[Focus man. Focus.]

So I have bought a new monitor. Well not a new monitor, more like a new TV. An Insignia 46" 1080p HDTV. I have moved my old mini tower up from its unused location in the basement and connected it to the TV. Now a couple questions.

How can I make this relic faster?

And Does a wireless keyboard need line of sight to the reciever to work correctly?

Current specs of my computer:

Sony Vaio PCV-RX650
Pentium 4 1.6GHz
512MB Ram (2 X 256)
2 X 80GB Hard Drives
Windows XP

I am no computer geek although I did add the second HDD. This computer will mostly be used for internet surfing and such. What would be my best option for increasing my systems performance, other than buying a new computer.

Thanks in advance. Kevin

[paolo]

(07-16-2010, 12:03 PM)Focus man. Focus. Wrote: So I have bought a new monitor. Well not a new monitor, more like a new TV. An Insignia 46" 1080p HDTV. I have moved my old mini tower up from its unused location in the basement and connected it to the TV. Now a couple questions.

How can I make this relic faster?

And Does a wireless keyboard need line of sight to the reciever to work correctly?

Current specs of my computer:

Sony Vaio PCV-RX650
Pentium 4 1.6GHz
512MB Ram (2 X 256)
2 X 80GB Hard Drives
Windows XP

I am no computer geek although I did add the second HDD. This computer will mostly be used for internet surfing and such. What would be my best option for increasing my systems performance, other than buying a new computer.

Thanks in advance. Kevin

Congrats on your purchase.

1) more ram should make it faster, i would check the motherboard to see how much RAM it supports. I know a lot of older ones with those specs only went up to 1GB.

2) Any wireless keyboard/mice that operates on RF should not need a line of sight. Stay away from the infared ones, there have been reports that they do not work well around flourescent lights, or the backlight from an LCD/Plasma tv, etc..

3) You may want to re-format it and fine tune it to only run the services that you reallly need such as tcp/ip, your web browsers, e-mail clients, etc..

That should help.

[darkpuppet]

What's your budget?

Unfortunately, the system you have is really old, and not the most expandable, and any upgrades you find for it (like the 2x512mb pc2100 DDR chips) will cost a pretty penny if you can't find them used... so the cost to upgrade any of it isn't really worth it.

Actually, if you can I'd recommend a bare bones system with HDMI...

ie, $279:
http://www.pcvonline.com/productDetails....rodID=9827

you might be able to fit that into the your vaio case as it's micro ATX, but you can get a case with powersupply for as low as $60.

You could reuse your hdd's, and I could toss ya a used cd or DVD drive if you're forced into the new case and can't use the sony one you have.

If it's a socket 478, I may have a 3GHz process I can give ya too.. I'll dig around my parts bins and see what I have still.

So that's the upgrade path... if you give me a budget, I can price out something for ya -- hell, I'll even build it out.
-------------------

now, if you want to make it faster... what you need to do is set your virtual memory's maximum and minimum sizes to the same.

- go start, right click on my computer, and select properties.
- Click on the Advanced Tab
- Click on settings under the performance group
- Goto the Advanced Tab
- Under Virtual Memory, Click the Change button
- Select the radio button beside custom size
- set the initial size and max size to the Recommended size or 1024, whichever is larger. With initial and max sizes set the same, you should see a modest boost in speed as your computer no longer has to adjust the size of your virtual memory so much.

and maybe that'll get you by...

[Focus man. Focus.]

I thought I may need to upgrade my entire system. It has been well used although unused for the past year or so. I really hadn't planned on spending a lot of money, maybe a couple hundred or so on the CPU. I guess I would need a half decent video card to take advantage of the "monitor". I have a wireless card in there aswell.

I made the virtual memmory change as you advised but I didn't notice any difference at all.

[tetra]

Yeah, you can build up a new system for pretty cheap..
If you want to stream HD movies from the PC be prepared to have a good CPU though. You can buy video cards that have intergrated sound on them as well. Since HDMI carries both the video and audio. It's pretty neat.. I used to have a PC connected but now I just use the PS3 and stream from my PC with a media server.

If you want great prices check out http://www.newegg.ca I just bought a EVGA GTX470 for 40 dollars less taxes in and shipped than CanadaComputers.. Even though it ships from the US you don't pay duties since you already pay the HST when ordering.. It's cool.

