Video card

[mwms11]

I am re-building my grandsons computer. He is using windows 98 and has 64 meg of ram. He is seven and plays games. Often his computer locks up and so I suspect the video card. What do you recommend for this machine?

 

[filthy_mcnasty]

depends on what games you're talking about.

obviously i'd recommend faster/newer/more of everything as that system is getting old but at the same time if he's only playing games like ants or something (seeing as how he's 7) then you might not need to upgrade it at all. a computer lock up might be completely unrelated to the video card too, clear out programs that are running that dont really need to be there and see if that helps.

 

[groucho]

I've done this several times with my two sons (6 & 8) and the best upgrades that won't break your bank would be to up the memory to about 256 and get a new video card with onboard ram somewhere in the range of 64 or 128. Depends upon whether or not the unit has PCI or AGP slot...most likely you are still in the PCI world...but the good news is you can get a 3D 64 mb PCI card somewhere on the web (ebay etc) real cheap.

Short of getting a new MOBO or just trashing it and buying a new one, you can get yourself alot of performance out of the two upgrades suggested.

SBB