what should i upgrade?

[FCser]

i cant decide what i want to upgrade on my pc
i currently am running at
500mhz amd-k6
184mb ram
8gig hd
nvidia tnt2 32 meg vid card

... my computer seems to be running slow lately
i try to watch a movie and the picture gets behind the sound and its impossible to watch anything. and my computer runs sluggish when playing some games like dark age of camelot games like that

i want to try to buy used parts at a computer shop
but i dont know if i should buy another hd or more ram
or what would help my pc run faster

i plan to buy a barebones system with a faster processor then put the parts from this comp into that but right now i dont know what to buy i want to get by cheap but have a fast comp
anyone have any tips for me?

[FCser]

what upgrades would help my pc run games better and be just plain faster and make my pc able to handle watching a whole movie?

is it the processor thats holding me back?
or what can i get to help?

[chaser_22]

I think I would change, well, almost everything.

I'd move to a Via KT266 or KT 333 mobo, with Athlon XP.
Probably would get a Gf 4 4200 to go with it and a HDD of at least 20 Gig.

[deadkenny]

You're at a dead-end with that mobo. The componets that might be usable are the video card and maybe the RAM (is it SDRAM?). I'll assume that you have 184MB of PC100 SDRAM and that you're on a tight budget then make a suggestion. Get a new motherboard at a minimum. I would suggest a socket A board, something like the ECS K7S5A. Reuse your SDRAM (assuming that's what it is) and your video card for now. Get a Duron 1GHz Morgan processor. If you have enough left in your budget get a new hard drive, at least 5400rpm ATA100 20GB.

[FCser]

thanks for the input
yeah thats kinda what i was planning on doing
i was seeing if anyone had any ideas of anytihng else i could do instead of buying all the new ish but yeah

thanks heh

[rangeral]

I'd go for a bigger hard drive that always increases performance as you have enough ram and will hold you til your ready for a new mobo and cpu. Prefereably a 7200rpm drive at least 20g and make sure you get an 80wire ribbon with it.

[Rocketmech]

I agree with rangeral, upgrade to a 7200 rpm HD , though I think you'd be happier with a 40g. Then install the O/S fresh. Your future barebones upgrade will need it anyway.

[rangeral]

Yea go with a 40g there getting so cheap now and when you do a upgrade the rest of the system your hd won't hold you back for space. I should rethink my baseline as technology and prices would dictate.:)

[ten-ponies]

OK here comes another one...
How many movies are you going to be able to store on that small HDD? Maybe 1!

Go for the new hard drive, and make sure you have the latest codecs for the format of the movies you want to watch.

As an afterthought, you could increase the RAM also...

[FCser]

thanks for the input i just put in my new 40gig 7200 hd
no more deleting things to make space
everything seems to be working well