Upgrade Review
I just upgraded. Trashed the AZ11 with the 750 Duron and the 32 Mb video card. Kept the case, 350W power supply, floppy, CDRW, WD 30 Gig hard drive.
Bought the following goodies:
From New Egg.com
Asus A7N8X Deluxe Motherboard 400 speed FSB
DDR.......$127.99
Chaintech Gforce 4 MX440 128Mb video card.....$56
AMD Athalon 2600 333 FSB 2.08 Gb CPU......$100
WD 40 Gb 7200 rpm Hard drive............$54
Discount AMD/Asus bought together.......<$3>
Total....$342.96 Plus next day shipping $7.99
New Egg was very fast, effecient, and consumer friendly. They shipped Fedex and sent me my Tracking # the next morning. Very happy with them. I strongly recommend them to all.
From MS4ME.com:
2-512MB Samsung non Ecc 400 Spd DDR ram sticks. $176.00 Free shipping via 1st class mail next day. Took 3 days to get here. I also reccomend MS4ME.com.
Total cost $418.96
Install went smooth as glass. The Asus came with all the cables and optional ports including #5 and #6 USB ports. The board already has 4 usb ports. More than I need. Slaved the old hard drive.
Everything together....doublecheck all jumpers and connectors.......Plug in power.......Push "GO" button..............................................Nothing.
Goodbye 350W Power supply like Kris Kringle up the chimney. DAMMIT! Quick trip to the candy store. (Best Buy) Paid an arm and a leg for a 450W power supply and a new chassis fan and bingo! Back in business.
Loaded new XP Pro OS on the new HD then added the slaved HD to the system. (easiest way)
Comments on the new DDR system performance:
OH..........MY..........GOD!!!!!!!!!!!
No problem running Quote Tracker, My Track,5 IE windows 3 with Java charts running, PCillin virus screen, Webroot Spy Sweeper, Another IE Popup Killer, and Asus motherboard monitor all at the same time. Memory usage @ peak 27% CPU hasn't gone past 10% to my knowledge. CPU temp 127F, MB temp 87F, room temp 76F. The system is stable as a rock.
Next upgrade Athalon 3200 CPU 400 FSB and 8X AGP video card with dual monitor output to this system when the price comes down on the AMD CPU.
BT |
