newb upgrade questions

T

toenail

New Member
Hello all, first post. I've got an older desktop and am wondering what I can do to upgrade performance a bit. I'm unsure of how the different aspects of a computer affect each other so I don't want to just throw upgrades at it without knowing if they will be effective or limited by some other bottleneck.

It's a Dell Dimension L733r. Some specs are Pentium 3, 733MHz w/ 133 FSB, 128 ram, 7Gig HD. I'm curious about upgrading ram and whether it will have a positive affect on performance. It can take two 256's but is this wasteful or does the fact that it's P3, 733 prevent the ram upgrade from being worthwile? Any other affordable suggestions?

Anything else I can do to make this thing run better without spending more than a couple hundred dollars?

Thanks in advance.
 
If you are a minor pc user than a RAM upgrade may be just the right thing to do. More HDD space can't hurt either; you will probably be OK with the PC if you're not a mass gamer (after the upgrade(s)).
 
well.. when you upgrade the RAM, i would go for the 512Mb (if its not very expensive), wich would make a big difference :)
 
Thanks for the responses. I had considered getting two 256Mb's which would max me out at 512Mb but didn't want to bother if the difference would be negligible due to other restrictions of the system. As I understand it, from reading the "sticky" posts and FAQ's, not all RAM is configured equally and I'll figure what the best options/values are to be had if I go that route.

Aside from RAM and possibly bypassing my current 7g hard drive for a 40g, are there other upgrades that would make a difference for for daily use, mostly web surfing, downloading pics and small vids etc? I participate in several A/V forums and automotive enthusiast forums and have noticed that loading pics of HD screen shots or vids of drag/autocross racing takes a bunch of time.

On a related note, I have considered trying to configure my PC for use in my home theater system. Thought it would be neat to web browse on a 52" HDTV as others have mentioned in some of the A/V forums. As near as I can tell, the RAM and hard drive upgrade would help but I think I need a killer video card and sound card to pull this off, as well as a way of converting VGA output to HDMI for input to my HDTV (adapter of some sort). Can a system like mine even be considered for such an application or is it so underpowered/obsolete that the cost would be prohibitive?
 
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