Pc Upgrade?

J

jk1313

New Member
My grandfather has a really bad habit of messing up computers and then just buying a new one because he can. He offered me his old pc and and i got it working again The problem is that its still running slow. I am wanting to do some gaming like Age Of Empires, Titan Quest/Titan Quest Immortal Throne, Sins Of A Solar Empire. Some games like those. I have a rather large library of media 6Tb (Music, Video, Photos,Documents) I think that's what is slowing it down. What upgrades can i give it to return it to its former glory? From what i can tell its still considered a good/stronger computer even for it being 6 years old. Any info on what i could upgrade and what should come first would be greatly appreciated. I was thinking of installing Ubuntu and deleting windows. What that be a wise decision? Would it help performance wise? Id like to make this a computer that will last me 5 more years(But probably wont last that long). My priorities are speed, And smooth running.
Mainboard : Gateway RS780
Chipset : AMD 780G
Processor : AMD Phenom X4 9150e @ 1800 MHz
Physical Memory : 4096 MB DDR2-SDRAM
Video Card : ATI Radeon HD 3200 Graphics
Hard Disk : Seagate ST3640623AS ATA Device (640GB)
Hard Disk : Seagate Backup+ Desk (3001GB)
Hard Disk : Toshiba External USB 3.0 (2000GB)
DVD-Rom Drive : HL-DT-ST DVDRAM GH40F
Network Card : Marvell Semiconductor (Was: Galileo Technology Yukon 88E8071 PCIe Gigabit Ethernet Controller
Operating System : Windows (TM) Vista Home Premium Home Edition
DirectX : Version 11.00
Manufacturer : Gateway
Mainboard : Gateway RS780
Bios : American Megatrends Inc.
Chipset : AMD 780G
Physical Memory : 4096 MB -SDRAM
Processor : AMD Phenom X4 9150e
Frequency : 1800 MHz - (current : 1799.98 MHz)
Number of Core : 4
Support : Socket AM2+ (940)
Cache L1 : 4 x 128 KB
Cache L2 : 4 x 512 KB
Cache L3 : 2048 KB
 
A fresh install of windows should work wonders to get the speed back up to where it should be. Or maybe you just need a general cleanup. Even the littlest amount of malware can slow a system down. Have you ran any malware removal programs such as Malwarebytes or anything else?
 
Probably not worth keeping if you want to do gaming or other graphics intensive stuff. If surfing the web, then a Linux distro or a fresh windows install is the way to go
 
Clean install of Windows is your best bet. Trying to wrestle those games in to working with Linux probably isn't worth it. Also you're probably going to want a better video card than that to play much on it.
 
ninjabubbles3 said:
Probably not worth keeping if you want to do gaming or other graphics intensive stuff. If surfing the web, then a Linux distro or a fresh windows install is the way to go
Click to expand...

For what he outlined it should be fine after throwing in a cheap video card.

I'd +1 for a reinstallation of Windows. You could roll Linux if you wanted to although some applications may not work well or at all through WINE. It may be worth considering a dual boot scenario, or running Linux in a VM if you wanted to use it for general productivity without having to reboot to switch between the two.
 
beers said:
For what he outlined it should be fine after throwing in a cheap video card.

I'd +1 for a reinstallation of Windows. You could roll Linux if you wanted to although some applications may not work well or at all through WINE. It may be worth considering a dual boot scenario, or running Linux in a VM if you wanted to use it for general productivity without having to reboot to switch between the two.
Click to expand...
Ill re-install windows and ill get a new Gpu. Will the Cpu work for what im wanting? What Gpu should i get? If i go to fancy ill be wasting money because the Gpu is only as good as the Cpu will let it. I also had a friend mention upgrading to 8gb of ram as a side comment and was wondering how much it would help performance wise. Like i said im wanting to get this computer strong enough to play Itunes in the background will playing sins of a solar empire and still allow plex to run smoothly. From what i could gather the Cpu is actually pretty strong because its a four core. Is windows 8 a possibility? Sorry for late reply. Thanks, John
 
Ram - is your windows 32 bit or 64 bit? You can upgrade if it is 64

There is no point to spend money on OS on such an old machine.

I suggest you get new psu, video card and ssd. All these 3 can be reuse in a future built if you are not happy with current machine after upgrade.
How much u are looking to spend?

Edit: ur cpu is weak and outdated.
 
Last edited:
Yeah a 750 Ti won't be bottlenecked by the CPU, plus you won't even need a PSU.

And there's no way you have a 6 TB media library with 5.5 TB of storage. Also 8 GB of RAM isn't really necessary for your uses at all.
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top