expand...

See that's the thing, it's only 250 Watts :(
Do you think it'll be fine? How can I find out?
Here's what the specs would be if I followed your guys' advice:

Dell Dimension 4500
250W Unkown PSU
Stock Intel 845E Motherboard
Unknown 80GB Hard Drive
Pentium 4 2.0Ghz
128MB ATI Radeon 9550 AGP 4x/8x (I must get this card according to ATI's wattage reccomendation)
2x 512MB RAM = 1GB (PC2100)

So whatta ya think, can my PSU run this stuff or should I just get a new one?

Edit: And if I decide to get a new PSU, is it as simple as taking out the old one and putting the new one in and re-hooking up all the cables, or is it not so simple? Remember I have a Dell....
 
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J

johnny

New Member
Whats wrong with having to wait 1 minute to open photoshop? Photoshop is known to lag when opening it.
 
kingsPC

kingsPC

New Member
Sorry, your computer seems doesn't support the CPU that you choose because it is a prescott Core running at 800Mhz FSB, your old system is running at either at 400Mhz FSB/533MHz FSB, your motherboard won't support that CPU, I suggest you try search for "P4 2.8Ghz 533MHz 512K CPU" on Ebay and you will get some good deal.
Also, mostly Dell old computer don't have an AGP Slot on their Motherboard, try to make sure if you have this slot or not, if not, you can get this card :

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814241001

then, it must work on your PC since it is a PCI Slot card, I have this card on my Old Spare computer too, it works good though!
 
kingsPC

kingsPC

New Member
By the way, I don't think it is the problem of PSU, as I also have another Spare PC that run quite fast, takes less than a 30 sec to boot in a full version XP, config below:
180W InWin PSU
P4 2.4Ghz, 800Mhz FSB, 512K cache
Biostar P4M80-M4 Motherboard
512MB Kingston DDR400 Ram
BenQ 16X Double Layer DVDRW
InWin BT533 mATX Case
 
Shadowhunter

Shadowhunter

New Member
My last questions.

Oh ok, that's why I was asking (to see if mine could run that stuff) by the way, what kind of video card do you have? I still have 3 Q's though.

1. Will my PC run the new hardware on the same PSU (250Watt) with these specs?


Dell Dimension 4500
Intel 845E Motherboard
Intel P4 Processor 2.0 Ghz
512MB + 512MB PC2100 RAM
ATI Radeon 9550 Videocard
80GB Hardrive
DVD/CD Drive
CD Burner Drive

2. If you don't know how can I find out?


3. If my PSU CAN'T run this setup is replacing it as easy as taking out the old one and putting in a new one? (plus plugging in all the drives, motherboard, etc.)


Thanks in advance.
 
kingsPC

kingsPC

New Member
Shadowhunter said:
Oh ok, that's why I was asking (to see if mine could run that stuff) by the way, what kind of video card do you have? I still have 3 Q's though.

1. Will my PC run the new hardware on the same PSU (250Watt) with these specs?


Dell Dimension 4500
Intel 845E Motherboard
Intel P4 Processor 2.0 Ghz
512MB + 512MB PC2100 RAM
ATI Radeon 9550 Videocard
80GB Hardrive
DVD/CD Drive
CD Burner Drive

2. If you don't know how can I find out?


3. If my PSU CAN'T run this setup is replacing it as easy as taking out the old one and putting in a new one? (plus plugging in all the drives, motherboard, etc.)


Thanks in advance.
Click to expand...

Yes, the setup is looking fine and pretty much enough use for normal purpose, movies, internet, office word excel processing, etc.

The PSU should be fine, even if it doesn't work, you still can replace it with one that has a bit more juice, i suggest that if you going to replace, at leat buy a 350W so you may have a little bit more room for your future upgrade, to replace the PSU, first confirm the size of the new PSU to be the exact size of your old PSU, then all you need to do is just a straight swap work.
 
kingsPC

kingsPC

New Member
Shadowhunter said:
So it won't hurt my system if I don't have enough wattage? It just won't turn on or what?
Click to expand...

no, it won't hurt your system, usually when a power supply doesn't have enough juice for a system, the system will either doesn't turn on or have some funny behavier, like when reading some big.cab file, it will restart, or when open up some complicated program, it will freeze, all I say above is assum that all other hardware is normal including memory. So you may try first, if it runs normal, just keep the Power, if it doesn't, just spend some bucks to upgrade the power.
 
Shadowhunter

Shadowhunter

New Member
Ok, and I heard that if you have a Dell you HAVE to replace the PSU with a new one from Dell, is this true? Cause I hear the Dell PSU's are expensive yet low-quality.:(
 
Jet

Jet

VIP Member
Shadowhunter said:
Ok, and I heard that if you have a Dell you HAVE to replace the PSU with a new one from Dell, is this true? Cause I hear the Dell PSU's are expensive yet low-quality.:(
Click to expand...

It depends. If the form factor Dell used for your case is different than a standard one (ie. ATX, BTX, or MicroATX) then you will have to get a Dell PSU.
 
kingsPC

kingsPC

New Member
no, you don't need to replace a PSU from dell in most case, usually this is just the matter of the size of the PSU~ Find one that match the size of the one that you have in your system that it should be good for your system.
 
kingsPC

kingsPC

New Member
No problem, good luck with your upgrade, please PM me if you still have any other problem or update from your upgrade, thx.
 
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