better motherboard?

[ayyon2157]

Hello everyone:

     Another question:  I have an E-machine from Walmart; a model especially cheapened for them (W3502).

     It seems to have a pretty good cpu, an Intel Celeron "D" 352 rated at 3.20 GHz and I am wondering about installing a better motherboard in the hope of getting more speed and fewer hangups. What I am looking for in a board is faster fsb, more memory capacity, and a plug to install a 3 1/2 floppy.

     Any advice?  I am not a gamer.

ayyon2157

[bee-nuts]

The first thing you want to do with this pc is add more ram (memory).  It only has 512mb.  Very sad indeed.  It can handle 2GB and I would want at least 1.  I would bet if you add more ram you will have less hang ups.  The biggest problem most folks have is too many programs running and not enough memory to hold all the data.  This forces your computer to use your hard drive to hold the data and every time you use a different application your computer will take forever to move data from hard drive to ram or vise versa so you can use the data.  512mb is enough to run xp but as soon as you have additional programs running from start up you are likely lacking enough ram to hold all the data needed by your programs.

If you have two memory slots for ram I would order two, 1GB sticks from New egg a.s.a.p. 

If you were to buy a mother board you might as well build a new PC.  All you need is more ram.  You may need additional hard drive space in the future if you store lots of photos and video.

bee-nuts

[lenape13]

I've had an E-Machine t3508 for a few years now, basically the same configuration that you have.  I upgraded the RAM and have had no problems at all.  Runs like a dream, and I play with lots of graphics programs, when I'm not surfing here, of course....

[HAB]

Bee-Nuts gave you some good advice.  But don't put much money into any e-machine.  They have notoriously bad power supplie famous for dieing and taking out the motherboard, hard drive, and ram when they fail.
For a store box verses custom built computer I've had pretty good service for the buck with HP's .  I use custom built AOpen, not cheap, but I've yet to have one fail.  Others will have their own choices.  Many folks like Dell, but I've had nothing but bad luck them.

[ayyon2157]

Hello bee-nuts:

     About the first thing I did to my computer was to put another 512 stick of memory in the empty slot, and was amazed to discover that instead of reporting 1024 mb of ram it now claimed only 880!  As I had no idea why this could be, and considered that possibly the computer would not accept anymore memory than 880.  This discouraged my putting in a pair of 1024 s, as I considered it possible that it still would use only 880 mb. Any thoughts?

ayyon2157

[ayyon2157]

Hello Hab:

     Thanks for the reply.  On the subject of power supplies, I have several which I have removed from old computers, and one powerful one which I had removed from a computer I had build because I was trying to isolate an erratic problem (which turned out to be the mb)

     Anything to be on guard against when picking one of my power supplies to replace the presently working one in the E-machine other than making sure the capacities are equal or greater?  (I always equated the presence of an off-on rocker switch with a good grade power supply)

ayyon2157  bill michaels

[bee-nuts]

You may have got a bad stick of ram.  I would still try two gb.