Upgrade Advice please?

[kait20066`]

I hope I am posting this in the right place. I was wondering if I could get some guidance on how to go about upgrading a few components of my computer.

It's a Compaq Presario, 5BW131 5000 Series
Intel Pentium 3 Processor
996 MHZ, 384 MB of RAM
Windows XP Home Edition (Version 2) Service Pack 2

I would like to get a bigger hard drive and a fast processor for it. I'm not sure if there are certain kinds I have to get to make sure they are compatible with my CPU or additional components I will have to upgrade to support the faster processor and bigger hard drive. Is any brand hard drive okay, or are there certain types I need to look for? And as far as the processor goes how do I know what kind of one to look for. Thanks alot for your help..I am sorry if I posted this in the wrong place.

 

[Matthew DeCarlo]

You're not going to get a "fast processor" for it, you'll have to buy a new motherboard and CPU, which would force you to buy new RAM and probably a PSU.

As long as your BIOS doesn't cap you, any PATA drive available should work for you. Even if you can run it at the marketed speed, they're backward compatible.

 

[Nodsu]

The possible CPU upgrade would be minimal.. 1133 MHz over your current 1000 unless you really go and replace everything as Zenosincks said.
Upgrading the RAM to the maximum of 512MB would give you the biggest benefit and an instant "wow" effect.

You can use any IDE hard drive, but you may need a BIOS update to get support for drives over 128GB

 

[Tedster]

you won't notice much of an improvement with a CPU upgrade. But I highly suggest increasing your ram to 512mb or even 1gb for a speed increase.

 

[Matthew DeCarlo]

The 5BW131 5000 Series won't accept more than 512MB of RAM.

 

[Tedster]

I didn't look up his particulars, in any case I did say 512mb will do.

 

[Matthew DeCarlo]

you won't notice much of an improvement with a CPU upgrade. But I highly suggest increasing your ram to 512mb or even 1gb for a speed increase.

They'll have to buy SDRAM, not exactly cheap to be buying an extra 512MB that is useless. Just trying to prevent that.

 

[DelJo63]

this is the old Repair vs Replace quandary. At what point would the cost to repair be better spent at a full replacement?

I typically start to hedge toward replacement when the repair cost is ~50% of the replacement cost.
Mentally, (not pocket book) I treat it as "for 50% I got all this new technology and bundled software".