[darkpuppet]

Further to Tetra's post....

You really need to shop around to get good prices. Sites you should be shopping around with, including newegg.ca are...

PC Village Online
Tiger Direct Canada
NCIX
Canada Computers

Heck, even Futureshop and Best Buy sometimes have decent deals.

I found the seagate 2TB drives I bought from Tiger Direct for $119/ea, while newegg had the same drives for $139/ea. You really have to shop around for the best deals -- the market is super competitive.

And if it's something that Futureshop carries, you just need to show them the cheaper prices from the other places and they'll give you even lower prices. My speakers for my 'puter retailed at $500, canada computers had advertised them at $200, so I picked it up at futureshop for $150 after they price matched...

[moon111]

Thanks for the PCV Online site. First time coming across them. Used Canada Computers almost exclusively.

When I went to FutureShop to price match an item (Samsung monitor) from Canada Computers... which I had printed off the ad, they would not match the price because Canada Computer was not a store. I mentioned they had several locations, but would not budge. After about 20 minutes of arguing, I left before going postal and being hauled off to jail.

[darkpuppet]

yeah, sometimes the people at futureshop aren't too bright, but I usually walk them over to one of their terminals and show them the site... or use my phone. They have the store locations online...

And there are physical PC Village stores as well -- the better one in toronto is on Yonge St, south of bloor.

[Focus man. Focus.]

Ok, so where do I start? Do I get a new Mother Board and CPU? Should I find a good Bare Bones kit and go from there? Get a good video card with built in memory? How much RAM do I really need? I know I have lots of questions but I have no idea where to start.

[darkpuppet]

Yes, you're going to need a new motherboard, CPU, and memory at a bare minimum. If you check out the link I posted earlier, that's a great deal on decent hardware. I would go with a motherboard with integrated graphics to keep your costs down.

You might be able to fit the mobo and components into your existing vaio case, but it might make your life easier to get a case with power supply for another $60-80.

Ram wise, I'd recommend 1Gb minimum, 2GB... ram is pretty cheap these days if you're not looking for the old stuff.

[moon111]

I have four memory boards that you can have. Paid $100 each. Of course they're only 1mb each. LOL.

[j3rt]

FS had a decent Revo on sale, $299.
Decent little boxes for playing video, internet surfing etc on your TV, includes a bracket to mount on the back of the monitor.
Runs VLC and SageTV really well.

I have a P4 2Ghz I am using for the same application as you. The single core really bogs down when surfing the internet, the rest of the time (streaming network video) it's OK.

I also recommend the Asus AGP video cards, I have one loaded into this box. It really helped on the performance side, and gave me the DVI & component connectors I needed. Bought through Canadacomputers for $45 I believe.

---

What about loading a smaller OS, or Linux or dedicated program like Mediaportal that'll lift the Windows sludge off the box.

[Mystake]

here's my set up. I have a desktop that I use for web surfing and pure media.

http://www.evga.com/modsrigs/detail.aspx?buildid=1471

if you can read it ( ihate that layout, the old one from how many ever years ago I put that page up was better )

it's a little out of date, the processor is back to factory clock @ 1.86ghz and the ram is also back to factory clock @ 800mhz. also there's an additional 750gb hdd and the a/v receiver is a newer model.

now, all that together, when i was running XP, using VLC the 1080p videos lagged and skipped. afaik the computer couldn't keep up (possible at the time it was the ram... buuuuuut now that I think about it probably not cause it would've been upgraded at the time). In Win7 though I don't have the loading issue.

some of those little 300-400$ suckers aren't really all that bad. Research for the right one.

[Focus man. Focus.]

That litte 500gb Revo seems to have a lot of options for a basic desk top box. What do the resident experts think of it. I will mostlikely never need to upgrade the HD. I currently have 160gb and I think I have only used half of that. If I keep up with maintenance and clear stuff out I doubt I would ever use all of it.

What are your thoughts guys?

Again all I will be using this for would be to download music/movies, internet surfing, and maybe some basic word processing.

[j3rt]

If you do go with the Revo, you could load windows home server on the Sony box to hold all your media, share printers etc. You have the beginnings of a sweet home network.