Hardware Upgrade

Andrew Boothman andrew at cream.org
Wed Nov 17 22:33:25 GMT 1999


Hi All!

I know that this is really off topic, but I really need some advice on a
hardware issue. If anyone want's to keep this off the list, please feel free to
send private e-mail.

Here's the present situation. I've got an old Gateway P5-90 which I reserected
some time ago. It's got a P90, 48MB of ram, 3.3GB IDE HDD, 4x cd-rom drive, 4MB
Matrox Millenium II card, and a 14" PCXBV-SC Digital (DEC) monitor that I picked
up for nothing from a company that was chucking it out.

I'm interested in upgrading my hardware, 'cos I want to start tracking -stable
and using the machine for slightly more intensive stuff like StarOffice, GIMP,
playing MP3s while I work, that sort of thing.

I think I can safely say that the processor must be a fairly major bottleneck,
so I guess I'm looking at a processor, and hence motherboard, and hence system
case replacement. (This Gateway box isn't ATX and I don't think it's AT)

The truble is that while I'm perfectally happy replacing HDD, CDROM drives,
graphics adaptors etc, I've never put a new motherboard in a system case from
scratch.

My question really is, am I likely to be able to do this myself? Do you think
I'll get sufficent instructions with the TMC TI5VG+ board, the Vasco ATX
case and the AMD chip that I'm looking at, to be able to put all this together
seeing as I have NO experience in doing this? 

And BTW, exactly want performance difference would I be likely to see between an
AMD K6-2 400Mhz (say) and the K6-III 400Mhz?

Id really appriciate anybody's comments or help and pointers on how to
construct a system from scratch.

Many thanks!
---
Andrew Boothman <andrew at cream.org>
http://sour.cream.org
Unmetered Telecoms. Join the Fight!
http://www.unmetered.org.uk





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